WWUUD stream

๐Ÿ”’
โŒ About FreshRSS
There are new articles available, click to refresh the page.
Before yesterdayimported

Notes on Rev. D.B. Clayton

15 March 2017 at 19:05

Daniel Bragg Clayton was born on April 18, 1817 in what is now Woodruff, SC.  He died November 12, 1906 after having suffered a heart attack in Greenville, NC.

He grew up in a Baptist household, converting to Universalist after reading Universalist newspapers and hearing South Caroloma circuit riding Universalist minister Allen Fuller preach. He was ordanined by Fuller and took over the circuit, when Fuller moved west. In the late 1840s, Clayton himself moved west; settling in Mississippi.

During the Civil War, his home and library were burned down, and Clayton returned to SC. After the war, he owned a hotel in Columbia, and preached part time.

In 1880, he moved to Atlanta.  Rev. Clayton briefly supported the nascent Universalist church started by Rev. W.C. Bowman in 1879. Clayton is thought to have edited a new paper, Atlanta Universalist, started at this time in Atlanta. It is believed that Clayton found this newspaper a “losing business” and turned the subscription list over to Burruss and his Herald (published in Alabama.  Source The Larger Hope: The First Century of the Universalist Church of America 1770 – 1870.

He returns to Columbia a few years later, and except for a short time living in Cash’s Depot; he spends the rest of his life in Columbia. Well the rest of his life where he is not a traveling Universalist missionary that is. Father Clayton goes to preach in Georgia. Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessese, North Carolina – and even once as far west as Texas.

From the Universal Register, 1907

Rev. Daniel Bragg Clayton, D.D., suddenly passed away, at the home of his son, William Clayton, in Columbia, S. C., Nov. 13, 1906. He arose early in the morning and was preparing to start on a trip to Greenville, N.C. He had put everything in readiness for his journey; when he stooped down to pick up an article. While in this attitude he fell, and within three minutes breathed his last.

Father Clayton was born in Spartanburg County, South Carolina, on April 8, 1817, and from this it will be seen that if he had lived until April 8, next, he would have attained to the age of ninety years. Sixty-eight years of this long life were spent in the ministry of the Universalist Church.

It was in 1838, while teaching school in his native county, that he heard his first Universalist discourse. The sermon was delivered by Rev. Allen Fuller, a native of Massachusetts, who had arrived in South Carolina a few years before. This sermon made a profound impression on the mind of the young teacher, who had been brought up in the Baptist church. He soon severed his connection with that church and became the ardent, tireless advocate of Universalism.

Sixty-eight years ago the Southern people knew little of this faith. Everywhere it was “evil spoken against.” The pubic advocate of Universalism was almost universally regarded as a dangerous character, and for that reason he suffered much of social ostracism. Only a few had the moral courage to face the unkind, unjust opposition that had to be encountered on every hand. But a few fearless souls have ever been found to bravely and as witnesses for the truth. Father Clayton was one of that number.

While he encountered opposition at every step, instead of yielding to, or compromising with, what he conceived to be false, it only nerved him to greater efforts in the propagation of what he believed to be true and just. Possessing an unusual degree of the sterling qualities of character, he had little patience with the shams and vices of life. With him the paramount question was in no sense one of time-service, of policy; but it was ever one of truth, of right, of principle.

In regard to his worth and ability as a minister, as an advocate of the faith of the Universalist Church, I need say little to the people among whom be labored. It is well known to them all that, as an expounder of the Scriptures and and an advocate of the correct principles of living, he has had no superior in the Scriptures.

Perhaps he has had no superior anywhere. His marvelous familiarity with the Bible has constantly been a matter of surprise to those who have been privileged to hear him preach. During his long ministry he held no less than twelve oral discussions, and at no time did the cause of truth suffer in his hands.

Not only did he largely master the teachings of the Scriptures, but he was also master of himself – was able to control himself on all occasions—and for these reasons he was the greater power in theological discussions.

During his entire ministry he was preeminently a Bible preacher. The negative side of his preaching related in the main to the errors of partialism.

In relation to the fundamentals of the Christian faith he was always positive. He realized that no minister could fulfil a constructive mission by preaching his doubts. Not long since he remarked to the writer that most people could find doubt enough without the assistance of the minister.

In early life his opportunities for an education were meager. But by studious habits and close application to the few books at his command he rapidly acquired a splendid elementary education. During his entire ministry he was a close, painstaking student, adding knowledge to knowledge, until few were his peers in either breadth or profundity of knowledge.

Father Clayton’s life was one of ardent service and true self-denial. He lived for a cause, and that cause was the emancipation of humanity from error and sin. He was surely guided by the spirit of the Master, going about doing good. His motive to service was of the highest. Filled with the love of truth and right, and filled with affection for the universal brotherhood, he was directed in the way of unselfish, unremitting toil.

For all that he did and for all that he accomplished never once did he ask for pecuniary reward. Not once during his great ministry of sixty-eight years did he ask for a public collection in his own behalf. Neither did he work for a salary during any portion of this time. But he had his reward—not in dollars and cents, but in treasure worth infinitely more—in the coinage of God’s kingdom. His reward was ever present in the consciousness of faithful service in the kingdom of the Divine Master.

Often have we heard him say he wished to die in harness. His wish has been granted him. Having put his hand to the plow never once did he look back. To the very last he publicly advocated the truths that had been precious to him.

During the past summer and autumn he did much preaching, often traveling long distances. In early summer he made a missionary tour extending into Mississippi. Later in the season he came to North Carolina and gave the writer of this sketch much valuable assistance. Following the meeting of the North Carolina Convention early in October, he went to South Carolina, expecting to come back to North Carolina in a short time. On the morning of Nov. 13 he had gotten everything in readiness for this later journey, when the final summons came.

It is needless to add that Father Clayton has been held in the highest esteem by Universalists in the South, while others, not of this persuasion, have shown him the respect his noble life has commanded.

Speaking of his pedigree the morning following his death, “The State,” of Columbia has this to say:

“Dr. Clayton was descended from Capt. Newport, for whom Newport News, Va., was named, and on the other side from Capt. Bragg, also of the British navy. Capt. Newport’s wife. Miss Ball, was a sister of the wife of George Washington. Newport and Bragg were the great-greatgrandfathers of Dr. Clayton.

Of his grandfathers two were Baptist ministers during the Revolutionary war. Three of his great grandfathers and four great-grand-mothers sleep their last sleep in Spartanburg County. The other great grandfather died in the Revolutionary war, and the place of burial is unknown. Both grandfathers and one grandmother also were buried in Spartanburg County. The other grandmother died in Alabama. William Clayton, father of the deceased, married May Newpart Bragg, descended from the old British sea captain who brought hope to the starving, despairing colonists. Daniel Bragg Clayton, who passed away yesterday, was born on Enore River. His boyhood was one of hard work.”

The funeral service was conducted by the writer at the home of the eldest son of the deceased, Mr. William Clayton. Thus closes a long and useful life. Bui he will continue to live, not only in the spiritual realms, but also in the hearts of a great multitude that his noble life has blessed in the past.

Thomas Chapman

Source: The Universalist Register for the Year 1907 found in Google Books, pages 120 – 123
Other Research

  • Philosopedia.org entry for Danial Bragg Clayton
  • Forty-Seven Years in the Universalist Ministry autobigraphy by D.B. Clayton
  • Happy Day: Or the Confessions of a Woman Minister (1901) by Emma Eliza Bailey who describes Clayton in her autobiography

 

 

 

Notes on Rev. Roger Bosworth

15 March 2017 at 18:20

Roger Dewey Bosworth was born in Moville, Iowa, November 25 1912.  He died in Cherokee, Iowa on Feb 14, 1959 after a brief illness.

Bosworth received a BA degree from Morningside College, Sioux City in 1935.

On August 14, 1940, the Iliff School of Theology awarded Roger Bosworth the degree of Doctor of Theology. His doctoral thesis was “The Criticism of Religion in the Philosophy of George Santayana.”

In March 1940, Bosworth became a member of the First Universalist Church of Denver.

In April 1940, Bosworth was ordained by the Universalist Church of America and was then called as the settled minister of First Universalist Church of Denver.

He later accepted a call to the combined Unitarian-Universalist Atlanta church where he served until 1945.  Rev Bosworth resigned is Atlanta pastorate  when he was named as the National Director of Youth Activities of the Universalist Church. He later resigned that position to take up lecturing and writing.

Dr. Bosworth served thirteen years in the Universalist parish ministry, five years in Denver, five years in Atlanta, Georgia, and three years in Columbus, Ohio.

Also see Andover-Harvard Theological Library

Universalist Church of America. Central Fellowship Committee. Records, 1919-1959.

  • bMS 405/4 (25) Roger D. Bosworth, 1936-1945.
  • bMS 405/4 (26) Roger D. Bosworth, 1946-1947.

 

Industrial Home

1 January 2017 at 19:09

<work in progress> to describe the Industrial home.

Sermon - When We Disagreed

30 October 2016 at 00:52

Sermon presented by Lay Worship Associate – Jay Kiskel
Oct 30, 2016 at Northwest Unitarian Universalist Congregation, Sandy Springs, Georgia
Note: Readings are at the end of the sermon

Sermon

With whom do we covenant?

To whom do we extend our promise to honor the strength found in our diversity, to embrace the full measure of our common humanity, to communicate in kindness?

I would like us to ponder the answers to those questions as I share a story in our congregation’s history. It is a story of Rev. Isaiah Jonathan Domas, a minister who served our Atlanta faith community in the late 1940’s. At that time both our Unitarian and Universalist faith members gathered together in a church that once stood on West Peachtree Street where today’s North Avenue MARTA station stands.

A physical part of that church is with us today in the stained glass windows that hang here in our sanctuary. We are the direct descendants of that church and, therefore, their story is our story.

I ask you then to ponder the questions I posed because during the ministry of Rev. Domas we so disagreed with one another that our Unitarian Universalist faith movement in Atlanta collapsed.

We may not face the same decisions and controversies that confronted Rev. Domas and his congregation, but we have our own modern decisions and controversies. The question to ponder then is . . . will our covenant to one another preserve our faith community for future generations or could we too dissolve in disagreement.

The story starts in the first chapter in a yet to be published book on Rev. Domas, written by his daughter, Claudia Reed, entitled “Crazy for Justice, the Optimism of a Blacklisted Minister.”

The story is told through Claudia’s eyes and takes place in the living quarters of the parsonage that stood next to the West Peachtree Street church.

When the Ku Klux Klan threatened our family in the fall of 1947, I was too young to be told and too short to look out the high windows. If I saw anything alarming it was the odd way my parents stared at the street. My mother stood on one side of a closed drape; my father on the other. Each lifted just enough cloth to let in a sharp slice of Georgia sunlight.

On West Peachtree Street, two floors below, a convoy of battered cars and rusty pickup trucks stretched from Third Street to Ponce de Leon. Each was full of Klansmen in white robes tilting back their pointed hoods to hunt for motion behind our drapes.

Claudia’s mother later shared that the Klansmen had their car windows down and she could see rifles sticking out.

Claudia asked her mother if she and her father were scared upon seeing the parade of armed Klansmen.

Her mom responded, “We were too angry to be scared. Your father was not about to let a bunch of bigoted nincompoops tell him what to do.”

Rev. Domas had recently moved his wife and young Claudia from Vermont to Atlanta.  He was a determined spirit and wanted to bring justice, equality and compassion to a city with a long-standing social norm of racial segregation.

Rev. Domas believed that justice, equality and compassion without action renders such beliefs without substance and Rev. Domas was a man of substance.

So why had the Klansmen donned their white robes, clutched their rifles and circled the church?

It was in response to a simple act of justice, equality and compassion, or, maybe better stated, a simple act of defiance. Rev. Domas decided he would invite a friend and colleague from Atlanta University, Dr. Thomas Baker Jones, to attend church services. Dr. Jones was black.

Rev. Domas described the Sunday visit of Dr. Jones and the cascading events that followed in a letter to the American Unitarian Association.

“He was seated without incident, even to the taking of his offering . . . but the matter was hardly allowed to rest there. An ultra-race conscious minority promptly rushed to the telephone and served notice on those two members of the board with whom they felt they had the most in common that I should be fired forthwith.”

“The next Sunday, I did what any right-thinking liberal minister might do under the circumstances: I preached a sermon denouncing race discrimination, in church or out, and defended, most emphatically, Dr. Jones’ God-given right to do precisely what he did.”

God may have made the case for brotherhood on the sixth day of creation, but Atlanta’s Unitarian-Universalist Church had yet to make up its mind.

A formal vote was called for. On December 5, 1947, 21 members of the “liberal” congregation voted to “exclude the Negro from all church functions.” Fifteen opposed the measure. The rest, in the best hush-mah-mouth Southern tradition, declined to cast a ballot.

Dr. Jones spent the following Sundays at home, there being no separate-but-equal Unitarian Universalist church for “persons of the colored or Black race.”

With whom do we covenant?

To whom do we extend our promise to honor the strength found in our diversity, to embrace the full measure of our common humanity, to communicate in kindness?

I wish . . . I wish . . . I could say that the congregation’s segregation policy was the only pressure bearing down on them.

This was 1947. Only one year earlier, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill declared that an “iron curtain” had descended across Europe cleaving the world into two vast blocs of uncompromising ideology.

A fear griped the United States that the rampant spread of Communism would undermine the purity of Americanism. The House Committee on Un-American Activities was in full swing investigating suspected threats of subversion.

The mere suspicion of liberal thinking could expose one to a full-throated accusation of being a liberal left-wing pinko socialist commie.

Imagine now the intense scrutiny an activist liberal Unitarian from Vermont faced in the Deep South.

The Atlanta papers, for example, did not let go unnoticed that Rev. Domas had been the co-chairman for a speech given by third party presidential candidate Henry Wallace in Atlanta.

Wallace had been Vice-president of United States in FDR’s third administration, was an ardent supporter of New Deal liberalism and a proud de-segregationist.

Wallace’s liberal leanings no doubt attracted Rev. Domas. And undoubtedly the minister’s embrace of Wallace fused in the public mind his image as an untrustworthy lefty.

The Atlanta paper also made sure to point out that Wallace’s Atlanta speech was given “before a mixed white and Negro audience in a Negro church.”

But it gets worse.

Rev. Domas had once invited Don West, a friend, poet, educator and civil-rights organizer to speak at the Unitarian Universalist church.

In my conversations with Claudia I asked her if she remembered Don West.

“Oh, yes,” she said, “Don would come over to the parsonage and my father and he would frequently chat.”

I then shared with Claudia that my research had found reference to her dad and Don West in FBI files made public by a request through the Freedom of Information Act.

“According to this informant, West had a long discussion with the Reverend I. J. Domas, pastor of the Unitarian-Universalist Church, Atlanta, on 12/16/47.”

This was serious business.

In an article in the Atlanta papers entitled, “The Unitarians Have Reason to Fret” it was stated as fact that:

“. . . the Communist Party has caused the Unitarian Church, because of its liberal policy, to be selected for infiltration purposes and for use in various Communist front purposes.”

The accusation was rubbish. But an open public suspicion had been raised against the Unitarian-Universalist church and its minister.

In May 1948, a vote was taken in the church with sunlight flowing through those very stained glass windows on whether or not to accept the resignation of its 38-year-old minister, Rev. Isaiah Jonathan Domas.

His resignation was accepted by a vote of 33 to 32.

Again, the Atlanta papers reported that Rev. Domas

“. . . in less than eight months has stirred up a hornet’s nest in the church by

  1. Favoring the acceptance of a Negro college professor for membership
  2. Public espousal of the presidential campaign of Henry Wallace”

The congregation made a public announcement that the minister’s resignation was accepted:

“not because we dispute the minister’s right to his own political views, but because we feel he is simply not the person for leadership in the situation down here.”

Two months after Rev. Domas departed, a business meeting was convened to address the concern that the congregation had been “tarred with the brush of Communism.”

A lengthy resolution was passed stating in part:

“ . . . any person or persons allegedly connected with or in sympathy with the Communist party are no longer actively connected with the local church.”

After Rev. Domas departed Dr. Earle LeBaron was called as the minister.

Dr. LeBaron was neither a Unitarian nor a Universalist. His background is not exactly clear, ex-Catholic, ex-Methodist. We do know that before accepting the pastorate he had been the head of the history and political science departments at Brenau College in Gainesville, Georgia.

Calling a non-Unitarian or Universalist may have been the congregation’s only recourse.

Responding to the segregationist positions held by the Atlanta congregation, the American Unitarian Ministers’ Association urged its members to refuse a call to Atlanta pending a change in the congregation’s policy.

This position by the American Unitarian Ministers’ Association may have had some influence on the removal of the prohibition barring Negroes from attending church services as noted in Hannah’s reading.

What was clear to the national organizations of the Unitarians and Universalists was that the Atlanta congregation would remain segregated and thus operated contrary to core principles of both organizations. Consequently, both organizations withdrew support.

The congregation soon collapsed. The church building on West Peachtree Street was sold to the Bible Research Foundation and congregation members scattered.

Resurrection would occur, but that is a story for another time.

With whom do we covenant?

To whom do we extend our promise to honor the strength found in our diversity, to embrace the full measure of our common humanity, to communicate in kindness?

If ever there was time for a congregation to hold among themselves a covenant, the congregation of the late 1940’s was one that would have derived the most benefit.

Covenant comes from the Latin phase con venire (con ven nar’ re) meaning to “come together.”

Would a covenant among our fellow Unitarians and Universalists nearly 70 years ago have helped them avoid the decisions that set in motion the collapse of their faith community?

Hard to say.

I do know that in the three plus years that I have been researching our UU history, only rarely has the concept of covenant been seen.

Lacking a tradition of a sense of right relations among congregation members, I believe the enormous social pressure of rapidly changing race relations and the global menace of spreading Communism was just too much for our brothers and sisters of the 1940’s.

Honoring diversity, embracing a common humanity, communicating in kindness may have been simply a bridge too far.

Today it is different. In our church, Rev. Davis has a renewed focus on our responsibilities and the clear articulation of the meaning and value of right relations.

We covenant to seek to understand others’ truths by listening actively and respectfully.

Nor are we a “bunch of bigoted nincompoops” as Rev. Domas referred to the Klansmen.

Rather our doors are open. We affirm each Sunday that we have a:

“faith tradition that celebrates and welcomes all of us regardless of religious background, ethnicity, age, ability, political persuasion, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression.“

So when a social justice issue such as the defense of LGBTQ rights is raised from the pulpit, we respond with united affirming action.

When our minister speaks of a Just Mercy to address the injustice of the mass incarceration of African-Americans, we listen. Some are moved. None oppose. We are in covenant with one another.

When reference is made to Black Lives Matter from this pulpit, are we as embracing? Do we seek to understand others’ truths by listening actively and respectfully? Do we have confidence in our trust in one another to freely speak our minds and hearts? Or is there silence?

We have recently added political persuasion to our open door litany.   Do we thus declare that the strength of our covenant empowers us with loving confidence to embrace fellow congregation members whether they are voting for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump?

There is never a generation free from decisions or free controversies.

Let us hope that we have the strength to honor diversity, embrace our common humanity and communicate in kindness so we can pass this congregation forward to a future generation filled with greater wisdom and more love than we hold among ourselves today.

May it be so.

I invite you now to remain seated, and join me in singing our hymn #119 Once to Every Soul and Nation, which is found in the gray hymnal.

This hymn was Rev. Domas’ favorite and his daughter Claudia asked if the congregation would sing the hymn in honor of her father.

Reading

Today’s reading is from a newspaper article that appeared almost 70 years ago in the Atlanta papers on October 9, 1949.

The language in this article and today’s sermon reflects Southern society of that time. Jay and I offer our apologizes for any disquieting feelings that we may resurrect.

African-American citizens, for example, were then commonly and openly referred to as Negroes or Colored.

However, as we travel back in time to witness our congregation’s history, it is illuminating to see ourselves unfiltered.   That is, to hear the words and language used by earlier but fellow Unitarians and Universalists as they navigated the pressing issues of their day.

From a historical perspective, a year after the publication of the 1949 article that I will shortly read, our joint Unitarian and Universalist faith community in Atlanta collapsed.

The events that set into motion the collapse of our Atlanta UU faith community will be covered by Jay in today’s sermon.

The title of the newspaper article is: Unitarians Vote to Repeal Resolution Barring Negroes.

The articles reads . . .

The congregation of the Atlanta Unitarian Universalist Church voted to repeal the resolution barring Negroes from the worship service of their church, Dr. Earle LeBaron, minister of the church, said yesterday.

“I have long advocated the repeal of this resolution,” Dr. LeBaron said. “However, the resolution refers only to attendance at divine worship and not to membership. There is no thought or intention on the part of the congregation to establish an inter-racial church.”

“The matter of church membership remains in the hands of the congregation,” he said. “We simply want to offer Negroes of the liberal religious an opportunity to worship according to the dictates of their conscience since there is no Unitarian or Universalist colored church in Atlanta.

The customs of the City and the South will be observed in seating visitors at the worship service.”

It was at this church during the presidential campaign last fall that Henry Wallace supporters tried to disrupt services because of the race resolution. The question hit a feverish pitch at one time during the campaign and was culminated in the resignation of one of its pastors.

Here ends the reading

 

Notes on Ralph E. Conner

6 August 2016 at 02:33

Ralph E. Conner (1869 – 1922)

Birth: 1869
New Hampshire, USA
Death: 1922

Ralph was the son of William R Conner and Juliette Pease. He was married to Blanche Peabody.

Family links

Spouse: Blanche Peabody Curtis (1870 – 1927)*

Children:
Roger Peabody Conner (1899 – 1899)*
Roger Conner (1899 – 1899)*

* Calculated relationship

Source: Find a Grave, Ralph E. Conner

Notes On Alexander Thomas Bowser

6 August 2016 at 01:50

Rev. Bowser at Hyde Park Unitarian Church 1916 – 1927

The Hyde Park Unitarian Church (The First Unitarian Society of Hyde Park, the Church of the Christian Fraternity) was organized June 3, 1868. The meeting house was dedicated February 18, 1875.

Ministers

1867-1868 – Trowbridge Brigham Forbush
1868-1869 – William Hamilton
1870-1879 – Francis Charles Williams
1880-1883 – Adoniram Judson Rich
1884-1890 – James Huxtable
1890-1894 – Edmund Quincey Sewall Orgood
1896-1899 – Arthur Gooding Pettingill
1900-1905 – William Henry Savage
1905-1908 – Samuel Louis Elberfeld
1909-1909 – Johannes A.C. Fagginger Auer
1910-1914 – Louis Clas Dethlefs
1915-1916 – Philip Slaney Thacher
1916-1927 – Alexander Thomas Bowser
1927-1935 – Forrester Alexander Macdonald
1936-1937 – Edward Allison Cahil

Source: First Unitarian Society (Hyde Park, Mass.) Records (bMS 6): Register, Andover-Harvard Theology Library

Descriptive Summary of Archive

Call No.: bMS 6
Title: First Unitarian Society (Hyde Park, Mass.) Records
Date(s): 1874-1948
Repository: Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School
45 Francis Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138-1911
Quantity: 1.4 Cubic Feet(4 boxes)
Abstract: Church constitution; membership lists and certificates; church correspondence; minister’s records; church financial records; miscellaneous church records.

Books, Journals, Pamphlets

Search Amazon.com or other book sellers.

  • The Bible, its authority and use: Preached on Sunday, Feb’y 19, 1905
  • The divine element in human nature: A sermon … preached on Sunday, Nov. 2, 1902
  • Endless life: Preached on Sunday, March 18, 1906
  • God in man; a twentieth century view of incarnation: Preached on Sunday, Dec. 10, 1905
  • The Holy Spirit: Preached on Sunday, May 22, 1904
  • Human nature: the body, the soul, the spirit: A series of sermons
  • A rational use of prayer;: A sermon
  • Unitarian belief and the teaching of Jesus: Preached on Sunday, Jan. 25, 1903

Alexander Thomas Bowser (1848 – 1933)

Family Links

Parents:
Robert Bowser (1811 – 1884)
Jane Kirk Bowser (1816 – 1889)

Spouse:
Adelaide Prescott Reed Bowser (1859 – 1933)

Children:
Alice Bowser (1885 – 1887)*
Henry Reed Bowser (1887 – 1982)*
Robert Bowser (1890 – 1975)*

Sibling:
Robert Bowser (1844 – 1886)*

Source: Find a Grave, Alexander Thomas Bowser

Rev. Glenn O. Canfield

4 August 2016 at 20:24

Short Bio of Rev. Glenn Owen Canfield

The information below is from the May Memorial Unitarian Universalist Society in Syracuse, New York.

Rev. Glenn Owen Canfield ministry at May Memorial: 1946-1952

Rev. Canfield

Rev. Canfield

Rev. Canfield was our seventh minister. He was born in Topeka, Kansas, in 1907. He was educated at Texas Christian University and then at the McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago. He became a Presbyterian minister in Woodstock (IL), Tulsa (OK), and Hobbs (NM). He then sought a more free religion and became interested in social reform. He became a Unitarian minister in Clinton and Berlin (MA) in 1945. He became the minister at May Memorial in 1946. In 1951 he became Minister- at-Large in Atlanta, Georgia. He started a racially integrated United Liberal Church in Atlanta in 1954. He was minister of the First Unitarian Church Miami (FL) in 1956. He was Executive Secretary for UUA districts in New England and the Southwest from 1959 to 1969. He died in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1973.

Source: May Memorial Unitarian Universalist Society

Rev. Canfield Sermon Style in Atlanta

In a newspaper article in the Atlanta Constitution on May 5, 1952, it was noted that Rev. Canfield brought to Atlanta a lively sermon style that was characterized by a two-hour sermon that included a discussion session, sometimes called a talk-back, with the congregation regarding the sermon topic.

The article also delineated a declaration of principles and that the church welcomes all who share the church’s principles.  Those principles are summarized as follows:

  • We believe in freedom of research in the continual process of discovering life’s truths and values;
  • in the possibility of growth toward maturity – mentally, emotionally and spiritually – as we learn to live in Spiritual Reality of the universe;
  • in the relatedness of all mankind, and that happiness and security can be realized only in human relations based upon mutual understanding, co-operation and love.

Rev. Canfield added, “One of the distinctive reasons for the liberal church is people need to know how to live – truly how to live successfully and happily in this confused world.”  Rev. Canfield continued that liberals rely on a flexible set of principles and not on a set creed.  Freed from having to adhere to a set creed, liberals were not dependent on the Bible to define their religious beliefs.  Rather liberal can arrive at their own decision about the core of their religious truth.

Religious services where conducted in the Briarcliff Hotel.

Source: The Atlanta Constitution, Pastor’s Sermon Debated By New Congregation, May 5, 1952, Page 9

Meeting and Leaving Briarcliff Hotel

Candler Apartments AKA Briarcliff Hotel December 13th, 1956 Georgia State University Library

Candler Apartments AKA Briarcliff Hotel December 13th, 1956 Georgia State University Library

While services were being held at the Briarcliff Hotel, Rev. Canfield recalled that he had a discussion with the hotel manager regarding people entering the hotel for services.

Adults entered the meeting room directly from the street, but the children entered through the main lobby. Since services were integrated, Black children were entering the hotel via the main lobby.

Although the hotel manager was sympathetic, the manager indicated that the hotel was a public place. Even though there was no law forbidding Black children entering the main lobby, the manage shared that there were social and political pressures that had to be considered. He opined that the hotel could be vulnerable to attack by prejudiced people who were determined to preserve segregation and to “keep the nigger in his place.”

The hotel manager feared that if the hotel owner discovered the situation at the hotel that he could lose his job and possibly never find another job in the hotel industry.

Rev. Canfield said, “Well, then, it looks like we just can’t have them.”

The hotel manager relied, “I would not put it as blunt as that. I will say that I would rather they would not come.”

Canfield knowing a truly liberal church would not exclude Blacks from its services determined that it would be necessary to find alternate meeting space.

Source: Southern Witness: Unitarian and Universalists in the Civil Rights Era, by Gordon Davis Gibson, Published by Skinner House Books, copyright 2015, page 70

Alternate meeting location after Briarcliff hotel

United Liberal Church 605 Boulevard, NE

United Liberal Church
605 Boulevard, NE

Rev. Canfield and others worked diligently to find an alternate meeting space. In October 1952, the Unitarians and Universalists began negotiations with the Latter-Day Saints to share their current worship space at 605 Boulevard, NE.

Negotiations intensive in In January 1953, when the Briarcliff Hotel informed Rev. Canfield that another tenant would occupy their current meeting space effective February 2.

Rev. Canfield, however, happily reported that, “The Liberals and Mormons have reached complete and amicable agreement! At least on some things.”

The Mormons were in the process of erecting a new building in the 1400 block of Ponce de Leon. While the building was under construction the worship space would be shared by the two denominations.

By April 1954, the Mormons had vacated their old worship space and the Unitarians and Universalists took control of both the worship space at 605 Boulevard, NE and the parsonage at 489 North Avenue, NE.

Source: Southern Witness: Unitarian and Universalists in the Civil Rights Era, by Gordon Davis Gibson, Published by Skinner House Books, copyright 2015, page 71

Source: The Atlanta Constitution, United Liberal Church Buys 2 Buildings, April 26, 1954, Page 22

Merger of Atlanta's Universalists and Unitarians 1918

23 February 2016 at 00:32

by Digital Archivist

Summary

In 1918, the Universalists and Unitarians in Atlanta officially merged their congregations to form the Liberal Christian Church. The combined congregations adopted the Unitarian church at 301 West Peachtree Street (later 669 West Peachtree Street) as their spiritual home.

This local Atlanta meager pre-dates the official union of the Universalists and Unitarians in 1961. That merger combined the Universalist Church of America founded in 1793, and the American Unitarian Association founded in 1825. After consolidating in 1961, these faiths joined to form the Unitarian Universalist Association.

Yet, nearly four decades before this formal merger the Universalists and Unitarians of Atlanta elected to join in common cause. Why did the Atlanta religious faith communities merge?

Unfortunately, original church records at the time of this merger appear lost to history. Per a report commissioned by the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) prior to their demolition of the West Peachtree church building “organizational records for the Unitarian Church for the period 1915 to 1948 when the congregation occupied the structure in question . . . were destroyed in a fire at a member’s house in the late 1940s.”

Merger of the Atlanta religious communities had been discussed earlier in 1908. In that year, the American Unitarian Association (A.U.A.) implored Atlanta Unitarians to merge with the local Universalists. In a letter dated Apr 23, 1908 from the president of the A.U.A., Rev. Samuel Eliot to the pastor of the Unitarian Church in Atlanta noted, “This seems to me a question of ‘unite or die’.” The Unitarians voted not to merge at that time. Research is underway to understand the Universalists point-of-view.

American Unitarian Association Called for Merger

Merge for the war effort.

At a meeting of the Board of Directors of the American Unitarain Association (A.U.A.) on December 11, 1917 a resolution was adopted citing the desirability of churches to merge for the winter or the duration of the war (e.i., World War I).  The resolution stated that:

“Whereas it is desirable that the churches should at this time set an example of economy in the use of men and money,–

“Resolved, That the Directors of the Association recommend that the churches give careful consideration to the possibilities of federation and combination for the winter or for the duration of the war. Experience in the federation of churches of similar or even different traditions has demonstrated that it is possible to reconcile denominational loyalty with local unity, efficiency and economy.”

In an article in the December 20, 1917 edition of The Christian Register entitled Winning the War in the Churches in which the resolution appeared, the president of  A.U.A. Rev. Samuel Eliot argued that churches should consider the economics of trade, for example, when considering maintaining their separate churches.

“If the trade of that town of five thousand souls and twelve churches were conducted in the way its religious interests are administered there would be a dozen grocery stores where three are enough, and every store would have a cheap and adulterated stock and be upon the brink of bankruptcy.”

The argument for merger of churches during the war effort was summed up with a cutting statement. “The waste involved in superfluous churches is obvious.”

President Eliot shared the objective of the A.U.A. directors as:

The combinations that the Directors have in mind in their recommendation are, first, temporary mergers of adjacent, non-liturgical churches of similar traditions but of different allegiances; and, second, the union of neighboring Unitarian churches in the employment of one minister where two are now meagrely sustained.

Odd bedfellows were noted by Eliot such as the merger of the Unitarian Church and the Trinitarian Congregational churches in Uxbridge, MA.  It appears that this message of merge was heard by the leadership of the Unitarian and Universalist churches in Atlanta.

Announcement of War Time Merger

In the Atlanta papers on Saturday, February 23, 1918, a notice appeared stating that:

The Unitarian and Universalists of Atlanta will meet in public worship at the Unitarian Church, 301 West Peachtree street, tomorrow morning at 11 o’clock.  This is the first meeting under a temporary merger of the two congregations which is planned to last for the duration of the war.  Rev. T.B. Fisher, the retiring minister of the Universalist church, will preach on “The Larger Destiny.”  All friends are cordially invited.

Given the language of the announcement “for the duration of the war” one can conclude that the resolution of the America Unitarian Association and Rev. Eliot’s argument for war time merger influenced this decision by Atlanta’s Unitarians and Universalists.

Were there other factors that inclined the churches to merge?

A review of the limited number of church records and a survey public record published in the Atlanta papers was conducted to determine the reason(s) behind this merger.

Unitarian Church

The Unitarians built their church building only three years earlier in 1915.  The minister at the dedication of the building, Rev. J. Wade Conkling,  sang the hymn of dedication of the Founders’ Windows honoring the first Unitarian minister of Atlanta, Rev. George Leonard Chaney and his wife Carolina.  By all indications, regular Sunday service were conducted under Rev. Conkling’s ministry until his resignation in spring 1917.

Rev. J. Wade Conkling resigned his pastorate to join the US Army as an artillery captain. He was later killed in France in October 1918 just a three – four weeks before the conclusion of the Great War. His death, however,  occurred months before the merge with Atlanta’s Universalists and clearly had no impact on merger discussions.

After Rev. Conkling’s resignation, the pulpit at the Unitarian church was inconsistently filled until November 1917 when it was announced that Rev. Ralph E. Conner of Massachusetts would fill pulpit “until the new minister, Rev. George Kent, of New Orleans, arrives.”

Rev. Kent never appeared and Rev. Conner left the Atlanta church two months later in early January 1918.  Rev. Walter Samuel Swisher then filled the pulpit and oversaw the merger of the churches.

Although there was an “open” pulpit at the Unitarian church, an open pulpit situation was not a rare occurrence for the church.

The only first hand account of the situation within the Unitarian church at the time is found in a February 28, 1918 article by Rev. Conner in the Christian Register that appears to have been written and submitted for publication prior to the announcement of merger.

Rev. Conner noted that the Unitarian church had recently conducted a fundraising drive and cleared the $1,850 debt owed on the organ.  Other bills had been paid leaving the church a balance of $1,000 in the bank.  Membership numbers were up. The Women’s Alliance reorganized with Mrs. Edward T. Ware, wife of the president of Atlanta University, as its cultured and efficient president.

Although this Archivist is accustom to reading “rosy” pictures published in the Christian Register, the account by Rev. Conner nonetheless appears to paint a picture of a rather stable Unitarian congregation in Atlanta.

Rev. Conner also made note of merger discussions within the two churches.

A movement was also started that is likely to result in the co-operation of the Unitarians and Universalists. Both organizations voted favorably for it during the period of the war, but it is hoped that the result will be permanent.

One clue regarding merger was found in Rev. Conner’s article.  Rev. Conner implied that there was a general observation of religious facility “over building” in Atlanta by liberal denominations.   Rev. Conner pointed out that the Atlanta Congregational church was built for 700, but had attendance of less than 100.

Organic southern growth for the Unitarians or Universalists or other liberal denominations from Rev. Conner’s perspective appeared problematic.  As Rev. Conner stated, “Congregationalism, Universalism and Unitarianism are not indigenous to the soil” of the South. Rev. Conner added, “The Congregational church had not one Southern family on its membership roles.”

Rev. Conner further observed that:

“The Universalist pastor corroborated the statement for his church and the acting minister of the Unitarian church could bear the same witness. One parent of the family might be Southerner, but the other is certain to hail from the North.”

Merger may have been a mechanism to achieve sufficient size and scale to survive in the deep South.

Universalist Church

Less information is known of the Universalists.

The pastorate of the Universalist church had been rather stable with the Rev. T.B. Fisher assuming the ministry from Rev. John Rowlett in October 1916. This ministerial transition appeared planned.  Rev. Rowlett resigned his pastorate to become the Universalist Superintendent of Georgia.

Although Rev. Fisher was retiring, pastorate transition at the Universalist church had been rather stable since the re-establishment of the Universalists in Atlanta in 1895.  The Universalists erected their church edifice in 1900.  Sunday services, per public announcements in the Atlanta papers, appeared to have been held regularly right up to the time of the merger.

The last public notice of a service at Universalist church on East Harris Street by Rev. T.B. Fisher was on January 5, 1918.

United Universalists and Unitarians

Rev. Swisher, who was the acting pastor of the Unitarian church,  presided over five joint services and then departed Atlanta in April 1918.

The vacant pulpit of the united church was initially filled by Rev. T. B. Fisher. For several weeks, other guest speakers supplied the pulpit including Methodist ministers during the weeks the Methodists were holding their convention in Atlanta. It is during this period of rotating ministers supplying the pulpit that the united Universalists and Unitarians adopt the name the Liberal Christian Church in July 1918.

In September 1918, with a fair amount of fanfare in the Atlanta papers, it was announced the Unitarian Rev. Frank Oliver Hall, of New York, would be the new minister of the Liberal Christian Church.

The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia)  Fri, Sep 6, 1918 · Page 6

The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia)
Fri, Sep 6, 1918 · Page 6

An article in the Atlanta papers on September 6, 1918 announced in part:

“In order to establish a real, live church in the place of two which have not been as active as they might have been, the Unitarians and Universalists have consolidated and formed one large permanent church.”

The article continued and announced:

“Dr. Frank Oliver Hall, of New York City will be the new pastor.  He is one of the leading ministers of the country, and one of the highest salaried pastors in the city of New York. He will fill the pulpit next Sunday morning and it is expected that a very large congregation will greet him.”

Rev. Hall preached a handful of sermons at the church and then departed Atlanta by the end of September. No explanation is provided why he departed Atlanta in the public media.

In mid-October the church building used by the Unitarians and Universalists was closed for two weeks by the Health Department. No information has been found regarding this situation, but with the announcement and then departure of Rev. Hall the operation of the joint church may have lost its short-term footing.

However, by the end of October 1918, Rev. G.I. Keirn, recently from the Universalist mission in Japan, began preaching at the Liberal Christian Church. Rev. Keirn maintained the pastorate of the Liberal Christian Church until his death in October 1922.

Conclusion

Why did Atlanta Unitarians and Universalist merge in 1918?   No “smoking gun” conclusion has yet been determined.  The liberal churches clearly had common cause in the deeply orthodox religious South.  War efforts may have caused general shortages, drained financial generosity and gave rise to a “call to action” based on  sense of patriotism.

Merger may have been simply a pragmatic response to the need to achieve a sufficient base or scale of congregrants to support a church building, minister’s salary and church operations in the very religiously un-friendly South.

There is just too little information to draw a clear conclusion.

Why did the merger continue after the war?

Again no “smoking gun” conclusion has yet been determined.  It does appear that the two churches had an honest affection for the members among themselves.  Dinners were held to help the two congregations merge together.  Nor has any indication been found that merger was seen as “temporary.”  Rather it appears the combined church saw the merger as permanent and long-lasting.

A year after the merger in January 1919, for example, the women’s groups at the church (Universalist – Women’s Mission Circle, Unitarian  Woman’s Alliance) merged to form a new group called the Woman’s Union.  In the hand-written meeting book recording the inagural meeting of this new group UNION was spelled out in capital letters.

By 1920, the Universalist church building on East Harris Street was sold and the money placed in an endowment fund for the combined church.

In the 1930’s the church was widely referred to in public announcements and in its Sunday order of service as the Unitarian-Universalist Church of Atlanta.

This combined Unitarian – Universalist church, however, collapsed in the late 1940’s over issues of racial segregation  and fears the liberal church was being seen in the public eye as sympathetic to leftist thinking in a time of heightened concern over the spread of Communism.

Summary of Services and Public Notices for 1918

The data below is complied from a review of contemporary newspaper articles at this time.

 

Date Description
Jan 5, 1918 Unitarian service at West Peachtree Street church – Large ad appears in the Atlanta paper stating, The Unitarian Church. (301 West Peachtree Street). 11:00 am Rev. Ralph E. Conner preaches upon “Calling on the Reserves.” Reception of New Members. Dedication of Service Flag. We do not all agree to think alike, but alike we all agree to think.
Jan 5, 1918 Last notice of a standalone Universalist service in 1918 prior to merger of Atlanta Universalists and Unitarians. Ad appears in the Atlanta paper stating, Universalist. “Success is the Anticipation of the New Year, How It Can Be Realized for the Individual and in Our World Struggle,” will be discussed by the pastor, Rev. T.B. Fisher, at the Universalist church Sunday morning. Sunday school at 10. Y.P.C.U. at 10.
Jan 12, 1918 Large ad appears in the Atlanta paper stating, The Unitarian Church. 301 West Peachtree Street. 11:00 am – Sermon by Rev. Ralph E. Conner upon: “Marks of the Master.”Mr. Conner moves to Chattanooga and Nashville the last of this week.
Jan 26, 1918 First service conducted by Rev. Swisher at the Unitarian church. Article notes that Rev. Swisher is the Acting Pastor of the Unitarian church.Large ad appears in the Atlanta paper stating, The Unitarian Church. 301 West Peachtree Street. 11:00 am – “The Quest for the Eternal.” A sermon on the eternal verities, by Rev. Walter S. Swisher, B.D. All are cordially invited.
Feb 2, 1918 Large ad appears in the Atlanta paper stating, The Unitarian Church. 301 West Peachtree Street. 11:00 am – “The Power of Personality.” A sermon human influences by Rev. Walter S. Swisher, B.D. All are most cordially invited.
Feb 9, 1918 Large ad appears in the Atlanta paper stating, The Unitarian Church. 301 West Peachtree Street. 11:00 am – “What is the Function of Modern Religion?”, “What Place Has Religion in Modern Life?”, “Have We Outgrown Religion?”, “Is Billy Sunday Humbug?”Come and hear these questions answered tomorrow morning at the Unitarian church by Rev. Walter S. Swisher, B.D. 5:00pm – A special musical vesper services. All soldiers invited. Fine musical program. Shore address on the Red Cross. All welcome.
Feb 16, 1918 Large ad appears in the Atlanta paper stating, The Unitarian Church. 301 West Peachtree Street. At 11 am, Rev. Walter Samuel Swisher will preach on the topic: “Is the Church a Failure?”, “Has the Church Failed in its Mission?”, “Is It Afraid to Face Present Issues?” Come and Hear the Sermon.
Feb 23, 1918 Large ad appears in the Atlanta paper stating, at 11 A.M. the Unitarian and Universalists will worship together for the first time.This is a temporary merger to last for the duration of the war and help win the war by saving fuel and light. Rev. T.B. Fisher, Pastor of the Universalist Church, will speak on “the Larger Destiny. All welcomed.
Mar 1, 1918 Article in Atlanta papers, At 6 o’clock this evening the merge congregations of the Universalists and Unitarians will hold a supper and parish meeting at the Unitarian church for the purpose of discussing plans for the actual working of the two congregations as on under the merger agreement for the duration of the war. All friends of the church who are interested in the success of the movement are urged to attend.
Mar 2, 1918 First joint Unitarian – Universalist service. Large ad in the Atlanta paper announcing, “ The Unitarian Church 301 West Peachtree Street, United Services of Unitarians and Universalists. 11 am – “Co-Workers with God,” by Rev. Walter S Swisher. Could God get along without us? Would His purpose fare without human agents? Come and Hear!
Mar 2, 1918 Second joint Unitarian – Universalist service. In the Atlanta papers, Unitarian.   Tomorrow is the second Sunday for united services of Universalists and Unitarians at the Unitarian church. A splendid, enthusiastic congregation was present last Sunday; a larger congregation is expected tomorrow.   Rev. Walter S. Swisher will preach on the topic. “Co-workers with God.”
Mar 9, 1918 Third joint Unitarian – Universalist service. In the Atlanta papers, Joint Services. At the joint services of Universalists and Unitarians at the Unitarian church building, 301 West Peachtree street. Tomorrow morning at 11 o’clock, Rev. Walter S. Swisher will preach on the topic, “The Growing Truth.” This will be a philosophical treatment of the question, “Is Truth a Growing, Dynamic Thing, or Is It Static? Is it Alive or Dead?”
Mar 16, 1918 Fourth joint Unitarian – Universalist service. In the Atlanta papers, Universalists – Unitarians. United Services. Universalists and Unitarians. Morning service only at 11 O’clock. Subject of Sermon: “Human Brotherhood”, Acting Pastor: Rev. Walter S. Swisher. The Unitarian Church, 301 West Peachtree Street. All Welcome.
Mar 23, 1918 Fifth joint Unitarian – Universalist service. In the Atlanta papers, Universalists – Unitarians. United Services. Universalists and Unitarians. Morning service only at 11 a.m., “The Advance of Liberalism”, Musical Vesper Service at 5 p.m., Pastor, Rev. Walter S. Swisher, B.D., The Unitarian Church, 301 West Peachtree Street
Mar 23, 1918 Article in Atlanta papers, Church music program at Liberal Christian church. Rev. Walter S. Swisher to preach, topic: “The Advance of Liberalism.” Article notes that this Sunday is Rev. Swisher’s last Sunday at the Liberal Christian church.
Mar 30, 1918 Sixth joint Unitarian – Universalist service. In the Atlanta papers, Universalists – Unitarians. United Services. Universalists and Unitarians. Morning service only at 11 a.m., “The World’s Easter Holding Its Sacrifice, Its Peril, Its Hope.” A War Sermon, by Rev. Samuel B. Nobbs, of Boston. The Unitarian Church, 301 West Peachtree Street.
Apr 6, 1918 In the Atlanta papers, Universalists – Unitarians. United Services. Universalists and Unitarians. Morning service only at 11 a.m., Sermon: “Faith and Life” by Rev. Samuel B. Nobbs, of Boston. The Unitarian Church, 301 West Peachtree Street.
Apr 13, 1918 In the Atlanta papers, Universalists – Unitarians. United Services. Universalists and Unitarians. Morning service only at 11 a.m., Sermon by Rev. T.B. Fisher. The Unitarian Church, 301 West Peachtree Street.
Apr 20, 1918 In the Atlanta papers, Universalists – Unitarians. United Services. Universalists and Unitarians. Morning service only at 11 a.m., Sermon by Rev. T.B. Fisher. The Unitarian Church, 301 West Peachtree Street.
May 4, 1918 In the Atlanta papers, Universalists – Unitarians. United Services. Universalists and Unitarians. Morning service only at 11 a.m., Rev. D.B. Price, of Methodist Conference, Montana. The Unitarian Church, 301 West Peachtree Street.
May 5, 1918 Extended article in the Atlanta paper about Methodist ministers filling Atlanta pulpit due to general conference being held in Atlanta.
May 11, 1918 In the Atlanta papers, Universalists – Unitarians. United Services. Universalists and Unitarians. Morning service only at 11 a.m., Rev. J.C. Hawk, China, of the Methodist Conference. The Unitarian Church, 301 West Peachtree Street.
May 18, 1918 In the Atlanta papers, Universalists – Unitarians. United Services. Universalists and Unitarians. Morning service only at 11 a.m., The Unitarian Church, 301 West Peachtree Street.
May 25, 1918 In the Atlanta papers, Universalists – Unitarians. United Services. Universalists and Unitarians. 11 a.m. Sermon by Rev. John W. Rowlett, The Unitarian Church, 301 West Peachtree Street.
Jun 1, 1918 In the Atlanta papers, Unitarians – Universalists. United Services. Unitarians – Universalists. Rev. Henry B. Taylor will fill the pulpit, The Unitarian Church, 301 West Peachtree Street.
Jun 8, 1918 In the Atlanta papers, Universalists – Unitarians. Rev. H.B. Taylor, of the Third Universalist Church of Somerville, Mass., is acting pastor for June of the affiliated congregations of Unitarians and Universalists worshipping in the church at 301 West Peachtree street. He will also be voluntary chaplain for fort McPherson and Camp Gordon. He is at the Pickwick. Mr. Taylor’s Massachusetts’s church is the one nearest Tufts’s college, founded by Universalists, and now the largest institution strictly a college in America.   His Sunday subject at 11 o’clock will be “Do the Meek Inherit the Earth?”
Jun 15, 1918 In the Atlanta papers, Unitarian – Universalists. Rev. Henry B. Taylor, from a suburban Boston church, preaches to the congregations of Unitarians and Universalists, meeting in the church at 301 West Peachtree street, on Sunday at 11 am, his subject being “How to Be Happy in War Time.” Mr. Taylor is no stranger to “mergers.” During the acute coal shortage in New England he alternated with Congregationalist and Unitarian ministers in preaching to congregations of Universalists.   Congregationalists and Unitarian meeting in one church. At other times on Sundays and weekdays from other denominations made use of the same building. An average of about 125 meetings a month were held in the single church. Baptists, Methodists, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Unitarians and Universalists united for mid-week prayer meetings.
Jun 22, 1918 In the Atlanta papers, Unitarian – Universalists. “A fortune for Everybody – How to Enjoy Yours” is the theme Rev. Henry B. Taylor, of Boston, will preach on Sunday at 11 am at the church used by Unitarians and Universalists at 301 West Peachtree Street.   The preacher claims he has a practical word both on the realization and enjoyment of a fortune. Mr. Taylor will preach at Camp Gordon Sunday night.
Jun 29, 1981 In the Atlanta papers, Unitarian. Rev. Henry B. Taylor, who has been preaching to the united congregations of Universalists and Unitarians in the church at 301 West Peachtree street, finishes his series of sermons on Sunday at the 11 am services. His subject will be, “How a Few Men Saved a Nation.”
Jul 6, 1918 In the Atlanta papers large ad, Unitarian – Universalist. United Services. Unitarian and Universalists. (Church at 301 West Peachtree Street). 11:00 am Sunday – Special service has been arranged for. Excellent Music. All Welcomed.
Jul 13, 1918 In the Atlanta papers large ad, Unitarian – Universalist. United Services. Unitarian and Universalists. (Church at 301 West Peachtree Street). 11:00 am Sunday: Rev. T.B. Fisher. Excellent Music. All Welcomed.
Jul 20, 1918 First mention of the united congregations being called the The Liberal Christian Church.In the Atlanta papers large ad, Unitarian – Universalist. The Liberal Christian Church. West Peachtree, Bet. Third and Kimball. 11 am, Sunday. Rev. J.M. Rasnake. Summer Services. Soldiers Especially Welcomed.
Aug 3, 1918 In the Atlanta papers large ad, Unitarian – Universalist. The Liberal Christian Church. West Peachtree, Bet. Third and Kimball. 11 am, Sunday, Sermon by Layman.   Special Music. Soldiers Especially Welcomed.
Aug 10, 1918 In the Atlanta papers large ad, Unitarian – Universalist. The Liberal Christian Church. West Peachtree, Bet. Third and Kimball. 11 am, Sunday, Sermon Rev. J.M. Rasnake. Special Music. Soldiers Especially Welcomed.
Aug 17, 1918 In the Atlanta papers large ad, Unitarian – Universalist. The Liberal Christian Church. West Peachtree, Bet. Third and Kimball. 11 am, Sunday, Rev. F.B. Bishop. Special Music. Soldiers Especially Welcomed.
Aug 24, 1918 In the Atlanta papers large ad, Unitarian – Universalist. The Liberal Christian Church. West Peachtree, Bet. Third and Kimball. 11 am, Sunday, Rev. F.B. Bishop. Good Music. Soldiers Especially Welcomed.
Sep 6, 1918 In the Atlanta papers, Two Churches Combine. Universalists and Unitarians Now Liberal Christian.In order to establish a read live church in the place of two which have not been as active as they might have been, the Unitarians and Universalists have consolidated and formed one large permanent church, to be known as the Liberal Christian Church. This is in line with the unification of the two creeds in other parts of the United States.It is the plan to sell the Universalist church property on Ellis street and to take the proceeds as an endowment for the new church, whose services will be held in the Unitarian church on West Peachtree street.Dr. Frank Oliver Hall, of New York city, will be the new pastor. He is one of the leading ministers of the country, and one of the highest salaried pastors in the city of New York. He will fill the pulpit next Sunday morning, and is expected that a very large congregation will greet him.
Sep 7, 1918 In the Atlanta papers, Unitarian – Universalist. The Liberal Christian Church. West Peachtree Street, between Kimball and Third. Service Sunday, 11 a.m. Rev. Frank O. Hall, eminent New York minister.
Sep 14, 1918 In the Atlanta papers large ad, Unitarian – Universalist. The Liberal Christian Church. West Peachtree Street, between Kimball and Third. 11 a.m., Rev. Frank O. Hall, eminent New York minister. Subject: “The Liberal Interpretation of Heaven and Hell.”
Sep 21, 1918 In the Atlanta papers large ad, Unitarian – Universalist. The Liberal Christian Church. West Peachtree Street, between Kimball and Third. 11 a.m., Rev. Frank O. Hall, eminent New York minister. Subject: “The Religion of a Manly Man.”
Sep 21, 1918 Archivist Note: This article referring to Dr. Hall delivering the last of series of sermons is quite curious. Just two week earlier, it had been announced that the Rev. Hall was the new pastor of the Liberal Christian Church.Liberal Christian. Rev. Frank O. Hall, new York minister, will be in the pulpit of the Liberal Christian church tomorrow his subject being “The Religion of a Manly Man.” Rev. Mr. Hall, while here, spends his entire time during the week doing Y.MC.A. work for the soldier boys at Camp Gordon. Tomorrow and next Sunday are the last of the series of sermons to be delivered b Dr. Hall.
Sep 28, 1918 In the Atlanta papers large ad, Unitarian – Universalist. The Liberal Christian Church. West Peachtree Street, between Kimball and Third. 11 a.m., Rev. Frank O. Hall, eminent New York minister. Subject: “Union Service as a War Measure.”Archivist Note: This ad is the last reference to Dr. Hall in Atlanta.
Oct 5, 1918 <archivist action OCR Article>
Oct 5, 1918 In the Atlanta papers large ad, Unitarian – Universalist. The Liberal Christian Church. West Peachtree Street, between Kimball and Third. 11 a.m., Rev. G.I. Keiru, D.D., recently missionary to Japan.Archivist Note: Ad misspelled the Rev. Keirn’s name.
Oct 12, 1918 In the Atlanta papers large ad, Unitarian – Universalist. The Liberal Christian Church. West Peachtree Street, between Kimball and Third.No service at church, owing to closing order by board of health.
Oct 19, 1918 In the Atlanta papers large ad, Unitarian – Universalist. The Liberal Christian Church. West Peachtree Street, between Kimball and Third.No service at church, owing to closing order by board of health.
Oct 26, 1918 In the Atlanta papers large ad, Unitarian – Universalist. The Liberal Christian Church. West Peachtree Street, between Kimball and Third. 11 a.m., Rev. G.I. Keiru, D.D., Sermon Subject: “The Militant Christ.”Archivist Note: Ad misspelled the Rev. Keirn’s name.
Nov 2, 1918 In the Atlanta papers large ad, Unitarian – Universalist. The Liberal Christian Church. West Peachtree Street, between Kimball and Third. 11 a.m., Rev. G.I. Keirn, D.D., Sermon Subject: “Carrying On.”
Nov 9, 1918 In the Atlanta papers large ad, Unitarian – Universalist. The Liberal Christian Church. West Peachtree Street, between Kimball and Third. 11 a.m., Rev. G.I. Keirn, D.D., Subject: “The Transfiguring Power of Sacrifice.”
Nov 16, 1918 Article – Rev. Conkling killed in action in France.   “Captain J.W. Conkling, former pastor slain”. Conkling had resigned the pastorate at the Unitarian church to enter the army. Conkling indicating to the congregation that he could serve his country better as a soldier than he could as a chaplain. “I feel, too, that I can perform a service to may flag and to my fellowmen as one them – soldier”, said Conkling.
Nov 16, 1918 First reference to Rev. Keirn as Acting Pastor of the Liberal Christian Church.In the Atlanta papers large ad, Unitarian – Universalist. The Liberal Christian Church. 301 West Peachtree Street. Rev. G.I. Keirn, D.D., Acting Pastor. Service at 11 am. Subject of sermon: “Material Out of Which the New Age Must be Constructed.”
Nov 23, 1918 In the Atlanta papers large ad, Unitarian – Universalist. The Liberal Christian Church. (301 West Peachtree Street). Rev. G.I. Keirn, D.D., Acting Pastor. Service at 11 am – Thanksgiving Service and Sermon. 4 pm – Memorial Service in honor of Rev. J. Wade Conkling, M.D., former pastor, who recently died in France.
Nov 30, 1918 In the Atlanta papers large ad, Unitarian – Universalist. The Liberal Christian Church. (301 West Peachtree Street). Rev. G.I. Keirn, D.D., Acting Pastor. 11 am – Sermon by Rev. John W. Rowlett, State Superintendent.
Dec 7, 1918 In the Atlanta papers large ad, Unitarian – Universalist. The Liberal Christian Church. (301 West Peachtree Street). Rev. G.I. Keirn, D.D., Acting Pastor. 11 am – Sermon by Rev. J.B. Fisher
Dec 14, 1918 In the Atlanta papers large ad, Unitarian – Universalist. The Liberal Christian Church. 301 West Peachtree Street. Sermon Rev. John W. Rowlett, 11 AM
Dec 18, 1918 Article in the Atlanta paper, Reception to Dr. and Mrs. Kiern. A reception will be tendered Dr. and Mrs. G.I. Kiern, of Boston, by the congregation of the Liberal Christian church at 301 West Peachtree street on Friday evening, December 20 at 7:30 o’clock.There will be recitations, music and refreshments. Al friends of the church are also cordially invited to come and join with the members of the church in welcoming their new minister.
Dec 21, 1918 Rev. Kiern begins is pastorate at the Liberal Christian church.In the Atlanta papers, Liberal Christian. Rev. G.I. Keirn D.D., begins his pastorate of the Liberal Christian church tomorrow with a Christmas sermon at 11 am; subject “The Prince of Peace.”

 

 

 

 

 

Rev. Paul Tyner

3 February 2016 at 17:01

Archivist Note: The following is a Unity Editor’s comment/foreword in an February 1904 article entitled Soul and Body.  The source hyperlink will direct a user to this editorial comment and the full Body and Soul article.  Rev. Paul Tyner was the pastor of the Universalist Church of Atlanta in 1905.

From a Onward article of August 1905 (page 248) it was noted in the President’s annual address that Rev. Tyner was called to the pulpit of the Atlanta Universalist church to fill “the unexpired term, ending July 1st (1905).”  The article continued that he “was not a candidate for re-election, but has consented to supply the pulpit until his successor is settled.”

Paul Tyner, minister of the First Universalist Church in Mount Vernon, New York, was born in Ireland about forty-four years ago, and was brought to this country at the age of four. It was as a New Thought lecturer that he was first introduced to the First Universalist congregation two years ago, and subsequently formed the friendships in that church-which resulted in his call to the pulpit when it became vacant in November of last year.

To be sure, there were not lacking in the congregation those who looked askance at the possibilities of a mental healer in the pulpit. Yet those who knew the new minister best felt assured that he was animated by deep convictions and high spiritual aspirations, and so capable of taking the largest views of his opportunity and privileges as a preacher of liberal Christianity. Touching a wide variety of topics, and handling many problems in a way that evinced catholic sympathies, deep thought and thorough study, Mr. Tyner recently found it necessary to definitely and directly bring up the healing philosophy in his preaching. It seemed as if, having duly considered other subjects of greater or lesser importance, he at last found himself facing the question of spiritual healing in its relation to preaching the gospel. Delicacy about intruding personal views while they involved personal and professional interests outside his church work, had probably influenced the preacher to reticence in this connection. Repugnance to the shadow of a suggestion of charlatanism had up to this time impelled him to maintain a strict separation between what he considered his religious and his secular work.

Contact with sickness and suffering among his Mount Vernon parishioners occasioned the changed attitude revealed in Mr. Tyner’s sermon, “Soul and Body.” His sympathies were touched, and he resented the barrier interposed by his secular profession to a more complete ministration. He thereupon resolved to abandon mental healing as a separate work, and to give himself wholly henceforth to the work of the ministry, placing himself and whatever power he possessed for the healing of the sick in mind and body, at the service of those who needed him, without money and without price. This sermon ranges him with the increasing vanguard of liberal preachers who demand recognition for spiritual healing in the church.

From a sketch published in the Boston Transcript at the time Mr. Tyner succeeded the late Professor John Clark Ridpalh in the editorship of ‘The Arena, we learn that before going West, eight years ago, Mr. Tyner attained some reputation as a newspaper writer in New York City. After a training in economics under Professor Richard T. Ely at the University of Wisconsin, Mr. Tyner engaged in important sociological investigations in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. In Denver he devoted himself, with some success, to the mission of municipal reform, and edited The Temple, a little magazine of optimism. Mr. Tyner is the author of several successful books, including ” The Living Christ,” a plea for practical Christianity; “Through the Invisible,” a novel; and three volumes of essays.

His name is familiar to magazine readers as a frequent contributor of articles on sociological topics. His reception into the Uuiversalist ministry a year ago was preceded by seven years of platform work as a lecturer on the New Thought and other reforms. At the recent New York State Convention in Canton he delivered an address on “Definite Objective and Massed Forces in Preaching,” and it was well received.  Ed.

Source: Unity found in Google Books February 1904 Vol. XX No. 2 Pages: 67 – 70

 

 

The Paradox of Theodore Parker: Transcendentalist, Abolitionist and White Supremacist

14 December 2015 at 14:27

THE PARADOX OF THEODORE PARKER: TRANSCENDENTALIST, ABOLITIONIST, AND WHITE SUPREMACIST.

by  JIM KELLEY

A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University 2015

Copyright by Jim Kelley 2015

Posted to Digital Archives by Permission of the Author

Abstract

Theodore Parker was one of the leading intellectuals and militant abolitionists of the antebellum era who has been largely overlooked by modern scholars. He was a leading Transcendentalist intellectual and was also one of the most militant leaders of the abolitionist movement. Despite his fervent abolitionism, his writings reveal an attitude that today we would call racist or white supremacist. Some scholars have argued that Parker’s motivation for abolishing slavery was to redeem the Anglo-Saxon race from the sin of slavery. I will dispute this claim and explore Parker’s true understanding of race. How he could both believe in the supremacy of the white race, and at the same time, militantly oppose African slavery. Parker was influenced by the racial “science” of his era which supported the superiority of the Caucasian race.   Conversely he also believed that everyone, including African slaves, had human dignity.

Dedication

To my daughter Shannon for her constant encouragement and example, and to my late wife, Roberta, for encouraging me to go back to school.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my all my professors who have helped me at Georgia State, especially my advisor, Dr. David Sehat, and Dr’s Wendy Venet, Rob Baker and Jake Selwood who served on my thesis and comp committees.

In addition I would like to thank Dan McKanan and Dean Grodzins of Harvard Divinity School for the support and interest that they have shown in my project, Frances O’Donnell of the Andover-Harvard Theological Library for allowing me to examine Theodore Parker’s papers, and the staff of the Pitt’s Theological Library at Emory University for allowing me access to their rare volumes.

Table of Contents

PREFACE

Chapter 1: EARLY YEARS, RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY AND ABOLITIONISM

Chapter 2: FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT, PARKER’S TRIAL, AND RACIAL SCIENCE

Chapter 3: INCREASED MILITANCY, DRED SCOTT AND JOHN BROWN.

CONCLUSION AND LEGACY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Preface

A complex and contradictory man, Theodore Parker was a Unitarian clergyman who ministered to the largest antebellum congregation in Boston. From his pulpit he vigorously opposed slavery and became one of the most militant leaders of the abolitionist movement. While he consistently opposed slavery, he refrained from committing to the abolitionist cause until late in his career. However, as political events moved the country closer to civil war, he began to see slavery as the ultimate evil, and his abolitionism became increasingly militant. He risked arrest and imprisonment by actively assisting and hiding fugitive slaves to prevent them from being returned to bondage, and ultimately became one of the “Secret Six” financial supporters of John Brown’s abortive raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Despite his fervent antislavery activities, Parker firmly believed that the Caucasian race, especially his Anglo-Saxon branch, was inherently superior to all others. Although he would not recognize the term, Parker’s firm belief in white racial superiority would classify him as a “white supremacist.” Today that term evokes hate filled images of the Ku Klux Klan and Neo-Nazis marching to promote violence and racial hatred as a way of maintaining the socially and politically dominant position of the white race. While groups like these are perhaps the most visceral manifestations of white supremacy, the belief in the superiority of the Caucasian race goes far beyond these extremist fringe groups. Parker consistently maintained the superiority of the Caucasian race, but his views on race were much more complicated than those of modern day white supremacists.

It is important to put Parker’s use of race into context. He believed that a person’s capabilities were formed by their racial attributes. Since he considered his Anglo-Saxon tribe to be the most advanced of all the races, this conviction allowed Parker to put them in the forefront of human progress. Parker viewed Africans as an inferior race, but still members of the human race who had been oppressed, brought to America involuntarily, and forced into bondage. Therefore, they deserved support and freedom. His descriptions of African-Americans were frequently derogatory, but were widely accepted in his time. Furthermore, his comments were often expressed in a context that either held open the possibility of future growth and advancement, or he qualified the slaves’ lack of racial development as having been caused by the effects of forced servitude and lack of exposure to civilization.
[1]

Parker was also very class conscious and used racial descriptions and stereotypes to establish class boundaries. This was illustrated by his descriptions of the Irish who he considered to be a lower branch of the Caucasian race, Celtic rather than Anglo-Saxon. Unlike the African slaves, the Irish were coming to America voluntarily, and instead of being sent to the southern states, they were coming into Boston and other Northern seaport cities in ever increasing numbers.   Their influx threatened to upset the demographics of Boston and to disrupt the social and political positions of the existing Anglo-Saxon majority. Parker not only considered the Celtic Irish to be members of a lower race, he also used race to classify them as a lower social class. It is telling that he rarely, if ever, used racial epithets to describe either free or enslaved blacks, but he did not hesitate to refer to the Irish as “paddies.” A major issue that Parker had with the Irish immigrants was their Catholic religion which he believed supported slavery. “The Catholic Clergy are on the side of slavery,” he wrote, “they love slavery itself; it is an institution thoroughly congenial to them, consistent with the first principles of their church.”[2]

While many people would call Parker’s writings racist, a more accurate term would be “racialist.” I define a “racist” as someone who believes in the superiority of their race, and who has hostile or hateful views toward other, usually dark-skinned, peoples. A “racialist” also believes that their race is superior to all other less advanced races, however, though derogatory and insulting, racialist views are not necessarily meant to be hateful. Racialists used stereotypical images to explain individual behavior and abilities. They often adopted a romanticized vision of other races and believed that they were “uplifting” members of lesser races. According to historian George Fredrickson, while these “romantic racialists” believed that there were differences between the black and white races, they “projected an image of the Negro that could be construed as flattering or laudatory in the context of some currently [nineteenth century] accepted ideals of human behavior and sensibility.”[3] Both anti and pro-slavery proponents used romantic racialist language and images to either promote slavery or to advocate its abolition.

Some scholars have argued that Parker’s activism was strictly self-serving and that his only concern was to prevent Northern Anglo-Saxons from being contaminated by the sin of slavery. In this scenario Parker was not motivated to end slavery on humanitarian grounds, rather, as historian Michael Fellman put it, his sole desire was to employ “all possible ideological means of aiding the redemption of the honor and the future of the white race.”[4]

Parker biographer R.C. Albrecht pointed out that Parker “believed in the perfectibility of man and community,” and that he “devoted his life to bringing about that perfection.”[5] Like Fellman, Albrecht argued that Parker was not concerned with social justice, but in order to “perfect” his society, he wanted to abolish slavery “for the extension of democracy, the rights of man, and the salvation of the nation.”[6] Parker did believe that mankind could be improved or perfected as Albrecht argued, but his belief in the ability of mankind to improve extended to all races, not just the white Anglo-Saxons. His opposition to slavery went beyond merely trying to redeem the white race.

Both Fellman and Albrecht failed to recognize the impact that Parker’s religious faith had on his antislavery convictions. Furthermore, Fellman pointed to a statement by Parker that “when slavery is abolished, the African population will decline in the United States, and die out of the South as out of Northhampton and Lexington,”[7] to mean that Parker believed that the African race was not only inferior, but that “slavery merely buoyed up an inferior race and the ending of slavery would do away with the former race.”[8] Fellman is correct that Parker, like other abolitionists, failed to prepare for a multiracial society following emancipation. However, rather than buoying up an inferior race as Fellman claimed, Parker’s Transcendentalist faith taught him that slavery retarded the moral and intellectual development of the slaves and that it was preventing them from realizing their inherent human dignity and rights.

These scholars used a modern concept of race and racism and failed to see race as Parker did. Parker viewed race as a lens that allowed him to explain the historical advance of mankind and civilization, and it permitted him to put his own Anglo-Saxon branch of the Caucasian race in the forefront of progress. These arguments also failed to take into account Parker’s use of race to establish social and class boundaries, and they overlooked the internal conflict caused by his deeply held religious beliefs. To understand Parker, one must first recognize that the foundation for his convictions was based on Transcendentalism that stressed the use of reason and intuition to discern truth and also believed that everyone, including slaves, had inherent human dignity. Parker’s faith in reason led him to be influenced by contemporary scientific opinions, many of which were attempting to explain racial differences by establishing racial hierarchies. However, he did not accept scientific pronouncements blindly, and he rejected theories that conflicted with his Transcendentalist belief in the “inner light” and human dignity of all people.[9] As the leader of the largest religious congregation in New England and as a Transcendentalist, Parker felt that it was his duty to protect and improve the moral condition of his flock that, for him, included all of society, especially Northern society.

Parker’s consistent compulsion for reform must be understood in the context of his time. He was an intensely religious man, and it was his deep religious convictions that fueled his passion for reform. He was torn between his belief in the human dignity of everyone, including slaves, and his faith in reason and science which in his era taught that there was a hierarchy of races with the white Anglo-Saxons on top. His belief in universal humanity caused him to reject the biological school of racial science that claimed that racial differences were permanent, and led him to adhere to the environmental school of racial thought that held out the possibility that races could change and involve. While Parker never wavered from his belief in the supremacy of the white race, his opinion of the ability of Africans and their willingness to defend their freedom changed as his abolitionism became more militant.

Chapter I – EARLY YEARS, RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY AND ABOLITIONISM

Theodore Parker was born in 1810 in Lexington, Massachusetts near the village green where the American Revolution began. At about the age of ten, he witnessed a re-enactment of the famous battle where “the shot heard around the world” was fired.[1] The battle had a special meaning to him as it was his grandfather, Captain John Parker, who commanded the militia company that first met the British regulars. His grandfather’s role in the battle was a matter of immense personal pride to Parker and a topic to which he would later refer to on many occasions. According to Parker’s friend and biographer Jonathan Weiss, his most prized family heirlooms were a British musket taken from a “grenadier of the 43rd Regiment,” and his grandfather’s “own light fowling-piece which he had carried at Quebec,” both of which Parker kept in his Boston study.[2] Parker never knew his grandfather since the captain died of dysentery a few months after the battle. As Parker wrote, “He was sick on the day of the Battle of Lexington, but did his duty from 2 A.M. till 12 at night. On the 17th of June he was too ill to be allowed to enter the turmoil of the Battle of Bunker Hill, so he discontentedly commanded troops who did no fighting that day.”[3]

Parker also wrote of an uncle on his father’s side who had “served many years in the revolutionary war; he was in the battles of Saratoga and of Yorktown, had failed in business, gone to South Carolina, and married a woman with some property at Charleston, where he then lived.”[4] He did not mention if some of the wife’s property might have been slaves. [5]

Parker was proud of his grandfather and took great pride in the courage and ideals of the revolutionary generation. His early years were filled with frequent celebrations, parades, re-enactments and stories of the courage of his grandfather and other members of the revolutionary generation, which instilled in Parker a strong sense of regional pride. These childhood experiences gave Parker a strong sense of regional identity and the conviction that his native New England had been settled by a particularly strong, courageous and religiously pious group of Anglo-Saxon colonists. In his later sermons and letters he would frequently refer to his grandfather’s exploits and to the courage of Boston’s revolutionary leaders like John Hancock and John and Samuel Adams as a way of exhorting his congregants and readers to live up to the founding principles of the revolution. [6]

Despite having a prominent grandfather, Parker did not grow up in affluence. Theodore was the eleventh and final child of the captain’s son, John, and Hannah Parker. Although his father had little formal education, Parker described him as highly intelligent with a natural aptitude for math and a love of reading.[7] Parker inherited his father’s passion for reading and learning, as well as a life-long interest in science. However his childhood was marred by tragedy which influenced his deep religious convictions. His mother died of tuberculosis when he was twelve, and by the age of twenty-seven, he had lost his father and seven of his siblings, largely to the same disease. The loss of his parents and so many siblings made him realize that life was fragile and that his own life might be short. Parker would die of tuberculosis at the age of forty-nine.[8]

Parker entered public school at age six and was soon recognized for his academic ability. According to Weiss, by the time Parker was eight “he was called one of the greatest readers in the town.”[9] When Parker was ten, Unitarian Minister William H. White began teaching at the South District School in Lexington. Seeing the potential in Parker, White took him under his tutelage and taught him Latin and Greek. Parker had an aptitude for languages and would later claim a reading ability of twenty tongues. He began teaching at the local school at the age of sixteen and at nineteen he passed the entrance exam for Harvard. Unfortunately he was unable to afford the fees so he studied the curriculum independently while living at home and working with his father on the farm. Because he could not pay the fees, no degree was granted. [10]

In 1831 he moved to Boston to accept a teaching position at a private school. As a dutiful son and to fulfill his obligation to help his father on the farm, he hired a laborer to take his place to work the farm for him.[11] While in Boston, Parker attended the “protracted meetings” of Dr. Lyman Beecher, the most prominent preacher of his time. He wrote that he “greatly respected the talents, the zeal, and the enterprise of that able man, who certainly taught me much; but I came away with no confidence in his theology . . . A year of his preaching about finished all my respect for the Calvinistic scheme of theology.”[12]

Teaching in Boston was a lonely experience for him, so in 1832 Parker moved to Watertown, Massachusetts to start his own school. The school proved to be a success, and his stay in Watertown had a great impact on his life. It was there that he met his future wife, Lydia Cabot, the youngest daughter of a prominent wealthy Unitarian Boston family. It is also where he met Unitarian Minister Convers Francis who introduced him to Transcendentalism, a philosophy that was gaining popularity among young Unitarians of the time.[13]

Jonathan Weiss, one of the younger Transcendentalist, likened the arrival of Transcendentalism and the influence on it by German philosophers to a ship that “produced some confusion when Leibnitz, Spinoza, Kant, Gothe, Herder, Schleiermacher, Jean Paul, Jacobi, and the rest sailed in to Boston Harbor and discharged their freight.”[14] According to Weiss, Transcendentalism created a “new school of Unitarianism that sought to found a philosophy giving to truth her own authority, to the Bible the authority of a record harmonizing with reason, to Christ the authority of displaying what the soul can recognize on its own evidence . . . to reason the right of rejecting everything everywhere that is irrational.”[15]

Perhaps the best definition of Transcendentalism was by Parker’s friend and Brook Farm founder George Ripley who wrote:

There is a class of persons who desire a reform in the prevailing philosophy of the day. These are called Transcendentalists. – because they believe in an order of truths which transcends the sphere of the external senses. Their leading idea is the supremacy of mind over matter. Hence they maintain that the truth of religion does not depend on tradition, or on historical facts, but has an unerring witness in the soul. There is a light, they believe, which enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world; there is a faculty in all, the most degraded, the most ignorant, the most obscure, to perceive spiritual truth, when distinctly repented; and the ultimate appeal, on all moral questions, is not to a jury of scholars, and hierarchy of divines, or the prescriptions of a creed, but to the common sense of the race.[16]

It was a conflict caused by the two poles of Parker’s Transcendentalism; the ability of every individual to experience religious truth, and the belief in “mind over matter” or the use of reason that led to the paradox between his militant abolitionism and his belief in the superiority of the white race. His conviction that everyone, even the “most degraded” slave had the ability to feel religious emotions and obtain spiritual meaning meant that they had inherent human dignity. Thus, to keep a human in bondage was a sin. At the same time, his belief in “mind over matter” and the power of reason led him to believe many of the “scientific” racial theories of his time, which attempted to prove the inferiority of darker skinned races.

Parker was admitted to Harvard Divinity School in 1834 where he was drawn even closer to the Transcendentalist movement. Transcendentalism was viewed with skepticism by some of the faculty, but was popular among the young students. It became the foundation of Parker’s beliefs and drew him away from the orthodox views held by Unitarians of that time on the divinity of Jesus and the importance of miracles. He excelled at Harvard and graduated in 1836. In June of 1837 he was ordained and settled at the Spring Street Church in West Roxbury. Later that year, he and Lydia were wed and set up their household in a home near the church. In addition to Lydia, her spinster Aunt Lucy also moved in, a situation that would lead to some marital tension.[17]

Spring Street was a small church of about sixty families, not the prestigious position he had hoped to get. However, his ministerial duties left him time to indulge other intellectual pursuits, and he became a regular contributor to many religious and scholarly publications. Parker quickly gained notice around Boston and became an influential spokesman for the Transcendentalist movement. In the summer of 1838 he returned to Harvard to hear Ralph Waldo Emerson deliver his famous and controversial “Divinity School Address” in which Emerson questioned the orthodox view that the authority of the scriptures was based on supernatural authority. Emerson’s speech was criticized by the orthodox clergy, but was defended by others, including Parker. Parker would soon find himself the center of a similar controversy.[18]

On May 19, 1841 Parker preached the ordination sermon for Reverend Charles Shackford at the Hawes Place Church in South Boston. Parker did not consider his sermon, The Transient and Permanent in Christianity, to be one of his best nor did he expect it to be controversial. He actually considered it to be rather poor and weak. Nevertheless, the firestorm that erupted from it had a dramatic effect on his life and career. Shackford was an orthodox Unitarian, not a Transcendentalist, and he considered his ordination as a chance improve with clergy across theological divides. Toward this effort, he invited three orthodox Protestant ministers from neighboring churches, a Congregationalist, a Methodist, and a Baptist.[19]

Parker felt that the truth of Christianity rested on Jesus’ teachings, rather than on his infallibility or divinity. Likewise, Parker stressed the importance of using reason to find religious truth. By doing so he felt that man would “revere still more the word of God spoken by ‘godly men of old,’ but revere still more the word of God spoken through Conscience, Reason, and Faith, as the holiest of all.”[20] Parker felt that religious leaders had misconstrued the teachings of Jesus, but that their misinterpretations were transient and would not stand the test of time. “They have piled their own rubbish against the temple of Truth where Piety comes to worship,” he declared, “what wonder the pile seems unshapely and like to fall? But these theological doctrines are fleeting as the leaves on the trees.”[21] Parker believed that the truth of Christianity did not depend on the infallibility of Jesus anymore than scientific facts depended on the infallibility of their discoverer. “It is hard to see why the great truths of Christianity rest on the personal authority of Jesus,” Parker declared, “more than the axioms of geometry rest on the personal authority of Euclid, or Archimedes.”[22]

The initial reaction to his sermon was polite; however, an uproar over his comments soon erupted. The three orthodox Protestant ministers condemned Parker in the newspapers as un-Christian, forcing the Unitarians to react. The other Unitarians of the time, like Parker, considered themselves to be Christians, but unlike Parker, as religious liberals they were sensitive to criticism from their Protestant clerical colleagues. The orthodox Unitarian belief at the time was that the truth of Christianity had been revealed to Jesus in a miraculous manner, and that the truth of Christianity rested on the authority of Jesus, beliefs which Parker’s sermon disputed. However, as religious liberals they also believed in the right of free inquiry, which made it difficult for them to publicly condemn or censure him.[23]

His reputation as a religious maverick was reinforced when he published his Discourse on Religion in 1842, in which he again questioned the miraculous authority of Jesus. In it he also expounded on his concept of the universal ability of all mankind to experience religious truth. “It is, indeed, most abundantly established, that there is a religious element,” he wrote. “We discover religious phenomena in all lands, wherever man is found . . . among the Cannibals of New Zealand, and the refined voluptuaies [sic] of old Babylon; in the Esquimaux [sic] fisherman and the Parisian philosopher.”[24] By questioning the authority of Jesus, Parker put his fellow Unitarian colleagues in a difficult position.

The situation came to a head in January, 1843 when Parker was invited to attend the meeting of the (all Unitarian) Boston Association of Ministers to explain his beliefs. He was asked to resign, but refused. To have removed him would have violated the Unitarian principle of free inquiry, so as twentieth-century Unitarian theologian Conrad Wright wrote, “the closest thing the Unitarians ever had to a heresy trial was over.”[25] The controversy did cost Parker the fellowship of many of his clerical colleagues, who refused to exchange pulpits with him. Fortunately his congregation stuck by him and the notoriety that it caused would eventually lead him to even greater fame as a preacher.[26]

Although he continued to speak out against what he considered to be theological errors, he soon began to focus more and more on social reform including the abolition of slavery. His involvement with the antislavery movement was an evolutionary process in which he moved from a moderate opponent of slavery to one of the most militant and out-spoken abolitionist leaders. According to Parker’s friend and fellow Transcendentalist, Franklin B. Sanborn, Parker’s abolitionism had four stages, a “general disgust at slavery which most of the Massachusetts Whigs had, from 1838 to 1844, – the special opposition to Texas annexation and the Mexican War, from 1844-1850, – the movement against the execution of the Fugitive Slave Law from 1850 to 1855, – and finally, the movement to protect Kansas from the curse of slavery, to render Judge Taney’s infamous Dred Scott decision inoperative, and to support John Brown’s active warfare against slavery in Missouri and Virginia.”[27] Although Parker did not fully commit to the abolitionist movement until later in his career, he preached against slavery as a young minister.

In “A Sermon on Slavery,” which he originally delivered on January 31, 1841 to his West Roxbury church and repeated in Boston on June 4, 1843, he laid out some reoccurring themes that he would evoke in his later orations. As he would often do later, Parker made comments that many scholars have interpreted to be critical of the ability of Africans to defend themselves. “If the African be so low, that the condition of slavery is tolerable in his eyes, and he can dance in chains,” Parker said, “it is all the more a sin, in the cultivated and strong, in the Christian (!) to tyrannize over the feeble and the defenseless.”[28] These scholars failed to account for his preceding comments where Parker pointed out that the reason that Africans accepted slavery was that they had not experienced the civilizing effect of Christianity and thus did not realize the extent of their humanity. “The African thus made the victim of American cupidity and crime,” Parker declared, “the state of slavery, it will be said may not appear so degrading as to you and me, for he has never before been civilized . . . Christianity has not revealed to him the truth, that all men are brothers before God, born with equal rights. But this fact is no excuse or extenuation of our crime.”[29]

Parker felt that the reason for the Africans’ docility was that they had not yet experienced the enlightening experience of Christianity and did not realize that they had the same God-given human rights as their masters. In this sermon, Parker, as he would often do later, made slavery a national sin by laying the blame on Northern complicity as well as on Southern greed when he reminded his parishioners that “the sugar and rice we eat, the cotton we wear, are the work of slaves.”[30] Another reoccurring theme that Parker would later use, and which he would personally practice, was that God’s law trumped the law of man, and that God’s law needed to be obeyed, even if it meant disobeying the laws of man. “There is no supreme law but that made by God,” he said, “if our laws contradict that; the sooner they end or the sooner they are broken, why, the better.”[31]

The controversies surrounding Parker took a personal toll, and he feared that his ministerial career might be over. However, his congregation stood by him as he pushed in new intellectual directions. In September of 1843, Parker and Lydia took a long sabbatical to Europe, which he would later refer to as a year of “recovery, observation and thought.”[32] While in Europe he was moved by the “effect which despotic, monarchic, and aristocratic institutions have on multitudes of men” which he felt caused the poverty, repression and ignorance that he witnessed in the slums.[33] As a response he further developed his “American Idea” as a way to avoid the pitfalls that he saw in Europe. He often described his vision as an “Industrial Democracy,” which Parker saw as a society where everyone could achieve based upon their own merits and abilities, as opposed to an aristocracy where rank and position were inherited.[34] However, his first encounter with injustice on the trip occurred while in New York while waiting for his ship to sail.

On a visit to the New York Court of Sessions he witnessed the trial of a black man who was charged with abusing his wife. “This poor negro at trial for a crime showed me in miniature the whole of our social institutions,” Parker wrote, “1. He was the victim of Christian cupidity, and had been a slave. 2. From this he had probably escaped, by what was counted a crime by his master. 3. He was cast loose in a society where his colour debarred him the rights of a man, and forced him to count himself a beast, with nothing to excite [s]elf-respect either in his condition, his history, or his prospects . . . Oh, what wrongs does man heap on man!” [35]

In Europe Parker was excited to meet with many of the intellectuals and scientists who had inspired him and with whom he had corresponded.   In a letter to his friend Convers Francis, which he wrote while in England, he reported that he had “seen Carlyle twice, taken tea with him on Sunday night; and taken breakfast with Babbage, and had a fine visit; saw his wonders and heard his wonders. I shall have much to tell you some day.”[36] He appeared to be less enthused by a meeting with the Pope, which he had in company with a group of other Americans. While he spoke kindly of the Pope, noting his “simple dress of a monk” and his “benevolent face,” the audience did not seem to make a major impression on Parker as he only made a small note about it in his journal and did not record any emotional reaction to the meeting.[37] This is not to say that he was not impressed by the art and beauty of the churches and shrines that he visited, but his negative opinion of Catholicism was unchanged or perhaps reinforced. From Florence he wrote in another letter to Convers Francis that he loved “the music and architecture of Catholicism; its doctrines, its rites, and its general effect, I must say, I hate all the more in Europe than I hated at home.”[38]

Although he had preached on social ills previously, upon his return he began to emphasize individual transformation less and began to speak out more on the social issues of slavery, poverty, crime, drunkenness and greed. Despite, or perhaps because of, his continued notoriety, many people wanted to hear him. In January, 1845 a group of men met and passed a resolution that read, “Resolved, that the Rev. Theodore Parker shall have a chance to be heard in Boston,” and began a search for a suitable place for Parker to speak.[39]      At first Parker was reluctant to leave his congregation at Spring Street and preferred to speak in Boston on Sunday evenings in order that he might continue to serve his West Roxbury congregation.   However the only place available was the Melodeon Theater on Sunday mornings. Parker eventually agreed to their entreaties and left West Roxbury to form the 28th Congregational Society in Boston. Despite the fact that the Melodeon was a damp, dingy building, attendance grew until he was attracting over two thousand congregants on Sunday mornings. From his Boston pulpit Parker’s influence increased as his writings and sermons were widely circulated, both nationally and internationally, and he became one of the nation’s most forceful and eloquent spokesmen on social issues including temperance, woman’s rights, poverty, as well as slavery.[40]

His sermons often drew many of the luminaries of the abolitionist movement including William Lloyd Garrison, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Julia Ward Howe, Samuel Gridley Howe, and Louisa May Alcott, as well as African-American historian William Cooper Nell. After a few years, the congregation moved to the Boston Music Hall where even larger audiences came to hear him speak. Parker’s rise in popularity and his large following caused consternation among his former colleagues who tried to keep their own congregants from jumping ship to attend Parker’s church. His congregation was only nominally Unitarian, and many of his followers called themselves “Parkerites.”[41]

Although he was not yet a fully committed abolitionist, he began to lecture at abolitionist venues.   In November of 1844 he spoke to the Adelphi Union, also known as the “Negro Lyceum.” He found the experience gratifying, and his speech was enthusiastically received by the audience. After being introduced by William Cooper Nell as a “friend of Mankind,” he recorded in his journal that he had not been “gratified with any applause received this long time as tonight.”[42] He also started meeting and befriending anti-slavery leaders such as Frances Jackson and Samuel J. May, both of whom became close friends. In addition, Parker became acquainted with the best known abolitionist leader, William Lloyd Garrison, who would eventually begin attending Parker’s services.[43]

The war that the United States fought with Mexico between 1846 and 1848 moved Parker into the next phase of his anti-slavery activities. Parker, like other abolitionists, saw the war as an attempt to expand slavery by annexing Southwestern territories, including California, which were currently claimed by Mexico. Adding new slave states would have opened the door to the spread of slavery into other Western territories and would have increased the influence of southern politicians, whom Parker frequently referred to as the “Slave Power.”

While Parker condemned the war as an “utter violation of Christianity,” he had no doubt that the final outcome would be a victory for the United States because, as he put it, the “Mexicans cannot stand before this terrible Anglo-Saxon race, the most formidable and powerful the world ever saw.” While he gave Mexicans credit for having previously abolished slavery, he termed them a “wretched people; wretched in their origin, history, and character” who could “never stand before us. How they perished in battle!”[44]

Parker’s description of the war as a conflict between two races rather than two nations reflected the influence of the work of late-eighteenth century German philosopher Johann Gottfried von Herder. As a Transcendentalist, Parker was heavily influenced by the works of German philosophers, and he had added the complete works of Herder to his extensive library. According to historian George Fredrickson, “Herder attempted to deal impartially with a variety of cultural or national gifts.”[45] Using this philosophy, romantic racialists like Parker were able to see special traits in separate ethnic groups or nations. Anglo-Saxons were portrayed as strong and resourceful with a desire to conquer and expand, yet with an innate love of individual liberty. Africans on the other hand were often seen as meek and gentle, and were sometimes portrayed as childlike. These supposed humble characteristics of the African were often used by some romantic racialist writers to portray blacks as being capable of becoming truer Christians than Anglo-Saxons because of the Caucasians’ naturally aggressive traits. As Unitarian minister William Ellery Channing wrote in his essay, “Emancipation,” the African was better suited to experience Christianity because he “carries within him, much more than we, the germs of a meek, long-suffering, loving virtue.”[46]

According to historian Paul Teed, another aspect of Herder’s work was that he did not see nations as “the product of political contracts between individuals,” but rather based on common cultures, race, religion and language. [47] This allowed Parker to see American accomplishments resulting from their Anglo-Saxon race rather than based on any geographical or environmental advantages that the country may possess. Thus, in Parker’s rationale, Mexico was not destined to lose to a stronger United States, but rather the “Mexicans” were doomed to lose to the racially superior “Anglo-Saxons.” [48]

Following the war, some pro-slavery spokesmen advocated annexing all or at least a portion of Mexico itself. However, the idea of annexing Mexico met opposition from some of the strongest proponents of slavery because they feared the prospect of assimilating the “inferior” mixed blood population of Mexico. In a speech on the Senate Floor, John C. Calhoun argued against annexation because the United States had never “incorporated into the union any but the Caucasian race. . . . Ours is a government of the white man . . . in the whole history of man . . . there is no instance whatever of any civilized colored race, of any shade, being found equal to the establishment and maintenance of free government.”[49] Calhoun’s opinion of the Mexican people was not dissimilar to Parker’s description of them as a “wretched people, wretched in their origin, history, and character.”[50] However, Parker did not have the fear of racial assimilation that Calhoun did. The Anglo-Saxon race “had a nationality so strong, that while they have mingled with other nations . . . they have stoutly held their character through all,” he said in an 1848 sermon, and “they have thus modified feebler nations joined with them.”[51] Reflecting the influence of Herder, Parker believed that racial mixing would result in a new and improved version of the Anglo-Saxon breed.

Parker saved some of his strongest racial comments for the Celtic Irish. In his undated missive, “Some thoughts on the Charities of Boston,” his dislike of the Irish was in full bloom. Where today we might examine issues demographically in order to ascertain causes of poverty and other social problems, Parker took an ethnological approach and considered racial abilities and characteristics as being both the cause and, in some cases, the solution to a problem. Parker believed that “(1) Anglo-Saxon pauperism . . . is easily disposed of. (2) German pauperism [recent immigrants as opposed to original Anglo-Saxon settlers] will give us little trouble. (3) Jewish pauperism will take care of itself . . . and will be taken charge of by Jewish Almsgiving – which is the distributive virtue of that people.” “African Pauperism,” Parker felt, could be “easily dealt with. The negro is the least acquisitive of all men; his nature is tropical.”[52]

After disposing of any problems with Anglo-Saxon and German poverty, supposedly because they were naturally self-reliant; Jewish poverty, since Jews would take care of their own; and African poverty, because they could naturally get by with less; Parker launched into a two-page tirade about “Celtic Pauperism” that he called “our Stone of Stumbling.” He claimed that “the Irishman has three bad things – bad-habits, bad religion, and worst of all a bad nature.” (Parker’s emphasis) “In dealing with Irish poor I lay down 3 maxims,” he declared, “(1) The Irishman will always lie if it is for his momentary interest. (2) He will not work while he can exist by begging. (3) He will steal when he can get a chance . . . I might add a 4th – Paddy will get drunk if he can find liquor . . . the bulk of our pauperism is Irish.”[53]

Parker felt it had been a mistake to put the “headquarters” of the main charitable organization “near the center of the Boston Paddy –Land,” because according to Parker, the Irish “squats in the Ante-room of the Provident Aid Society” and “the till of Charity draws Paddies.”[54] He then recommended that if the aid society were to build a new facility, it “should not be in such fatal proximity to the Irish,” and it “should be ventilated well.”[55]           Parker saw poverty as a problem that was caused by and could be ameliorated by the abilities and expectations of various racial groups, except by the hapless Irish. By classifying the Irish as a lesser race and as a lower class of Caucasian, he used race as a social construct to preserve the social and political position of the Anglo-Saxons from the increasing influx of Irish immigrants.

Parker’s speeches and sermons were often published and circulated throughout the South as well as the North, which sometimes provoked southern slave owners to write rather heated responses to Parker. In January of 1848 he received such a letter from a slave-holder near Athens, Georgia, which resulted in a spirited exchange of correspondence. The slave-owner, whose name is unknown, wrote a long letter that used the Old Testament story of Ham’s curse to justify slavery. He challenged “You Negrophilists” to prove that the scriptures did not countenance the “slavery of the children of Ham, who are veritably the negro race.”[56]

At this point in time, Parker felt that it was possible to have a civil discourse with southerners about slavery. He replied that “you need not suppose that I have any spite against the slaveholders.” He believed that slave-holding was a sin but that he would not condemn someone because they owned slaves. “I know what sin is,” he said, “God only knows who is a sinner.”[57] Parker disputed the validity of the story of Ham, saying that he considered it a “foolish story got up to satisfy the hatred which the Jews felt against the Canaanites.”[58] This provoked another long letter from the slave-holder in which he criticized Parker’s theology and ridiculed all abolitionists. At this point Parker grew frustrated, and in March he replied with a short note.   He wrote that he now saw that it was useless to discuss slavery with the correspondent and that he confessed “my inability to reason with you.” Parker would soon move from trying to reason with slave-owners to more direct violent action to oppose slavery.

In 1848 Parker published his Letter to the People of the United States Touching on the Matter of Slavery, in which he detailed the negative effects of slavery on the general population as well as on the slave himself. In it, Parker expressed some sentiments that he would later abandon, but he also laid out some themes that he would continue to use and to expand upon. There were “many kind and considerate slave-holders whose aim is to make their slaves as comfortable and happy as possible while they are slaves,” he wrote, “men who feel and know that slavery is wrong, and would gladly be rid of it.” However, Parker noted that even under the “mildest and most humane of masters” slavery was still wrong and “brings intensity of suffering.”[59] As he had written to the Georgia slave-owner earlier, Parker, like many other moderate abolitionists, refrained from directly condemning slave holders and hoped to end slavery by using moral arguments to urge them to free their slaves. The idea that there were “kind and considerate” masters is one that he would completely jettison as his abolitionist fervor intensified.

One theme he expressed in the letter was his often repeated definition of democracy as “government of all, for all and by all,” which in the Letter he contrasted to the oligarchy of the slave-holding southern states as “government over all, by a few, and for the sake of that few.”[60] Another theme that he would consistently maintain was that slavery kept the slaves from realizing and attaining their full human potential. The slave was “only continued in slavery by restraining him from the civilization of mankind in this age,” Parker explained, “his mind, conscience, soul – all his nobler powers – must be kept in a state of inferior development, otherwise he will not be a slave in the nineteenth century, and in the United States.”[61] Parker would consistently maintain his belief that members of the African race had the possibility for growth and improvement. They were held back by the repressive effects of slavery and only by preventing them from realizing their humanity could they be kept in bondage.

Another theme in his Letter that he would return to in the future was his classification of southerners as a lesser part of the Anglo-Saxon family who had degenerated due to their embrace of slavery. He often described southerners as less industrious, less educated and less religious than the robust Northerners, and he felt that Southerners had abandoned the democratic principles of the revolutionary generation. He noted that when the Declaration of Independence was written, slavery existed in all thirteen colonies. But, “in the religious colonies of New England it was always unpopular and odious,” Parker explained, and “after the revolution therefore it speedily disappeared.” [62] Conversely, in the Southern colonies “the character of the people was different,” he wrote, and “religion never held so prominent a place in the consciousness of the mass as in the sterner and more austere colonies of the North.”[63] Political events would soon bring the reality of slavery to Parker’s New England and he would be confronted with the reality that slaves who had escaped to the safe haven of Boston, including members of his congregation, could be forced back into captivity.

CHAPTER 2 – FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT, PARKER’S TRIAL, AND RACIAL SCIENCE

The next phase of Parker’s abolitionism was marked by the passage by Congress of a series of bills known as the Compromise of 1850. One part of the compromise was the Fugitive Slave Act, which gave federal authorities the power to arrest escaped slaves who had fled to free states and to return them to their owners without a jury trial. The act also made it a federal felony for anyone to assist escaped slaves. In 1793 Congress had passed a weaker fugitive slave law that asserted federal authority on the rendition of escaped slaves, but it left enforcement to the states. Southern slave owners felt that some Northern free states were less than diligent in this duty.[1]

For example, in Massachusetts where slavery was unpopular, no slave was returned under the 1793 law, and Massachusetts became known as a haven for escaped slaves. The Fugitive Slave Act converted the current network of federal commissioners into a bureaucracy for apprehending and returning escaped slaves. Federal commissioners were the most common federal court officials. They were paid on a fee-for-service basis and performed such administrative tasks as taking depositions, and also had the power to arrest and hold for trial people charged with lesser federal charges. Under the new act slave owners or their agents were able to apply to a federal commissioner for a warrant for the return of a person who they claimed to be their property. The commissioner was paid ten dollars if he granted the warrant and five if he did not. Furthermore, the alleged slave was not given the right of a trial, and instead of state officials, federal marshals and sometimes federal troops were now used to enforce the law.[2]

This act infuriated northern citizens who had previously been ambivalent about slavery and who now saw this intrusion of federal power on their “states rights” as a threat to their own freedoms. Although they had previously been disparaged and abused, the Fugitive Slave Act gave the arguments of the abolitionists more credence and motivated them to re-double their efforts. It also increased Parker’s antislavery militancy and led him to become a nationally recognized spokesman for the cause. Where a few years previously he had written about “kind and considerate” slave owners, he now began to write about the right and obligation of slaves to defend themselves with physical force. “The fugitive slave has the same natural right to defend himself against the slave catcher that he has against a murderer or a wolf,” Parker wrote, “the man who attacks me to reduce me to slavery . . . alienates his right to life.”[3]

Parker also began to expand his concept of the “American Idea” and to stress that slavery was incompatible with the principles of a free nation. In a speech to the New England Anti-Slavery Convention in May of 1850 he defined his concept as three basic points, all of which were based on the Declaration of Independence. The first was that “all men have unalienable rights,” and secondly, “all men are created equal.” His third point was that the purpose of government was to provide every man the “opportunity for the enjoyment and development of all these unalienable rights.” Parker believed that freedom and slavery were diametrically incompatible concepts and realized that the existence of both would lead to civil war. “We cannot have any settled and lasting harmony until one or the other of these ideas is cast out of the councils of the nation,” he said, “so there must be war between them before there can be peace.”[4]

Parker was alarmed by the threat that the Fugitive Slave Act posed to the black citizens of Boston, some of whom were members of his congregation. The lack of due process meant that even free blacks were fearful of being arrested and being sent into bondage which caused great angst among the African population of the North.   According to Parker’s biographer Jonathan Weiss, “more than forty fled from Boston alone, within three days from the signing of the Bill from the President.”[5] “Vigilance Committees” were formed in many cities and towns to prevent the arrest of fugitive slaves by monitoring and preventing slave hunters from completing their tasks. Parker was the leader of the Boston committee and his efforts earned him the unofficial title of “Minister-at-Large” for fugitive slaves. At least a quarter of the committee’s membership and the majority of the executive committee were members of his congregation. Often violence or the threat of violence was used to harass the slave hunters in order to prevent them from capturing their victims.[6]

In October of 1850, one month after the passage of the act, two slave hunters arrived in Boston from Macon, Georgia intending to capture escaped slaves, William and Ellen Craft, who were members of Parker’s congregation. The Craft’s escape from Georgia was unique. As described by Parker’s friend and fellow abolitionist, F.B. Sanborn, Ellen was “so nearly white . . . that in her journey of four days from Macon to Philadelphia she passed successfully as a young [male] slaveholder traveling North with his body servant [William].”[7] Parker hid Ellen in his house and as he wrote in his journal, “that is a pretty state of things, that I am liable to be fined 1000 dollars and gaoled for six months for sheltering one of my own parishioners, who has violated no law of God, and only took possession of herself!”[8] Parker did more than just hide and protect the Crafts. He convinced the slave hunters that it would be better for their health if they left Boston without their prey.

The slave hunters’ presence was well known in Boston, and they had been subjected to considerable harassment by citizens on the streets. With a threatening crowd outside, members of the Vigilance Committee, led by Parker, visited them at their hotel. Parker recorded the visit in his journal. “I came to keep them safe from harm.” Parker told them, “I was a minister, and came as a friend to them. Some were disposed to violence, I not.” Parker explained that he “had stood between them and violence once – I would not promise to do it again,” and that it would be best if they left town. The slave hunters took Parker’s advice and fled without their captives.[9]

While the Crafts were in hiding, they were married by Parker, as slave marriages were not legally recognized. After the ceremony, Parker gave William a lecture about his duty to protect his wife, and according to Parker’s journal, he gave him a Bible and “told him the use of it.” Parker then put a knife, which he often referred to as a sword, into “his right hand and told him if the worst came to the worst to use that to save his wife’s liberty, or her life, if he could effect it no other way.”[10]

This lecture on courage might have seemed unnecessary to a couple who had risked their lives on a daring escape from Georgia. Parker, however, felt strongly enough about his action that he wrote a letter to President Millard Fillmore about it as a way of expressing his disapproval of the Fugitive Slave Act, which Fillmore had signed. He identified himself to the President as a Boston minister who had an “ill name and am one of the most odious men in this State,” and who led a “large religious society” which had several escaped slaves among its members. Parker reminded the president that these fugitives had “committed no wrong,” and had “the same ‘unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’ that you have.”   He described the marriage of William and Ellen Craft, and wrote that following the ceremony he had “put a Bible and then a sword into William’s hands, and told him the use of each.” After effectively telling the president that he was a radical preacher who had deliberately committed a felony by violating a federal statute and was arming escaped slaves, Parker described his grandfather’s muskets from the revolution and told the president that he would continue to disobey the Fugitive Slave Act because “We must keep the law of God.”[11]

The Crafts and their supporters feared that another attempt would be made to capture them, so they fled first to Canada and then to England. Parker wrote a letter of introduction to some English abolitionist friends, the Martineaus, in which he conveyed the circumstances of the Craft’s escape, first from slavery to Boston, and then their flight from Boston to England. He described the Crafts as “sober and industrious people” who were members of his congregation, and said that by meeting the Craft’s “you may see what sort of men and women we make slaves of in ‘the Model Republic'” He closed on an ironic note by recounting that he kept his grandfather’s muskets from the Battle of Lexington in his study, “but now I am obliged to look to ‘the British’ for protection for the liberty of two of my own parishioners who have committed no wrong.”[12]

Parker’s activities on behalf of fugitive slaves were roundly condemned by members of Boston’s conservative judiciary, especially Associate Supreme Court Justice, and United States Circuit Court Judge for New England, Benjamin Curtis. The conflict between the two men was complicated and was partially rooted in a class conflict. Both men were from old New England families and were raised in modest conditions. While Parker had excelled at Harvard Divinity School, Curtis had been a star student at Harvard Law School. Curtis was a member of King’s Chapel, the most conservative Unitarian congregation in Boston. As a member of King’s Chapel and as a respected member of the Boston Bar, he identified with the elite upper class and looked askance at Parker’s large and largely middle class congregation of political and theological radicals. Curtis believed that respect for the law was the root of social order and that Parker’s obedience to a higher power instead of man’s law would lead to anarchy. In addition, Curtis was dismayed that Parker also taught that a jury should not only decide the facts of a case, but also the legitimacy of the law.[13]

In a letter to his younger brother, Federal Commissioner George Curtis, he expressed his disgust that so many Bostonians would attend Parker’s church and listen to a man “who avows himself to be devoted to the destruction of his country.”[14] On the other hand, the entire Curtis family was reviled by abolitionists for their efforts in supporting and enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act and often referred to them as the “Curtii” or “Curtisocracy.”  At a “Constitution and Union” meeting, organized by the Curtis family and held at Faneuil Hall in November of 1850, Curtis condemned the positions of “the reverend preacher” and accused Parker of advocating perjury. A sensation in the audience occurred when Parker, who unknown to Curtis was sitting in the gallery, rose to publicly confront Curtis. Order was restored and the meeting concluded, but the antipathy between them was apparent. The two men loathed each other.[15]

The strong, sometimes violent reaction of some Bostonians to slave hunters and federal officials was illustrated by the rescue of another fugitive slave, Shadrach Minkins. In February of 1851 a mob burst into the courtroom of Federal Commissioner George Curtis, forcibly freed Minkins, and rushed him to safety in Canada. Parker was not directly involved in the rescue, but wrote in his journal that it was “the most noble deed done in Boston since the destruction of the tea in 1773. I thank God for it.”[16] George Curtis was humiliated and outraged by the event and understandably had a different opinion. In contrast to Parker’s description of the rescue as a “noble deed,” Curtis wrote that it was comparable to waging war against the United States and was the equivalent of treason.[17]

Shortly after the Minkins rescue another fugitive slave, Thomas Simms, was arrested.

Fearing a repeat of the Shadrach incident, federal authorities took stronger precautions, and despite the efforts of the Vigilance Committee, rescue attempts were unsuccessful. Surrounded by militia troops, Sims was put on a ship and sent back to Savannah, Georgia. According to Weiss, Simms was the first slave returned to bondage from Massachusetts since the Revolution.[18] After enduring over a decade in bondage, Simms once more managed to escape from slavery. During the Civil War, he managed to re-gain his freedom by crossing the Union lines and returned to Boston a free man. In 1877, the Federal Marshall who had led his rendition, Charles Devens, became U. S. Attorney-General, and in an apparent attempt to atone for his guilt, made Simms an employee of the Justice Department.[19]

On April 12, 1852, one year after Simm’s return to slavery, the Vigilance Committee held a meeting at the Melodeon to commemorate the rendition of Simms to bondage. At the event, Parker condemned the citizens and the leaders of Boston for forgetting their revolutionary heritage and reminded them that the day that Simms landed in Savannah, April 19, was the anniversary of the Battle of Lexington where “some noble men stood up there against the army of England.” “Now,” he said, “this faithful city [has] become a harlot.” Parker, never afraid to speak truth to power, condemned the political leaders of Massachusetts, especially Daniel Webster, for supporting the Compromise of 1850, and he condemned Boston businessmen for their greed and complicity in the slave trade. “Boston Capitalists do not hesitate to own Southern plantations, and buy and sell men,” he said, “Boston merchants do not scruple to let their ships for the domestic slave-trade, and carry the child from his mother in Baltimore, to sell him to a planter in Louisiana or Alabama.” To remind his audience that there would be consequences for those who disobeyed God’s law he concluded: “After the death the judgment!” [20]

Parker’s opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act brought him into conflict with his Unitarian ministerial colleagues. Despite the fact that he was considered a theological heretic by most Unitarian clergy, Parker maintained his ministerial membership in the American Unitarian Association and continued to attend its meetings. At the 1851 meeting, the subject of a minister’s duty in regard to the Fugitive Slave Act was discussed. According to Sanborn’s report of the meeting, Dr. Ezra Gannett of the prestigious Federal Street Church, spoke in favor of complying with the law, arguing that disobedience of this law would lead to the violation of all laws, and that it needed to be obeyed in order to preserve the union. His position may have been influenced by the fact that Federal Commissioner George T. Curtis was a prominent member of his congregation, who, according to Gannett, had the “most honorable motives for attempting to execute the law.”[21] Parker rose to rebut Gannett’s contention. The Fugitive Slave Law “violates the noblest instincts of humanity,” he declared. “It asks us to trample on the law of God.”[22] He further rebuked Gannett for “calling on his church members to kidnap mine and sell them into bondage forever.”[23] Sanborn did not record the response to Parker’s denunciation by Gannett or by any of the other ministers present.

Parker’s defiance of the Fugitive Slave Act eventually brought him into legal conflict with Judge Curtis. Anthony Burns, a young, itinerant Baptist preacher and fugitive slave who had escaped from Virginia two months earlier, was arrested on May 24, 1854 and brought before Federal Commissioner, and Curtis kinsman, Edward G. Loring. Parker and the Vigilance Committee learned of the proceedings and mobilized. They provided Burns with counsel and demanded a full hearing. A mass meeting was held the following night at Faneuil Hall with another rally planned for the following morning at the court house. At the second meeting, with a large body of people to support them, the committee planned to overawe the marshals and conduct a Shadrach-type rescue. [24]

At the evening meeting, the hall was filled to overflowing as speaker after speaker exhorted the crowd to stop the kidnapping. Parker spoke at the end of the program. He reminded the audience of their proud revolutionary heritage and that God’s law was superior to man’s law. “There is one law – slave law; it is everywhere,” he said, “there is another law, which also is a finality; and that law is in your hands and your arms, and you can put it into execution just when you see fit.”[25] Clearly Parker was issuing a call to action, but he intended it for the planned rally the next day. However, unknown to the speakers, another group of abolitionists decided to attack the court house that night while the meeting was going on. Word of their action reached the hall as Parker was speaking, and the crowd rushed out to support it. The attempt failed, and in the confusion one of the marshals was shot and killed. Federal troops were called in overnight to restore order, and on June 2, Burns was escorted by an armed guard to a ship that took him back to slavery. Anthony Burns’ story actually ended on a positive note. After his return, his owner decided to accept money that had been raised to purchase his freedom because, as Weiss recounted, “a bird in the hand was better than one who might take to the bush, with a whole flock behind him.”[26] Burns entered Oberlin College and became an ordained minister.[27]

Although Parker was not at the failed rescue attempt and actually tried to calm the crowd, Curtis had him, along with seven others, arrested for obstructing federal officers. He did not indict them under the Fugitive Slave Act. Realizing that a conviction for treason would be legally and politically difficult to obtain, he instead used a broader 1790 statute that made the obstruction of a federal legal process a misdemeanor. Parker took his arrest to be a badge of honor and saw himself in the same role as his revolutionary ancestors. Shortly after his arrest he wrote to his friend and fellow abolitionist Samuel J. May about his upcoming trial. At first he made light of it, recounting that he had been arrested the day before Thanksgiving and brought “before the Fugitive Slave Bill Commissioners.” In the next paragraph he turned more serious. “But joking aside – I think it quite a serious affair,” he wrote. “I stand now in as important a position as my Hon[ored] Grandfather at the Battle of Lexington, 1775. It is the Freedom of Speech which is assailed through me.”[28]

Before Parker’s case came to trial, Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act on May 30, 1854. Sponsored by Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois, this bill carved a separate territory of Kansas out of the vast Nebraska territory, creating two new potential slave states. Under the pretext of popular sovereignty, it permitted the citizens of each region to determine whether or not to allow slavery. This act violated the Missouri Compromise of 1820 by allowing the possibility of slavery in northern territories that had been part of the Louisiana Purchase, and it was feared that it would allow slavery to spread to other western territories. As Parker’s friend, F. B. Sanborn wrote, this act and the “movement to protect Kansas from the curse of slavery” helped move Parker into an even more militant phase of his abolitionist career.[29] As the debate raged, abolitionists mobilized to oppose the bill’s passage, and Parker preached a major sermon on “The Nebraska Question” at the Music Hall.

In addition to expressing his opposition to the bill, Parker also illustrated the way he used race to explain the course of history, in this case the history of slavery in America. He began by declaring that the arrival of the Anglo-Saxon settlers to America was “one of the most important events which has taken place in the last thousand years.” He noted that the Spanish had arrived earlier, but they were members of a deteriorating lesser race who “brought the proud but thin and sickly blood of a decaying tribe.” Parker also differentiated the Northern Anglo-Saxon colonist from those who settled the South. According to Parker, the Northern colonists were pious people who came to establish religious colonies, while in the South they “came as adventurers, seeking their fortune; not as pilgrims, to found the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth.” Since they had less religious morals, the Southern colonists allowed themselves to be tainted with the sin of slavery, which the Spanish had originally brought to the New World. In 1620 “the old sin of Egypt . . . rediscovered by the Spaniards,” Parker claimed, “was brought north, adopted by the Anglo-Saxons of the South, and set a going at Jamestown.” However, Parker did not hold the North blameless. “Wealth is the great object of American desire. Covetousness is the American passion,” admonished Parker, “in the American Church, Money is God.” He rebuked the North for acquiescing to Southern demands. “As soon as the North awakes to its ideas, and uses its vast strength of money, its vast strength of numbers, and still more gigantic strength of educated intellect,” Parker asserted, “we shall tread this monster underneath our feet.”[30]

This sermon reflected another shift in Parker’s growing militant abolitionism. He was now moving from urging passive resistance to issuing a call for direct action to resist slavery. He issued a similar call a few months later, saying that there were two ways to resist unjust laws. “First there is passive disobedience, non obedience,” he said, “second, there is active disobedience, which is resistance.”[31]

As he was calling for stronger antislavery efforts, Parker also began to speak out against not only slavery, but the unfair treatment of the free blacks living in Boston and other free states. Parker noted that the free homesteads given in the western territories were for white men only and that black children were not allowed to attend the Boston public schools. “His father helps pay for the public school,” Parker wrote, but “the son and daughter must not come in.”[32] These remarks were made as Parker’s friend and congregant black historian William Cooper Nell, along with other leaders of Boston’s black community, were pushing to integrate Boston’s public schools. While Parker did not take an official role in this movement, he was clearly supporting Nell’s efforts, which came to fruition when Boston’s schools were desegregated in 1855.[33]

Parker’s indictment for his part in the failed rescue attempt of Anthony Burns came to trial on April 3, 1855. However as the trial began, Justice Curtis, perhaps fearing that Parker would use his courtroom as a pulpit and create a public spectacle, dismissed the charges against all defendants on a technicality. His fears were well founded. Before the trial, Parker had decided that he, not his attorneys, would make the closing argument. Upset that he was denied his chance to state his case in court, Parker published The Trial of Theodore Parker with Defence. This book was more than a legal defense, but rather a detailed condemnation of slavery, the federal courts, and specifically Justice Curtis and the Curtis family. In the preliminary statements he reminded the jury that it was not he who was on trial but it was the “unalienable Rights of Humanity . . . your verdict is to vindicate Religion with Freedom of Speech, and condemn the stealing of men; or else to confirm Kidnapping and condemn Religion with Freedom of Speech.” He began his attack on “the Hon. Justice Curtis . . . his kinsfolk and friends,” by reminding the jury that “their chief title to distinction rests on their devotion to the fugitive slave bill.”[34]

Parker gave a detailed history of the English courts and compared Curtis to the infamous English judges who had been appointed by the English monarchs to enforce their will. He began with the reign of the Catholic Queen “Bloody Mary,” but focused on the Stuarts, especially Catholic James II. He noted that “one State-secret Lay at the bottom of the Stuart’s plans, – to appoint base men for judges . . . what names they offer us – Kelyng, Finch, Saunders, Wright, Jefferies, Scroggs! infamous creatures, but admirable instruments to   . . . devise means for the annihilation of the liberties of the people.” The comparison between these infamous English judges and the Curtis family would not have been lost on Parker’s nineteenth century readers. He reminded the jury that the case was not between the government and Parker, but rather “between the Fugitive Slave Bill and Humanity. You know the Functions of the Court – the manner of the Judges’ appointment – the services they are expected to render in cases like this, the services they have already rendered.”[35]

Following his litany of corrupt English judges, Parker compared them to Justice Curtis and the Curtis family, naming individual members and their involvement sending alleged escaped slaves back into bondage. “Gentlemen of the Jury,” he said, “I have shown you how, in Britain, the Government, seeking to oppress the people and to crush down freedom of speech, put into judicial offices such men as were ready to go to all lengths in support of profitable wickedness.” Speaking of Curtis he declared, “No lawyer in New England had laid down such southern ‘principles’ . . . none had rendered such service to the Slave Power.” He concluded by referring, as he frequently did, to the Battle of Lexington where “Hancock and Adams, the Moses and Aaron of that Great Deliverance, were both at Lexington, they also had ‘obstructed an officer’ and British troops were sent to capture them.” He then recounted the battle between the Lexington militia and the British Regulars and quoted the inscription on the monument to that battle: “Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God.”[36] It is no wonder that Justice Curtis had second thoughts about bringing Parker to trial.

As political events began to increasingly inflame the slavery issue, Parker started to shift his attention to national politics. Members of the abolitionist movement were divided over whether to get involved in the political process. The radical faction led by William Lloyd Garrison, who attended Parker’s services, saw abolitionism as a moral effort and focused their efforts using “moral suasion” to change the public’s attitude about slavery. Others advocated involvement in the political process and some, such as James Birney, formed the Liberty Party. The radical faction opposed the formation of a separate political party, fearing that it would make abolition a political instead of a moral issue. They believed that ending slavery without changing the public’s attitudes about race would be a hollow victory and would hinder efforts to build a more egalitarian society. Parker tried to bridge the gap between the two factions when he spoke at the New England Anti-Slavery Convention in 1848, saying “Some men will try political action. . . . I see not why men need quarrel about that. Let not him that voteth, condemn him that voteth not; nor let him that voteth not, condemn him that voteth, but let every man be faithful to his convictions.”[37]

Originally a Whig, Parker became disillusioned after many of the Northern party leaders, including Massachusetts Senator Daniel Webster, supported the Fugitive Slave Act. His allegiance then gravitated towards the newly formed Republican Party. Parker’s often repeated description of democracy as “government of all, by all, and for all” is credited by scholars with inspiring the close of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, “that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”[38] Parker’s influence on Lincoln was extensive and went beyond this one famous phrase. His writings were widely published and disseminated throughout the country. He was a sought after speaker at conventions and lyceums, and he made several speaking tours of the mid-West. Parker and Lincoln likely never met, but Parker maintained an active correspondence with Lincoln’s friend and law partner, William Herndon. One early letter to Herndon dated January 15, 1855 was a reply to Herndon thanking him for an invitation to speak at Springfield, but that his “trial takes place in March, and I make no arrangements after that, for who knows where I will be.”[39]

Parker gave Herndon his political advice and opinions on slavery, race and other matters. In an 1856 letter to Herndon, Parker blamed the spread of slavery on the natural instinct of the Anglo-Saxon race to expand. “The strong passion of the Saxon is lust of land,” he wrote, “it is so with the British Saxon, so with the American.”[40] In December 1856 he wrote that the “great bulk of the people are opposed to slavery in Kansas, always excepting the Irish – they are by instinct friendly to slavery.” He described them as the “Niggers of the South!”

In the same letter he offered his prediction of how the slavery question might end. “The South may conquer the North … the North may conquer the South,” he predicted, or “the two may separate without a fight.” [41] This sentiment, which Parker had written about previously, is similar to Lincoln’s famous “A House Divided Speech” in which he declared, “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe that this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.”[42] According to Sanborn, Lincoln was greatly influenced by Parker’s published sermons and writings as well as by Parker’s letters to Herndon; “The ‘house divided against itself’ came out of Parker’s published words, long before Lincoln adopted that strong figure and gave it universal currency.”[43]

Sometimes Parker’s political predictions were faulty, and while he admired Lincoln and detested Douglas, he also felt free to criticize Lincoln. In September of 1858 as the famous Lincoln – Douglas debates were under way, Parker wrote Herndon that he was following them with interest. He also offered that he had “no doubt that Douglas will be beaten,” but criticized Lincoln for equivocating on some questions, “Lincoln Dodged them, that is not the way to fight the battle of freedom.”[44] In another letter he predicted that William Seward would be nominated and elected President in 1860.[45]

The 1850s was an increasingly frustrating decade for the abolitionist movement as the pro-slavery political forces made steady progress in their goal of spreading slavery beyond the Southern states. Americans had been moving Westward since colonial times, and the nation’s geographical reach was once again greatly expanded by the 1848 treaty with Mexico. While Texas had entered the Union as a slave state in 1845, the treaty ceded a vast swath of the Southwest, including California, to the United States. Despite the fact that the annexation of Mexico had previously been opposed by some leading pro-slavery spokesmen because of their fear of assimilating the “inferior” Mexican race, other slavery advocates began again to eye the tropical regions of Mexico, Latin American and the Caribbean islands as places to expand slavery. To justify their reasoning they turned to science.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries many scientists became preoccupied with efforts to explain racial differences, and their work lead to the development of the discipline of Ethnology. The credentials of some of these racial researchers, such as Dr. Josiah Nott of Mobile, Alabama, and his associate George R. Gliddon, were questionable. Others however, such as Louis Agassiz and Samuel George Morton were legitimate scientists.[46]

Early scientific works on race stressed the importance of environmental factors as causes of racial differences. In 1787 Samuel Stanhope Smith, president of what is now Princeton University, wrote his Essay on the Causes and the Variety of Complexion and Figure in the Human Species. Smith supported the “monogenesis” theory that all races were descended from the same ancient ancestors, and he believed that the differences among the races were caused by environmental effects like climate or by the conditions in which they lived, such as living in “savagery” or being exposed to “civilization.” According to Smith, Caucasians were the superior race from which other races had degenerated and the standard to which all other races should be compared. Since Caucasians were the dominate race, he maintained that after emancipation the environment of America would eliminate racial differences. [47]   In effect, the Africans would become white, a theory that Parker accepted.

By the 1840s and 1850s, the environmental school, and its belief that racial differences could be changed, was supplanted by the biological school that held that racial characteristics were inherent and permanent. Count Joseph de Gobineau, considered by many to be the father of modern racism, asserted that “Negros had an absolutely fixed and unchangeable set of undesirable traits.”[48] Science began to be used to prove the permanent inferiority of the African race and to justify slavery. Despite this scientific trend, Parker held onto the environmental school’s belief that racial traits were not permanent and that racial change and growth was possible.

Instead of the monogenesis theory that all races had a common ancestor, some scientists, led by Dr. Samuel George Morton, began to promote the “polygenesis” theory that each race was descended from a different set of ancestors. By studying skulls, Morton deduced that the races were created separately and were distinct species, not varieties of the same species.[49] His theory allowed slavery supporters to claim that Africans were subhuman and therefore the statement in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal” with “inalienable right” did not apply to them.

Polygenesis received a boost with the arrival of Louis Agassiz to the United States. Born in Switzerland in 1807, Agassiz was an esteemed scientist whose early claim to fame was as one of the discoverers of the Ice Age. He believed that God had created life on Earth many times, and that after each creation a natural disaster such as the Ice Age had destroyed all life. Following the extinction of all life, God then created new and better species. He reassured his readers that since man was the ultimate form of life, there would be no more extinction-causing catastrophes.[50]

In 1846 Agassiz came to Boston to deliver a series of scientific lectures. The response was overwhelming, and large crowds turned out to hear him. The intelligentsia of Boston were so taken with him that Harvard established the Lawrence Scientific School to entice him to stay and to accept a Harvard professorship. He readily accepted, partly because his estranged wife was waiting for him in Europe. After she died of tuberculosis in 1848 he married Elizabeth Cabot Cary, which further established his place in Boston society. Besides being a member of the prominent Cabot family, Elizabeth Cary was a woman of accomplishment in her own right. She was a pioneering educator who later became the first president of Radcliffe College. It is illustrative of Agassiz’s stature among Bostonians that the literary and dining club known as the Saturday Club which included such luminaries as Emerson, Longfellow and Hawthorne was frequently referred to as “Agassiz’s Club.”[51] Parker was less impressed with Agassiz whom he once derided as a “Swiss dissector of mud-turtles.”[52]

Originally Agassiz was an adherent of the monogenesis concept of human creation, but was converted to polygenesis after becoming friends with Samuel Morton. Morton’s theories on race were consistent with Agassiz’s pre-Darwinian belief that each species was created separately by supernatural design. Agassiz also found Morton’s theory that each race was created and designed to live in the region where it was originally located, compatible with his belief that plants and animals were created in specific regions and had not migrated or mutated over time.[53]

Agassiz also supported and contributed to the work of Dr. Josiah Knott who became the leading proponent of polygenesis after the death of Morton in 1851. Through the work of Knott and Gliddon, polygenesis became known as the American School of Anthropology. Knott was an unapologetic supporter of slavery, who often referred to his work as “the nigger business” or “niggerology.”[54] Despite his support of Knott and Gliddon’s work, Agassiz disapproved of slavery and “considered it a most injudicious proceeding to attempt to force the peculiarities of our white civilization of the nineteenth century upon all nations of the world.”[55] According to literary scholar Louis Menand, Agassiz believed that polygenesis did not give whites the right to dominate other races, but rather he was a firm believer in racial separation. His theory that “the boundaries within which the different natural combinations of animals are known to be circumscribed upon the surface of the earth, coincide with the natural ranges of distinct types of man” meant that different races were meant to live apart in different temperate regions.[56] As much as he deplored slavery, Agassiz dreaded the prospect of race mixing and racial equality more.[57]

The work of Knott, Gliddon and Agassiz gave pro-slavery advocates a scientific foundation for their arguments for expanding American slavery into the tropics. One of the leading promoters of this tropical expansion was Dr. John H. Van Evrie of New York, who wrote in De Bow’s Review, the leading Southern business journal, that the Northern tier of slave states would eventually become free as the increasing European immigration into the United States would create an influx of free white labor. According to Van Evrie’s vision, the South would need an outlet for its slave population that would be best provided by expansion into the American tropics, a natural habitat of the Africans. Since, according to Van Evrie, blacks would not work without the discipline of slavery, he envisioned a Caribbean slave empire where whites would live in the highlands with black slaves living and toiling in the low coastal areas. While whites could not live in the low-lying areas, they could visit often enough to provide the needed supervision and guidance. The acquisition of additional territory from Mexico and the annexation Cuba were key components of Van Evrie’s scheme.[58]

Although Parker’s racial attitudes were heavily influenced by contemporary scientific opinions, he had little regard for Agassiz, Knott and Gliddon. He rejected their polygenesis theory because it conflicted with his Transcendentalist belief that everyone, including slaves, had an “inner light” that gave them human dignity and the ability to perceive religious truth. This led him to hold onto the environmental school of racial thought, which permitted him to foresee the possibility of racial growth and development. In an 1854 letter to his friend and favorite scientific correspondent, Swiss geologist Eduard Desor, Parker described Knott and Gliddon’s major book, Types of Mankind, in which they expounded on their polygenesis theory, as “a curious passage of sense and nonsense,” and he noted that “Agassiz has contributed a good deal.”[59] Despite his rejection of polygenesis, Parker accepted the theory that the black race was naturally best suited to live in the warm tropics. Speaking of fugitive slaves forced to flee Boston because of the Fugitive Slave Act, Parker lamented that they were forced to escape “into the winter of Canada, which to the African what our rude climate is to the Goldfinch and to the Canary-bird.”[60]

Parker’s adherence to the environmental school of racial theory is shown in an 1854 letter he wrote to Desor while on a speaking trip to the mid-West. Parker felt that the western climate was detrimental to the mental and physical character of the normally vibrant Anglo-Saxons. He wrote that he had seen no rosy-cheeked children. Furthermore, “the women have no bosoms,” he observed, “they are tall and boney; their hair lank, their faces thin and flatly cheeked. What effect is this western climate to have on the human race? It must check the intensity of the Anglo-Saxon character.” [61] He felt that because of their environment the Western Anglo-Saxons were losing the vigor and vitality that had made their race great. Parker not only believed that, whether black African or white Anglo-Saxon, climate and environmental conditions had a direct effect on racial characteristics, but also change could happen rapidly, within a few generations.

Parker’s racial pride was shown in an 1854 sermon, “Some Thoughts on the Progress of America,” when he wrote that “the Anglo-Saxon colonists brought with them the vigorous bodies and sturdy intellect of their race,” and praised their “strong love of individual freedom,” and “love of law and order.”[62] However, despite his racial pride, he also found fault and room for improvement. “We are the most aggressive, invasive, and exclusive people on the Earth,” he lamented.[63] While Parker often spoke with pride of the strength and courage of his race and criticized Africans for their presumed meekness and unwillingness to fight, he would often point out that the traits that he felt made the Anglo-Saxons great also led them to excesses, like their embrace of the sin of slavery.

While most Americans looked upon race mixing with horror, Parker, reflecting Herder’s belief that each race had unique and special characteristics, suggested racial amalgamation as a way to temper the overly aggressive tendencies of Anglo-Saxons. He noted that statistics already showed a “remarkable mingling of the Caucasian and the Ethiopian races going on. The Africans are rapidly ‘bleaching’ under the influence of democratic chemistry.”[64] Parker believe that after emancipation a new composite breed would evolve in the American continent. “There is a new continent now for the first time married to the civilized world,” he predicted, “various races of men mingle their blood – Indians, Africans, Caucasians; various tribes – Celtic Irish, Welsh, Scotch, Anglo-Saxon, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Dutch, German, Polish, Swiss French, Spanish; all these are here. Each will contribute its best to the general stock.”[65]

He re-emphasized the point in another speech that he delivered the same year to the New York Anti-Slavery Society. He noted that the nation had twenty-four million men with “strong, real, Anglo-Saxon blood” in their veins, but who could benefit from the presence of “eight millions and a half more of other families and races, just enough to temper the Anglo-Saxon blood, to furnish a new composite tribe, far better I trust than the old.”[66] His vision was that the new breed would be an improved version of Anglo-Saxons with some of their excesses tempered by the positive traits of the other races.

Parker’s attitude about the supposed unwillingness of Africans to fight was evolving. In 1856 he cautioned that if the slaves were kept in bondage and not allowed to develop their humanity, they would naturally turn to violence. “If America keeps the slave from developing the noblest quality of his nature, then he falls back on his lowest,” he said, “the power of wrath never fades out of human bones.” Speaking of the slave revolt in Haiti he warned, “unless we amend, one day there will be a St. Domingo in America.”[67] In the same sermon he foresaw that civil war was the only way to end slavery. “Once I thought it might end peacefully,” he said, [but] “now I think it must fall as so many another wickedness, in violence and blood.”[68] Parker’s abolitionism was entering a more militant phase where he was envisioning slaves taking up arms in a slave rebellion with the possibility of wanton violence.

 

CHAPTER 3 – INCREASED MILITANCY, DRED SCOTT AND JOHN BROWN

Following the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, violence broke out among bands of pro- and antislavery partisans in what came to be called “Bleeding Kansas.” Parker became an ardent supporter of the antislavery fighters, especially the most famous and radical of them all, John Brown. The deeply religious Brown had a checkered past of failed businesses and unpaid debts when he approached wealthy New York land owner Gerrit Smith in 1848, asking for a grant of land in the colony of freed blacks, which Smith had founded at North Elba, New York.   Brown offered to move his large family to the struggling settlement in order to “show my colored neighbors how much work should be done; will give them work as I have occasion, look after them in all needful ways, and be a kind of father to them.”[1] Smith, apparently unaware of Brown’s troubled economic state, agreed to sell him the land at the bargain price of $1 per acre on credit and, most importantly to Brown, did not set a re-payment due date. His relationship with Brown would eventually cost Smith much more than the unpaid bill for the land.[2]

When the fighting began in Kansas, Brown, along with his sons and other followers, moved to Kansas and became one of the most violent of the anti-slavery fighters. He gained notoriety for his raid on the settlement at Potawatomie Creek where, using broadswords, he killed and mutilated the bodies of pro-slavery settlers. The “Pottawatomie Massacre” horrified the moderate anti-slavery leaders who were hoping for a peaceful resolution to the situation. According to historian Edward Renehan, newly appointed Territorial Governor John Geary cracked down on the partisans on both sides and gradually brought an end to the fighting, creating an uneasy peace. Brown, who had a price on his head, decided to return East to raise funds for his next great anti-slavery battle. He was a very charismatic and persuasive person, and despite his violent history, became a cause de célèbre among Boston abolitionists, including Parker, who were impressed by Brown’s exploits and willingness to take direct action against the slave owners.[3]

When he arrived in Boston in January of 1857, Brown first met the twenty-six-year-old Sanborn who was the secretary of the Massachusetts State Kansas committee, an organization formed to supply weapons and supplies to anti-slavery settlers from Massachusetts. By this time Parker’s militancy had increased to the point that he actively supported armed rebellion to resist slavery. In his journal entry of April 2, 1856, Parker recounted seeing a party of Massachusetts settlers off on their journey to Kansas in which he referred to their Sharp’s rifles as “twenty copies of ‘Sharp’s Rights of the People’ . . . of the new and improved edition, and divers [sic] Colt’s six-shooters also.” Parker lamented “what a comment were the weapons of that company on the boasted democracy of America! These rifles and pistols were to defend their soil from the American Government, which wishes to plant slavery in Kansas!”[4]

Sanborn introduced Brown to Parker who organized a reception for Brown in his home, where Brown was able to meet and enchant other potential financial supporters. Not all abolitionists were enthralled by Brown. Wendell Phillips was troubled by Brown’s massacre at Pottawatomie, and Brown’s violence was in direct conflict with the nonresistance beliefs of William Lloyd Garrison. Others, like Parker, found Brown a compelling and heroic figure who was prepared to take the fight directly to slavery supporters. The first donations that Brown received were intended to provide arms to support his efforts in Kansas, but Parker and other abolitionists were soon drawn into Brown’s plan to deal a decisive blow to slavery, not in Kansas but in the slave-holding Southern states.[5] Before that occurred however, the Supreme Court dealt the anti-slavery movement another blow that increased the abolitionist’s sense of urgency and moved the country closer to sectional conflict.

On March 6, 1857 the Supreme Court announced its infamous Dred Scott decision. Scott was the slave of an army doctor who took Scott with him when assigned to posts in free states and territories. Scott sued for his freedom, claiming that he was free due to his residence in the non-slave areas. In the decision written by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, the court ruled that no descendant of a slave could be a citizen of the United States or a citizen of an individual state, and denied Scott’s request for freedom. Taney also ruled that Congress did not have the authority to regulate or prohibit slavery in the territories, thus the Missouri Compromise, which had restricted the spread of slavery, was deemed unconstitutional.     Northern abolitionists feared that the decision would lead to the spread of slavery into the Western territories as well legalizing slavery nationally. The decision also undermined the already precarious position of the free blacks in the Northern states, and many people, including Parker, feared that it would eventually lead to the resumption of the African slave trade. In a letter to Herndon Parker condemned the Democratic Party for supporting the decision and predicted that “the Supreme Court will decide that it is unconstitutional to prohibit the importation of slaves, and the Democrats will endorse the decision.”[6]

In an odd twist of history, Parker’s old nemesis Benjamin Curtis, sitting as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, was one of two justices to dissent. Curtis’ dissent did not mean that he had suddenly become an abolitionist, but rather it was based on conservative legal reasoning and on his belief in the rule of law. He believed that Taney’s decision misconstrued the Constitution and undermined intent of Congress. A few months after the decision, Curtis resigned from the court in a dispute with Chief Justice Taney over the way Taney treated his dissent.[7] In a speech the following year, Parker recognized Curtis’ courage and integrity, albeit somewhat grudgingly. “I remember his former conduct with indignation and with shame,” Parker declared, “but no blackness of the old record shall prevent me from turning over a new leaf, and with golden letters writing there – In the Supreme Court JUDGE CURTIS DEFENDED ONCE THE HIGHER LAW OF RIGHT.”[8] (Parker’s emphasis)

On March 5, 1858, a year after the decision was announced, a protest meeting was held in historic Faneuil Hall. It was organized by black historian and leader William Cooper Nell, who was also a member of Parker’s congregation. The intent was to protest the decision by focusing on the black Boston Massacre martyr Crispus Attucks and on the black patriots who had fought in the Revolution. Nell had written about African patriots in an effort to counter the image of Africans as unwilling or unable to fight. While Parker frequently criticized African’s for their alleged reluctance to fight, he supported Nell’s work.

Although the meeting was a success, it took a different direction than Nell expected. Preceding Parker on the stage was Dr. John Rock who took Parker to task for his comments about African docility and their supposed unwillingness fight for their own freedom. Although not well known today, in his time Rock was a prominent and respected black abolitionist. Born free, he was trained in dentistry and also held a medical degree from the American Medical College in Philadelphia. In addition to his medical career, in 1861 he became the first black admitted to the Massachusetts Bar. In 1865 he crossed another color barrier and was sworn into the Bar of the United States Supreme Court. He was one of several black intellectuals including James Pennington, James McCune Smith, Martin Delany and Fredrick Douglas, who explored the science of ethnology to develop a counter narrative to dispute the theories of white ethnologists such as Josiah Knott, George Gliddon and others.[9] The work of these black intellectuals also clashed with the romantic racialist notions of African inferiority held by their Northern abolitionist allies like Parker. Rock had been offended by comments that Parker had made in a speech in January of 1858, just a few months prior to the Faneuil Hall meeting, in which Parker, as he had done frequently, criticized Africans’ supposed lack of fighting spirit.

In his speech Rock ridiculed the courage of Anglo-Saxons and their treatment of slaves. “Mr. Parker makes a very low estimate of the courage of his race,” Rock said, “if he means that one, two or three millions of the ignorant and cowardly black slaves could, without means, have brought to their knees five, ten or twenty millions of intelligent brave white men, backed up by a rich oligarchy.”[10] Foreseeing the courage of black troops in the Civil War, Rock predicted that “sooner or later the clashing of arms will be heard in this country . . . and the black man’s services will be needed. 150,000 freemen capable of bearing arms . . . will be a power that white men will be ‘bound to respect.’ Will the blacks fight? Of course they will.”[11]

Parker, accustomed to being treated with deference by Boston’s African community, was no doubt taken aback by Rock’s criticism. He offered an apology of sorts. “I assent most heartily to almost all he said,” Parker said of Rock’s comments, “and if I cannot agree with the strictures he was pleased to make on some remarks that fell from my lips the other day, I am only sorry. I was not speaking of the African’s future – only his past.”[12]

After reiterating his belief that Africans were “the most pacific race of men on the face of the earth” Parker repeated that he “spoke of the past, not the future.” Parker apparently felt compelled to agree with Rock’s prediction that blacks would fight. “I make no doubt he will fight,” he said, “slavery will not be extinguished with one blow; it will take many blows, and I hope the black man will do his part.”[13] Parker and Rock did not resolve their difference that night, but Parker’s remarks show that, despite his firm belief that Anglo-Saxons were inherently better warriors, he was hopeful that Africans might develop the fighting spirit that Parker felt was instinctive to Anglo-Saxons, and that one day Africans would fight for their freedom. That day would come soon.

In the confrontation with Rock, Parker seemed surprised that his racialist remarks were offensive to African-Americans. He often made similar comments regardless of who was in the audience or who shared the podium with him. At the January speech that angered Rock, one of the speakers that followed Parker was Charles Lenox Remond. Like Rock, Remond is not well known today, but in his time he was a respected and outspoken African abolitionist leader. As he opened his speech, Parker acknowledged Remond by saying, “I shall not hold you long tonight, there are others to speak after me who have better claims to your attention – the one (Mr. Remond) for his race, the other (Mr. Phillips) for the personal attributes of eloquence.”[14] In his speech, Parker compared the African with the supposedly more warlike American-Indian, who, according to Parker preferred to face extinction rather than submit to slavery. “Our fathers tried to enslave the ferocious and unprogressive Indian,” Parker said, “he would not work . . . he would fight. He would not be enslaved – he could not help being killed.”[15] In contrast to the warlike native Indians, “the African,” Parker claimed, “is the most docile and pliant of all the races of men . . . no race is so strong in the affectional instinct which attaches man to man by tender ties, none so easy, indolent, confiding, so little warlike. Hence is it that the white men have kidnapped the black and made him their prey.”[16]

This was not the first time that Parker shared a stage with Remond and made similar disparaging remarks. In a speech to the American Anti-Slavery Society in New York in May of 1856, after being introduced by William Lloyd Garrison, Parker acknowledged Remond’s presence on the program by noting that he was “under great disadvantages; for I follow one whose colour is more that the logic which his cause did not need.”[17] In this speech, he discussed two possible strategies to end slavery. The first was “to arouse a sense of humanity in the whites, which should lead us to abolish this wickedness,” and another “would be to arouse a sense of indignation in the person who has suffered the wrong – in the slave, – and to urge him, of himself, to put a stop to bearing this wickedness.”[18] Parker then offered two explanations why this had not happened, one that questioned the tactics of his host, Garrison, and the other that questioned the courage of Remond’s race. “First some of the anti-slavery leaders were non-resistant,” according to Parker. “They said that it was wrong for the black man to break the arm of the oppressor, and we will pray only that God to break it.”[19] The second reason was that “the slaves themselves were Africans, – men not very good with the sword . . . for while the African is not very good with the sword, the Anglo-Saxon is something of a master with that ugly weapon; at any rate, he knows how to use it.”[20] Apparently Remond did not confront Parker at either event, but is easy to see why Rock would be offended.

It is possible that Parker’s upbraiding by Rock had an impact on his perception of Africans’ fighting spirit and ability. A few days after the meeting, Parker wrote to historian George Bancroft praising both Nell and his book on African fighters in the Revolution, saying that “my friend, Wm. C. Nell, a colored man of this city, helps me to the facts. He has written a quite valuable book on ‘The Colored Patriots of the Revolution.'” Parker praised the ability of the black revolutionary fighters, “many Northern blacks were excellent soldiers, but Southern troops could not brook an equality with negros.”[21] Also, soon after his clash with Rock, Parker would find himself, along with fellow abolitionists F.B. Sanborn, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, Gerrit Smith and George Luther Sterns, part of the “Secret Six” financial supporters of Brown’s ill-fated raid on the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia on October 16, 1859.[22] Brown’s intent was to create a slave insurrection that depended on the willingness and ability of Africans’ to fight.

Like other abolitionists, Parker saw the Dred Scott Decision as opening the door to the nationalization of slavery. While slavery was most dominant in the plantation regions of the South, not all slaves toiled for wealthy plantation owners. Even small- and mid-sized farmers could own a few slaves, and as Scott’s situation illustrated, a slave could be owned by someone, in his case an army doctor, who had little or no connection to agriculture. The court’s decision opened the door to slaves being legally brought into free, non-slave states, fulfilling Parker’s prediction that one goal of the “slave Power” was to re-establish slavery in all the states and territories. The Dred Scott Decision, the increasing violence in Kansas, and the general fear that the slave interests were winning in their efforts to spread slavery across the nation, drove Parker, along with other abolitionists, into an ever more militant abolitionism and to support radicals like John Brown.

Brown was an elusive and erratic figure. As a wanted man, he often wrote to his supporters using assumed names, and his plans frequently changed. According to Weiss, “Capt. Brown would not pledge himself to carry out any special plans. He wanted to be left free to make his own plan, at the time and in the direction which might seem to him most promising.”[23] Brown’s requests for funds were often vague, and his lack of results caused consternation among his backers who were impatient for results. His vagueness was illustrated by a letter written to Parker in September, 1857 stating that he was “in immediate want of some Five Hundred or One Thousand dollars, for a secret service, and no questions asked.”[24] Brown saw Parker not only as a potential donor but also as someone who could use his influence to convince others to contribute funds. In the same letter he asked Parker to “bring this matter before your congregation or exert your influence in some way to have it or some part of it raised.”[25] Parker seemed agreeable to this arrangement. According to Weiss, Parker told him that “I have friends who will give me money, without asking any questions, trusting that I will see it properly applied.”[26] Apparently not enough money was forthcoming from this request because in February, 1858 Brown again wrote Parker that he had “nearly perfected arrangements for carrying out an important measure, in which the world has a deep interest, as well as Kansas, and only lack $500 to $1,000 to enable me to do so. The same object for which I asked for secret service money last Fall.”[27]

Brown was referring to his planned raid on the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia where he planned to strike a decisive blow to slavery by using the captured arms from the arsenal to start a slave revolt in the South. With a project of this scope, it was necessary for him to lower his veil of secrecy and to let his most trusted supporters in on his plans. Brown first disclosed the details of his plan to Sanborn and Gerrit Smith. Sanborn then informed Higginson, Parker and Howe. Brown informed Luther Stearns directly. Parker suggested that Brown come to Boston for a meeting to discuss the plan further. The conspirators met in Brown’s room at Boston’s American House Hotel in early March, 1858 to culminate their plans. Like Parker’s letter to Bancroft, the meeting with Brown and the other conspirators took place soon after Parker’s conflict with Rock in Faneuil Hall. [28]

Another abolitionist whose support Brown wanted, but failed to get, was Fredrick Douglass. Douglass was a friend of Brown’s and had supported his efforts in Kansas. Brown wanted Douglass to accompany him on the raid to help lead the slaves that he expected to rally to his banner. “When I strike,” he told Douglass, “the bees will begin to swarm, and I shall want you to help hive them.”[29] However, Douglass declined to go feeling that the raid would be counterproductive to ongoing efforts to aid escaped slaves and that his friend “was going into a perfect steel trap, and that once in he would never get out alive.”[30] Douglass’ words were prophetic. Brown launched his raid on October 16, 1859 and was quickly routed. He and a handful of his men were captured, and the rest were killed except for a few who managed to escape. Despite having attacked a federal facility, Brown was tried in a Virginia state court and was hanged on December 2, 1859, becoming a martyr to the abolitionist cause.

After the failure of the raid and the capture of Brown, the “Secret Six” feared being implicated and began to panic. Gerrit Smith pled insanity and had himself committed to an asylum. Except for Higginson, the others fled to Canada at various times as Congress established a special committee to investigate the raid and to ferret out Brown’s supporters. The conduct of his fellow conspirators upset Higginson who later commanded black troops in the Civil War. In 1909, on the fiftieth anniversary of the raid, he complained in an interview that “although there was no Judas among us, there were six Peters, all who denied John Brown at least once before the cock crowed.”[31]

Parker avoided the possibility of arrest because he was out of the country when the raid occurred. He had been in failing health with tuberculosis for several years, the same disease that had afflicted his mother and much of his family. As his condition worsened, his doctors suggested that a change of climate might help his condition. In February of 1859 he left cold Boston for the warmth of the Caribbean, after which he went on to England, Switzerland and finally Italy in a futile attempt to recover.

Shortly after leaving Boston he wrote a long epistle to his congregation, in which he apologized for having to leave them and detailed what he had attempted to accomplish in his ministry. In addition to combating slavery and preserving democracy, he wrote that he had promoted temperance to counter “the monstrous evil of drunkenness, the material and moral ruin it works so widely,” and he preached against “covetousness – the abnormal desire of accumulating property,” and the “tyranny of the rich over the thriving and the poor.”[32] Reflecting on his early experiences as a school teacher, he lamented that “our education is almost entirely intellectual, not also moral, affectional, and religious.”[33]

Parker noted that he had “preached much on the condition of women” and that “it seems clear that woman is man’s equal, individually and socially entitled to the same rights.” However, while he supported women’s suffrage, he did not expect them to take an active role in the political sphere. He wrote that he had “found no philosophic or historic argument for thinking she will ever incline much to the rough works of man, or take any considerable part in Republican politics.” [34]

Parker was very proud of the American experiment in democratic government and reminded his congregants that they were “making one of the most important experiments ever attempted on earth, endeavouring to establish an industrial democracy, with the principle that all men are created equal in their natural rights . . . [where] the great body of the people is the source of all political power, the maker of all laws, the ultimate arbiter of all laws.”[35] He went on to say that he had “preached against war, showing its enormous cost in money and men, and the havoc it makes of public and private virtue,” and that he had preached against slavery more than any other sin because it was “the sum of all villanies.”[36] Lastly, he reminded everyone of his roots as a religious reformer when he wrote that he had “preached against the errors of ecclesiastic theology more than any other form of wrong for they are the most fatal mischiefs in the land.”[37]

Parker’s lifelong scientific curiosity was piqued by the exotic birds, animals, plants and people that he encountered on the Caribbean portion of his trip. While in St. Thomas he wrote to his relative and physician Dr. Cabot and gave a detailed account of his observations. He reported that in addition to having studied the plant life of the island, he had also studied “the negroes, and could give a lecture on their physiology, phrenology, and psychology, before the Natural History Society.”[38] It is interesting that he considered studying “the negros” in the same vein as he studied exotic tropical plants.

He found the pace of life in the tropics and the mannerism of the people that he encountered, white, black and creole, to be both confusing and frustrating. Of St. Thomas, he told Dr. Cabot that “there is no spiritual Hygiene here . . . nobody has any appreciation of science or literature except the few Danes.”[39] Parker was excited however with the prospect of seeing his favorite scientific correspondent, Eduard Desor, while on the European part of the trip. He wrote Dr. Cabot that he hoped to meet Desor in Antwerp and visit Scandinavia together. After Scandinavia, Parker hoped to spend the summer with Desor in Switzerland where he hoped they would “study the sub-aquatic remains of the Celts in the Swiss Lakes . . . In the Winter I want him to go with me to Egypt.”[40]

After leaving the Caribbean, he visited friends in London before going on to see Desor. While in London he was excited to receive a visit from Ellen Craft. He recounted the visit in a letter to his friend, Edna D. Cheney. “One of the last persons who came to visit us the night before we went away was – Ellen Craft!” he wrote. “I count that an honor.”[41]  After leaving London, he enjoyed time with Desor in Switzerland, but he was unable to make the trips to Scandinavia and Egypt.

Despite his failing body, his mind was alert, and he kept up an active correspondence with friends both at home and in Europe. While he was in Europe, the continent was experiencing a period of turmoil and revolution. From Switzerland he wrote to his congregation to remind them that they too faced the probability of civil war. “You and I may be thankful that our land is not trodden by the hoof of war – not yet, I mean,” he wrote, “but the day will come when we also must write our charter of liberty in blood. No nation in Europe has so difficult a problem to solve as America, none has so great a contradiction in the national consciousness.”[42] After visiting Desor in Switzerland, he went to Italy for what turned out to be the last leg of his journey.

Parker remained an admirer of Brown until the end and believed that Brown’s death would have a lasting effect on the abolitionist cause. In a long letter written from Rome to his friend Francis Jackson, he wrote that “Brown will die, I think, like a martyr, and also like a saint . . . none of the Christian Martyrs died in vain.”[43] Completely abandoning his previous belief that there were kind and humane slave owners, Parker reiterated his conviction that the slaves had the right and duty to kill their oppressors, and that they needed to develop the willingness and ability to defend their rights .   “A man held against his will as a slave has a natural right to kill everyone who seeks to prevent his enjoyment of liberty,” he wrote. “It may be a natural duty of the slave to develop this natural right in a practical manner, and actually kill all those who seek to prevent his enjoyment of liberty.”[44]

While he believed that blacks were “greatly inferior to the Caucasian in general intellectual power, and also in that instinct for liberty which is so strong in the Teutonic family,” his belief in the timidity of the African race had evolved. “It is not merely white men who will fight for the liberty of Americans,” he declared, “the negros will take their defence into their own hands, especially if they can find white men to lead them.”[45] He acknowledged that slaves had already fought for their freedom and thrown off slavery in Haiti, noting that “there is a limit even to the negros forbearance. Santo Domingo is not a great way off.”[46] While Parker held onto his belief that Anglo-Saxons were a superior race, he now had come to believe that slaves would eventually fight for their freedom, but he still believed that they would need white men, like John Brown, to lead and inspire them.

Parker continued to view people through a racial lens and was not impressed with the Italians who were going through a period of civil unrest during his visit. In a letter to Senator Charles Sumner in June, 1859 Parker gave his thoughts on the Italian situation, saying, “I have little hope of any good for Italy. Effete nationalities cannot be rejuvenated . . . The Piedmontese seem the best portion of the race.”[47] He reiterated this opinion in a letter to Desor in December of that year. He had “no hope for the people of Italy,” he wrote, “[e]specially none for the Romans! These are a miserable people out of whom all virtue seems to have perished utterly.”[48]

He followed events surrounding Brown’s capture and the inquiry into his supporters with concern. “Friends of mine have been made to fly from their country,” he wrote to Desor, “attempts are made to implicate many prominent men at the North and there will be a deal of trouble. I should not be surprised to see Dr. Howe in Rome this winter.”[49] Howe did flee to Canada for a time, but did not feel the need to go to Rome.

Even in failing health, Parker maintained his interest in science and made one last criticism of Louis Agassiz. He wrote to Desor that he had learned of “Mr. Darwin’s work on ‘Principles of Selection in Natural History.'” Parker felt that it was an important scientific work and noted that Darwin “does not believe in Agassiz’s foolish notion of an interposition of God when a new form of lizard makes its appearance on the earth. Indeed, a God who only works by fits and starts is no God at all. Science wants a God that is a constant force and a constant intelligence immanent in every particle of matter.”[50]

He was happy to report to Desor that the congressional investigation of Brown’s raid had proved inconclusive and that he and his co-conspirators had not been implicated. In a postscript to another letter, he added that he believed that “my friends are out all out of trouble from the Senate committee who undertook to investigate the affair at Harper’s Ferry and John Brown’s doings. Nothing has been found which was not known before, and the most important part of the matter still remains a mystery. Nobody knows where J.B. got his money.”[51]

Parker’s health continued to decline, and he died in Florence on May 10, 1860, where he is still buried. In his will he bequeathed his grandfather’s muskets, which he prized so much and which he wrote about so often, to the State of Massachusetts to be “placed in the Senate Chamber of this Commonwealth, and there sacredly kept in perpetuam rei memoriam.”[52]

 

CONCLUSION AND LEGACY

Our twenty-first century views and expectations of race cannot be used to explain Parker’s racialism. These modern viewpoints lead us to see contradictions and negativity that that Parker simply would not comprehend. In the same way that he was surprised by John Rock’s criticism, he would not understand why we would deem his remarks offensive. Parker was deeply religious, and his religious faith was central to his life. His Transcendentalist beliefs taught him that all races were able to experience religious and spiritual revelation. Since even the most primitive races were able to feel religious emotion, they also had human dignity. Because slavery stripped them of their humanity, it was the worst of all sins.

At the same time, his faith taught him to believe in the use of logic, intuition and reason, which led him to accept many of the scientific racial theories of his time. These theories purported to prove the hierarchy of racial superiority and reinforced his conviction that race was the driving force behind human achievements. Parker saw racial characteristics as the way to explain human progress and achievements. Science and his own observations convinced him that his own Anglo-Saxon tribe was the most advanced and was at the forefront of human progress. As the leaders in human progress, Anglo-Saxons were destined to bring the advantages of civilization to the American continent which he described as an “Industrial Democracy” where men would be judged by their abilities instead of by inherited rank or social position.

Furthermore, Parker’s belief that members of all races were part of the human race, led him to reject scientific theories that denied their inherent worth and dignity. Thus he rejected the claim that racial differences were permanent and irrevocable, and he maintained his belief in the environmental school of racial thought that held that racial differences and abilities could evolve. Parker believed that slavery was preventing the African slaves from realizing their humanity and their God given “unalienable rights.” Once the oppressive effects of slavery were lifted, he believed that they would be able to reach their human potential. However, here again, Parker’s science led to complications.

Despite his rejection of the biological school of racial science, he did accept that Africans were by nature best suited to live in the tropics. Thus, after the threat of bondage ended, they would either voluntarily migrant to warmer climates or assimilate into the Caucasian race. Using Herder’s philosophy that all races had unique and positive traits, Parker believed that after emancipation a new and improved composite breed would develop and that America, with its populations of many different races, would be the place to create a new strain. However, his concept was that since Anglo-Saxons were the naturally superior race, this new breed would be a reinvigorated Anglo-Saxon strain.

As Parker’s abolitionism became increasingly militant, his opinion of the capabilities of Africans also evolved. As political and legal events like the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Dred Scott Decision appeared to be shifting political power to the advantage of the “Slave Power,” Parker came to realize that the only way to end slavery was through direct violent action and that Africans would be called upon to fight. While he had often criticized blacks for being meek and for failing to defend themselves from their oppressors, he now began to exhort them to defend their natural rights and to kill anyone who tried to subjugate them. Thus Parker could tell John Rock that when he made derogatory remarks about Africans, he “spoke of the past, not the future,”[1] and he was able to believe that John Brown’s plan to start an insurrection that depended on the slaves’ willingness to take up arms might succeed.

While he had genuine affection and concern for the fugitive slaves in Boston, Parker seemed to hold the Irish in constant disdain. He enjoyed speaking to African audiences, but there does not seem to by any records of him speaking to an Irish or Catholic gathering. One reason for his disdain for them was their attachment to the Catholic religion, which Parker considered oppressive and supportive of slavery. Another reason was the increasing influx of Irish immigrants pouring into Boston in the mid-nineteenth century, which was changing the demographics of New England. This caused a quandary for Parker. His concept of democracy as a government “by all, for all and from all” meant that once they became citizens, as Caucasians, the Irish would have the right to vote. Their voting strength would threaten the political position of both the upper class elite and of middle-class Anglo-Saxons. Parker used their Celtic race to create a social barrier in order to brand the Irish as a lower class in order to preserve the social position of the Anglo-Saxons.

Parker did not oppose slavery only because he was concerned for the moral well-being of the white race as Fellman and Albrecht contended. He believed that slavery was a national moral sin and a blot on American society. However, his opposition to slavery went much deeper. He considered slavery a sin because it violated his religious convictions, and because it prevented its victims from enjoying their “inalienable rights” of life and liberty, and from experiencing their humanity. While he never wavered from his conviction that his Anglo-Saxon branch was the superior race, it is not true that he was not concerned for social justice. He believed that slavery stripped the slaves of their humanity, which to Parker, was the worst social injustice and sin of all. Despite his human flaws, Parker was a man of great vision with the courage of his convictions. His early death at the peak of his intellectual output prevented future generations from experiencing what other contributions he would have made.

 

Footnotes and References

Preface

[1] I want to thank Parker biographer Dean Grodzins for his help by sharing his extensive knowledge of Theodore Parker with me via email and over lunch.
[2] Theodore Parker, A Letter to the People of the United States Touching on the Matter of Slavery, (1848; repr., Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1971), 356-357.
[3] George Fredrickson, The Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny, 1817-1914, (New York: Harper & Row, 1971), 101-102.
[4] Michael Fellman, “Theodore Parker and the Abolitionist Role in the 1830’s,” Journal of American History, Vol. 61, No. 3, (December, 1974), 684.
R.C. Albrecht, Theodore Parker, (New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1971), preface.
[6] Ibid., 134.
[7] Theodore Parker, Letter to Sarah Hunt, June 3, 1858, in Octavius Brooks Frothingham, Theodore Parker: a Biography, (Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1874), 472-473. In the letter, Parker wrote about a “curious law of nature, – the strong displaces the weak,” and compared the races to strains of grass. He noted that when a farmer sows a field with two types of grass, by the third year the stronger of the two will take over, “but little by little the native grasses, stouter than what he scattered there, come up, and in a few years have killed out the other from the soil. Thus the white man kills out the red man and black man. When slavery is abolished, the African population will decline in the United States, and die out of the South as out of Northhampton and Lexington.” Parker was referring to what he considered a scientific law that New England was an inhospitable climate for the “tropical” African race and that after emancipation freed blacks would either voluntarily migrate to a warmer climate or be absorbed into the dominate white race. Parker was not talking about racial extinction, but rather racial assimilation.
[8] Fellman, “Theodore Parker and the Abolitionist Role,” 681.
[9] Phillip F. Gura, American Transcendentalism: A History, (New York, Hill and Wang, 2007), 143-144.

 

Chapter I

[1] Theodore Parker, Letter to Bancroft, September 10, 1858, in Jonathan Weiss, Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker, (1864; repr., New York: Bergman, 1969), Vol. 1, 11-12.
[2] Weiss, Life and Correspondence, Vol. 1, 11.
[3] Parker, “Autobiography,” in Weiss, Life and Correspondence, Vol. 1, 21.
[4] Ibid., 23-24.
[5] Dean Grodzins, “Theodore Parker,” Dictionary of Unitarian Universalist Biographies. http://uudb.org/articles/theodoreparker.html; R. C. Albrecht, Theodore Parker, New York, Twayne Publishers, 1971; Weiss, Life and Correspondence, Vol. I.
[6] Paul Teed, “The Politics of Sectional Memory: Theodore Parker and the Massachusetts Quarterly Review,” Journal of the Early Republic, Vol. 21, No. 2, (Sumer, 2001), 301-329.
[7] Weiss, Life and Correspondence, 22-23.
[8] Weiss, Life and Correspondence, Vol. 1; Grodzins, “Theodore Parker;” Albrecht, Theodore Parker.
[9] Weiss, Life and Correspondence, Vol. 1, 42-43.
[10] Weiss, Life and Correspondence, Vol. 1, 17 – 48; Grodzins, “Theodore Parker;” Albrecht, Theodore Parker.
[11] Parker, Letter to Dr. Gridley Howe, March 23, 1860, in Weiss, Life and Correspondence, Vol. 1, 50.
[12] Parker, “Letter from Santa Cruz, 1859,” in Weiss, Life and Correspondence, Vol. 1, 57.
[13] Weiss, Life and Correspondence, Vol. 1.
[14] Weiss, Life and Correspondence, Vol. 1, 161.
[15] Ibid., 163.
[16] Gura, American Transcendentalism, 143.
[17] Grodzins, “Theodore Parker,” Dictionary of Unitarian Universalist Biographies; Albrecht, Theodore Parker.
[18] Grodzins, American Heretic; Albrecht, Theodore Parker.
[19] Grodzins, American Heretic; Albrecht, Theodore Parker; Gura, American Transcendentalism, Conrad Wright, Three Prophets of Religious Liberalism, (Boston, Unitarian Universalist Association, 1961).
[20] Parker, “A Discourse on the Transient and Permanent in Christianity,” in The Collected Works of Theodore Parker, Frances Powers Cobbe, ed., (London: Trubner and Co., 1865), Vol. 8, 25.
[21] Ibid., 9.
[22] Ibid., 14.
[23] Grodzins, American Heretic; Albrecht, Theodore Parker; Gura, American Transcendentalism, Conrad Wright, Three Prophets of Religious Liberalism.
[24] Parker, Discourse of Matters Pertaining to Religion,” (1842; repr., New York: Arno Press, 1972), 19, 31.
[25] Wright, Three Prophets in Religious Liberalism, 42.
[26] Wright, Three Prophets of Religious Liberalism; Grodzins, American Heretic; Albrecht, Theodore Parker.
[27] Editors preface, in Theodore Parker, The Rights of Man in America, F.B. Sanborn, ed., (1911; repr., Negro Universities Press, 1969), pages unnumbered.
[28] Parker, “A Sermon on Slavery, January 31, 1841,” in Cobbe, Collected Works, Vol. 5, 4. (Sermon reprinted from Boston 1843 edition)
[29] Ibid., Vol. 5, 3-4.
[30] Ibid., Vol. 5, 10.
[31] Ibid., Vol. 5, 13.
[32] Parker, “Theodore Parker’s Experiences as a Minister,” in Cobbe, Collected Works, Vol. 12, 291.
[33] Ibid., 291.
[34] Grodzins, “Theodore Parker,” Dictionary of Unitarian Universalist Biographies.
[35] Parker, “Journal,” in Weiss, Life and Correspondence, Vol. 1, 200.
[36] Parker, Letter to Dr. Francis, October 18, 1843, in Weiss, Life and Correspondence, Vol. 1, 223.
[37] Parker, “Journal, March 3, 1843″ in Weiss, Life and Correspondence, Vol. 1, 210.
[38] Parker, Letter to Dr. Francis, January 28, 1844, in Weiss, Life and Correspondence. Vol. 1, 227.
[39] Parker, “Some Account of My Ministry,” in Cobbe, Collected Works, Vol. 12, 190.
[40] Grodzins, American Heretic; Albrecht, Theodore Parker.
[41] Ibid.
[42] Parker, “Journal, November 19, 1844,” Weiss, Life and Correspondence, Vol. 1, 35.
[43] Grodzins, American Heretic, 472-473.
[44] Parker, “A Sermon of War, Preached at the Melodeon, Sunday, Jun 7, 1846,” in Speeches, Addresses and Occasional Sermons, Vol. 1, (Boston: Horace B. Fuller, 1867), N. Y. Times E-Books, 66, 95, 94-95.
[45] Fredrickson, The Black Image in the White Mind, 97.
[46] William Ellery Channing, “Emancipation,” in Fredrickson, The Black Image in the White Mind, 106.
[47] Paul Teed, “Racial Nationalism and its Challengers: Theodore Parker, John Rock, and the Antislavery Movement,” in Civil War History, Vol. 41, No. 2, (June, 1995), 146.
[48] For more on Herder’s work and romantic racialists see Fredrickson, The Black Image in the White Mind.
[49] John C. Calhoun, “Senate Speech Against the Annexation of Mexico, Jan. 4, 1848,” in Fredrickson, 136.
[50] Parker, “A Sermon of War,” in Speeches, Addresses and Occasional Sermons, Vol. 1, 94, 95.
[51] Parker, “The Political Destination of America and the Signs of the Times, 1848,” in Speeches, Addresses and Occasional Sermons, Vol. 2, 187.
[52] Parker, Some Thoughts on the Charities of Boston, Theodore Parker Papers, Andover-Harvard Theological Library; Weiss, Life and Correspondence, Vol. 1, 396-398.
[53] Ibid.
[54] Ibid.
[55] Ibid.
[56] Letter to Parker from Unnamed Slave Owner, Athens, Georgia, January, 1848, in Weiss, Life and Correspondence, Vol. 2, 79.
[57] Parker’s reply to above, in Weiss, Life and Correspondence , Vol. 2, 81.
[58] Ibid., 82.
[59] Parker, A Letter to the People of the United States Touching on the Matter of Slavery, (1848; repr., Freeport, N.Y., Books for Libraries Press, 1971), 31.
[60] Ibid., 12.
[61] Ibid., 61.
[62] Ibid., 10.
[63] Ibid., 11.

Chapter II

[1] Dean Grodzins, “‘Slave Law’ versus ‘Lynch Law’ in Boston: Benjamin Robbins Curtis, Theodore Parker, and the Fugitive Slave Crisis, 1850-1855,” Massachusetts Historical Review, Vol. 12, (2012), 1-33.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Parker, “The Function and Place of Conscience in Relation to the Laws of Men, September 22, 1850,” in Cobbe, Collected Works, Vol. 5, 148; Grodzins, “‘Slave Law’ versus ‘Lynch Law’ in Boston.”
[4] Parker, “Slave Power in America, New England Anti-Slavery Convention, May 29, 1850,” Speeches, Addresses and Occasional Sermons, Vol. 3, 44; Cobbe, Collected Works, Vol. 5, 105, 106.
[5] Weiss, Life and Correspondence, Vol. 2, 92.
[6] Dean Grodzins, “Slave Law versus Lynch Law in Boston,” 1-33.
>[7] Editors Preface, in Theodore Parker, The Rights of Man in America. (pages not numbered).
[8] Parker, “Journal, November 1, 1850,” in Weiss, Life and Correspondence, Vol. 2, 99.
[9] Ibid., 97.
[10] Ibid., 99-100.
[11] Parker to President Millard Fillmore, Boston, November 21, 1850, Theodore Parker Papers, Andover-Harvard Library, bMS 101/18; Weiss, Life and Correspondence, Vol. 2, 100-102.
[12] “Parker to Rev. J. Martineau, Boston, November 11, 1850, “Theodore Parker Papers”, Massachusetts Historical Society, microfilm Vol. 8, 324.
[13] Dean Grodzins, “Slave Law versus Lynch Law in Boston.”
[14] Benjamin R. Curtis to George Ticknor Curtis, Feb. 6, 1855, in Grodzins, “Slave Law versus Lynch Law in Boston,” 4.
[15] Grodzins, “Slave Law versus Lynch Law in Boston.”
[16] Parker “Journal, February 16, 1851,” in Weiss, Life and Correspondence, Vol. 2, 103.
[17] Grodzins, “Slave Law versus Lynch Law in Boston.”
[18] Weiss, Life and Correspondence, 107.
[19] Leonard W. Levy, “Sims’ Case: The Fugitive Slave Law in Boston in 1851,”The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 35, No. 1, (January, 1850), 74.
[20] Parker, The Boston Kidnapping: a Discourse to Commemorate The Rendition of Thomas Simms,” (Repr:,1852, New York, Arno Press & The N. Y. Times, 1969), 46, 50, 52, 62.
[21] Editor’s note, in Parker, “The Fugitive Slave Law,” in The Rights of Man in America, 144.
[22] Ibid., 148.
[23] Ibid., 152.
[24] Grodzins, “Slave Law versus Lynch Law in Boston;” Weiss, Vol. 2.
[25] Parker, “Address at Faneuil Hall, May 26, 1854,” in Weiss, Life and Correspondence, Vol. 2, 131.
[26] Ibid., 151.
[27] Grodzins, “Slave Law versus Lynch Law in Boston;” Weiss, Vol. 2.
[28] Parker to Samuel J. May, Boston,” December 1, 1854, Theodore Parker Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, microfilm, Reel 2, Vol. 5, Frame 207.
[29] Editors preface, in Theodore Parker, The Rights of Man in America, F.B. Sanborn, ed., pages unnumbered.
[30] Parker, “The Nebraska Question, Preached at the Music Hall, Boston, Sunday, February 12, 1854,” in Cobbe, Collected Works, Vol. 5, 245,246, 247, 259, 252, 264, 265, 296.
[31] Parker, “The Law of God and the Statutes of Men, June 18, 1854,” in Cobbe, Collected Works, Vol. 5, 236.
[32] Parker, “An Address on the Condition of America, May 12, 1854,” in Cobbe, Collected Works, Vol. 5, 302.
[33] Teed, “Racial Nationalism and its Challengers,” 145.
[34] Parker, The Trial of Theodore Parker with Defence, (1855; repr., Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1971), 3, 7.
[35] Ibid., 50, 71.
[36] Ibid., 167, 221.
[37] Parker, “Speech at Faneuil Hall Before the New England Anti-Slavery Convention, May 31, 1848,” in Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional Sermons, Vol. 2, 333; Aileen S. Kraditor, Means and Ends in American Abolitionism: Garrison and His Critics of Strategy and Tactics, 1834-1850, (New York, Pantheon Books); James Brewer Stewart, Abolitionist Politics and the Coming of the Civil War, (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2008).
[38] Grodzins, American Heretic: 498; Grodzins; “Theodore Parker,” Dictionary of Unitarian Universalist Biographies.
[39] Parker to Herndon, January 15, 1855, Theodore Parker Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, microfilm, Reel 2, Vol. 6, Frame 174.
[40] Parker to Herndon, December 31, 1856, Theodore Parker Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, microfilm, Reel 2, Vol. 6, Frame 178-183.
[41] Parker to Herndon, December 31, 1856, Theodore Parker Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, microfilm, Reel 2, Vol. 6, Frame 178-183.
[42] Abraham Lincoln, “”A House Divided, Speech at Springfield Illinois, June 16, 1858,” in Robert Louis Gates, ed., Lincoln on Race and Slavery, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), 104.
[43] Sanborn, “Preface,” The Rights of Man in America.
[44] Parker to Herndon, September 4, 1858, Theodore Parker Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, microfilm, Reel 2, Vol. 6, Frame 186-188.
[45] Parker to Herndon, August 28, 1858, Theodore Parker Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, microfilm, Reel 2, Vol. 6, Frame 185-186.
[46] Fredrickson, The Black Image in the White Mind; Louis Menand, The Metaphysical Club, (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giboux, 2001).
[47] Samuel Stanhope Smith, Essay on the Causes and the Variety of Complexion and Figure in the Human Species, in Fredrickson, 72.
[48] Count Joseph Arthur de Gobineau, The Moral and Intellectual Diversity of the Races, in Fredrickson, 69.
[49] Fredrickson, The Black Image in the White Mind, 74-75.
[50] Fredrickson, The Black Image in the White Mind; Menand, The Metaphysical Club.
[51] Menand, The Metaphysical Club, 97-99.
[52] Parker to Peter Lesley, Boston, November 15, 1857, Theodore Parker Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, microfilm, Reel 2, Vol. 6, Frame 193.
[53] Fredrickson, The Black Image in the White Mind; Menand, The Metaphysical Club.
[54] Fredrickson, The Black Image in the White Mind , 75-78.
[55] Louis Agassiz, “The Diversity of the Human Races,” in Menand, The Metaphysical Club, 113.
[56] Agassiz, “Sketch of the Natural Provinces of the Animal World and Their Relation to the Different Types of man,” in Fredrickson, The Black Image in the White Mind, 137.
[57] Menand, The Metaphysical Club, 97 – 116.
[58] Fredrickson, The Black Image in the White Mind, 138-140.
[59] Parker to Desor, April 30, 1854, Theodore Parker Papers, Andover-Harvard Theological Library, bMS 101/18.
[60] Parker, The Boston Kidnapping, 21.
[61] Parker to Desor, Indianapolis, Oct. 18, 1854, Theodore Parker Papers, Andover-Harvard Library, bMS101/18.
[62] Parker, “Some Thoughts on the Progress of America, and the Influence of her Diverse Institutions, May 31, 1854,” in Cobbe, Collected Works, Vol. 6, 14, 3.
[63] Ibid., 4,5.
[64] Ibid., 11.
[65] Ibid., 11, 43.
[66] Theodore Parker, “An Anti-Slavery Address delivered before the New York Anti-Slavery Society,” (1854), in The Rights of Man in America, 153-154.
[67] Parker, “The Effects of Slavery on the American People,” in Cobbe, Collected Works, Vol. 8, 146.
[68] Ibid., 155.

Chapter III

[1] Edward J. Renehan, jr., The Secret Six: the True Tale of the Men Who Conspired with John Brown, (New York: Crown Publishers, 1995), 19.
[2] Renehan, The Secret Six.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Parker, “Journal, April 2, 1856,” in Weiss, Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker, Vol. 2, 160.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Parker to Herndon, August 9, 1857, Theodore Parker Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, microfilm, Reel 2, Vol. 6, Frame 183-184.
[7] Don E. Fehrenbacher, Slavery, Law and Politics: The Dred Scott Case in Historical Perspective, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), 151-243.
[8] Parker, “The Present Aspect of Slavery in America, and the Immediate Duty of the North, January 29, 1858,” in Cobbe, Collected Works, Vol. 6, 298.
[9] Mia Bay, The White Image in the Black Mind: African-American Ideas about White People, 1830-1925, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000); Paul Teed, “Racial Nationalism and its Challengers, 142-160.
[10] “Speech of Dr. Rock,” in William Cooper Nell: Nineteenth-Century African American Abolitionist, Historian, Integrationist, Selected Writings 1832-1874, Dorothy Porter Wesley and Constance Porter Uzelac, ed., (Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 2002), 503.
[11] Ibid., 504; for more on Rock’s conflict with Parker, see Paul Teed, “Racial Nationalism and its Challengers: Theodore Parker, John Rock, and the Anti-slavery Movement,” Civil War History, Vol. 41, No. 2, (June, 1995), 142-160.
[12] “Remarks of Rev. Theodore Parker,” in William Cooper Nell, 505.
[13] Ibid., 505-506.
[14] Parker, “The Present Aspect of Slavery and the Immediate Duty of the North,” in Cobbe, Collected Works, Vol. 6, 286.
[15] Ibid., 289.
[16] Ibid., 289.
[17] Parker, “The Present Aspect of the Anti-Slavery Enterprise, and of the Various Forces Which Work Therein,” in Cobbe, Collected Works, Vol. 6, 215.
[18] Ibid., 216, 216-217.
[19] Ibid., 217.
[20] Ibid., 217.
[21] Parker to George Bancroft, Boston, March 16, 1858,” in Theodore Parker Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, microfilm, Reel 1, Vol. 3, Frame 286.
[22] Renehan, The Secret Six.
[23] Weiss, Life and Correspondence, Vol. 2, 162.
[24] Brown to Parker, September 11, 1857, in Theodore Parker Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, microfilm, Reel 3, Vol. 9, Frame 290.
[25] Ibid.
[26] Weiss, Life and Correspondence, Vol. 2, 161.
[27] Brown to Parker, February 2, 1858, in Theodore Parker Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, microfilm, Reel 3, Vol. 9, Frame 285-286.
[28] Renehan, 145.
[29] John Stauffer, The Black Hearts of Men: Radical Abolitionists and the Transformation of Race, (Cambridge; Harvard University Press), 249.
>[30] Ibid., 248.
[31] Renehan, 5.
[32] Parker, “Theodore Parker’s Experience as a Minister,” Cobbe, Collected Works, Vol. 12, 318, 321.
[33] Ibid., 321.
[34] Ibid., 323, 324-325.
[35] Ibid., 325.
[36] Ibid., 329.
[37] Ibid., 332.
[38] Parker to Dr. Cabot, St. Thomas, May 12, 1859, in Weiss, Vol. 2, 281-282.
[39] Ibid., 281.
[40] Ibid., 282.
[41] Parker to E.D. Cheney, June 28, 1859, Parker Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society. Microfilm, Reel 1, Vol. 3, Frame 102; Weiss, Life and Correspondence, Vol. 2, 234-235.
[42] Parker to the Twenty-Eighth Congregational Society, June 25, 1859, in Weiss, Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker, Vol. 2, 301.
[43] Parker, John Brown’s Expedition Reviewed in a Letter to Francis Jackson, November 24, 1859, in Cobbe, Collected Works, Vol. 12, 176.
[44] Ibid., 165.
[45] Ibid., 170.
[46] Ibid., 171.
[47] Parker, Letter to Honorable Charles Sumner, London, June 7, 1859 in Weiss, Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker, Vol. 2, 291.
[48] Parker to Desor, December 7, 1859, in Theodore Parker Papers, Andover-Harvard Library, bMS101/18.
[49] Ibid.
[50] Parker to Desor, Rome, February 27, 1860, in Theodore Parker Papers, Andover-Harvard Library, bMS101/18.
[51] Parker to Desor, Rome, March 27, 1860, in Theodore Parker Papers, Andover-Harvard Library, bMS101/18.
[52] “Copy of the Will of Theodore Parker,” in Weiss, Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker , Vol. 2, Appendix, 443.

Conclusion and Legacy

[1] “Remarks of Rev. Theodore Parker,” in William Cooper Nell, 506.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources:

Lincoln, Abraham, in Lincoln on Race and Slavery, Edited by Henry Louis Gates, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009.

Parker, Theodore, A Discourse of Matters Pertaining to Religion, 1842, Reprint, New York: Arno Press, 1972.

Parker, Theodore, The Slave Power, Edited by James K. Hosmer, 1911, Reprint, New York: Arno Press, 1969.

Parker, Theodore, A Letter to the People of the United States Touching on the Matter of Slavery, 1843, Reprint, Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1971.

Parker, Theodore, The Boston Kidnapping: A Discourse to Commemorate the Rendition of Thomas Simms, 1852, Reprint, New York: Arno Press, 1969.

Parker, Theodore, The Collected Works of Theodore Parker, Edited by Frances Powers Cobbe, 14 vols., London: Trubner and Co., 1865.

Parker, Theodore, The Rights of Man in America, Edited by F.B. Sanborn, 1911, Reprint, New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969.

Parker, Theodore, The Trial of Theodore Parker, with the Defence, 1855, Reprint, Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1971.

Parker, Theodore, Speeches, Addresses and Occasional Sermons, 3 vols. Boston: Horace B. Fuller, 1867, N.Y. Times E-Books.

Parker, Theodore, Papers, Andover Harvard Theological Library, Cambridge, Ma.

Parker, Theodore, Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, Microfilm, Georgia State University Library, Atlanta, Ga.

Weiss, John, ed., Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker, 2 vols., 1864, Reprint, New York: Bergman, 1969.

Secondary Sources:

Albrecht, R.C. Theodore Parker, New York: Twayne Publishers, 1971.

Bay, Mia, The White Image in the Black Mind: African-American Ideas about White People, 1830-1925, New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Collins, Robert E., Theodore Parker: American Transcendentalist, Metuchen, N.J.: The Scarecrow Press, 1973.

Commager, Henry Steele, ed. Theodore Parker: An Anthology, Boston: Beacon Press, 1960.

Commager, Henry Steel, Theodore Parker: Yankee Crusader, 1936, reprint, Boston: The Beacon Press, 1947.

Comanger, Henry Steele, “The Dilemma of Theodore Parker,” The New England Quarterly, Vol. 6, No. 2, (June, 1933), 257-277.

Fehrenbacher, Don E., Slavery, Law and Politics: The Dred Scott Case in Historical Perspective, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981.

Fellman, Michael, “Theodore Parker and the Abolitionists Role in the 1850’s,'” The Journal of American History, Vol. 61, No. 3, (December 1974): 666-684.

Fredrickson, George M., The Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny, 1817-1914, New York: Harper and Row, 1971.

Grodzins, Dean, American Heretic: Theodore Parker and American Transcendentalism, Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2007.

Grodzins, Dean, ” “Slave Law” versus “Lynch Law” in Boston: Benjamin Robbins Curtis, Theodore Parker, and the Fugitive Slave Crisis, 1850-1855,” Massachusetts Historical Review, Vol. 12, (2010): 1-33.

Grodzins, Dean, Theodore Parker, Dictionary of Unitarian Universalist Biographies. (September 9, 2002), http://uudb.org/articles/theodoreparker.html.

Gura, Philip F., American Transcendentalism, New York: Hill and Wang, 2007.

Menand, Louis, The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001.

Mintz, Steven and John Stauffer, ed., The Problem of Slavery, Freedom and the Ambiguities of American Reform, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2007.

Kraditor, Aileen S., Means and Ends in American Abolitionism: Garrison and His Critics on Strategy and Tactics, 1834-1850, New York: Pantheon Books, 1969.

Ladu, Arthur I., “The Political Ideas of Theodore Parker,” Studies in Philology, Vol. 38, No. 1, (January, 1941), 106-123.

Levy, Leonard W., “Sims’ Case: The Fugitive Slave Law in Boston in 1851,” The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 35, No. 1, (January, 1850), 39–74

Renehan, Edward J., The Secret Six: The True Tale of the Men Who Conspired with John Brown, New York, Crown Publishers, 1995.

Riback, William H., “Theodore Parker of Boston: Social Reformer,” Social Science Review, Vol. 22, No. 4, (December, 1948), 154-460.

Rogers, Rev. Jonathan, “Racialism in the Writings of Theodore Parker and Its Implications for His Legacy,” (December 14, 2009), unpublished paper, Harvard Divinity School.

Sherwin, Oscar, “Of Martyr Build: Theodore Parker,” The Phylon Quarterly, Vol. 20, NO. 2, (2nd Qtr., 1959), 143-148.

Stewart, James Brewer, Abolitionist Politics and the Coming of the Civil War, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2008.

STAUFFER, JOHN, The Black Hearts of Men: Radical Abolitionists and the Transformation of Race, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002.

Teed, Paul, “Racial nationalism and Its Challengers: Theodore Parker, John Rock, And the Antislavery Movement,” Civil War History, Vol. 41, No. 2, (June 1995): 142-160.

Teed, Paul, The Politics of Sectional Memory: Theodore Parker and the “Massachusetts Quarterly Review,” 1847-1850,” Journal of the Early Republic, Vol. 21, No. 2, (Summer, 2001), 301-329.

Wright, Conrad, Three Prophets of Religious Liberalism: Channing – Emerson – Parker, Boston: Unitarian Universalists Association, 1961.

Sermon - Early UU History in Atlanta

1 April 2015 at 19:50

Sermon presented by Lay Worship Associate – Jay Kiskel
March 22, 2105 at Northwest Unitarian Universalist Congregation, Sandy Springs, Georgia
Note: Readings are at the end of the sermon

Sermon

Our readings today were selected to help us appreciate just how much of what we enjoy today in this wonderful sanctuary, nestled in our wooded home, is based upon foundations we did not build.

The first reading opened a time portal revealing to us the moment when the very first foundation of the Unitarian side of our faith movement was laid here in Atlanta.

Having read hundreds of original church documents, I can confidently say our Unitarian and Universalist ancestors during their stewardship campaigns embraced the spirit of the reading read by Letitia:

Together we are more than any one person could be.
Together we can build across the generations.

The fact that we are here today is proof of the resolve of our UU ancestors.

So how did it begin?

The Mr. Chaney in the first reading was the Rev. George Leonard Chaney. Rev. Chaney was a Boston Unitarian minister who arrived in Atlanta in 1882 to establish a Unitarian presence here.

Previously, Rev. Chaney had served for 15 years as the pastor of the Hollis Street Church in Boston. He assumed that church’s pulpit when it was vacated by Rev. Thomas Starr King.

Some of you may have heard of Thomas Starr King. His story is worth a few moments of reflection.

Rev. King departed the Hollis Street Church in 1860 to accept the call from the Unitarian church in San Francisco. A passionate orator, Rev. King has been given credit for helping to keep California in the Union during this country’s civil war.

In honor of his service, in 1931 California designated a statue of Rev. King to be one of only two statues to represent California in the Statuary Hall in the United States Capitol rotunda in Washington, DC.

The Pacific Unitarian School in Berkeley also honored Rev. King in 1941 when it changed its name to the Starr King School for the Ministry.

And here’s an update illustrating why we should all know our UU history.

Rev. King’s statue remained in Statuary Hall until 2005. In that year, Republican State Senator Dennis Hollingsworth stated, “To be honest with you, I wasn’t sure who Thomas Starr King was, and I think there’s probably a lot of Californians like me.”

Rev. King’s statue was replaced by one of Ronald Reagan.

Back to Hollis Street.

Rev. Chaney focused his energy on his congregation as well as educational opportunities in the community. He established a church- sponsored wood-working school called the Hollis Street Whittling school, started classes where young girls learned sewing skills and served on the Boston public school commission.

He was educated, cultured, accomplished and well-travelled. He was a champion of the Unitarian cause.

Yet despite his devotion to our faith movement, Rev. Chaney was not the first to plant the seed of liberal religion in Atlanta.

That first seed was planted by Rev. William Clayton Bowman.

Rev. Bowman is my poster child of the transformational powers of the Universalist faith. Born in 1833 in the hills of North Carolina, he was steeped in a religions orthodoxy that embraced an angry God and the eternal damnation of unworthy souls.

About the Civil War he said, “I fully believed in the divine right of slavery and the justice of secession.”

Yet, Bowman had his inner doubts.

In his words:“…when I knelt with the other mourners where the magnetic eye of the preacher could not gaze into my own, and his pleading voice no longer appealed to me, the spell was broken and my normal condition of mind with all its power of reasoning was restored.”

Bowman was transformed. He declared, “I was compelled to abandon the doctrine of endless punishment. I became a Universalist.”

In 1879, he started his Universalist ministry in Atlanta.

Competing against well-established denominations such as the Baptists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Presbyterians and Methodists, it was a challenging environment.

Like the seed in Elizabeth’s story, a religious seed of hopeful salvation was attempting to root in a very hostile environment.

Rev. Bowman’s Universalist church failed. But the failure can be attributed more to his own morphing spiritual views. His doubting and questioning did not stop with Universalist belief. Two years after starting his Universalist ministry, Rev. Bowman left his nascent congregation and called his flock to follow him into Spiritualism.   In 1883, he departed Atlanta never to return.

At about the same time as Bowman’s Universalist ministry was ending another religious seed was planted in Atlanta. The following article appeared in the Atlanta papers:

“Prominent citizens of Atlanta having expressed a desire to organize a Unitarian church in this city, therefore all persons interested in Unitarian Christianity are hereby notified and invited to aid in said organization.”

Signed Rev. Enoch Powell, for the American Unitarian Association.

Many years later, in 1916, Rev. Chaney, reflecting back on these early years, commented that the American Unitarian Association sent a young minister to “spy out” the possibility of establishing a Unitarian presence in Atlanta. That young spy promptly returned with the tidings of “nothing doing.”   Rev. Chaney, a member of the Executive Board, found himself in an awkward position.

Rev. Chaney said, “So for very shame, when I was asked to go myself, I could not refuse.”

Rev. Chaney arrived in Atlanta 1882 and preached in various locations, including the state senate chambers, the US District Court Room, and a general entertainment venue called Concordia Hall.

Yet, in less than two years, the first Unitarian church in Atlanta, called the Church of Our Father, was dedicated April 24, 1884.

Rev. Chaney again applied his energies to education. He served on the board of trustees of Atlanta University and Tuskegee Normal School, headed by Booker T. Washington. With several members of the Church of Our Father on its board, the Artisans’ Institute, roughly based on the Hollis Street Whittling School, sprang to life.

Some have incorrectly associated the Artisans’ Institute as foundational in the establishment of Georgia Tech. I have found no definitive foundation for this connection.

Nonetheless, this first Unitarian church, like us, had a social justice ministry. It supported the Woman’s Exchange, enabling women to sell their homemade wares directly to the public, and the Home for the Friendless, a temporary shelter for distressed women and children.

It would, however, be appropriate to say that the new Unitarian church had rooted in Atlanta, but did not flourish in Atlanta.

Let me pause here and share a personal note. As I slowly transcribe page after page of hand written notes, I can hear the voices of those early Unitarians. I have shared in their joys, sorrows, triumphs and sometimes their doubts and fears.

I often wonder, “What if . . . ?” What if they simply said, “This is too hard!”   and closed the meeting minute book and just left the remaining pages blank.

I do admire them because whatever obstacles they faced, they just kept writing our history.

But what of the Universalists?

Their story has energized the Universalist in me. It is why I always make sure I say Unitarian Universalist when I share my religious affiliation.

The Universalists returned to Atlanta in 1895.

Leading their revival was Rev. William Henry McGlauflin. Rev. McGlauflin had successfully raised a congregation in Tennessee. His exceptional talents would also be recognized many years later, when he was elected as the General Superintendent of the Universalist Churches of America.

However, Rev. McGlauflin faced, as did his processor, the daunting task of raising the Universalist message among the hostile theological din within the city.

Consider a pamphlet published at about this time by the Methodist minister, Rev. McCleskey, entitled Life in Hell.

The condemned souls in the pamphlet are illustrated by Miss Daisy Dancer who was more concerned with a Sunday soirée then Sunday service, and Richard Rumseller. His sin was that of drink.

Rev. McCleskey intones, “Some will dare to say there are no material fires in hell. Ah! What a mistake! Hell’s fire is more material than earth’s fire, in that they have one more material element added, that of salt.”

“For everyone shall be salted with fire.” Mark chapter 9, verse 49.

It actually gets worse. Individual demons are assigned to torment the condemned souls. If these tormentors are found insufficiently demonic, they are themselves cast by the devil into the volcanic fires of hell.

It is a disturbing picture.

Enter the Universalist’s message of universal salvation.

“We think there is a Savior who will not be defeated in the great mission He came to Earth to do.”

That is, Jesus did not fail when he died on the cross for our sins. His mission was successful. Whatever punishment we face in the afterlife is to bring our eternal souls into God’s loving glory.

“We believe that righteousness is to be ultimately victorious in every human heart and that mankind will in the end be saved from sin and sorrow.”

Amen.   Can I have a hallelujah!

Rev. McGlauflin, along with the earnest efforts of his small congregation, erected The First Universalist church in Atlanta on East Harris Street in 1900.

Yet, despite the attractive message and untiring efforts of the congregation, the Universalist church, much like the Unitarian church was rooted, but did not flourish, in Atlanta.

Our religious forbearers entered the 20th century with a foothold in Atlanta and high hopes. However, both growth in numbers and financial security eluded them.

The Universalists, for instance, closed out 1905 with $13.01 in the bank.

In 1908, the President of the American Unitarian Association sent a letter to the Atlanta Unitarian church commenting on their fiscal position stating it is time to (quote) “unite or die” with the Universalists.

The letter went on to state: “Non-union with the Universalists apparently means the disintegration and ultimate disappearance of the Unitarian church.”

Union between Atlanta’s Unitarians and Universalists did eventually materialize, not in 1908, but well before the national union in 1961.

It would be wise to note that financial woe is not far back in our rear view mirror. We at Northwest faced similar problems in the 1990’s. We once faced menacing IRS notices of non-payment of payroll taxes. We considered, as did Unitarians 100 years ago, selling this property.

Fortunately, every Unitarian and Universalist for more than 130 years who has faced such challenges simply said, “The next page in our history will not go blank.”

And so . . . we continued.

I would like to close with one more chapter in our history. This story starts in 1915 and has a flow of history that wends its way right into this sanctuary.

In November 1915, a third Unitarian church was built in Atlanta on West Peachtree Street. Although Rev. Chaney and his wife Caroline had long ago left the South and returned home to Massachusetts, they traveled back to Atlanta for the dedication.

To honor the foundations that Rev. Chaney and his wife help to lay in Atlanta, stained glass windows, known as the Founders’ Windows, were commissioned for the new church with the inscription:

“In Honor of George Leonard Chaney Caroline Isabel Chaney”

You can read that very inscription at the bottom on the stained glass windows over there (point to windows). Those are the very windows installed in 1915.

The Rev. Chaney and his wife stood in front of that window as sunlight filled the church and the hymns of dedication were sung. There was wonderful hope of a new beginning.

And in a strange way there was both an end and a beginning.

Three years later, in 1918, responding to accumulated years of financial stress, the Universalists and Unitarians ended their independent congregations and merged together to form the Liberal Christian Church.

They chose as their common home the Unitarian church on West Peachtree Street. Each Sunday as they gathered for worship, sunlight filtering through those stained glass windows filled their sanctuary.

History moves on . . .

By the 1930’s the church is known as the Unitarian Universalist Church. The daughter of one of its ministers, Jean Hess, became a founding member of this church. Today I sit next to Jean’s daughter when I attend The Mountain Board of Trustees meetings. We do live in an interconnected web.

In the 1940’s this joint Unitarian Universalist church failed over segregation issues. The American Unitarian Association sold the building. A small band of congregants, however, remained united, and went on to form the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta. . . UUCA…our mother church.

In the late 1960’s UUCA spun off a new congregation called Northwest.

In 1974, our second called minister, Rev. Bob Karnan, was installed. Lacking a church building in which to hold his installation, a restaurant on West Peachtree Street, called the Abbey, was chosen.

The Abbey restaurant was located in an old Unitarian church built in 1915 with wonderful stained glass windows filtering the afternoon sunlight.

The import of another UU minister standing in the glow of those windows was not lost on Rev. Karnan.

When MARTA razed that church building in 1977 to make way for the North Avenue MARTA station, Rev. Karnan worked to preserve those stained glass windows.

And we sit here today in the glow of stained glass windows we did not build.

So what will be our legacy?

What will be said of us when Unitarian Universalists in 2115 reflect on their history? The history we will write.

I hope that when that time comes, this pulpit will once again be before a congregation and these words spoken, “After being rooted for so many years, a congregation long ago rose up and said, “We want to flourish!” Their roots went deep, their hopes reached for the sky, their seeds spread far.

And because of them, we stand on their foundations, we are warmed by their light, we are shaded by their trees, we drink from their wells and we profit from persons we did not know.”

Amen, Shalom, May it be so.

Call to Worship – First Reading

In recognition of our stewardship campaign that was officially launched last Sunday, the words will we speak today as we look back to laying of the first foundations of our faith movement in Atlanta will not be from prophetic prophets, wise sages or learned poets. Rather we will share the words of Unitarians and Universalists. . . people just like us.

My sincerest hope in sharing a few fragments from our early history is that it will inspire all of us to sharpen our sense of purpose and obligation in our stewardship campaign.

Our first reading . .

On March 27, 1883, Frank Lederle, pulled his fountain pen from his pocket, opened a large newly purchased meeting book . . . all the pages were blank . . . and wrote the following.

A meeting was called in room No. 7 Kimball House, at 4 o’clock pm.

Mr. Chaney asked the Divine blessing.  He then explained the purpose of the meeting.

He said that the time had come for giving organized form to the interest we felt on the establishment of a new church in Atlanta.

At an informal conference of gentlemen previously held, a committee had been appointed to prepare a form of covenant for the consideration of those who should meet to form a church.  The Covenant and Constitution were read and each article was separately considered and passed upon.  It was finally adopted.

Mr. Burns stated that there was a piece of property now in the market, which would be very eligible for a church building.  It was located on the corner of Forsyth and Church streets.

After due consideration it was voted to appoint a committee of three, consisting of Messrs. Burns, Snowden and Norrman to negotiate for the purchase of the property.

All present and residing in Atlanta signed the Covenant and Constitution thus uniting with the Church and securing its formation.

Second Reading

Today’s reading is from the Unitarian Universalist minister Rev. Peter Raible. Rev. Raible died in 2004 and lived a life that can best be described as an activist minister.

He participated in the historic civil rights march in Selma, he advocated for a woman’s right to control her reproductive choices and championed equal justice for all regardless of gender, race or sexual identity.

He not only lived a life of courageous action, but extended that calling to others. He ended each sermon with a call to “turn evermore to act . . . than to words . . . to declare our religion.”

Rev. Raible wished us to honor those who did act and rejoice in the gifts those actions have given to us. Reflecting the Old Testament passage in Deuteronomy, he wrote.

We build on foundations we did not lay

We warm ourselves by fires we did not light

We sit in the shade of trees we did not plant

We drink from wells we did not dig

We profit from persons we did not know

This is as it should be.

Together we are more than any one person could be.

Together we can build across the generations.

Together we can renew our hope and faith in the life that is yet to unfold.

Together we can heed the call to a ministry of care and justice.

We are ever bound in community.

May it always be so.

 

 

 

Rev. Chaney and the Georgia Institute of Technology

1 September 2014 at 14:41

Legend or Lore

Among the Atlanta accomplishments attributed to the Rev. George L. Chaney, founder of the first Unitarian church in Atlanta in 1883, is his role in the establishment of the Georgia Institute of Technology.

From an obituary published in the Christian Register on June 8, 1922, it was observed by, “Mr. Lawrence S. Brigham, who had known Mr. Chaney both in Boston and in the South, spoke warmly of his arduous work, and the beauty of his genial and self-sacrificing character, calling attention especially to his agency in founding the Georgia Institute of Technology, and his self-sacrificing work in establishing the Unitarian church in Atlanta.”

However, no other contemporary obituaries make any reference to Rev. Chaney and the Georgia Institute of Technology.

In a 1954 biography of Rev. Chaney Heralds of a Liberal Faith published by Beacon Press, it was noted, “He there (Atlanta) applied the same educational methods which he had used in Boston and began an “Artisans’ Institute” in connection with his church. This was the seed from which sprung the Georgia School of Technology in Atlanta.”

Roots of the Georgia Institute of Technology

It is not disputed that the Georgia Institute of Technology, initially known as the Georgia School of Technology, was established October 13, 1885 by an act of the Georgia legislature. The bill to establish the school was introduced by Nathaniel Harris, a state legislator from Macon. The legislation did not, however, establish the location of the new technology school. (1) Petitions from Macon, Columbus, Athens, Milledgeville, Atlanta and other cities to the state legislature to establish the school in their city continued into late 1886.

From the period leading up to the introduction and passage of the legislation and during the subsequent lively conversation about the location of the school as documented in Atlanta’s contemporary papers, there is no mention of Rev. Chaney in the news accounts.

In fact, due to his wife’s ill health, Rev. Chaney was absent from Atlanta for a part of the school’s location discussions in early 1886. When he returned to Atlanta in May 1886 (2), his sermons such as “All Flesh is Grass, but the Mercy of the Lord is Everlasting to Everlasting”(3), “The Patriotism of Jesus” (4) and “Grace in the Wilderness” (5) are pastorate and not aimed at securing Atlanta as the location of the new technology school. As debate on the school’s location intensified in 1886, Rev. Chaney departed Atlanta in August for his summer vacation and to attend a Unitarian conference in Saratoga, NY. (6)

Rev. Chaney’s Educational Credentials

Chaney arrived in Atlanta in early 1882 after a fifteen-year ministry at the Hollis Street Church in Boston with undeniable educational bona fides. He had established the Hollis Street Whittling School for the teaching of industrial woodworking skills, served for 12 years as a member of the Boston School Committee and was president of Boston’s Industrial School Association.

Just a few months after his arrival in Atlanta, in June 2, 1882 an article appeared in The Constitution entitled, “Hand Education – Should the Hand as Well as the Brain be Educated.” In that article it was observed that “Mr. Chaney is interested in investigating the problem of education in the south and in impressing our educators with the fact that to affect the best results they must combine the practical with the theoretic, the useful with the classical, and the industrial with the ornamental.”

By 1885, Rev. Chaney was well established in the city when discussions on establishing a southern technology school were in full bloom. Projecting that he had involvement in the founding of such a technology school would be consistent with his energies and inclination to foster new institutions.

By 1883, he had founded the first Unitarian church and began service on the boards of trustees for Atlanta University and Tuskegee (Alabama) University.

Artisans’ Institute

The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia)  Sun, Sep 6, 1885

The Atlanta Constitution 
Sun, Sep 6, 1885

Proper credit appears due to Rev. Chaney for establishing Atlanta’s Artisans’ Institute around 1883.   The Artisans’ Institute, per an advertisement in The Constitution on September 6, 1885, was described as “A School of Technical and Practical Instruction.” The institute listed as its executive committee: S.M. Inman (chairman), W.C. Morrill, W.A. Moore, Geo. L. Chaney, Frank Lederle (secretary), Frank P. Rice, J.W. English, Elias Haiman and H.T. Roffe.

Several of these executive committee members were also active members in the Unitarian church recently established by Rev. Chaney (Morrill, Moore, Lederle and Rice). It may rightly be inferred that Rev. Chaney reprised his Whittling School experience with his new Atlanta Unitarian congregants.

The Atlanta Constitution  Mon, Nov 16, 1885

The Atlanta Constitution
Mon, Nov 16, 1885

In an article in The Constitution on April 19, 1885, regarding the Artisans’ Institute, the paper’s reporter asked how the institute started. Frank Lederle commented, “Dr. Chaney has a great fancy for this sort of education. He was president of the institution in Boston that started the schools there. He conversed with Mr. Elias Haiman on the subject, and at last it was known that Mr. Roffe could conduct the school. A meeting was called and Messrs. S. M. Inman, W. C. Morrill, W. A. Moore, F. P. Rice and J. W. English gave $1,000 to be spent in buying the tools. The teachers agreed to work three months free.”

Another short article in The Constitution (Nov 16, 1885) listing southern industrial schools included the following: “Georgia has just made provision for a school of technology on a fine basis” and “Atlanta has an artisans’ institute.” It appears that in the mind of the public, the new technology school to become Georgia Institute of Technology and Chaney’s Artisans’ Institute were separate entities.

A search of Atlanta papers for references to the Artisans’ Institute after 1885, revealed no further  advertisements for the institute.

The search for references to the Artisans’ Institute did reveal that the Georgia Machinery Company (R.T. Roffe, superintendent) which housed the Artisans’ Institute declared bankruptcy.   Its assets were sold at public auction on May 4, 1886. (7)   It may be assumed that the Artisan’s Institute ceased operations as well.

In His Own Words

Rev. Chaney’s own words on his involvement in the establishment the Georgia Institute of Technology conveyed a mixed message. During archival research three direct comments from Rev. Chaney on his involvement with the Georgia School of Technology have been uncovered.

The first comment is found in his farewell address to his Atlanta congregation published on November 3, 1890. In his farewell remarks, Rev. Chaney reviewed his and the church’s accomplishments. He remarked, “We have had a hand in many of the most useful and humane enterprises started here, during the last decade. The Industrial Home, the Woman’s Exchange, the Home for the Friendless, the Artisans’ Institute which led the way for the School of Technology, the young men’s library, and the projected reform school for youthful criminals are some of the public benefits we have sought to promote.”

Years later in 1916, remarks written by Rev. Chaney recalling his time in the South were read at a meeting of the Southern Conference in Richmond, Va. In those remarks, Rev. Chaney again reflected on topics covered in his farewell address 26 years earlier. “The Artisan’s Institute, which began in our church, laid the foundation for the Georgia Institute of Technology, now the pride and reliance of the State. Atlanta University for the Freedmen added to its curriculum education in handwork in workshop and garden. Our Literature and Art Club and the History Class, now in its thirtieth year, united in the amenities of belles-lettres the people divided by the asperities of party religion. The Home for the Friendless and the Industrial School, with its domestication of the poorer white girls, showed how possible it was to be charitable without the lust for ecclesiastical increase, and the Woman’s Exchange offered to the proudly poor a means of alleviating their poverty without sacrifice of their just pride.”

As noted, the Artisans’ Institute founding can be traced to Rev. Chaney.  However, the record regarding the Artisans’ Institute leading the way for Atlanta’s school of technology may have been more of a nod to metaphorical leadership than actual organizational activities.  As noted the Georgia Machinery Company that housed the Artisans’ Institute entered into bankruptcy in May 1886 which was several months prior to the resolution of the location of the new Georgia Technology School.

The third direct comment from Rev. Chaney on his involvement with the Georgia School of Technology was found in an article written by the Rev. Chaney entitled “The New South.” This article was published in the November 1891 issue of the New England Magazine. The article, published after Rev. Chaney departed Atlanta, is a lengthy travelogue and review of the recovery progress in the south since the Civil War.

In one reminiscent comment, Rev. Chaney noted, “Continuing our circuit of the city, we find the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, with its beautiful and commodious edifice, the Moreland Park Military academy, and the Georgia School of Technology, a noble institution recently founded by the state and secured to Atlanta by the munificent contributions of its citizens. It has been modeled upon the Worcester Free Institute in Massachusetts, and has had the supervision of some of the teachers from that institution. The writer of this paper toiled up the hill on which this school is placed, on the occasion of its first commencement, in company with a stranger who said, “I little thought when I dragged cannon up this hill twenty-five years ago, that I should live to see a school like this here.” Emphasis on “toil up the hill” added.

Given a post-Atlanta opportunity to reflect directly upon the Georgia School of Technology, Rev. Chaney’s choice to comment on his “toil” to climb the hill on which the school was situated is revealing. With a chance to expand upon the historic record regarding his involvement, Rev. Chaney chose only to reflect upon his attendance at the first commencement.

Thus, six months prior to Rev. Chaney’s departure from Atlanta, we factually know that in the company of a Civil War veteran he labored up the hill to attend the first commencement services of the Georgia School of Technology. Beyond that not much more can be confirmed.

It has already been noted that in news accounts on the legislation founding the technology school in 1885 there are no references to Rev. Chaney. Nor are there any references to Rev. Chaney as Georgia cities vied to have the school located in their municipality in 1866.

Finally, in a review of the news accounts on the formal opening of the technology school on October 6, 1888 (8), Rev. Chaney is not listed in any newspaper accounts. The same is true two years later in June 1890 at the first commencement (9) that was extensively reported in The Constitution.

Conclusion

Whatever involvement Rev. Chaney may or may not have had in the founding of the Georgia School of Technology, later the Georgia Institute of Technology, may be lost to history.

If we draw some inferences from Rev. Chaney’s involvement with other educational institutions (Atlanta University and Tuskegee), it could be concluded that the Georgia School of Technology may not have been his sweet spot.

More research is required to confirm this next observation, but it can be reasonably argued that among the services Rev. Chaney provided to Atlanta University and Tuskegee was access to northern money.

In the same June 2, 1882 newspaper article on Hand Education referenced earlier, Rev. Chaney noted that “gentlemen in charge of the colored colleges here” are enthusiastic about providing practical, technical training to non-whites. Rev. Chaney went on to declare, “Professor Ware, of the Atlanta University, is determined to raise the money this summer and add a department of practical education for both sexes in his university next session. I am Afro-American Encyclopaediasatisfied that I can raise the money for this purpose in Boston, certainly enough to equip the university with tools and the outfit necessary.”

An oblique but consistent observation regarding Booker T. Washington (Tuskegee), Rev. Chaney and northern money is found in the Afro-American Encyclopedia complied by James T. Haley and published in 1895. In the encyclopedia entry on Booker T. Washington we find the following: “Upon reaching Tuskegee he found neither land nor buildings, nothing but the promise of the State to pay $2,000 annually toward the expenses of the school. The school was started in an old church and shanty with thirty students and a teacher.”

Booker T. Washington was an avid fundraiser for Tuskegee “making the acquaintance and securing the confidence of prominent and wealthy people throughout the country.” Among those prominent and wealthy people were the members of the Boston Unitarian Club. Organized on January 26, 1882, the Boston Unitarian Club was an association of 350 Unitarian laymen with Unitarian ministers being eligible for only associate membership.   The encyclopedia entry went on to note that the Boston Unitarian Club was the “most intelligent and wealthy club in the world.”

There are also references in Booker T. Washington’s papers and Unitarian records regarding the funding of Tuskegee activities via the Unitarian Frothingham Fund. Rev. Frederick Frothingham of Milton, MA left in his will $20,000 to the American Unitarian Association stating that “the income of which was to be used for all time to promote education among the colored people.”

The Georgia School of Technology also solicited financial subscriptions. However, unlike the education of “colored people” promoted by Rev. Chaney the new technology school would serve a white Southern population and found a ready base of southern support. Rev. Chaney in his New England magazine article earlier referenced confirmed that in his eyes funds for the Atlanta technology school were secured by “munificent contributions of its (Atlanta) citizens.”

The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia) Wed, May 13, 1885

The Atlanta Constitution 
Wed, May 13, 1885

Additionally, the establishment of a Georgia technology school was a source of Southern pride providing an alternative to students traveling to northern schools for university studies. Northern money may not have been as welcomed as it was at Atlanta and Tuskegee universities.

By the time of the founding of the Georgia School of Technology, Rev. Chaney was already engaged in educational efforts that would leave a lasting legacy to universities that thrive to this day.

Given this review of contemporary news articles, caution is recommended in “calling attention especially to his agency in founding the Georgia Institute of Technology” or noting that the Artisans’ Institute “was the seed from which sprung the Georgia School of Technology in Atlanta.”

There is no diminishment of the great works of Rev. Chaney if we demur on his role in the formation of the Georgia Institute of Technology. All Atlanta Unitarian Universalists who cross the threshold of their sanctuaries each Sunday have Dr. Chaney to thank for planting their religious faith in Atlanta. This accomplishment is indisputable.

Footnotes:

Archivist Note: Newspaper references in the footnotes may be requested.  Contact the Archivist..

1. Who Will Get It? The School of Technology a Precious Prize, The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia) · Tue, Oct 13, 1885
2. “Rev. George Leonard Chaney has returned from Massachusetts”,The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia) ·  Mon, May 24, 1886 ·  Page 8
3. Summary of Sermon,  The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia) · Mon, Jun 7, 1886 · Page 8
4. Summary of Sermon,  The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia) · Mon, Jul 5, 1886 · Page 8
5. Summary of Sermon, The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia) · Mon, Jul 19, 1886 · Page 7
6. Through the City column, The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia) · Sun, Aug 1, 1886 · Page 9
7. Receiver’s Sale The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia) · Sun, Apr 4, 1886 · Page 6
8. The Formal Opening of the Technology School and Transfer to the State,  The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia) · Sat, Oct 6, 1888
9. A Brilliant Close. The Commencement Day of the Technology School,  The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia) · Thu, Jun 19, 1890 · Page 3

 

 

 

Alexander Thomas Bowser

9 August 2005 at 01:41

From: “Isabel Hayes” <b211bowser@hotmail.com>
Subject: Alexander Thomas Bowser
Date: Tue, 09 Aug 2005 21:44:52 -0400

Minister-First Unitarian Society (Hyde Park,Mass) Records 1916-1927
Correspondence re A.T. Bowser, potential members
Trustee Records 1921-1940
Treasurer’s Report, 1902-1937
Marriage & Death records 1927-1936

The Rev. A.T. Bowser, B.D. of the Jarvis Street Unitarian Church, is a native of New Brunswick, born in Scakville, 1848, the sixth child of a
family of twelve.

His father and mother were respectively of English and of Scotch descent. At the age of 15 he commenced life in a store at Moncton N.B., but soon afterwards went to Boston, being ambitious to obtain a more complete education. Here he attended the Latin High School, and in 1873 matriculated at Harvard University. At Harvard he took the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and three years later that of Bachelor of Divinity.

Mr Bowser originally belonged to the Methodist Church, but while pursuing his studies preparatory to entering Harvard, he became interested in and finally accepted Unitarianism.

In 1881 he was ordained, and St. St. Louis, MO was the place of his first ministerial labours. He than spent two years in Evansville, Indiana, as a representative of the American Unitarian Association.. In 1884, Mr Bowser was called to pastorate of the Third Congregational (Unitarian) Church of Higham, Mass. as important position he held for three years. From Hingham he was called to Toronto where he took charge of the First Unitarian Congregation, and in this pastorate he still successfully labours.

This man was a father was a twin with Thomas. His brothers are Robert, Richard of Stoneham Mass, Charles A, Eugene, Henrietta (Mrs George McCord), Susan (Mr Trueman). His grandmather was Richard Bowser his children -Mary, Sarah, Jane, Robert & Thomas (Twins), Richard, Wesley, Benson, Susan, Eliza.I also have a picture of this Minister from the Internet if a relative wants to e-mail me where to find it. His lineage is from Thomas Bowser b:1744 Acklam, Yorkshire and Mary Layton b:1754, Liverpool, England.

Hope someone can add this to their family tree. Possibly “Townsend” and “Dixie Fox”, “Harry Mercer”, “Jackie Lindsey”- sorry I don’t have your e-mail addresses.

I’m looking for Ancestors of Matthew Bowser of Georgina and King Twp. He lived in Markham and Vaughan Twp in 1865. Married in 1838 in Toronto to Catherine Shookerhill.

Thanks Isabel

Source: Email – Subject: Alexander Thomas Baker from Rootsweb an Ancestry.com Community, August 9, 2005

Archivist Note: This email on Rootsweb “stops” at Rev. Bowser’s pastorate in Toronto.

Unitarian and Universalist Atlanta History Summary 1879 to 2003

1 September 2003 at 20:52

1879 – First Universalist Church had a small congregation in 1879 organized by Reverend W.C. Bowman, but he moved on and Universalism was disappeared for a few years.

1882 – Church of Our Father-Unitarian formed by Rev. George L. Chaney and the first building was dedicated two years later. This building stood on the corner of N. Forsyth and Church, where Atlanta-Fulton County’s Central Library now stands. The church established Atlanta’s first Free Library, meaning anyone could use it despite color, sex or social standing. Chaney left in 1890.

1893- February 24 the Reverend Q. H. Shinn came to Atlanta and on February 24, 1895 he organized the First Universalist Church once again with twelve founding members.

1900 – July-with Reverend W.H. McGlaughlin now leading the Atlanta Universalists, the first building was dedicated at Harris Street.

1904 – Church of our Father changes name to Unitarian Church of Atlanta, first use of Unitarian name.

1913 – Reverend E. Dean Ellenwood grew the Universalist membership to 170 by 1910 whereas membership of the Unitarians plunged from a high of 160 just after 1900 to 55 in 1908. Clarence A. Langston had become the fourth Unitarian Minister in 1900 at an annual salary of $1400; down from the $2000 Cheney had received. During his first year on. June 9, he dedicated the second building for the Universalists at Spring and Cain Streets. The first building was sold in 1899 to the Carnegie Free Library. In 1903 he received $1200 and tendered his resignation but a note of love from his congregation, even though it lacked any offer of more money, convinced him to stay another two years.

Turmoil in the Universalist Congregation had another quick turn over by minister Moore Sanborn in 1908 and the Unitarians and Universalists merger lost by a close vote on that date.

1915 – Building on West Peachtree bought. Now location of Marta Station near Fox Theater.

1918 – Unitarian and Universalist Churches merge in Atlanta and form the Liberal Christian Church. Financial support came largely from the two parent organizations. They needed each other to survive economically and it decreased the amount both parent organizations had to fund by supporting one congregation. Unfortunately, it was an uneasy merger and it seemed there was very little true bonding of the two groups as power would be divided by having a Unitarian minister and a Universalist President or vice versa. The uneasy alliance continued for thirty-three years through several minsters and fights that included finances, the difference of the two faiths and most of all the issue of segregation.

1927 – Name changed to United Liberal Church.

1951 – From February 18-March 3 Lon Ray Call, a minister investigated the congregation and Atlanta for the American Unitarian Association and issued a report about how the merged congregations had never truly merged. Short term constantly changing ministers who were alternately Unitarian or Universalist and the fact that any member could still tell you who was a Universalist and who was a Unitarian. Both parent organizations were still supplementing the church with funds and several issues were unresolved including integration of the membership. This came to a head when a new Atlanta University Professor Dr. Thomas Baker Jones, a black Unitarian from Columbus, Ohio was denied membership in 1948. The minister, Rev. Isaiah Domas resigned in protest of the close vote that denied Dr. Jones’ membership. This eventually led to both the AUA and UCA encouraging their ministers not to fill the vacant spot of the United Liberal Church.

After the report reached Boston, the AUA Board (who held the deed to the building) made the decision to sell the old church and start anew.

1952 – In 1952, Rev. Glenn Canfield came to Atlanta and started gathering the flock back together. For the first year services were held in the Briarcliff Hotel and Canfield introduced a radical concept called “talkback”. Talkback was a discussion after the sermon about the sermon’s content and meaning. It was so unusual that the May 5th issue of the Atlanta Constitution ran an article titled “Pastor’s Sermon Debated.”

1953 – An arrangement was made with a Mormon Congregation to purchase their building at 605 Boulevard after sharing it for a year while they built a new one. Services for ULC were held in the afternoon and no smoking, drinking of coffee or alcohol was permitted in the building while the Mormons still owned it.

Rebirth of Liberal Religion in Atlanta

1954 – United Liberal Church (Unitarian-Universalist) The ULC takes over the Mormon Church and on January 20th, a vote taken on the Church Constitution. Article IV Membership stated, “Any person, regardless of any distinctions such as race, color, nationality or station in life, who is in agreement and in sympathy with the Purpose as stated in Article II, is eligible for membership in this church and shall become a member upon signing the Statement of Basic Principles of the Church.”

The only qualification to join ULC was to sign the membership book stating you believed in the Basic Principles. John Beck had been elected President and Morgan Stanford headed the Constitution Committee. 127 members signed from 83 family units.

December 12th, Whitney Moore Young, Dean of Atlanta School of Social Work, joins congregation making it the first integrated church in Atlanta.

1955 – Social issues sub-committee formed: Support for the League of Women voters and improvement of race relations. John Beck reelected President.

1956 – Reverend Glenn Canfield called to Miami leaving a congregation that has doubled in size. Dr. Abner Golden elected President.

Georgia Universalist Committee Separates from Universalist Church of America.

April 12 – Thomas Jefferson Conference meets in Atlanta. 200 Delegates from Churches and Fellowships in the Southeast. Some discussion on merging with Universalists.

April 16 – Georgia Universalist Council approves message “to President Eisenhower and other public officials to call conferences of White and Negro leaders to seek ‘just solutions’ to the problem of segregation. Executive Director was the late Reverend Clifton G. Hoffman of Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship of Athens (Georgia).

1957 – Called Edward Cahill to be Minister in Atlanta.

A reception for Rev. Cahill is held at ULC members Betty and Coe Hamling’s home in Avondale. A few black friends attended and the Avondale neighbors called the police. As a result, Betty Hamling lost her job as Avondale school librarian and attorney Morgan Stanford lost his position as Avondale City Attorney.

Morgan Stanford elected President

Rev. Cahill and Atlanta University Dean, Whitney Young appear before Atlanta Public Library Board with petition to desegregate library. Whitney Young testifies the current system did not offer “separate but equal service.” Board agreed to form review committee but refused to divulge names of committee members.

1958 – May 16, Amendment to Article III of Constitution to change Affiliations to American Unitarian Association, Universalist Church of America, Inc. and with regional or state groups by a majority vote of the congregation.

Racial issues splitting community as different congregations take sides. United Liberal Church responds by helping to organize HOPE-Help Our Public Education. Reverend Cahill says in his sermon, “More is at stake here than just the public schools…our Democratic life is on trial.” Cahill is consistently quoted in the news and is seen in the social columns attending numerous events. United Liberal Church is becoming known for its views on segregation and the segregationist of Atlanta have branded it.

Morgan Stanford reelected President.

1959 – March, HOPE-Help Our Public Education holds its first public meeting with members Gerald and Elizabeth Reed in charge of attendance. Approximately 1300 showed up to support and find out about the group. Later in the year, Gerald Reed and ULC member and activist Eliza Paschal became members of Hope’s Executive board.

Joseph Skinner is elected President.

1960 – Ebenezer Baptist Church and ULC decided to have integrated youth group meetings. At the time, Coretta Scott King was Ebenezer’s youth group leader. The Ku Klux Klan called Mrs. Cahill in the Minster’s absence and threatened violence at the next meeting at Ebenezer. Mrs. King and Mrs. Cahill decided the meeting would go on but would advise the parents so they could keep their children home if they wished. No parent felt like they could keep their children home and the fathers of both churches surrounded Ebenezer in a ring of protection. Reports are that the only disturbance was a group of men in a car shouting insults. They may or may not have been Klan.

Because of its excellent leadership and stance on current issues, the ULC had tremendous growth at this time. The North Avenue building was found to be inadequate for further growth. A capital fund drive was organized to collect for a new church building.

Dr. Francis Binkley elected President.

1961 – Late in 1961 an anonymous history reported, “Capital Fund drive launched with minimum goal of $60,000 but the actual pledge went well over $90,000. It went on to report that few area churches were integrated and that up to now there had been very little racial violence in the city. Many in the congregation are active in civil rights, especially school integration. Members are also active in Atlanta Mental Health Organizations, Active Voters League, League of Women Voters and the AAUW.”

Dr. Edward Cahill appeared before a Hungry Club, YMCA Forum and spoke about the three methods of social change: persuasion, litigation and mass protest.

June 1, Edward Cahill submits resignation to United Liberal board; called to Pittsburgh church.

Dr. Elaine Updyke elected President.

From October to December Civil Rights activists including Dr. Samuel W. Williams, Rabbi Jacob Rothschild and Dr. Martin Luther King filled the ULC pulpit.

December 31st ULC Speaker was the Reverend Martin Luther King who gave his sermon, “Remaining Awake Through the Revolution.”  Dr. King used this sermon many times in his life and it was the title of his last public sermon on March 31, 1968. Four days later he was assassinated in Memphis.

1962 – Property on Shady Valley Drive is denied use by ULC by Atlanta City Council. Alderman Buddy Fowlkes stated it was feared anti integrated church would “lower the moral tone of the neighborhood.”

Georgia’s County Unit System outlawed. The County Unit System was a device that allowed the rural areas of Georgia to insure segregation and in the words of 1946 Georgia Governor Eugene Talmadge “a question of White Supremacy.” By allotting six votes to each of Georgia’s eight counties and six each to the rural counties, it insured that the liberals and Negroes would not control an election. (Wasn’t Morgan Stanford someone who helped defeat this system?)

Rev. Eugene Pickett called as Senior Minister.

Dr. Elaine Updyke reelected President.

May 4 – 15, 1962 United Liberal Church considered selling their building on Boulevard and North Avenue to a separatist group of Black Muslims. The vote to sell or not ended with the majority voting not to sell. Eugene Pickett in a letter to the UUA stated that he believed many of those who voted not to sell, did so because the group believe in racial superiority or that they were reflecting the desires of the church’s Negro neighbors not to have a separatist group in the church.

September 1, an article in the Atlanta Inquirer quoted 8th Ward Alderman “Buddy” Fowlkes denying suggestions that he led the fight against United Liberal Church getting a zoning change for property on Shady Valley Road, because its congregation included Negroes.

October 7, in a reaction to the rioting over James Meredith’s enrollment at the University of Mississippi, Eugene Pickett sends prepared statement to the Congregation outlining his interpretation of the First Amendment. Speaking out politically is allowed, the government acting as church or the church as government is where the line is drawn. Members could choose to act politically or the church as a whole could do so after its own vote.

Early Fall, church building sold to ?

November 4, Congregation moves to Clark Howell School. In Sara Mitchell Parson’s book “From Southern Wrongs to Civil Rights,” she talks about how Eugene Picket called and asked her if ULC could use the school. She was afraid to mention to the board that ULC was integrated and went to the board President asking him to approve it. At the next meeting it was approved and she states that she doubted any of the board members knew ULC had black members.

1963 – Harry Adley is elected President

While looking for suitable property to build on, ULC faces opposition from locals and politicians because of their political stands and the fact ULC is an integrated church. Zoning board denied a request at one point after pressure from an Atlanta City Alderman, (see September 1, 1962).

January 24, The Northside News printed a biased story that implied United Liberal Church had made an offer to buy a Methodist Church when no offer had been made. Headline read “Cokesbury Methodist rejects bid by blockbuster for N.S. Property. Bi-Racial United Liberals lose despite fat offer.” Blockbusting was a term used to indicate an area was being integrated against its wishes. Later that year, the Northside News ran a “negotiated” retraction of the article. Besides a denial of the offer, it listed the makeup of the church, brief history and a listing of famous UU’s including Adlai Stevenson, Frank Lloyd Wright, Florence Nightingale, Ralph Waldo Emerson and several past U.S. Presidents

March, Public Issues Committee formed to focus on issues and to keep congregation informed of organizations involved in areas of vital concern. Dr. Gerald Reed is chairman.

March 31, the ULC had reprinted an article by Rev. Richard Kelley of Little Rock, Ark. Titled “How old are we?” Interesting facts included: The Unitarian Church was founded in 1563. This indicates we are 252 years older that the Seventh-Day Adventists, 170 years older than the Methodist Church, 84 years older than the Circle of Friends (Quakers) and 46 years older than the Baptists.

December, The Public Issues Committee expands into areas of Social Justice and this month urged members to report facts “concerning non-compliance with Supreme Court school-prayer decision.”

Eugene Pickett delivers sermon on “The Feminine Mystique”. Current best seller by Betty Friedan.

Cliff Valley Property was acquired.

1964 – James L. Miller elected President.

May 15- Straw vote during annual meeting indicates congregation prefers Unitarian-Universalist Congregation over other names including Unitarian-Universalist Church. United Liberal Church received only six votes. Recommendation was made for Congregation but cannot be done until church constitution is amended.

1965 – January 10 – Groundbreaking for new building.

Constitutional Amendment passed on February 21 to change name to Unitarian-Universalist Congregation of Atlanta.

Joseph Amasano receives award from the National Conference of Church Architecture and the American Society for Church Architecture for our current building at Cliff Valley Way. James Miller reelected President while Harry Adley chairs the building committee for the new building.

1966 – Mr. Amasano presented the Architectural Awards his firm had received for the design of the Cliff Valley property to Rev. Eugene Pickett.

January 2, new building at 1911 Cliff Valley Way opened at cost of $449,000. An Art show and music recital helped highlight the dedication. Dr. Dana McLean Greely, UUA President from Boston gave the dedication address.

Pamphlet shows building is 75′ x 75′ and 30′ high. Building is 25,000 square feet.

August-The Atlanta Magazine runs an article called “A church for all reasons” by Rosemary Daniell. The author attempts to describe the religion and does so in a very fair way with an article that is complimentary, not demeaning. Two notable quotes: Dr. Raphael Levine-UUCA President at the time “Other religions stress man’s relationship to God. Unitarianism stresses man’s relationship to man.” In another quote Rev. Pickett replied when asked about comfort in times of need, “As a medical corpsman during the Second World War, I saw that dying men were not particularly sustained by conventional religious beliefs.”

1967 – *November 12-A report by Dr. Gerald Reed outlines the poor response of the school board to integration. Dr. Reed explains it “more as an attempt to protect white students while conceding as little as possible to Negro students”. An addendum shows increased pressure caused the board to stop “double sessions” at Negro high schools, but that it was a minimalist effort that fell far short of satisfactory to the Negro Leaders.

Toby Van Buren called as assistant minister (first time Congregation hired second minster). Ed Mangiafico is elected President.

1968 – Northwest UU spun off from UUCA. Controversial as it sent a large percentage of our pledged capital to the new Congregation.

March 22, UUCA member Lorenzo Benn is Chairman of the Public Accommodations Committee or the Metropolitan Atlanta Summit Leadership Congress. Concerned with MARTA Plans and is campaigning for Representative of the 38th District.

Ed Mangiafico is reelected President.

1969 – Dr. Gerald Reed, one of our members runs for Alderman. He was defeated because of his stands on integration.

Bill Pulgram elected President

*February 3, Atlanta Journal Constitution runs an article by Reese Cleghorn titled “The Better Schools Report: Gaining Ground”. In it Mr. Cleghorn reveals the Atlanta School Board had hired a private detective to investigate UUCA’s Education Committee after they published a report called “Better Schools: Atlanta”. The committee has criticized the board for their unequal distribution of materials to predominantly black schools while the predominantly white schools got everything they needed. In his article, Cleghorn stated “We can see no conceivable justification for such use of publicly employed detectives.”

1970 – Toby Van Buren called to Baton Rouge, LA and Don Jacobsen called from Chicago as Associate Minister.

James C.H. Anderson is elected President but has to step down in November. Walter Dowdle takes over and serves out term.

1971 – Alice Young elected President

1972 – After over nine years of dedicated ministry, Eugene Pickett is granted a sabbatical, the first ever given by UUCA. UU World magazine runs an article on it in their March 15 issue.

Alice Young reelected President.

1973 – Dan Weinstein elected President

1974 – Eugene Picket resigned after over twelve years of ministry at UUCA. During his leadership at UUCA, the congregation grew from a little over one-hundred to 1040 members. Pickett moves back to Boston to become UUA Ministry Head.

Glyn Pruce called as interim Minister for nine months.

Jack Schmidt elected President.

1975 – September, Charles Reinhardt called from Seattle.

Holly Wyand elected President.

1976 – Reverend R. Lanier Clance and eight members of UUCA form First Existentialist Church of Atlanta.

Holly Wyand reelected President.

Reinhardt resigns after vote of confidence from congregation give only 51% approval.

1977 – Lay led and guest speakers fill pulpit for nearly two years while budgetary restraints prohibit the calling of a new minister.

Carlos (Carl) Taylor elected President.

1978 – David 0. Rankin selected as candidate for ministry.

Jim Highsmith elected President.

1979 – May 1, David 0. Rankin called and begins ministry.

Mary Ann Oakley elected President

1980 – Lorenzo Berm is elected to his first term as State Representative.

Margrit Nash elected President.

Church organization restructured. (more detail)

July 1, a letter to David Rankin from a member protests the church using its non-profit status to mail out flyers requesting participants to protest the execution of a prisoner on death row. The death penalty came up again about twenty years later.

1981 – January 17, Production of the $1.98 talent show featuring UUCA talent.

April 12, UUCA member and State Representative Lorenzo Benn is awarded the C.L. Harper Award by the NAACP. Mr. Benn has been a member of UUCA for seventeen years prior to 1981 and a very active member in the NAACP, YMCA and is founder and advisor of the Street Academy.

August 1, David 0. Rankin resigns.

August 26, Women’s Equity Day Rally to support ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment at Georgia State Capital Steps. Janet Paulk researched the suffragettes who were honored and other UUCA members helped organize and were in attendance.

Margrit Nash reelected President.

1982 – May, Georgia Friends of the Mentally Ill, Now NAMI Georgia (National Alliance for the Mentally Ill Georgia) started at UUCA by Milton and Miriam Chaikin.

June 6, David Rankin gives his final sermon at UUCA. It is on photography and in his own words contains this message, “Use your eyes, ears, nose, lips and fingers—not only to receive the world, but to transform the world into a new and better reality. When you take a picture, or do anything, you are giving a portion of your soul. Make it count for something and produce a work of art.”

Reverend Terry Sweetser takes leadership of UUCA and begins with controversial sermon that begins by confessing he is an alcoholic and has just left his wife.

Duncan Howlett, retired UU minister from Maine comes to UUCA to serve as Interim Minister for one year.

Ed Arnold elected President.

1983 – Roger Comstock elected President.

1984 – Mary Ann Chew elected President.

1985 – Mary Ann Chew reelected President.

1986 – Bob Greene elected President

Interim Assistant Minister Fern Stanley comes to UUCA.

UUCA member Nan Grogan Orrock elected to the Georgia State House of Representatives.

1987 – February 28, UUCA throws Reverend Don Jacobsen a retirement party after sixteen years of service to the congregation.

Bob Greene reelected President.

October 3, The Atlanta Constitution reports that the UUCA is host to a UU revival held by the Manhattan All Souls Unitarian-Universalist Minister F. Forrester Church. Reverend Church has a battle cry of “Jesus was the greatest humanist of all time” and hopes to accomplish two things: reclaim the Bible from the conservatives and restore in liberals a sense of the uplifting wonder of religion.

1988 – January 19, The Atlanta Journal and Constitution reported a gunman wearing a ski mask interrupted a seminar at UUCA. The gunman robbed twelve people and abducted a woman who he later raped.

September 10, The AJC reports that the UUCA has its top three positions filled by interim ministers and all are women. The three women were the Reverends Betty Baker, Joyce Smith and Emily Palmer.

October 7, the AJC reports the Coalition Opposing Operation Rescue is hosting two screenings of the documentary, “Holy Terror.” One will be viewed at UUCA.

Lanie Damon and Bruce Kitchell elected Co-Presidents.

1989 – The Reverend Dr. Edward Frost is called from Princeton to UUCA.

Lank Damon and Bruce Kitchell reelected Co-Presidents.

1990 – February 8, AJC Staff Columnist Celsestine Sibley writes of Eliza Paschall who had died earlier in the year in England. Sibley describes her as an independent, outspoken crusader. Ms. Paschall spoke out for civil rights and women’s rights and later spoke out against quotas and using race or sex for any reason in hiring. After going to work for the Reagan administration, she came out strongly as well against the Equal Rights Amendment citing the existence of laws already in place made the amendment unneeded.

May 11, Celestine Sibley, honors another memory of long time UUCA member Lorretto Chappell who had passed away at the age of 94. Her column cited the time Miss Chappell was harassed into resigning her post as Head of the Children’s Division of the State Welfare Department because a neo-McCarthy state representative saw a copy of “Mein Kampf’ and “Red Wine First” on the bookshelf of her office. Attempts to fire her failed yet Miss Chappell stepped down to prevent the politics of the situation from interfering with the office of-Child Welfare.

June 4, Leader, State Representative, Activist and accomplished dancer could all describe Lorenzo Benn who also passed away in 1990. He succumbed to cancer at the age of 55. Low key, hardworking and fair were all words used for Mr. Benn who was known and loved by many in the congregation.

Les McGukin elected President.

1992 – Les McGukin reelected President.

Adopted an all congregation commitment and program to provide a direct service ministry to an inner city school. First school chosen was Fowler Elementary.

Lyn Conley elected President.

1993 – AIDS/HIV Action Group established to take over and expand the projects of its predecessor organization, UU AIDS Ministry. AIDS/HIV Action Group is formed to perform specific tasks in outreach ministry such as direct services, advocacy and prevention. One example is providing meals for Project Open Hand’s delivery route.

Rev. Marti Griffith asked several members of UUCA to Organize the L’Chaim committee. This committee helps in the celebration and education of Jewish holidays and customs.

Lynne Nault elected President.

The 1992 All congregation commitment to an inner-city school switched to John Hope Elementary (Atlanta’s second most impoverished school) and became the Hope School Project. Since then thousands of dollars, volunteer hours and assistance has been invested in this inner city school.

Lynne Nault reelected President.

1995 – Dennis McClure elected President.

UUCA establishes a Welcoming Congregation for Gay, Lesbian and Bisexuals in the community.

Later Transgender was added.

1996 – Paul Lowery elected President.

1997 – Paul Lowery reelected President.

1998 – Marti Keller ordained as Minister.

Helen Borland elected President.

1999 – June 1 – Pat Kahn came on as RE Director.

Dawn Baker restarts Families Together.

Stacy Kottman elected President.

2000 – Fern Creek Project started to keep our part of Fern Creek Clean.

January- First OWL (Our Whole Lives) class began at UUCA.

Walter Hodges elected President.

2001 – January-Parents night out started.

Walter Hodges reelected President.

MROC-Migrant and Refugee Outreach Committee formed by Jeremy Mauldin. Purpose is to encourage UUCA members to develop relationships with refugees and migrants and assist them with adjustment, support and education.

2002 – Spring – The Bennett Award is given to UUCA after a three member team consisting of Joy Borra, Janet Paulk and Howard Rees put together a presentation of UUCA’s community involvement and Social Justice Programs.

Mary Root came on as Music Director.

Summer-With help from a grant from the fund for International UUism, a group of our youth traveled to visit our sister church in Romania.

Elaine Eklund elected President.

2003 – Summer – First UUCA summer RE Day Camp Coordinated by Molly Bardsley. Howard Rees elected President.

August – Ashley Munday takes over as Youth Director.

ADHD Support Group begins.

September-Chalice Groups start.

September 14- Rev. Dr. Paula Gable gives first sermon as Acting Associate Minister.

Current Social Justice Groups under the Social Justice Council

  • AIDS/HIV Action Group- Supports through volunteers and fund raising for victims of AIDS/HIV.
  • Cascade House- direct support of this home shelter for homeless women with children.
  • Citizen for First Freedoms- Concerned with violations of the Bill of Rights amendments through education and activism.
  • Compeer Atlanta-Provides committed friends to people with disabilities through a variety of actions.
  • Criminal Justice Reform-Active in a movement to make fundamental differences in the US system of incarceration.
  • Ens and Outs-Active outdoor group that seeks to protect our environment and wilderness.
  • Fern Creek Adopt-a-stream- monitors water quality and advocates the health of stream behind UUCA. Georgians for Gun Safety-Advocates for laws to keep children safe from guns.
  • Interfaith Children’s Movement-Advocates to give an equal chance in life to children in Georgia. Interfaith Housing-Support for groups providing housing for low-income people and families in S. Atlanta Mental Illness Concerns-Active in breaking down stigma associated with mental and physical disabilities. Migrant & Refugee Outreach-Working to ease the transition of life in America for migrants and refugees.
  • Partnership with Hope School-Provides volunteers, supplies and support for John Hope Elementary. All UUCA Project.
  • Project Open Hand-Delivering meals to victims of AIDS.
  • Racial & Ethnic Concerns-Works to eradicate racism & increase diversity at UUCA.
  • Green Sanctuary-Works for responsible consumption of our resources and improve our own facility use.
  • UU Service Committee- Financial support to National UUSC and advocates for human rights.
  • UU United Nations Office-Promotes the benefits of the UN and its work toward a world community. UU’s for a Just Economic Community-Stands for fairness in the sphere of economics for the poor.
  • Welcoming Congregation-Welcoming to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people, and supports equal rights to the group.

Fellowship Groups

  • Pastoral Care – Lay ministers provide pastoral care in the form of home and hospital visits. They teach children and youth and assist the ministers with many different aspects of congregational life.
  • Accessibility – Insuring that UUCA facilities are accessible by all including elevators, hearing amplifiers and Braille song books.
  • Bookstore – Provides intellectual and spiritual materials for the congregation.
  • Counseling Services – Short term counseling for individuals to families for everything from finance to domestic problems. Resource help on long term counseling as well.
  • Covenant of Pagans – For the nature lover with an open mind. Ever evolving nature worship & fellowship
  • Daylight Focus – programs for folks who do not want to drive at night.
  • Ens & Outs – Dedicated to preservation and enjoyment of our natural environment.
  • Expo – Annual event where all groups gather to answer questions and gather new members.
  • Families Together – Family support and fellowship through a variety of activities.
  • Forever 40’s and 50’s – Gathering together of those who refuse to allow age to dictate their world.
  • 40 Plus (40+) – Similar to Forever Forties and Fifties.
  • Green Sanctuary – Organizing the Church and its activities to be sound in environmental awareness & acts.
  • Health & Well-Being – events, resources and education on being healthy throughout mind and body.
  • Holiday Dinners – Planning of annual Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners.
  • Kroger Project – Use of Kroger Certificates to earn money for the UUCA.
  • Music – Church Choir, Junior Choir, Bell Ringers, Quartet and guest musicians at UUCA.
  • Neighborhood Groups – The gathering for potlucks by Zip code.
  • Partner Church – Cultural, spiritual and economic bond with our partner church in Transylvania.
  • Playgoers – Occasional gatherings for dinner and theater.
  • Receptions – Providing refreshment for memorial services and when needed.

History of Unitarians In Atlanta by Rev. Jeff Jones

10 June 1997 at 23:40

Trying to characterize one hundred years of the history of any group or organization in a simple sermon is of necessity an impossible task to do accurately and well. But to try to summarize one hundred years of Unitarianism with all our diversity and individualism is truly beyond comprehension. The task is inconceivable.

What I can share with you is highly selected. It has been filtered through my own limited capacity to analyze and understand. It is, because of the magnitude of the task, greatly simplified and summarized.

Yet we are now in our 100th year of the founding of Unitarianism in Atlanta. And here some attempt must be made to say even a few simplified words about that 100 year history. This coming fall a formal time has been set aside for this celebration, our UUA President and former minister in Atlanta, Rev. Eugene Pickett will be joining us for the centennial. There is an Atlanta Unitarian Centennial Committee organizing the events for the fall. It should be fun.

But one problem we face is that there is really very little history that has been formalized into useful material for general reading. There are a few articles about us by regional historians- all of them (in my opinion) seriously flawed, and misinformed. One of the more scholarly takes as his starting point a deep personal dislike of the fact that we exist as a movement at all. Another does not know how to relate Unitarianism to the history of Christianity. He is ignorant of general Unitarian history, but he knows about a few Atlanta events. Another made a good study of Unitarian history but bollixed up his Atlanta facts. What of the information about Atlanta Unitarianism exists in little papers or histories or church records that cover very short time periods, there is little or no perspective.

Of necessity, I will only say a few incidental things about Universalism in Atlanta. That is a whole story unto itself, even though the Universalists joined with the Unitarians in 1918 to form a united church. They each retained their identity because the two denominations did not merge until 1960, but by that time the Unitarians and Universalists had dissolved their united church and only the Unitarians continued on in a regular way. They joined once again formally, at any rate, in 1960. Yet the Universalist Convention of Georgia voted not to participate in the 1960 merger. This complicated story- of which I confess only partial understanding- must await its telling for another time and place. For now, I begin with the Unitarian story.

It begins with the coming to Atlanta in January of 1882 of the Reverend George Leonard Chaney. He set out from Boston on January 9, 1882 and arrived in Atlanta late in the month after speaking in various cities on the way. His first act was to identify those who would be likely prospects. He found about ten people. Advertising in the local paper, he gave his first service and sermon February 19, 1882 in the Senate Chambers in the State Legislature. There were eight people present and his topic was:”How much is a man worth”? Aside from monetary worth which Chaney thought a poor way to measure worth, he thought that it is the dreams we hold, the ideals we cherish, and the hard work through times of failure until our dreams are realized which is the measure of the worth of a person.

The second service was held in the same place and was titled, “The Positive Principles of Unitarian Christianity.” There were 10 people present. These were the same 10 he had previously identified as interested Unitarians. No one from the community responded to his newspaper ads. It took Chaney until March 1883 to gather enough people to found a congregation. The covenant signed by the 27 original members is here for you to peruse following the service.

Chaney had a very quick sense of humor. I must believe it was at work when he used Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, Chapter 6, verse 4, for his text in his second sermon. Its bleak note of the few gathered and the southern alliteration are quite funny. The text goes like this: “One God, and Father of all, above all-through all- and in you all”

This sermon was so compelling in its summarizing the enthusiastic center of Unitarianism that the members in March 1883 decided to name their church, The Church of Our Father. There is something devilish in me that wishes they had instead named it “the Church of You All.”

Chaney came alone to Atlanta that winter of 1882. He worked hard, but by July when he set out for home in Massachusetts, all he had were his original and faithful ten. He returned in October 1882 and started where he left off, preaching in the Senate Chambers, the Federal Court Room in the Post Office building and in a place called Concordia Hall. In December 1882 Chaney’s wife, Caroline Isabel and his son, Carter, joined him in Atlanta. Actually, it is not quite as simple as that.

Uncle Harry came too. Uncle Harry brought Mrs. Chaney and Carter, and all the servants. Mr. and Mrs. Chaney were people of means. Their families had come to the New World to do good and had done well. Chaney was a descendent of the original Puritan settlers of Salem, Massachusetts. He was born in that family home in Salem, and died there too in his 80’s in 1922.

So when the family arrived, they came with all the trappings. But Chaney was smart enough not to intimidate his little group. He and his wife lived in simple rooms in the Kimball House in downtown Atlanta, while the rest of the party lived in the full splendor to which they were accustomed on an estate in Marietta.

By April 23, l884 the church had been covenanted, incorporated, built, and on that Sunday, dedicated. The money came from the AUA to build the church. The salary for Chaney was paid by the AUA, and the program subsidized by the AUA. This support was to last without termination until well into the 1950’s.

It was clear from the very beginning that Unitarianism would be an uphill effort in Atlanta. The Unitarians were clearly perceived as abolitionist advocates and part of the reason the South had rebelled. Following the war it was understood that Unitarians were leaders in progressive thought and politics. They were leaders in the founding of the public school systems of many states. They sent educators to the South to found high quality schools intended for anyone, regardless of race, who desired a fine education. They helped found new Unitarian churches and new public libraries. Unitarians were in an aggressive missionary mood. The denomination had just been formed in 1865, prior to that people were Unitarians on an individual basis. But after 1865 churches formed the AUA and sought to expand the Unitarian message of enlightened educated thinking in all matters, religious and otherwise.

In 1884 a zealously missionary book was published by the young denomination to declare its goals and its agenda. It was called, the Word and Work of the American Unitarian Association. In that book one author comments:

“What was done for Northern Orthodoxy by the Unitarian Church needs doing for the yet more Calvinistic Orthodoxy of the South… It has a new calling in the present need of the South. If any man doubts it, let him go South; he will find it there. For in the popular preaching of that section there are still such “blasts from hell” as need the cooling and disinfecting, touch of “airs from heaven.”(Becker)

And another, speaking of the North: “We have torn down the old alters… We have done our part to undermine the old faith.” (Becker)

This was the public image that the denomination wished to perpetuate and it was also held by many in Atlanta as they beheld the prospect of a new Unitarian Church. “What kind of radical hell-raisers have they sent us?” they must have asked. There was virtually no attendance at any church function by anyone not already a convinced Unitarian for the first two years of Chaney’s eight years in the Atlanta Pulpit.

But Chaney’s manner was not radical, abrasive, or rebellious. It was gentle, thoughtful, warm, inspirational, and very deep. He held ethical principles that he lived by, but he communicated their virtue by example, not by preaching sin or guilt.

Although there was a private Young Men’s Library in Atlanta, a library of 12,000 volumes, it was not for use by women or blacks. A fee was required that also prevented those of low income from being able to use it. Rather than a caustic attack on the powers that be, George Chaney simply set out to establish a free lending library for everyone male/female, black white, poor/or wealthy. On the table here is the catalogue of that free public library, from the year 1887. It had a wide variety of good books, numbering about 1,500 volumes. It so set the stage for a consciousness raising in Atlanta that the Carnegie Foundation set up a public library, bought the church building (in 1895) and was donated the Unitarian library by the church. So began the Atlanta public library. The brand new showcase Carnegie Library in downtown Atlanta is located on the spot where the Church of Our Father once stood.

The example was so powerful that church members living in Marietta began a public library, and reading room there. These two libraries were supported by contributions from Northern Unitarian churches and gifts of books as well Oliver Wendell Holmes donated to the Marietta Library (now the Cobb County Library) a set of all of his published works. Many other authors did the same.

George Chaney’s strategy of good works and quiet example (as noted in the Church Board’s letter to the AUA which I read earlier) won over the Atlanta community in a big way. By 1887 Chaney’s high regard in the community was, so widespread that he was invited to be the Memorial Day speaker at the Civil War Cemetery in Marietta. According to the Atlanta Journal the crowd of 2,000 was the largest ever and that Chaney was thought by the listeners to have been a remarkably fine speaker.

Chaney was a tireless worker in the service of human good. A partial list of his accomplishments would have to include his efforts on behalf of improved education.
Whittling School — Industrial School — Industrial training in Boston’s Schools — Technical College Training.

A founder of Industrial and Technical training in American Education:

• Hampton Institute
• Freedman’s School (Nashville, Tenn.)
Artisans Institute — GEORGIA TECH Atlanta University (Archivist Note: this linkage to Georgia Tech is suspect)

His philosophy of working by quiet but determined example was the philosophy behind Booker T. Washington’s Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, and its most famous scientist/professor, George Washington Carver.

It was a famous philosophy declared by Booker T. Washington at the 1895 Cotton Exposition in Atlanta, where Washington was able to show off many Black educational and industrial accomplishments. His speech was called, the “Atlanta Compromise” and in it he argued passionately that the aim of the Black person in the South was to live an exemplary life, to be educated fully for liberal arts and especially industrial and agricultural skills, and to leave the vicious field of post war Klan style politics to those who lived in fear and hate. This philosophy dominated Black education until the middle of this century.

George Leonard Chaney was on the Tuskegee Board of Trustees for 25 years and served at least once as its president (in the year, 1895.) His philosophy of progress in the brutal climate of the post-war South obviously sat well with Booker T. Washington. Chaney dedicated the first building erected at Tuskegee and worked tirelessly on its behalf until his death.

Throughout the Deep South the return of political control to Southern whites meant a great loss of advancement for many Blacks. There were on average 190 lynchings a year from 1877 to 1900 in these states. The Klan rode high and few dared to speak out. Many who did died for their courage.

A non-confrontational philosophy of self-advancement made a great deal of sense to Southern Blacks, as it did as well to the tiny Unitarian community of Atlanta. But advance they did.

Chaney and the Unitarians became well known for their support of art, literature, music, and culture. The church was a forum for the highest and best. Chaney was a sought after lecturer. His seven books were popular and well read. His involvement in the initiating of a United Appeal to support public health was pioneering and generally supported by Atlantans as well.

Controversy was not Chaney’s way, but human advancement was, especially for those who were in greatest need.

By the time Chaney resigned his ministry, November 3, 1890, his congregation had grown to about 135 members with an average attendance of nearly 60. For six more years he worked in the South starting new churches and helping exist¬ing ones as the Southern Superintendent of the AUA. In 1896 he retired to Salem, Massachusetts.

From 1890 until 1915 the Atlanta church had many ups and downs, mostly downs. The members were, according to my readings of the financial records, a very cheap bunch. They constantly begged the AUA for money to subsidize trip operation, yet they never really supported it well themselves. Contributions of $5.00 per year were quite normal. Finally in 1908, the President of the AUA, Samuel Eliot wrote the Atlanta crowd a letter, outlining their inability to keep a minister longer than 3 years (most left after one!), their organizational mismanagement, their financial lack of commitment, and their constant expectations for being bailed out. Dr. Eliot told them to fish or cut bait. Choose death or choose life, he said – the choice from there on was theirs. They chose to muddle along, generally as they had been. One fine minister after another came and went. Their reputation fell and fell until it was no more. In the early 1920’s because of lack of payment of back taxes a FiFa was executed in the Parish House at the West Peachtree Street Church – and was almost sold in auction – the AUA bailed them out.

Records indicate that a few courageous members carried the work of the church. The Board was rarely larger than 4 or 5 members. The membership shrank to about 30. In 1915 a new beginning was attempted and the church on West Peachtree was built. Chaney and his wife came down and a great dedication and founders day event was celebrated. These windows were dedicated to George and Caroline and were known as the Founders Windows.

Yet by 1918 the Universalists who were also in trouble, sold their building, and joined in an uneasy alliance with the Unitarians. The Universalists were largely segregationists and the Unitarians integrationists. The Universalists sat on the side of the aisle, the Unitarians on the other. The Universalists usually held the Treasurers post, the Unitarians the President of the Board.

They alternated ministers, but none stayed longer than a couple of years. This sad situation continued until the mid 1920’s when the feisty and now famous Universalist minister Clinton Lee Scott came to Atlanta.

Clint Scott is one of our most highly regarded ministers (He lives in aged retirement in Florida.) He went from Atlanta to become the General Superintendent of the Universalist Church in America. But while he was here he performed one of those ministries that is hard for anyone to forget. He shook that little congregation by its collective neck until their teeth could be heard to rattle all the way to Boston. His directness became legendary to a denomination
involved with polite avoidance of conflict.

His main accomplishment was the facing of the race issue in the life of the church, and in moving the congregation from a stance of quiet objectiveness to one of outspoken courage. Scott feared no lynch mob or night rider. He taught his little congregation that courage as well.

He was followed by Dr. Aubrey F. Hess, a minister of great skill and insight. Aubrey Hess held doctorates in philosophy, psychology, theology and medicine. His widow, as many of you know, is a member of this congregation: Mrs. Jean Hess, and so is their daughter, Mrs. Jean Wells. Dr. Hess, in the face of genuine disbelief by the segregationists, accepted into membership a Black professor from Georgia Tech, a man who was transferring his membership to the Atlanta church from the Unitarian church in Detroit. The congregation instantly polarized. A meeting was held and a vote taken to close the church forthwith. A second meeting was held. Mrs. Hess tells me she and Aubrey sat on the porch of the Parish House and gaily greeted the members as they arrived, stoney faced. A vote was taken and 47 wanted Dr. Hess to stay as minister and to keep the church open. Twenty-three were of the opinion that he should go and the church be closed. Seven were of the opinion that they did not have an opinion.

So Dr. Hess took a 50% cut in pay, a group left, and the church went on, gaining most of the lost members in the first year due to the moral stand taken by the congregation and its minister.

Tragically, a year and a half later, Dr. Hess died while on his way to the denominational meetings. Mrs. Hess was the person mainly responsible for leading the church through the remainder of the Depression and into post World War II existence.

By the late 1940’s the congregation had dwindled to a mere handful. The AUA sold the West Peachtree Street building and the church became moribund until the early 1950’s when a missionary minister, Glenn Canfield, was sent by the AUA to try again. His message was a frank and forthright religious liberalism and was integrationist as well. The group began to prosper. After a few years he moved on and Rev. Ed Cahill replaced him. The congregation grew. By the early 1960’s Eugene Pickett was the minister and a new facility was constructed at Cliff Valley Way. There was rapid growth and the congre¬gation easily topped a thousand members. It became once again a headquarters for art, music, drama and poetry. It was a firm white support group for early civil rights activity. Members were arrested for holding integrated meetings, breaking a Georgia law. Crosses were burned on members’ lawns.

But the group held fast to its views and its vision of a world united not in hate, but in love. Virtually alone as a white institution it stood for the equality of all – an equality above all, through all, and in all. There are people here today who can tell this part of the story far better than I. But it is a story consistent with the beginnings of Unitarianism in Atlanta. A story not of hate or violence, but of thoughtful, gentle, quiet example. A story of overcoming someday, with love and personal example, the cruelest and most vicious human depredation.

Eventually, to bring this tale up to date, Northwest Congregation started up – the year was 1968. By the late 1970’s the Southside Fellowship started, and the Existentialist Church, and in 1981, the Northeast Fellowship began. There are close to 1,500 Unitarian Universalists in Atlanta today in our various congregations. We exist in typical diversity yet we have a unity ¬a common history and a common heritage. It belongs equally to all of us.

Our identity has moved from a quiet determined witness of example in the face of total hostility – and a condition of virtually no protection of life and limb against the hostile forces of post-war racism – to a place of quiet determined witness, and Clinton Scott inspired willingness to speak out, to declare that injustice exists, and to seek redress and correction. Ours has always been a public commitment to the broadening and deepening of the human soul. To the cause of intelligence, education, culture; to loving care of those in need, to support for those treated unjustly, to a witness for the deepest and the best of which human beings are capable.

This is the story of our first 100 years in Atlanta. As I look about me and the needs that face our day, I can only pray that we meet our next 100 years with as much courage, faith, and commitment, as we have our past 100. And further, that we exceed many fold that record. Our world needs it, our city needs it, and my friends, and we need it.

May we learn from our history and our predecessors’ successes and failures? History does not repeat itself; people who fail to learn from history repeat these errors – again and again.

May our vision, our dreams and our hopes lead us, may our courage and commitment sustain us, and may we celebrate our next 100 years with satisfaction and joy.

Physical Archive: UUCA Box: 09 Folder: 05
Also found in documents stored at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta

Prophets of the Southern Kingdom

1 June 1997 at 00:10

Prophets of the Southern Kingdom: Unitarian Universalist Contributions to Race Relations in Atlanta

by Jeffrey G. Jones
Summer 1997

Living the principles of Unitarian Universalism in the South has been a formidable but rewarding undertaking for many. The challenge of liberal religion south of the Mason-Dixon line is found in the tension between a culture that reveres tradition and a religious faith that recognizes the inevitability of change. And yet, this religious movement has attracted dynamic leaders, clergy and lay, to its southern churches. In Atlanta, clergy have been outspoken, and members have faced potential and actual loss of jobs. These prophetic men and women have lived a faith that affirmed the inherent worth and dignity of every person and sought a society of inclusion rather than exclusion.

Southern Unitarian Universalists have been prophets in the truest sense of the word. Although prophets today are thought of as predictors of the future, the latter Hebrew prophets of the eighth to sixth centuries B.C.E. were outspoken critics from within the religious community and who warned against spiritual barrenness and social injustice. In the northern Kingdom of Israel and in the southern Kingdom of Judea, these ancient prophets foretold great calamity resulting from empty religious rituals that had lost meaning and the accumulation of wealth and status at the expense of others. As told in the book of Amos:

I loath, I spurn your festivals,
I am not pleased by your solemn assemblies.
If you offer Me burnt offerings—
or your meal offerings—
I will not accept them;
I will pay no heed
To your gifts of fatlings.
Spare me the sound of your hymns,
And let Me not hear the music of your lutes.
But let justice well up like water,
Righteousness like an unfailing stream.[1]

The city of Atlanta, located in the deep South, has been served by a remarkable group of religious leaders also calling for social change. Where tradition has reigned supreme, these Unitarian Universalists have challenged a society that went to war rather than accept the abolition of slavery. The Civil War, in fact, devastated a small and fledgling Unitarian and Universalist movement in the South. Of the six Unitarian and approximately forty Universalist churches in the antebellum South, only the New Orleans, Louisiana, and Charleston, South Carolina, Unitarian churches and the Camp Hill, Alabama, Universalist church were holding services at the end of the war. Church survival may have been linked to the minister’s position on slavery. The New Orleans minister, Theodore Clapp, had supported slavery. In Charleston, Samuel Gilman did not discuss it.[2]

In Atlanta, founded as Terminus in 1837, Unitarian and Universalist roots began in the reconstructed South. In 1881, Unitarian minister Rev. George Leonard Chaney traveled south from Massachusetts and founded The Church of Our Father, Unitarian, in 1883. Chaney helped found or served as a trustee of the Hampton Institute, the Tuskegee Normal Institute, Atlanta University, and the Georgia Institute of Technology. Chaney used the Atlanta church, located at North Forsyth and Church streets (now Carnegie Way), as the first free lending library open to blacks and women. In 1899, the church property was purchased by the Carnegie Library, and is today the location of the Central Branch of the Atlanta Fulton County Library.[3]

After a precarious Universalist start in Atlanta, which in actuality preceded the Church of Our Father, the city became one of the fledgling groups initiated by Universalist missionary Quillen H. Shinn in 1895. After ups and downs experienced by both the Unitarians and the Universalists, they merged in 1918, but not before the American Unitarian Association had financed the construction of a 240-seat church on West Peachtree St. By the mid-1920s, the congregation attracted Universalist minister Clinton Lee Scott to Atlanta. According to the late Rev. Robert W. Karnan, Scott’s main contribution to the Atlanta church surrounded the issue of race. “Scott feared nor [sic] lynch mob or night rider. He taught his little congregation that courage as well.”[4]

After Scott’s departure in 1929, the church membership declined and it struggled financially. Like virtually all Southern churches, it remained segregated. According to Methodist minister Earl Brewer, blacks would attend white churches to sing, which was not often, as invited clergy, which was even less often, or on special occasions as maids or employees of a white family. [5]

In 1948, the church, renamed the United Liberal Church (ULC) at the urging of Clinton Lee Scott, found itself split over the inclusion of blacks in the membership of the congregation. The schism was precipitated when a black applied for membership.[6] In the newspaper account of the incident, Dr. John E. Beck, leader of the congregation, said its actions did not directly involve any single individual. Rather, the congregation voted to table an “open door” amendment to its constitution, “opening the church to all adherents regardless of race or national origin.”[7]

The incident had national repercussions within the Unitarian denomination. To put pressure on the church to change its policies, the American Unitarian Ministers’ Association urged its members to refuse a call to the pulpit in Atlanta. Dr. Beck assumed the Universalist ministerial organization would act similarly.[8]

The crisis in Atlanta contributed to the congregation’s demise. According to Rufus McCall, a member since 1922, Grant Butler came to Atlanta, likely sent by the AUA, “and tried to make everybody feel good, but at the same time, was advising key individuals to stop contributing to the church. The church would close and the AUA would send someone to start again.”   The issue was not simply race. The church had perpetual financial problems, failed to attract new members, and the denomination wanted to start fresh in Atlanta.[9] In 1951, the AUA sold the building out from under the congregation. A smaller group continued to meet at the Cox Carlton Hotel, served by Baptist minister Rev. Joe Rabun.[10]

In less than a year, the AUA sent Rev. Glenn O. Canfield to Atlanta. He had been given only two names, Mrs. Sam Boyd (mother of Ms. Peggy Beard) and Dr. John Beck. From them he was to reconstitute liberal religion in Atlanta. Canfield first held meetings in his living room.[11] Then from a mailing list of two hundred, the United Liberal Church was ready to try again.

On 24 February 1952, fifty-five persons met at the Briarcliff Hotel.[12] In the first Sunday program of the United Liberal Church (Unitarian Universalist), Canfield extolled the importance of the meeting and proudly proclaimed “We are making history this Sunday.” According to member Kay Cherry, “we had a mandate from our parent congregation (sic) that we were to be integrated. So we did our best to be so.”[13] Included in the first church program was the elusive “open door” policy in the statement of beliefs:

WE BELIEVE

… in freedom of research in the continual process of discovering life’s truth and values;
… in the possibility of growth toward maturity – mentally, emotionally, and spiritually – as we learn to live in the Spiritual Reality of the universe;
… in the relatedness of all mankind, and that happiness and security can be realized only in human relations based upon mutual understanding, cooperation and love.
We therefore welcome every one who will endeavor to live by these principles, to join our fellowship.[14]

Canfield used his pulpit to bring the prophetic message of racial integration to Christian and liberal churches alike. Quoting the New Testament, “My house shall be a house of prayer for all the nations,” Canfield went on to say “A Christian church then should welcome people of every nation and race. Can a liberal church do less?”[15] Other Canfield sermons included “Did Jesus Believe in Racial Segregation?” “The Power of Prejudice,” and “Personality and Prejudice.”[16]

The United Liberal Church met in the Briarcliff Hotel for almost a year. But according to Kay Cherry, the blacks who used the front elevators upset some of the residents who had apartments in the hotel. Soon, the manager told Rev. Canfield that the spaced used by the church would be needed for other purposes. The growing congregation, with help from both national denominations, bought an existing building and parsonage. The property, owned by Mormons, was on Boulevard and North Avenue.[17]

The church continued to thrive and on 20 January 1954, the church officially organized with 127 charter members, representing eighty-one families.[18] Nationally, both the Unitarian and Universalist denominations publicized the formation of the new church but failed to mention the reason for the demise of the former Unitarian-Universalist Church. Both, however, quoted from the new church’s constitution the now expanded “open door” policy: “Any person, regardless of any distinction such as race, color, nationality, or station in life, who is in agreement and in sympathy with the Purpose . . . is eligible for membership in this church.”[19]

Holding integrated church services was daring and unique, but in 1954, the battle over integration began in earnest with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education. In prophetic anticipation, Canfield preached a sermon titled “What Can We Do for Race Relations” referencing the pending Supreme Court decision. In June, he preached “A New Birth of Freedom” expressing his gratitude for the Supreme Court’s decision declaring segregated schools unconstitutional.[20]

In 1953, likely in anticipation of a Supreme Court decision, the Georgia General Assembly had passed the “private school” amendment to the Georgia Constitution. It would allow the legislature to close public schools and authorized the payment of tuition grants to parents for the purpose of sending children to private schools. After the Brown v. Board of Education decision, the amendment would appear on the 2 November ballot for ratification. By October, the United Liberal Church took its message of opposition to the air waves and print media. On 24 October, the congregation passed a resolution advocating defeat of the amendment and sent copies of its resolution to sixteen newspapers, three wire services, nine radio stations, and three television stations.[21]

Building on it entry into advocacy, the congregation held its first meeting of the Education for Action Group, chaired by Professor Walter Buckingham. The group of twenty-one who attended the initial meeting set an ambitious agenda and established four committees as follows:

  • A committee to explore the possibility of establishing a Youth Center and a playground for the youth and children of the neighborhood;
  • A committee to explore the possibility of establishing a Day Care Center for children of working mothers of this neighborhood;
  • A committee on Civil Rights, such as the use of the main library by Negroes, increased voter registrations in the Negro community, censorship, etc.
  • A committee to explore the possibility of setting up a school, with the cooperation of other groups, if the public schools are abolished, and if the private schools planned to take their place are inadequate to supply a satisfactory educational opportunity for our children.[22]

On a Friday night in late March 1955, the Youth Center Committee, headed by Miss Helen Oppenlander, opened the doors of the church to the youth in the neighborhood. Fourteen young people, all under sixteen years of age, attended although it is not clear how many were members of the church.[23] The Youth Center met at least two additional times, in late April and again in late May.[24]

As an intentionally integrated congregation, the church successfully attracted Atlanta’s blacks. Whitney Young, chair of the School of Social Work at Atlanta University began visiting the church in September 1954 and joined that December.[25] He did this despite criticism he received from other blacks for attending a “white” church.[26] Black college students from Atlanta University, Morehouse College, Morris Brown College, and Spelman College were frequent visitors.[27]

Church members also took leadership roles in the Atlanta community. Glenn Canfield was the chairman of the Greater Atlanta Council on Human Relations, a subsidiary of the Georgia Committee on Interracial Cooperation and the Southern Regional Council. Church members R. L. Henderson and Whitney Young served as consultants.[28]

In 1957, Rev. Ed Cahill came to Atlanta from Charlotte, N.C. to serve the United Liberal Church. Cahill’s installation drew notables from Atlanta and the national denomination. The opening words were given by Dr. Rufus E. Clement, “the black president of Atlanta University and a member of the United Liberal Church.” Frederick May Eliot, AUA president, delivered the installation sermon, and Atlanta mayor William B. Hartsfield welcomed Cahill to Atlanta.[29]

The occasion of Cahill’s arrival, though, dramatically demonstrated the danger of participating in an integrated congregation. Betty and Coe Hamling, members of the church, held a reception for the Cahills at their home in Avondale, a suburb of Atlanta. A small number of blacks attended. At the end of the evening there was a disturbance outside the Hamling home. The police were called, and neighbors came out of their houses. The commotion, it turns out, was caused by the fact that the Hamlings were entertaining blacks in the city of Avondale. Although there was no further incident that evening, the consequences were disturbing. Betty Hamling, a librarian for an Avondale school, lost her job. Church member Morgan Stanford, City Attorney for Avondale, was fired.

Such incidents did not dampen the spirits of Ed Cahill. One of Cahill’s first sermons added a sense of urgency to the issue of integration. Her sermon, titled “The Sin of Moderation,” warned about the false appeal of moderation. Cahill claimed that a word such as moderation could be used “and abused until it is almost unrecognizable.”[30] A century earlier, a similar controversy developed over the issue of slavery. The abolitionists demanded an immediate end to slavery while the freesoilers believed slavery would fade away if it was not allowed to spread to new territories.   Cahill was taking the abolitionist position, demanding an immediate end to segregation.

Like Canfield’s prophetic words that the church was making history simply by opening its doors in 1952, Cahill also recognized the unique role the Unitarians and Universalists were playing in the South. In a series on Old Testament prophets, Cahill held up justice as a barometer of religious and spiritual health of a community. Cahill citied Amos’s idea of justice as one that had contemporary applications.[31]

Cahill also played a role in the larger community. In late 1958, Cahill joined a group of 311 ministers in the greater Atlanta area in amplifying and reissuing the Atlanta Manifesto. Several key points in the manifesto were as follows:

  1. It appealed to churches and synagogues to encourage and promote within the fellowship a free and intelligent discussion of the issues.
  2. It urged community and state leaders to give their best creative thought to maintain the public schools consistent with the law of the land and the rights of all citizens. The ministers properly decried any proposal to use churches as schools to evade the Court’s decree.
  3. It requested the appointment of a citizens committee to preserve harmony within the community.[32]

Evident in the Atlanta Manifesto was the resurgence of the “private school” amendment and the threat to public schools. The congregation of the United Liberal Church joined the fight for public education. When HOPE, Inc. (Help Our Public Education) held its first public meeting in March 1959, ULC members Gerald and Elizabeth Reed were in charge of attendance which drew a staggering 1300.[33] Later that same year, Gerald Reed and church member and Atlanta activist Eliza Paschall became members of the HOPE, Inc. Executive Board.[34]

Cahill used the pulpit to speak on behalf of public education. In December 1959, Cahill pondered in his sermon whether the legislature and the Governor would allow Atlanta to comply with the Supreme Court’s decision or would they force Atlanta’s schools to close. The very next week, as the Georgia legislature was getting ready to begin its forty-day session, Cahill addressed the issue in his sermon titled “Will Atlanta Commit Suicide?”[35]

The congregation became equally engaged in the struggle for desegregation. Sermon talk-backs had long been a tradition of the United Liberal Church and had even been the subject of local newspaper coverage.[36] Now these talk-backs became more than a forum for discussing a sermon; they became a platform for taking action. At a March 1960 talk-back, the congregation directed the Board to send a letter to local newspaper editors endorsing the principles expressed in “An Appeal for Human Rights” published by the students of Atlanta’s Negro’s Colleges. In October 1960, the congregation voted unanimously to endorse the goals of the sit-in movement.[37]

The church also engaged the youth regarding the importance of diversity and civil rights. Although the youth group had few black members, it did have joint meetings with the youth of Ebenezer Baptist Church, whose youth group was led by Coretta Scott King. Ann Cherry, youth group member, remembers a Peppermint Twist Party.[38] On one occasion, Ed Cahill recalled, “the Klan called Mrs. Cahill, in my absence, and threatened violence at the next [joint youth meeting] at the United Liberal Church. Coretta King was consulted; she said to go ahead. All parents were called to give them the option of keeping their children home. Not one parent held back. In fact, all the fathers came that evening and ringed the church outside to form a visible wall of protection.”[39]

The United Liberal Church opened its pulpit to prominent civil rights leaders. Between October and December 1961, the ULC pulpit was graced by Dr. Samuel W. Williams, Rabbi Jacob M. Rothschild, and Dr. Martin Lither King. Jr. Williams, probably the least remembered of the three, was minister of the Friendship Baptist Church, Professor of Philosophy at Morehouse College, President of the Atlanta Chapter of the NAACP, Chairman of the Greater Atlanta Council on Human Relations, and Vice President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.[40] Williams also spoke to the ULC youth group on occasion, and youth group member Robert Chaikin remembers him as militant, outspoken, and clearly ahead of his time. When Chaikin asked Williams about the white supremacist charge that ill-equipped blacks would bring down the school system, Williams retorted “get off my back and I’ll get out of the ditch.” Chaikin was impressed.[41]

The United Liberal Church experienced tremendous growth under both Canfield and Cahill. Acknowledging the need for more space, the church initiated a capital fund drive. Shortly after the drive, Cahill announced his call to the church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The task of finding a new location fell to the new minister, Rev. Eugene O. Pickett who came to Atlanta in 1962.

The church soon found a very favorable location on Shady Valley Drive, north of downtown but still within the Atlanta city limits. When the church applied for a “Use Permit,” to use the site for a church, the integration issue reared its ugly head. As Kay Cherry recalled, the opposition on the Atlanta City Council, led by Alderman Douglass L (Buddy) Fowlkes, held sway and denied the permit because they feared an integrated church would “lower the moral tone of the neighborhood.”[42]

The church’s struggle to find adequate meeting space continued by way of an unflattering Northside News article titled “Cokesbury Methodists Reject Bid by Blockbusters for [Northside] Property: Bi-racial United Liberals Lose Despite Fat Offer.” According to a letter of rebuttal, written at the request of the ULC Board of Trustees, attorney Morgan Stanford cited the article’s numerous erroneous and libelous statements, and requested a retraction and editorial space to respond. In March, the Board directed members Harry Adley and Martin Durrett to prepare the response.[43]

As racial injustice in the South persisted, the congregation continued to use the period following the Sunday morning service to address the issues. In September 1962, the bloodshed and rioting caused by James Meredith’s enrollment in the University of Mississippi made for a spirited discussion, particularly when the congregation elected not to take action. The next week, Rev. Pickett addressed the issue in a prepared statement. Pickett affirmed the church’s right to take action “either as a body or through its members acting as responsible citizens in a democracy.” He further stated that “one of the strongest and noblest traditions running through Judaism and Christianity is that of the prophets crying ‘Shame’ upon the social and political wrongs of their time, and exhorting the people and rulers to straighten their ways.”[44]

Pickett, however, cautioned that any public stand taken by the church “should be made in accordance with the democratic procedures as stated in our church constitution and by-laws.” In effect, Pickett was questioning the validity of hastily made decisions that resulted from the Sunday morning discussions. Rather, Pickett argued, Sunday discussions best served as informational vehicles, laying the groundwork for constructive and thoughtful action.[45]

In March 1963, the church formed a Public Issues Committee as a standing committee of the church with Gerald Reed as Chairman. In its first Newsletter, the responsibilities of the committee were outlined. It was to focus both on issues of immediate concern and to inform the congregation about other organizations active in areas of vital concern to the congregation.[46]

In the second newsletter, the Public Issues Committee announced a public meeting and discussion with Wiley A. Branton, Director of the Voter Education Project of the Southern Regional Council. The meeting was held at the auditorium of a local bank. On the Sunday morning following the meeting, Rev. Pickett read a Pastoral Letter which emphasized the urgency for race relations, and contrasted violent white reaction with the reasonable and moderate demands made by blacks. Pickett then gently chastised the congregation for the low attendance at Branton’s meeting, which only twelve people attended. Pickett reiterated his appeal for informed decisions and responsible individual action by members of the congregation.[47]

The Public Issues Committee continued to publicize outrageous civil rights injustices and encouraged member action. In November, the Committee publicized the plight of four students, engaged in a voter registration drive, who were jailed without bail on the charge of insurrection.[48]

Although race continued to be a focal point for the United Liberal Church, the Public Issues Committee and Rev. Pickett increasingly expanded the realm of social justice issues. In December 1963, the committee urged church members to report facts “concerning non-compliance with the Supreme Court school-prayer decision.” In May 1964, Pickett gave a sermon on the Becker Amendment that would permit Bible reading and prayer in public schools. The Public Issues Committee drafted, and the congregation passed, a resolution against any action that attempted to alter the First Amendment to the Constitution. The resolution was sent to members of Congress. Emanuel Cellars, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, replied indicating the church’s resolution would be inserted in the record of the hearings of the Judiciary Committee. That same month, Pickett delivered a sermon on “the year’s most controversial bestseller,” The Feminine Mystique.[49]

Activities in race relations did not subside. In 1965, the members of the congregation were noticeably alarmed by the death of Rev. James Reeb in Selma Alabama. Rev. Pickett and others drove to Selma and the church held a memorial service for Reeb. The church’s telephone committee went into action and in a single Sunday, with the stores closed, church members supplied 250 blankets in response to an emergency last-minute appeal on behalf of the Selma to Montgomery civil rights marchers.[50] In early September, the Board of Trustees approved travel expenses for Rev. Pickett to help fill the pulpit of Rev. Donald Thompson. Thompson, the Unitarian minister in Jackson, Mississippi, and active in civil rights activities, had been ambushed on his way home from a church meeting.[51]

In February 1966, only a month after the congregation moved into its new building on Cliff Valley Way and changed its name to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta (UUCA), U.S. Attorney General Katzenback spoke at a church program sponsored by the Race Relations Sub-Committee of the Public Issues Committee.

In November, the church came under attack from Georgia’s most outspoken segregationist, Lester Maddox. The 15 November church newsletter contained the following article:

DIAL-A-SLUR FROM LESTER M. Last week one could dial a number and hear a taped message from “Let Freedom Ring,” the location of which is Lester Maddox’s Pickrick furniture store, 3131 Campbellton Road, S.W. After a diatribe against school textbooks now in use, the “subversive” Unitarians were attacked.

The Atlanta Journal said, “the message includes McCarthy-like attacks upon one of the major religious denominations of America, one to which many of our Founding Fathers adhered.”[52]

In April, 1967, Mrs. Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique, spoke at UUCA. Her talk was prophetically titled “Women – the Second Civil Rights Movement.”[53] Her appearance at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta reflected a turning point in the church’s activities in Civil Rights. Beginning in the late sixties, church members played key roles in founding the Atlanta chapter of Friedan’s National Organization for Women. Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, Unitarian Universalists in Atlanta made significant contributions toward the efforts to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment.

Today, the struggle for human rights continues. In the early 1980s, UUCA members Elizabeth McMaster (now a Unitarian Universalist minister) and Bob and Marci Haver were instrumental in the formation of a support group for the families of homosexuals. This group became the precursor to the UUCA chapter of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (P-FLAG).[54]

In 1984 and 1985, the General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association adopted the Purposes and Principles of our denomination. First in the list is “the inherent worth and dignity of every person.” The covenant to affirm and promote this important principle is not just a forward-looking guiding principle for our religious tradition, but also a documented fact of how our denomination has worked for human rights in the past.

In the South, the struggle for this tenet of the Unitarian Universalist faith has been the work of many courageous men and women. Some lost jobs, others suffered personal injury, many lost friends, and at least one lost his life. All have been at risk from a culture that has been threatened by change, but change it did. The Unitarian Universalists in Atlanta can proudly claim their place as prophets of the Southern kingdom.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

PRIMARY SOURCES

Manuscripts

Chaney, George Leonard. Manuscript Collection No. 639, Special Collections Department, Robert W. Woodruff Library, Emory University.

Paschall, Eliza. Manuscript Collection, Special Collections Department, Robert W. Woodruff Library, Emory University.

Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Records. Archives and Manuscripts Department, Pitts Theology Library, Emory University.

Newspapers

Hughes, Ed. Atlanta Journal, 5 March 1959, 17.

Livingston, Pat. “Pastor’s Sermons Debated by New Congregation,” Atlanta Constitution, 5 May 1982.

Interviews

“A History of the Congregation,” 26 October 1994, a video recording hosted by Walter Dowdle. Interviews with Peggy Beard, Bill Watson, Roger Comstock, Lynne Nault.

Barnes, Ellen Beard. Telephone interview by author, 1 September 1996. Syracuse, New York.

“Conversations about UUCA Church History: A Discussion between Peggy Beard, Ned Cartledge, Bill Cherry, and Kay Cherry. 1995. Atlanta, Georgia.

Chaikin, Robert. Telephone interview by author, 28 August 1996. Atlanta, Georgia.

Cherry, Ann. Telephone interview by author, 1 September 1996. Silver Springs, Maryland.

Cherry, Bill. Interview by author, 30 August 1996. Atlanta, Georgia. Tape recording.

Haver, Bob and Marci. Telephone interview by author, 2 September 1996. Atlanta, Georgia.

McCall, Rufus. Interview by author, 30 August 1996. Atlanta, Georgia. Tape recording.

SECONDARY SOURCES

Books

Martin, Thomas H. Atlanta and Its Builders: A Comprehensive History of the Gage City of South, Vol. 2. Century Memorial Publishing Company, 1902.

Unitarian Universalists in Atlanta 100 Years. n.p.: Centennial Anniversary Committee of the Atlanta Area Unitarian Universalist Congregations, 1982.

Journals

“Atlanta Organizes New United Liberal Church,” Christian Register, Unitarian (March 1954): 26.

“Atlanta’s United Liberal Church,” The Universalist Leader (March 1954): 84.

Cahill, Edward A. “The Changing South.” The Unitarian Register (June 1958): 16, 21.

Howe, Charles, A. “’Cousins Twice Removed’ Unitarians and Universalists in the South.” Unitarian Universalist Selected Essays. Boston: Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association, (1996): 53-65.

Footnotes

[1] Amos 5: 21-24 (Tanakh)

[2] Charles A. Howe, “’Cousins Twice Removed:’ Unitarians and Universalists in the South,” Unitarian Universalist Selected Essays (Boston: Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association, 1996), 54-5.

[3] See the biographical note for the George Leonard Chaney Papers, Manuscript Collection No. 639, Special Collection Department, Robert W. Woodruff Library, Emory University; Thomas H. Martin, Atlanta and Its Builders: A Comprehensive History of the Gate City of the South, Vol. 2 (n.p.: Century Memorial Publishing Company, 1902, 575; Charles C. Brooks, “Unitarian Universalism: The First Hundred Years in Atlanta,” in Unitarian Universalists in Atlanta 100 Years, (n.p. Centennial Anniversary Committee of the Atlanta Area Unitarian Universalist Congregations, 1982), 3.

[4] Robert W. Karnan, “Atlanta’s Legacy: Tireless Ministers, ‘A Few Courageous Members,’” in Unitarian Universalists in Atlanta 100 Years, 14.

[5] Clifford M. Kuhn, Harlon E. Joye, and E. Bernard West, Living Atlanta: An Oral History of the City, 1914-1948 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1990), 249.

[6] The identity of the black man is in question. In “Spurn Church Call Here,” Atlanta Journal, 30 May 1948, 10-A, Rev. Isaiah Domas stated that the black man was Dr. Thomas Baker Jones, chairman of the Social Work Group at Atlanta University. Peggy Beard, a member who attended that day, believes his name was William Boyd, the same name as her brother. An Atlanta University archivist indicated that William Boyd began as chairman of the Political Science Department in 1948. They have no records for a Dr. Thomas Baker Jones.  Archivist Note – Nov 2016:  Based on conversations with Claudia Reed, daughter of Rev. Domas, who was present at the time of this incident clearly indicated that the individual involved was Dr. Thomas Baker Jones.  Dr. Jones was a colleague of Rev. Domas at Atlanta University.

[7] “Spurn Church Call Here, Unitarian Ministers Told,” Atlanta Journal, 30 May 1948, 10-A.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Rufus McCall, interview by author, 30 August 1996, Atlanta, Georgia.

[10] Charles C. Brooks, “Unitarian Universalism: The First Hundred Years in Atlanta,” in Unitarian Universalism in Atlanta (Centennial Issue, 1882-1982), 5.

[11] Conversations about UUCA Church History: A discussion between Peggy Beard, Ned Cartledge, Bill Cherry, and Kay Cherry, 1995.

[12] Sunday Service Program, 2 March 1952, folder 5, box 40, Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta (UUCA) records, Archives and Manuscripts Department, Pitts Theological Library, Emory University.

[13] Conversations about UUCA Church History.

[14] Sunday Service Program, 24 February 1952, folder 5, box 40, UUCA Collection, Archives and Manuscripts Department, Pitts Theology Library, Emory University.

[15] Sunday Service Program, 6 April 1952, folder 5, box 40, UUCA records.

[16] Sunday Service Programs, 22 March 1953 and 6 December 1953, folder 5, box 40, UUCA records; Sunday Service Program, 31 January 1954, folder 1, box 41, UUCA records.

[17] Conversations about UUCA Church History.

[18] Sunday Service Program, 31 January 1954, folder 1, box 41, UUCA records.

[19] “Atlanta Organizes New United Liberal Church,” Christian Register, Unitarian, March 1954, 26; “Atlanta’s United Liberal Church,” The Universalist Leader, March 1954, 84.

[20] Sunday Service Program, 6 December 1953, folder 5, box 40, UUCA records; Sunday Service Programs, 14 February 1954 and 6 June 1954, folder 1, box 41, UUCA records.

[21] Sunday Service Programs, 24 October 1954 and 31 October 1954, folder 1, box 41, UUCA records.

[22] Sunday Service Program, 12 December 1954, folder 1, box 41, UUCA records.

[23] The church’s youth group, called Vanguard, met regularly on Sunday evenings at 6:30 pm.

[24] Sunday Service Programs, 3 April 1955, 24 April 1955, and 5 May 1955, UUCA records.

[25] Sunday Service Programs, 3 April 1955, 24 April 1955, and 15 May 1955, UUCA records.

[26] Bill Cherry, interview by the author, 30 August 1996, Atlanta, Georgia.

[27] Sunday Service Program, 3 April 1955, folder 1, box 41, UUCA records.

[28] Sunday Service Program, 26 February 1956, folder 4, box 41, UUCA records.

[29] “The First Hundred Years in Atlanta,” 6.

[30] Sunday Service Program, 24 March 1957, folder 5, box 41, UUCA records.

[31] Sunday Service Program, 9 November 1958, folder 6, box 41, UUCA records.

[32] Newsletter, 30 November 1958, folder 6, box 41, UUCA records.

[33] Newsletter, 1 March 1959, folder 2, box 42, UUCA Collection; Ed Hughes, Atlanta Journal, 5 March 1959, 17.

[34] Newsletter, 27 September 1959, folder 2, box 42, UUCA records.

[35] Newsletters, 27 December 1959, 3 January 1960, folder 3, box 42, UUCA records.

[36] Pat Livingston, “Pastor’s Sermons Debated by Newer Congregation,” Atlanta Constitution, 5 May 1952.

[37] Newsletters, 20 March 1960 and 30 October 1960, folder 3, box 42, UUCA records.

[38] Ann Cherry, telephone interview by author, 1 September 1996, Silver Springs, Maryland.

[39] “Unitarian Universalism: The First Hundred Years in Atlanta,” 6.

[40] Newsletter, 11 November 1961, folder 8, box 52, UUCA records.

[41] Robert Chaikin, telephone interview by the author, 28 August, 1996, Atlanta, Georgia.

[42] Conversations about UUCA Church History.

[43] “Cokesbury Methodists Reject Bid by Blockbusters for [Northside] Property: Bi-racial United Liberals Lose Despite Fat Offer,” The Northside News, 24 January 1963, 1; Board of Trustees Minutes, 27 January 1963 and 4 March 1963, folder 3, box 36, UUCA records.

[44] “Statement by Eugene Pickett, Minister,” 7 October 1962, folder 7, box 52, UUCA records.

[45] Ibid.

[46] Newsletter, 31 March 1963; Newsletter No. 1 of the Public Issues Committee, April 1963, folder 6, box 52, UUCA records.

[47] Newsletter, 19 May 1963, folder 6, box 52, UUCA records; “Pastoral Letter,” 26 May 1963, folder 1, box 36, UUCA records.

[48] Newsletter, 3 November, folder 6, box 52, UUCA records; Newsletter, 15 December 1963, folder 6, box 52, UUCA records.

[49] Newsletters, 10 May 1964, 24 May 1964, and 14 June 1964, folder 2, box 37, UUCA records;

[50] Newsletter, 21 March 1965, folder 3, box 37, UUCA records.

[51] Newsletter, n.d. (early September 1965) folder 4, box 37, UUCA records.

[52] Newsletter, Vol. XV, No. 24 (February 1966), folder 4, box 37, UUCA records; Newsletter, 15 November, folder 3, box 39, UUCA records.

[53] Newsletter, 11 April 1967, folder 2, box 39, UUCA records.

[54] Bob and Marci Haver, telephone interview by author, 2 September 1996, Atlanta, Georgia.

 

 

 

Shelter Neck's Unitarian School

5 December 1994 at 15:11

The following document was prepared by Eunice Milton Benton in December 1994 as her thesis for her Master’s of Arts Degree in Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi.    Copyright by Eunice Milton Benton, 1994  All rights reserved.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter  I.    Southern Work – Unitarianism in the South at the Turn of the Century

Chapter II.    The Chronicle of the Carolina Industrial School

  • 1900-1910  –  The Beginnings of the “Dix House School”
  • 1911-1919  –  The Heyday of The Carolina Industrial School
  • 1920-1926  –   The Last Years of the Shelter Neck School
  • Managing and Financing of the School
  • The Shelter Neck School Properties

Chapter III.  Northern Unitarian Women and Southern Backwoods Families

List of References

Appendix

  • Personal Sketches
  • Chronology of Teachers and Staff (not  included)
  • Abby A. Peterson Memorial Society document
  • 1893 Map of  Southeastern U. S. from showing Unitarian  churches and preaching stations
  • Map of Shelter Neck area, showing school site (not  included)
  • Contemporary Site Plan of Shelter Neck Property, 1993 (not  included)
  • Photo of Shelter Neck School Students and Teachers (ca. 1915) (not  included)
  • Photos of Shelter Neck Site, 1993 (not  included)
  • Program from 1900 Shelter Neck Chapel Dedication (not  included)

Vita

DEDICATION

This thesis is dedicated toGladys Oliver Milton, my  mother, whose lifelong belief in the value of education and whose own  example of earning a master’s degree at midlife opened the door for me to follow a similar path,  and to

William Grady Benton, my husband, with whom I have shared over a quarter century of living and whose support of women and their work–and of me–is a much appreciated gift.  His willingness to underwrite my midlife scholastic work provided the “grant” which allowed this research to be done.

ABSTRACT

At Shelter Neck, North Carolina, a never-incorporated community in the coastal piney woods of Pender County, New England Unitarians established a small church and operated of a school during the first quarter of the twentieth century. Never a strong denomination anywhere in the South, Unitarianism was an unlikely sponsor for a church in the backwater South at the turn of the century. Yet this endeavor erected the first Unitarian church building in North Carolina and offered education to the rural white children of this remote area before the state provided it.

The chronicle of events between 1900 and 1926 which precipitated, sustained, and finally terminated the Unitarian school at Shelter Neck, North Carolina, has never been researched or published. This thesis contains the account of this enterprise, which incorporated as The Carolina Industrial School. This study inquires about the motives of the northern-based philanthropists, the interaction between them and this small Southern community whose economy was based on timber and farming and whose established churches were evangelical, and the influence of their efforts on the community and the school’s students.

Background and Research Method

At Shelter Neck, North Carolina–a never-incorporated community in the coastal piney woods of Pender County–Unitarians based in New England sponsored a small church and operated of a school for most of the first quarter of the twentieth century. The endeavor erected the first Unitarian church in North Carolina and was an attempt to offer education to rural white children in this remote area where the state had not yet provided it.

The story of the educational enterprise which began at Shelter Neck and was later incorporated as The Carolina Industrial School has never been uncovered or reviewed. There were no other Unitarian churches in the state when the chapel, the first building built at the site, was dedicated in November 1900. Never a strong denomination anywhere in the South, that Unitarianism would sponsor a school and church in North Carolina is noteworthy and invites questions about the motives of these northern-based philanthropists, the interaction between them and this small southern community whose economy was based on timber and farming and whose established churches were evangelical, and the impact of their efforts on the community and its members in ensuing years.

The records of the school’s operations indicate that the main sponsor, organizer, and manager of this “Southern Work” was the National Alliance of Unitarian Women. How and why did the organization fix upon this particular community? How was the operation financed and managed? What was the experience of the organizers, ministers and teachers? Of the students? How did the school as an institution interact with the community? What was the long-range impact of the school on its students and on the community at Shelter Neck?

Using a wide variety of resources, this paper will attempt to unearth and examine the story of the Unitarian presence at Shelter Neck. Oral histories from former students of the school and their descendants, minutes of meetings of Unitarian organizations involved with the project, and correspondence between those working in North Carolina and the sponsors in New England will be primary sources. Published works about industrial schools in the South, philanthropies undertaken by women’s groups at the turn of the century, Unitarianism and other pertinent religious groups, and histories and data about Pender County, North Carolina, and the South at the turn of the century will also be consulted.

INTRODUCTION

This is the story of a short-lived North Carolina school which grew from a schoolroom built by a missionary minister. It is a story where Unitarians meet Primitive Baptists and where Yankee women are teachers for Southern backwoods families. It is the story of a few years when a small Southern place coalesced around an institution, founded by outsiders yet accepted by the people of the community as their own. This study documents a quarter century when, in an obscure spot in the South, women of a small religious denomination from a Northern city schooled one generation of rural children. It is a short history of a brief experience in a small place, which, nonetheless, influenced the lives and world views of those who shared it.

The chronicle of events between 1900 and 1926 which precipitated, sustained, and finally terminated the Unitarian school at Shelter Neck, North Carolina, has never been researched or published. The mission of this work is to inform the historical record about these events and to inquire about their significance in the lives of those who experienced them.

Those who are interested in the interaction of religious and cultural groups, those interested in religion in the South, and especially those interested in the Unitarian and Universalist presences in the South will find this account meaningful. But this is not just a story about religion. While the Unitarian movement and its womens’ organization sustained the effort, the story of Shelter Neck is about human and cultural interaction, about people from the urban educated North coming to work with people in an obscure swampy corner of the South. It is a story of the work of women and of a womens’ organization born in the Victorian era–an era when women enjoyed educational privileges never before available but before professional doors fully opened to them, and an era when the concept of settlement work arrived and found an eager audience among educated upper class women. It is the story of an undertaking which rode to a large extent on the shoulders of one dedicated woman, whose death undoubtedly hastened its demise.

Chapter I of this paper provides background for the Shelter Neck story. It focuses primarily on two antecedents of the Shelter Neck school at the turn of the century–the Unitarian presence in the South and the National Alliance of Unitarian Women. Chapter II recounts the history of the school–its founding, curricula and operations, and closing. Chapter III inquires into the motivations, interactions and reactions of the people who shared this experience. It stirs the kettle of cultures, creeds, missions and memorials that mingled at Shelter Neck.

The Executive Board Minutes of the National Alliance of Unitarian and Other Christian Women proved to be the primary source for details about the school’s history. No financial or board meeting records of the Carolina Industrial School have been found. Sources for the story delineated here include the Alliance minutes, articles found in various publications (especially the Christian Register), interviews with former students of the school over a two-year period, and other documents which provided insight into the school’s curricula and activities.

The Shelter Neck school is the main subject of this study, but the Carolina Industrial School, Incorporated, consisted of two schools in North Carolina; the other, at Swansboro, was called the Emmerton School. This paper necessarily touches on the work at Swansboro because, after the Shelter Neck school closed, the work was “consolidated” into the Swansboro facility. Not until all the work of the Carolina Industrial School ended is there closure to this chronicle.

This paper intends to document and is deliberately descriptive. It is ribboned with quoted material because the view of this researcher is that the “voices” of those involved in the story–their own telling of what happened–illuminates events in a way that a recasting of their words could never do. Thus, especially in the second and third chapters, quotes from personal interviews, sections of the Alliance minutes, pieces of Reverend Key’s historical sketch, and passages from articles, correspondence, and documents are liberally used to capture both the chronicle of events and the flavor of the times in which they occurred.

Heard here are the voices of establishment New England Unitarians and their Harvard educated ministers purposing not only to spread the liberal Christian message in the South but also to “induce and establish right thinking and right living.” Recorded here is the chronicle of an effort whose retired leader claimed it had succeeded in “improving the health, elevating the tastes, arousing the ambitions of the people at large, and bearing undeniable testimony to the value of the Carolina Industrial School.”

At Shelter Neck high-minded New Englanders, influenced by the notion of settlement work, led by such examples as the South End Industrial School and the Southern Industrial School, and surely seeing themselves as knights and ladies bringing good clean living to this unkempt community, gave “untiring service” for a quarter of a century.

Obviously the Northern Unitarian backers of the school wished to clean up and pretty up this backwater community. Unarguably their motivation was to extend their own notion of “right living.” Dominant cultures have, throughout history, been prone to extend their cultural ideas to less prominent groups, to attempt to make over lesser ranked societies in their own images. In doing so, such reformers risk exhibiting an inherent disrespect for the cultures of others.

Yet the influence of this effort was limited. Had the Unitarians touched a larger population or stayed longer in Shelter Neck, their influence, whatever its merits, might have been greater. The finest accomplishment of the Unitarian school at Shelter Neck may be that it fostered a sense of community pride, which nurtured individuals in the community and gave them a sense of value and worth. Those who experienced the school as students have fond memories and associations which seem, in their later years, to be sustaining.

Chapter I

SOUTHERN WORK: UNITARIANISM IN THE SOUTH AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY

Rev. Mr. Chaney said there was no doubt in his mind that the greatest work done for church extension in the next ten or fifteen years will be owing to the work done by the women in the last ten years, and they are bound to do more; to do what the A.U.A. cannot do.                                      National Alliance Minutes – 1891

The late nineteenth-century South, imbued with religious fervor though it may have been, had never embraced Unitarianism. “Overall, liberal churches made little impact on nineteenth century religious life in the Southeast,” concludes Earl Wallace Cory. His 1970 dissertation about nineteenth-century Southern Unitarians and Universalists declares that the efforts of both denominations–they would not merge until 1961–were “only modestly successful” in the region.[1]

Throughout the better part of the century the only Southern Unitarian churches of any size and stability were in the cities of Charleston, New Orleans and Louisville, with a congregation in Richmond intermittently active.   Both the Charleston and New Orleans congregations, still the oldest continually functioning Unitarian churches in the South, had been established by 1817. Begun as Presbyterian groups, both these Southern coastal city congregations were sustained through the mid-century years by long-term ministers, the Reverend Samuel Gilman in Charleston and the Reverend Theodore Clapp in New Orleans. In Louisville Bostonian clergyman George Chapman, who had come “at the solicitation of a few earnest and liberal-minded people to whom the principles of Unitarianism had long been dear,” was the minister who helped establish that church in the 1830s.[2]   As early as 1833 a congregation had been started in Richmond, but declined into inactivity during the Civil War years and was not revived until the 1890s. Short-lived congregations had also existed in the course of the century in Augusta and Savannah, Georgia, and in Mobile, Alabama.[3]

In addition, a number of unsettled Unitarian ministers, some of whom had been converted from other faiths, roamed the rural South in the latter part of the century. Joseph G. Dukes, in eastern North Carolina, and Jonathan Christopher Gibson, in northwest Florida, were among these. The National Alliance of Unitarian Women would become the primary support for the Reverend Dukes, whose missionary ministry would plant a chapel and school at Shelter Neck, North Carolina.

The Unitarianism that came to the South in the nineteenth century had arisen out of the Reformation and acquired its name for its preference of viewing God as one Being instead of a Trinity. The American denomination had its roots in Massachusetts, where it had been founded in the young American republic by a group of Boston clergy who had moved away from the more orthodox, Calvinist-centered belief system of New England Congregationalists. In its nineteenth-century form, Unitarianism was, primarily, a reaction against Calvinism’s belief that human beings were depraved and threatened with hell. Late nineteenth-century Unitarians considered themselves “liberal Christians,” but Christians nonetheless, and were frequently surprised and offended when more orthodox and conservative religious groups attacked them. “The central idea of Unitarianism was shared by those who bore this name, whether in the North or the South,” points out Cory. “[They] embraced both a denial of the dogma of the Trinity and an emphasis on the unity of God.” Cory also cites another common theme in the faith and its conflict with orthodox Christianity: “Reason increasingly became a hallmark of Unitarianism . . . Those holding the orthodox theology doubted the role of reason, because they considered man’s nature corrupt and dominated by the power of evil.”[4] While in urban Boston Unitarianism was the establishment denomination, the region below Mason Dixon line did not its “reasonable.” Most late nineteenth-century Southerners viewed Unitarianism not only as unorthodox but “Northern” as well.

Young as an American denomination, the Unitarian Church and its liberal religious precepts were confined almost entirely to New England for most of the nineteenth century. By the 1880s and 1890s, however, the Boston-based denomination stepped up efforts to spread the Unitarian message in the South. Its primary goal in the region was to foster churches in the larger cities. Although the last two decades of the century would witness more Unitarian activity in the South than ever before, in the mid-1890s the denomination would reassess its goals and resources and rein in its extension efforts, virtually abandoning some projects and precipitating the resignation of its recently established Southern Superintendent. The National Alliance of Unitarian Women would be called upon to rescue the pioneer work and to nurture those fragile patches in the South where Unitarianism had taken root.

Even though the denomination clearly wanted to promote itself, Unitarians’ outreach activities were less proselytizing than those of more evangelical faiths, and their projects tended to have prominent educational and social aspects. Particularly in the South, the denomination believed that education would lay a foundation for the acceptance of Unitarianism, and that, as Cory asserts, “liberal religion would thrive if the educational level of the southern communities was raised. “[5] In the period immediately after the Civil War, many individual Unitarians supported schools in the South for formerly enslaved African Americans. Later both individual Unitarians and Unitarian organizations aided educational ventures for southern white children.

Historian Cooke explains the Unitarian perspective about reform work:

The belief of Unitarians in the innate goodness of man and in his progress towards a higher moral life, together with their desire to make religion practical in its character and to have it deal with the actual facts of human life, has made it obligatory that they should give the encouragement of their support to whatever promised to further the cause of justice, liberty, and purity. Their attitude towards reforms, however, has been qualified by their love of individual freedom. They have a dread of ecclesiastical restriction and despotism over individual convictions. And yet, with all this insistence upon personal liberty, no body of men and women has ever been more devoted to the furthering of practical reforms than those connected with Unitarian churches.[6]

As early as 1868, in fact, the American Unitarian Association had become involved in reform in the South, focusing especially on the needs of recently enfranchised African Americans. In an agreement that year with the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Unitarians furnished $4000, to be used primarily in educational work. In his Unitarianism in America Cooke lists individual Unitarians who “engaged in the work of educating the negroes” during the years immediately following the Civil War: “Rev. Henry F. Edes in Georgia, Rev. James Thurston in North Carolina, Miss M. Louisa Shaw in Florida, Miss Bottume on Ladies’ Island, and Miss Sally Holley and Miss Caroline F. Putnam in Virginia.” During its first eight years the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama received $5000 annually from Unitarians, and leaders at the Hampton Institute in Virginia observed at the turn of the century that “the Unitarian denomination has had a very important part in the work of Hampton.” Mary Hemenway, a Unitarian woman of some means, was the largest single donor to Hampton and also contributed generous sums for other Southern educational work. The Calhoun, Alabama, “Colored School and Settlement,” the first settlement school in the South, which two former Hampton teachers had founded, was supported “mostly by Unitarians.” In early 1886 the American Unitarian Association established a bureau of information about Southern schools; headed by Hampton Institute’s former treasurer, General J. B. F. Marshall, the bureau screened Southern educational ventures worthy of support and contributions for Unitarians interested in them.[7]

In late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century issues of The Christian Register , the major Unitarian periodical of the time, articles about Southern schools abound. Frequently found are letters from the leaders of Tuskegee and Hampton Institutes, as well as stories about the Alabama schools at Calhoun, Snow Hill, and Camp Hill. Northern Unitarians frequently exhibited a preference for backing African American institutions, however, about which a contributor to the The Register , writing after a trip to Camp Hill, complained: “Pure devotion has been invested in this school by its principal and his admirable helpers. Bitterness has often been expressed because northern people will give for Negroes but have no sympathy with the needy white children of the South.”[8] In eastern North Carolina, however, a circuit missionary venture, supported jointly by the American Unitarian Association and the National Alliance of Unitarian Women, would found the Carolina Industrial School, an institution for rural white children.

Unitarians valued education and held reason and rational thinking in high esteem; indeed, observes Cooke, “it has often been assumed that Unitarianism attracts only intellectual persons.”[9] Unitarian Horace Mann had been the first secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education and was later president of Antioch College in Ohio, an institution promoted as “the Harvard of the West” and supported largely by Unitarians. Harvard Divinity School was almost exclusively Unitarian for the first half of the nineteenth century, although in later years it opened up its doors to other denominations under the presidency of Charles W. Eliot.[10] The Proctor Academy, established in Andover, Massachusetts, in 1848, was a Unitarian preparatory school, and the Hackley School, another Unitarian-supported New England preparatory school, was founded in 1900 at the urging of Samuel A. Eliot, son of Charles W. Eliot and then President of the A.U.A. [11]

Closer to the Carolina Industrial School’s site, in Wilmington, North Carolina, a Unitarian woman who had distinguished herself with the Unitarian-supported Sanitary Commission during the Civil War would devote the balance of her life to establishing schools which would become the foundation for the Wilmington public school system. Amy Morris Bradley would be known as “Wilmington’s School Marm.” There is, however, no indication of any interaction between Amy Bradley and the women who taught at Shelter Neck, though the latter small community is only about forty miles north of Wilmington. The two educational efforts by Unitarian women in North Carolina sprang from separate eras and motivations and had no connection. While Amy Bradley’s work received support from the American Unitarian Association, it was substantially finished by the time the A.U.A. and the National Alliance became involved in North Carolina. Bradley died in 1904.[12]

Only as recently as 1825 had the American Unitarian Association been founded, and, “Up to the year 1865 the Unitarians had not been efficiently organized, and they had developed very imperfectly what has been called denominational consciousness, or the capacity for co-operative efforts.”[13] Yet, aided by the circulation of denominational tracts and periodicals, Unitarianism spread westward to the larger cities of Kansas, Illinois, Wisconsin, and California. Given the disturbance of the Civil War and its attendant issues, however, Unitarians directed little or no effort toward the South.

Appomattox ushered in a new era for the country, and for Unitarianism. Writes Cooke:

The war had an inspiring influence upon Unitarians, awakening them to a consciousness of their strength, and drawing them together to work for common purposes as nothing else had ever done. . . Whatever its effect on other religious bodies, the war gave to Unitarians new faith, courage, and enthusiasm. For the first time they became conscious of their opportunity, and united in a determined purpose to meet its demands with fidelity to their convictions and loyalty to the call of humanity.[14]

In the spring of 1865, with victory for the Union assured, Northern Unitarian leaders for the first time called for the raising of a significant sum of money ($100,000) and “a convention . . . to consider the interests of our cause and to institute measures for its good.”[15] Although the resolution of theological issues between conservative Christian and the more “radical” transcendental elements consumed a good deal of the movement’s energy over the next decade, the period between 1865 and 1880 saw a “denominational awakening” and the instigation of an annual National Conference.[16]

In 1885 the establishment by the A.U.A. of “sectional” superintendents, one of which was the Southern Superintendent, set the stage for Unitarian expansion in the South.   The influence of the first Southern Superintendent and his wife, the Reverend George L. Chaney and Caroline E. Chaney, profoundly changed the demography of Unitarianism below the Mason Dixon line. By the early 1880s the Reverend Chaney was already doing missionary work in the South and in 1882 was the catalyst for the beginnings of a congregation in Atlanta. Chaney was Southern Superintendent until 1896. During his years in the South the number of Southern cities claiming Unitarian churches increased dramatically. The early 1890s saw the revival of the Richmond congregation as well as the founding of new churches in Chattanooga, Memphis, St. Louis, Austin, San Antonio and Galveston, and the beginnings of more formative groups in Greenville, South Carolina; Jacksonville and Tampa in Florida; Nashville, Tennessee; Asheville and Highlands in North Carolina; and Birmingham, Alabama.

Chaney’s influence not only established new congregations but connected them to each other at meetings of the Southern Unitarian Conference, founded in 1884, and through The Southern Unitarian, a monthly journal published, beginning in 1893, for five years. Although tracts and periodicals printed in Boston also circulated,The Southern Unitarian encouraged the young Southern congregations. The Southern Conference met almost annually for many of those years: in Atlanta in 1887, 1888, and 1894; in Charleston in 1885 and 1892; in Chattanooga in 1889 and 1891; in New Orleans in 1893; and in Memphis in 1897.[17]

While her minister husband was Southern Superintendent, Caroline E. Chaney served on the Board of the National Alliance of Unitarian and Other Christian Women as Vice-President for the Southern States, first elected in the re-organized National Alliance’s first annual meeting in September, 1891. Her voice in the board meetings and her reports at annual conferences were stirring as she championed the causes of fledgling southern churches and isolated missionaries and implored the Alliance’s support for them, once exclaiming that she “wished that words might be given her to express the needs of the South.” [18]

The influence of the Chaneys and Mrs. Chaney’s position with the National Alliance undoubtedly drew the women’s organization into the major role it would play in Unitarian extension in the southeast. The Reverend Chaney, speaking in 1891 at the first annual meeting of the freshly reconstituted National Alliance, urged the women to continue their missionary projects: “Rev. Mr. Chaney said there was no doubt in his mind that the greatest work done for church extension in the next ten or fifteen years will be owing to the work done by the women in the last ten years, and they are bound to do more; to do what the A.U.A. cannot do.”[19]

By the 1890s the National Alliance of Unitarian and Other Christian Women was a busy and dynamic organization, yet, at only ten years old, still a relatively young one. As Jessie E. Donahue has observed, the American Unitarian Association was fifty-three and the National Conference thirteen years old before a Unitarian women’s association organized.[20] While Unitarians had been among the first to support women in education, the ministry, and other professions, no woman appeared as a delegate at the first two National Conferences of the denomination. By the third, in 1868, however, thirty-seven women were delegates, a result undoubtedly inspired by a resolution the previous year suggesting to the member churches the appropriateness of such representation. The denomination had ordained its first woman minister, Celia C. Burleigh, in 1871, only a year after delegates elected Lucretia Crocker the first woman board member for the A.U.A.[21]

The organization of Unitarian church women formally began in 1880 as the Women’s Auxiliary Conference. The first stirrings of Unitarian women, led by Fanny B. Ames, occurred in concert with the meeting of the 1878 National Conference, which appointed a committee of ten women to prepare a plan for an auxiliary organization which would be run by women. “Women had been listeners at all meetings of these organizations [the A.U.A. and the National Conference],” writes Sara Comins in a later history of the Unitarian women’s movement. “Strong personalities had effected reforms in society outside the church, . . suddenly . . . a spark of enthusiastic determination animated these women, led by Mrs. Ames,” she continues.[22]

Growing momentum led to a formal organizational meeting in 1880 at Saratoga, New York, which created the “Women’s Auxiliary Conference.” (The Auxiliary could claim among its founding members some of the activist women of the day–Julia Ward Howe, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Peabody, Dorothea Dix, Kate Gannett Wells, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, and Fanny B. Ames, among others.) The understood intent of the new organization was to involve women in the work of the American Unitarian Association and the National Conference and, thus, the name “auxiliary” was fitting. The Auxiliary’s meetings were planned to coincide with those of the National Conference, to which it made reports and to which it was subsidiary. The male-led American Unitarian Association received and managed all the monies raised by the women’s organization. By 1890, however, enough women were ready for change to support the adoption of a new constitution and a new name: “The National Alliance of Unitarian and Other Liberal Christian Women.” The move caused some alarm:

The change made then in its handling of funds created a near panic. . . Hitherto it had been deemed imprudent and inadvisable for the women’s organization to maintain an independent treasury. For a separate executive body of Unitarian women to disburse its own money was regarded as dangerously revolutionary and the change was accomplished in 1890 only after long and heated debate in the denominational press and among ministers, laymen and the Auxiliary members themselves.[23]

In September 1890 the newly constituted Alliance–its shortened name the one by which it became known–pointed toward the turn of the century with a new structure and new officers, most of whom would shepherd the refocused association through the next decade: Emily A. Fifield was Recording Secretary; Mrs. Robert H. Davis, Corresponding Secretary; Miss Flora L. Close, Treasurer, and, in the chair as President was Mrs. Ward B. Dix. A bevy of Vice-Presidents and Directors represented the various regions and clusters of Alliance branches. Through the last decade of the nineteenth century and into the first several of the twentieth, the Executive Board of the National Alliance would meet monthly, its minutes dutifully recorded in Mrs. Fifield’s neat handwriting, at the headquarters of the American Unitarian Association at 25 Beacon Street in Boston.

The minutes of the Alliance monthly board meetings are a rich source of information and reveal the remarkable level of commitment of its executive officers. The organization’s leaders were as involved in its operations and promotion as the management of any modern corporation.   Its officers were almost constantly on the road, and its secretaries generated reams of written records. These women leaders, who clearly believed in the value of face-to-face contact, made frequent excursions into the South, an area which few nineteenth-century Bostonians had visited. In May 1895, for example, “the secretary [probably Mrs. Davis] gave a detailed account of her visit of Baltimore where she had. . . attended all the meetings of the Southern Conference. She had met . . . some of the ministers doing the circuit service’ in which the Alliance is much interested.[24]

To finance its expanding work, the Alliance published, in denominational periodicals and circular letters to its branches, an “appeals list” to request support for its causes. Its Appeals Committee acted as a clearinghouse for the many solicitations and reported regularly to the board.

Of all the Alliance projects in those years, none was more successful than the “Post Office Mission.” Well suited to the times, the Post Office Mission’s purpose was to spread the message of Unitarianism by means of the United States mail. Comins notes, “ It was not a new thing for the stronger churches to send . . . religious literature to the new and struggling churches. . . But the Post Office Mission was to extend a knowledge of Unitarianism to those who applied for it in answer to advertisements in magazines and newspapers.”[25]

As a result of the Post Office Mission new Unitarian groups in the South and West frequently emerged. How to support those in the hinterlands who had heard the message but had no preacher or congregation around whom to develop their new-found faith became the challenge of the women’s organization. In the effort to support struggling new congregations, especially those in the South, the National Alliance and its branches played a substantial role. An 1892 announcement from the Alliance board reminds the women of the special needs of less-established churches: “Every small society should understand that though large and influential churches might be able to dispense with the National Alliance branch, a small society finds in it the very heart of strength and courage, and the more isolated the society the more it is needed.” [26]

Northern Unitarians also often played a paternalistic role for Southern Unitarians, especially when the financial base of a Southern church needed undergirding. Fledgling churches in the South looked North to the denomination’s headquarters for sustenance while they gained a footing and often openly and specifically solicited Northern help. In 1893 the Alliance branch in Atlanta requested any “articles left over from fairs in the North” which they declared would “come to most excellent use” in Atlanta. An 1893 letter from a member of the Chattanooga Alliance branch sounded a plaintive cry for assistance:

I write you in the hope that you may use your influence in our behalf in one of the most difficult periods we have had to endure since our organization. All Souls Church, organized in 1889 . . . has until this year kept steadily increasing in strength, numerically and financially, and has secured very satisfactory recognition in the community. It is one of the outposts of the Unitarian work and has been frequently gladdened by kind remembrances from Northern churches and individuals. Naturally, the stress of great financial or other disturbances falls most heavily on new communities, and ours is poor. Even the comparatively rich are poor now, because their investments are in manufactories which are lying idle or in real estate which is unproductive. There is a mortgage on our church building , due January 1, which we are anxious to pay off. In ordinary times there would be no difficulty; now we are obliged to cry to our Northern friends, “Come over, and help.”[27]

As the Alliance women attempted to coordinate their missionary efforts with those of the male-led American Unitarian Association some subtle conflicts arose, most of them over areas of responsibility.   An 1896 explanation about an A.U.A. communique is illustrative:

“The attention of the board was called to the perplexity of many of the secretaries of the Branches over an enclosure of circulars sent to them recently from 25 Beacon St., Boston. The board desires to assure the Branches that the circular touching Post Office Mission work is simply the proposed plan of the treasurer of the American Unitarian Association for a wider effort at church extension. It in no way affects the present or future work of the Post Office Mission of the Alliance, which will be carried on as heretofore.[28]

In general, courtesy and respect prevailed, and much harmony was achieved by the creation of the Committee of Conference, composed of members of both organizations and whose purpose was “to maintain careful communications . . . in order that all field work may be done in the closest sympathy and co-operation, the general plan being to have the Association stand ready to take charge of all movements which the Alliance has created from the small beginnings of Post-office Mission circles, and brought to the maturity of preaching stations or pastors in a preaching circuit.”[29] In 1909, Alliance President Emma Low would note that the Committee on Conference had “been especially helpful in the Southern Missionary work,” and, indeed the committee would prove an excellent support for the joint ventures, as would the attitude of A.U.A. President Samuel A. Eliot.[30]

Eliot’s 1900-1927 term of leadership at the A.U.A. overlapped the years of Southern missionary work and The Carolina Industrial School. His willingness to work with the women of the Alliance was evident to them, and his appreciation of learning and education unquestionably aided the work in the South. “His enthusiastic backing of the schools [at Shelter Neck and Swansboro] seems to have had two personal motivations, over and above the obligation of his office to foster them: his commitment to missions and his envy of the handyman,” notes his son-in-law biographer. Eliot would be present at the 1900 dedication of the chapel at Shelter Neck and would later serve as Board President of the Carolina Industrial School upon its incorporation in 1911. In appealing for financial aid for the North Carolina schools his arguments to prospective contributors were that such investments would net a return “in better citizenship, higher standards of living, happier and more useful lives.”[31]

In the mid-1890s reduced income at the American Unitarian Association obliged its leaders to rein in its missionary efforts in a move referenced in the Alliance minutes as the A.U.A.’s “retrenchment.” In October 1893 Mrs. Chaney, “about to leave for her winter work,” lamented the situation for the South, noting, “The American Unitarian Association has decreased its appropriations twenty-five percent, and this deficiency must be met in some way. . . Without money many interesting openings . . . cannot be followed up.”[32] In the wake of the cutbacks the Alliance was drawn in and became even more involved in the Southern work. It seems clear that the Chaneys’ influence persuaded the women to deepen their commitment to the region and whose plan provided a structure by which the work could be carried on. The 1893 January minutes document Reverend Chaney’s persuasive powers:

Rev. Mr. Chaney, being in the building, was invited to tell the board something about the Southern work. . . .The American Unitarian Association thinks it can only support men who can start churches in centres of population. Considering its present resources, Mr. Chaney agreed with this policy. [Southern rural missionary] work would not at once result in churches. . . . Mr. Chaney appealed to the Alliance, saying, “The truth is, the women have made a great constituency in the South, even if they have not heard of it, through many letters.” He was coming across the result of the work at every turn; and he hoped that, if it approved, the Alliance would encourage [southern missionary work] by helping. . . [33]

A published report from the January 1895 Alliance board meeting explains how the “southern circuits,” which were supported almost solely by the Alliance by the end of the century, came under its protection:

Rev. Mr. Chaney, the Southern superintendent for the American Unitarian Association, was received by the board, and gave a most interesting account of the Southern field. Mr. Chaney enlarged upon the proposition he had before made of sending resident ministers on missionary “circuits” in their own sections. This the ministers will willingly do if traveling expenses can be assured. Mr. Chaney has formulated a plan for such circuits which would cover a large part of the Southern States. The [Alliance] Branch of the First Parish, Dorchester, has already appropriated $200 for one such “circuit”; and it is hoped that other single Branches, or two or more uniting to send one man, may enable Mr. Chaney to fully carry out his wishes. . . .If any Branch desires it, direct communication can be established between it and the person engaged in the proposed circuit work.[34]

A section of the board minutes of those months further clarified where the circuit work would be done and Mrs. Chaney’s role in the effort:

The [Appeals] committee again recommends church extension work in the South by means of traveling circuits, to be distributed among various ministers on payment of their traveling and other necessary expenses, estimated at $200 a year. It is thought that such work will be very valuable in arousing new interest in our faith. If any Branch is willing to appropriate money for such preaching, Mrs. Chaney will receive it, making quarterly remittances to the preacher, and receiving regular reports through Mr. Chaney. Correspondence can also be carried on between those especially interested at the various points and the Branches aiding the work. Such correspondence may result in the formation of Alliance Branches, even if no church is formed… These circuits embrace various points in Virginia . . . in Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee under Rev. H. A. Westall, central station Asheville, N. C.; in North And South Carolina under Rev. H. A. Whitman, central station Charleston, S. C.; in Georgia under Rev. W. R. Cole, central station Atlanta, Ga.; in Florida under Rev. J. C. Gibson, central station Edwards, F.; in Louisiana under Rev. W. C. Pierce, central station New Orleans, La.; in Tennessee under Rev. S. R. Free, central station Chattanooga, Tenn.; in Texas under Rev. Emily Wheelock, central station Austin, Tex.; . . The circuit of East Tennessee, in care of Rev. H. A. Westall, has already been taken by one of the Alliance Branches. It will include, as visiting points, Knoxville, Tenn., Greenville, SC, Western NC, etc.[35]

In the spring of 1896, because of reduced funds available for the support of work in the South, Reverend Chaney resigned as Southern Superintendent. At the Alliance board meeting in September Mrs. Chaney submitted her resignation as Vice-President for the Southern States. Both departures were mourned by the Alliance women, the March minutes noting, “among Unitarians throughout the South is heard the expression of great sorrow at the resignation of the Southern Superintendent. . . ..”[36]

Mrs. Chaney’s successor, Mrs. Anna Moss of St. Louis, made an emotional speech at the opening of the 1897 Southern Conference, noting “Mrs. Chaney’s absence . . . is not only a great loss to our Cause, but a personal sorrow to each. . . On the other hand, our recognition of her service would be unworthy, did we not gather new courage.” Mrs. Moss was also able to announce the Alliance’s proposal for supporting the Southern Unitarian effort after the Chaneys’ departure, an overture which, Mrs. Moss said, “needs but to be understood by us. . . in that cordiality never refused by a Southerner to a sincere proffer of friendship.”[37]  The plan, which had been worked out under the leadership of Mrs. Abby A. Peterson, an Alliance Director, assigned a “strong branch in the north” to each of the young Alliance Branches in the southern areas. The Alliance Minutes record the plan and Mrs. Peterson’s leadership in its operation:

Mrs. Peterson reported that, concurring with Mrs. Chaney in her request that the southern branches so soon to be left without a superintendent should each be put into communication with a strong branch at the north, she had suggested the matter to the Suffolk [County, Massachusetts] branches and made arrangements as follows: That Church of the Unity, Boston should take Richmond; Roxbury, Asheville; New South, Highlands; Bullfinch Place, Charleston; First Parish, Greenville; [unreadable name], Atlanta; Church of Disciples, Memphis; Chelsea, New Orleans; Jamaica Plain, Austin; Brighton, San Antonio. Circuit work in Florida through Mr. Gibson was undertaken by the Arlington St. Branch.[38]

Noting that “there are now fourteen churches in the Southern Conference and fifteen Alliance Branches,” the National Alliance of Unitarian Women at the end of the century was thoroughly involved in the South, taking up, as the Chaneys had hoped, where the American Unitarian Association had bowed out. Mrs. Abby A. Peterson, who had been elected to the Alliance Board in 1895 as a Director from the strongest district in the Alliance, would, with the branches in her Suffolk County constituency, become directly involved with the southern work in the wake of the Chaneys’ departure. Mrs. Peterson’s experience would propel her into the chairmanship of the soon to-be-created Southern Work Committee, in which capacity she would, in the early 1900s, recommend that a chapel be built at Shelter Neck, North Carolina. Her–and the Alliance’s–involvement with the Shelter Neck community would be extensive and would continue for more than twenty years.

Chapter II

THE CHRONICLE OF SHELTER NECK’S UNITARIAN SCHOOL

1900-1910:   THE BEGINNINGS OF THE “DIX HOUSE SCHOOL”

How did the school happen to be there? I only know it began with a church, or perhaps I should say, with a preacher. This man became a Unitarian and asked the Unitarians in Boston to help him. It seemed to him, as it did to our New England ancestors, that the school was an important adjunct of the church. Edith C. Norton, 1924

Shelter Neck, North Carolina, was not a spot the American Unitarian Association would likely have targeted for a liberal religious congregation in 1900. Yet the remote community became a center of Unitarian activity for over a quarter of a century, an accidental and ironic anomaly in the denomination’s history. Known to posterity as The Carolina Industrial School, the Unitarian settlement school at Shelter Neck had its beginnings in the involvement of the National Alliance of Unitarian Women in denominational extension in the South. Yet the “Dix House School,”as the community of Shelter Neck knew it, would surely never have existed had not the Reverend Joseph G. Dukes become Unitarian and gained the National Alliance’s support to preach in eastern North Carolina.   The Alliance backed Dukes’ wish to build a chapel, a parsonage, and a schoolroom, resulting in the organization’s becoming a property owner in Pender County. By 1905 the Alliance decided to use the property for an “experiment in settlement work,” and from that beginning the larger school enterprise grew. What began at the turn of the century as an effort to sustain the tenuous Unitarian presence in the South ultimately planted the Carolina Industrial School, which operated at Shelter Neck until 1926.

The Reverend Joseph G. Dukes’ North Carolina circuit had been supported since the mid-1890s by the A.U.A. and the National Alliance. Most probably Dukes was a convert to Unitarianism; Comins asserts, undoubtedly based on a 1930 report in the Alliance records, that he had previously been a Baptist and became Unitarianism through reading the pamphlets of the Post Office Mission. Although little other information is recorded about him, Dukes likely was a Southerner who had previously preached for another faith.   His name was first mentioned in Alliance records in an 1895 discussion about Southern missionaries:

Mr. Gibson of Florida and Mr. Dukes of North Carolina are working in fields untilled by other liberal Christians. They are earnest men, working in the true spirit among people grateful and responsive to their work, and yet able to do little for their support. Unless we help them, no one will. . .

In the ensuing end-of-the-century years, Alliance board minutes frequently mentioned Dukes and Gibson and the “southern circuit work.” The regular “appeals” to member branches through those years included financial support for the two, and, underlining the importance the organization attached to their work, an 1898 address by President Mrs. B. Ward Dix cited the work of Dukes and Gibson as two of the “three missionary enterprises likely to need assistance for several years.” Later in 1898 the Alliance financed Dukes’ and Gibson’s expenses to attend the upcoming Southern Conference, noting that “the two missionaries of the Alliance. . . are in a wilderness, isolated and unable to meet other ministers . . . [I]f they could tell of their work to the whole Conference it would help the Conference and give others an opportunity to help them.”

In March 1898, seemingly in a quandary about how supportive to be of the missionaries, especially of Dukes, the Alliance sought retiring Southern Secretary George Chaney’s opinion: “Rev. Mr. Chaney was “invited [a revision in the handwritten minutes shows this word substituted for “admitted”] into the meeting. . . Of Mr. Dukes he did not know . . . but told us of the conditions under which he had seen the work of Mr. Dukes. He advised care and broad supervision and thought the officers of the branch at Charleston might help.” In April a letter from Reverend Mr. Whitman, of Charleston, was read “speaking earnestly concerning the good work of Rev. Mr. Dukes.” The Alliance board voted to continue its assistance to Dukes and provided “that the branch at All Souls’ Church, Roxbury, [Mass.] would assume the friendly care of his work.” By 1899 the two missionaries were even more prominently mentioned in Alliance records, the reports and letters often read by Mrs. Abby A. Peterson, who became more and more involved in the “southern work” as the Chaneys withdrew from the region.

The Alliance minutes reflect the distance these New England women felt from the Southern enterprises, however. The Southern climate and culture were, clearly, unfamiliar to them. An 1899 section reports that “Mr. Dukes preaches every Sunday to one or the other of the <churches’ [quotations are those of the recording secretary] started by him.” When Alliance President Mrs. B. Ward Dix and A.U.A. President Samuel A. Eliot attended the 1898 Southern Conference, Rev. Eliot observed that “many of the enterprises in the South [are] not yet beyond the stages of experiment. . .”

The spring 1899 minutes note the annual compensation for the two missionaries: Gibson was being paid $500 and Dukes $300. At the national meeting that year a talk by Dukes was one of the centerpieces of the convention. A report circulated to the Alliance branches noted:

Mr. Dukes made a strong impression, not only upon his audience, but also on the people with whom he came in contact in Washington. His simple but enthusiastic statement of the work he is trying to do, the long journeys he takes, the people he reaches, and the great hope he feels in the success of his efforts, made his story a most telling one, and those who heard it will not soon forget.

At the end of 1899, Dukes proposed building a chapel in his circuit–but the site he originally mentions is Prospect, not Shelter Neck. The Alliance women seem unsure of Dukes; they are reticent to be directly involved in the building of the chapel and decide that “before further steps were taken Mrs. Chaney [retired from her previous Alliance position but still accessible] should give the board such information concerning Mr. Dukes and his work as she may be able to gather.” In December “the President and Mrs. Peterson were chosen a committee to consider the erection of Mr. Dukes’ chapel at Prospect.”

In early 1900 Dukes’ letters suggested that Shelter Neck might be a more promising spot than Prospect. In the spring months of 1900, having secured five-year pledges from Alliance branches to support “the southern circuit work,” the Southern Committee recommended that “all additional money shall this year be spent to strengthen the work of each [missionary] by assisting to buy or build a church.”

In June 1900 the Alliance moved more assertively: “It was voted that the board approved . . . sending someone to view the situation and report.” By July Mrs. Abby A. Peterson, appointed by Mrs. Dix, had visited Mr. Dukes’ circuit in North Carolina. Her report in the July, 1900, minutes introduced Shelter Neck to the Alliance and secured the board’s support:

Mrs. Peterson gave a full account of her visit to Mr. Dukes and the conclusion to which she arrived. Six miles from Burgaw at Shelter Neck seemed to be a suitable place for a chapel which is much desired by the people. Mrs. Peterson had promises of land, lumber, nails and work which would leave only a comparatively small amount to be raised. . . [I]t was voted that $250 be appropriated for building a chapel at Shelter Neck, North Carolina. . . [I]t was voted that this amount be placed in the hands of Mrs. Peterson to be advanced as she thinks best. [I]t was voted that Mrs. Peterson be authorized to expend such additional sum as might be reasonable to complete furnishings, pay freight, etc. . .

The desirability of securing a home for Mr. Dukes in the vicinity of the new chapel was considered and . . . it was voted that Mrs. Dix have authority to expend one hundred dollars of the sum especially given to her for the use of Mr. Dukes and his work, if in the judgement of Mrs. Dix and Mrs. Peterson it becomes wise and expedient to do so.

The Shelter Neck chapel was completed in time for a dedication on November 16, 1900, when, because A.U.A. President Samuel Eliot and Alliance President Mrs. B. Ward Dix were already in the South, they would both be present for the day-long services. Having the new structure ready by that date was clearly intentional; the October minutes note that “the chapel is progressing rapidly, and it is expected that it will be finished early in November. An effort will be made to have it dedicated about the same time as the meeting of the Southern Conference, and to have the President of the American Unitarian Association and the President of the Alliance take part in the services.”

The years 1900-01 marked a decided upswing in Unitarian activity in North Carolina. Not only were the chapel and a parsonage built at Shelter Neck, but Dukes was also preaching in Swansboro and other nearby points. The Alliance minutes in late 1900 provide a glimpse of the increased activities:

[Dukes] held three services at Wells Chapel, a Baptist church, where he had large congregations and distributed papers and tracts. At Island Creek his congregation was divided, as there was preaching in different places on the Sunday when he was there, but the people are much interested. . . Will the branch that has been sending literature [to him] please accept his thanks. Both he and his wife are reading the sermons, and would like to receive more. . . .

Sufficient interest has been aroused in Swansboro to secure a hall which has been hired for Mr. Dukes’ use one Sunday in each month. At Richlands, the Presbyterian church, now without a pastor, has been obtained, and at Green Branch a school-house. This circuit, which also includes Stella is said to be in the most intelligent and progressive section of the county, and much is anticipated from Mr. Dukes’ ministrations.

Swansboro, in nearby Onslow County, would soon attract the attention of the Alliance’s educational workers and the venture there would, together with the one at Shelter Neck, be incorporated as the Carolina Industrial School. While missionary outreach came first and touched almost a dozen communities in the area, only at Shelter Neck and Swansboro would school operations be established. Dukes would soon be joined by the Reverend W. E. Cowan, who would augment the effort to spread the denominational message and who would remain in the North Carolina circuit until his death in 1922. While many nearby eastern North Carolina communities experienced the preaching of these Unitarian missionary ministers over the next twenty or thirty years, Shelter Neck and Swansboro would be the two bases for circuit ministers.

The parsonage for Dukes, for which the Alliance had made a commitment during the winter of 1900-01, was under construction during the spring of 1901. The March minutes reported that “Mr. Dukes’ house will be finished by May first and will cost $1150.”   Sometime in 1901-02, though the decision is not clearly documented, the Alliance decided to name the Shelter Neck parsonage in honor of its pioneer president, Mrs. B. Ward Dix. The name for the house was referenced in November 1902 when Mrs. Dix, who had been ill, wrote to the Alliance board suggesting the house be called the Shelter Neck “parish house.” The board overruled her modest request, however, and “ Dix House” was the name that stuck.

By June 1901 Dukes initiated another building venture at Shelter Neck–and this one would have a long-lasting influence: “Mr. Dukes proposes to raise $10 to clear ground for the house or schoolhouse.”   The move to add a schoolroom seems to have been put forward by Dukes, not the Alliance, an ironic corner of this story.   A 1924 article by Edith Norton, then school superintendent at Shelter Neck, says that “it seemed to [Dukes] that the school was an important adjunct of the church. . . He built a little wing on his house for a schoolroom, and sent North for teachers.” The completed schoolroom was in place by spring 1902 when Miss Ellen Crehore, the first northern woman to come to Shelter Neck for the express purpose of teaching school, visited. This room was the first space to which Shelter Neck children came to school, and, hence, the entire generation of citizens and school alumni refer to the school as the “Dix House School.”

The move to add educational work at Shelter Neck precipitated a lively debate at the board meeting that announced Dukes’ proposal:

Mrs. [Kate Gannett] Wells . . asked to be recorded as disapproving any connection of the Alliance with schools or educational matters. . . Discussion followed on denominational work in general and the southern circuit work. . . Mrs. Wells moved that none of the money received for southern circuit work, shall be used as payment for public school work. The president declared that the money was intended for circuit [ sic] work and would be so used. Mrs. Wells asked to withdraw her motion Voted: “All money sent for the south shall be used for church [sic] work.” The president ruled such a motion out of order as the money was given to southern circuit work. Miss Waldo asked why the question need be brought up at this time. Miss Wells gave reasons why the future work should be guarded and moved that “Southern circuit work does not include specific public school instruction. Voted by those present.

In spite of the objections raised at the Alliance, the “ell” on Dukes’ house was built. Miss Crehore, Shelter Neck’s first teacher, visited in the spring of 1902. She was later present in Boston at the close of the Alliance’s May board meeting and gave “an interesting account of the three months she has just spent at Shelter Neck.” Who or what motivated her visit is, again, unclear, although Edith Norton’s 1924 article suggests that Dukes had a hand in it.

While “Miss Ellen” did not immediately return South, by the fall of 1902 the educational work clearly influenced a request asking “if the [Alliance] Board would be willing to allow the use of the school room at Shelter Neck to the state of North Carolina for a public school for two months if satisfactory arrangements could be made.” The board, in November 1902, “voted to allow the rooms to be so used if desired, and the matter of rent be left to the Southern and Finance Committees.”

The Alliance made no further efforts in educational or social areas in 1903. But in the winter of 1904-05 significant change occurred: the Reverend Dukes resigned, effective November 1, 1904, and, to oversee the transition in leadership and to further acquaint herself with the circumstances at Shelter Neck, Mrs. Petersonwent South. As a replacement for Dukes the Alliance retained the Reverend W. S. Key, an Englishman.

Mrs. Peterson’s report to the January 1905 board meeting called the board’s attention to the challenges arising at the growing enterprise. As a result of her presentation the Alliance formed a special committee to focus on Shelter Neck. While the minutes do not include details of the committee’s work, the results of its efforts are evident in the prominence the North Carolina work is given in Alliance reports that year. One example is the address at the 1905 Annual Meeting by Reverend W. S. Key, “who gave an exhaustive and most interesting account of the circuits in North Carolina.”

The Shelter Neck school, born of the Reverend Dukes’ schoolroom, was begun in the years when settlement houses and schools sprang up in many areas of the country. Toynbee Hall, established in London’s East End in 1884 by a group of young Oxford men, motivated by the notion of personal service to the poor, provided the first internationally known model for settlement work. The concept made a relatively rapid passage across the Atlantic. Hull House, founded in Chicago by Jane Addams in 1889, was one of the earliest and is surely the most famous of the settlements in America.

In America “liberal Christians,” Unitarians among them, were the most ardent supporters of settlement work. The Boston area knew a number of these institutions. Articles about Boston settlement houses, particularly South End Industrial School and Hale House (founded in honor of Edward Everett Hale, a revered Unitarian leader), ran in The Christian Register.   A December 1911 Register article claimed that the South End Industrial School was “the only one in or near Boston supported entirely by Unitarian chruches and individuals, and as such it should have a wider recognition.”

While most settlement work was directed toward city neighborhoods, the idea made its way to rural areas and to the South. The most famous settlement work in the South was done in the mountains of Appalachia, but some settlements were established in other areas, a1937 article, “The Settlement Movement in the South,” noting that the first such institution in the South was founded “for Negroes in 1893 by Mabel W. Dillingham and Charlotte R. Thorn at Calhoun, Alabama.” Unitarians supported the Calhoun school as well as the Southern Industrial School (for white children) at Camp Hill, Alabama, whose founder, Lyman Ward, would later serve on the Carolina Industrial School board and whose graduates would from time to time teach at the North Carolina schools.

The women of the Alliance were surely familiar with settlements both in concept and practice. Women were the backbone of settlement work in America–and especially in the South–and it is unthinkable that these liberal Christian women of Boston would not have been conversant with these ideas. Indeed, a bibliograpy of writings about settlement work notes that Caroline S. Atherton, a long-time member of the Alliance’s executive board and a frequent member of the southern committee, was the author of an essay on the subject. Both Mrs. Atherton and her attorney husband, Percy A. Atherton, would be involved in the Carolina Industrial School.

The term “Shelter Neck Settlement” first appears in board reports in 1905. In the October minutes, “Mrs. Atherton spoke of the furnishings needed in the [Dix] house and the expectation that an experiment in settlement work would surely be begun.” The committee for “the Shelter Neck Settlement” asked for a loan for the settlement work from the “southern fund” and also reported that the property–the Dix House with Mr. Dukes’s attached schoolroom–was now secured, with “Mrs. Everett and Miss Hawes to undertake the settlement and school experiment.”

The year 1905, clearly, marked a turning point in the scope of work at Shelter Neck. Most later stories about the “Dix House School” cite this year for its founding, although some, being aware that 1902 was the year when the “ell” was built for teaching purposes and when Ellen Crehore first visited, claim that year as the school’s beginning. The progress of events which the Alliance board minutes reveal, although the settlement and educational work’s start-up decisions are not detailed, is clear evidence that a commitment for work beyond denominational expansion was made in the winter of 1905-06.

When school opened in October 1905 the chapel and the “Dix House” were in use by students, teachers, and the circuit minister.   Classes met in the schoolroom of the Dix House, the teachers and ministers lived in the adjoining main house, and the chapel was used for religious services. Mrs. Peterson, now becoming a permanent resident in North Carolina, was working for the first time with Mr. Key and without Dukes. Miss Hawes and Mrs. Everett were the first full-term volunteer teachers. Mr. Key was the circuit minister in residence, although he is not remembered to have done any teaching. The January 1906 minutes “report the success of the school in the Dix house–25 pupils from 5 to 33 years of age” and acknowledge the Alliance’s receipt of a deed to “the property at Shelter Neck to be known as Dix House, and to be used as headquarters for our missionary work in that section and as a parsonage for our representation, as long as it remains in the possession of the National Alliance.”

A brief history of the Shelter Neck school, almost surely written by Reverend W. S. Key (although no author is credited in the document), explains the Dix House “ell:” “The object in view, when the buildings were erected, was the providing of a rural school for the benefit of the children whose homes were in the immediate neighborhood, the nearest schoolhouse being over two miles distant. Several of the families had no less than a dozen children in each household.” The same document–which will be referenced here as “Key’s history”–describes the first years at the school:

. . . These two estimable women [“Mrs. Everett and her friend Miss Hawes”], accepting the urgent invitation of Mrs. Peterson, went to Shelter Neck [in the fall of 1905] and soon had the school work under way. At first there was some hesitation shown by the parents of some of the children about attending the school which was owned and was to be carried on by Northerners [sic]. Very shortly, however, as it became known what excellent teachers there were at Dix House school, and that they did no proselytizing for Unitarianism, (as it had been predicted they would) the attendance began to improve, so that the limited accommodations were taxed to the utmost. For six months the school work went along smoothly and satisfactorily, and when the term drew to a close, in the spring of 1906, there was a crowded attendance of parents and neighbors at the closing exercises, which proved a revelation to all the community who didn’t hesitate to express their astonishment and delight when they discovered how apt at picking up the rudiments of education (the “Three R’s”) their children were when under the care of and receiving the instruction from competent teachers. Many were the compliments paid the teachers for the work they had done. . . Indeed, so marked was the kindly and neighborly feeling which had been evoked between the entire community and the Northern teachers that the latter resumed their labors in the fall of 1906, and during the next six months conducted a still more successful school, with a larger attendance, increased enthusiasm and ambition, and with a still fuller measure of all round success.

. . . At the closing exercises at the end of [the 1907-08] term there was again a large attendance of parents, friends and neighbors, and so satisfactory were the results of the instruction that the same teachers [Clapp and Warren this term] accepted an invitation to return in the fall, which they did with most gratifying results, for by this time the school had gained an enviable reputation among the educational institutions of the State.

Key’s history continues, in similar vein and style, to explain that the school term at Shelter Neck “never exceeded six month’s duration, always beginning on or about the first day of October and continuing until about the first day of April, these being the slack months among the farmers and planters, when the children are free from out of door labors.” He adds, furthermore, that such a schedule was workable, too, because the days beyond April brought “increasing temperature which is far from agreeable to persons brought up in the north and who feel the effect of the southern heat greatly.” At the close of the 1910 term “the outdoor exercises. . .aroused so great an amount of public interest and were attended by so large a crowd from all the countryside that they have been continued ever since and have become an established institution.” By the fall of 1910, Key says, “the school had become known all through Eastern North Carolina.”

At the Unitarians’ annual gathering in Boston in May 1906, Dr. Edward Everett Hale, by then one of the denomination’s confirmed elder statesmen, declared in his opening remarks, “The Alliance is the best thing we have. It is up with the times. The women can do what they want to do now; to say what they want to say now; and they can do it together. The Alliance is wide awake, it is the best conducted business I have seen.” In North Carolina, at least, the Alliance had begun one of his most significant projects.

1911-1919: THE HEYDAY OF THE CAROLINA INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL

We had a French teacher who taught us French and we had sumptuous dinners and we danced the Virginia reel every Saturday night.   It was a lovely place and we just had a lovely time and I’m just happy I could be a part of it.             Clara Deal Watkins – 1993

The 1911 incorporation of the North Carolina school operations as “The Carolina Industrial School” facilitated the expansion of the work at Shelter Neck work and brought it to the peak of success. The greater measure of attention the school enjoyed after 1911 increased its financial support and allowed it to pay salaries to its staff and to enlarge its physical plant. The new corporation’s board of trustees, headed by A.U.A. President Samuel A. Eliot, was filled by some of the more prominent leaders of the Unitarian movement. Mrs. Abby A. Peterson remained the school’s superintendent and indefatigable promoter, and she, along with the Reverend W. S. Key, was based at “the Dix House, Shelter Neck” for most of each year, returning to New England in the summer months to recruit staff and raise funds. In a June 1911 article in The Christian Register , A.U.A. President Eliot introduced the newly incorporated school:

[N]ew enterprises allied to our general denominational work have come into being during the last winter. The incorporation of the Carolina Industrial School has provided for the enlargement and continuance of the educational work which has grown up in connection with the group of Unitarian churches which was originated by the Women’s Alliance in Pender and Onslow Counties, North Carolina. The new corporation has taken over the school properties. . . and expects soon to increase the equipment of the schools and enlist the co-operation of new friends. Mrs. Peterson, who has been from the beginning the moving spirit in this work, has been presenting this cause to a number of conferences, churches, and Alliance branches in New England, and we may confidently expect that the Carolina Industrial School will soon take its place among the formative and uplifting influences for the white boys and girls of Eastern North Carolina.

Many issues of the Register in 1911 carried articles about the North Carolina school. Most applauded the “pioneer work” of Mrs. Peterson, Mr. Key, and the volunteer teachers and stressed the need for contributions. In a particularly long piece Henry Wilder Foote, the A.U.A.’s Secretary for Education and a Carolina Industrial School board member, described for the Register’s largely northern Unitarian readership the school’s setting and facilities and revealed his own opinion about its possibilities:

Shelter Neck is a rural community. . .the number of pupils ranging from 25 to 45, of all ages and sizes, that being as many as can be crowded into the school-room. Dix House, and four acres of land adjoining the church property, belong to the National Alliance, the house having been intended as a parsonage. . . Being housed thus, the school has heretofore cost but very little. It is to be hoped, however, that means can be found to develop its work. The greatest blessing which we could confer upon this district, and I believe, the strongest method of reinforcing our churches as well, would be to develop this little school into a modest industrial and agricultural school. With proper accommodations boarding pupils could be taken, and they would come in from all the localities where we have churches. They would get training of a kind which is now practically unobtainable, and for want of which many of them are growing up almost illiterate.

Foote’s stated goals for the school were successfully realized over the next ten years: the Carolina Industrial School expanded its facilities and curricula and became widely respected in the state. In 1912 a new separate school building provided two large classrooms, an auditorium, and a library which doubled as a principal’s office. Key’s history points out that “the classrooms were equipped with individual desks and stools; the library with shelves which now accommodate a valuable library of books, numbering nearly 2000 volumes, while the auditorium is available alike for class work, social meetings and special school and community gatherings.” The new schoolhouse was dedicated on October 30, 1912, with “the building crowded with pupils, parents, and friends” and speeches made by the Rev. A. T. Bowser of the Unitarian church at Richmond, Virginia, Mr. Archibald. M. Howe of Cambridge, Massachusetts, “and other friends.” Also in 1912 additional acreage and a second house, financed with a contribution from Miss Ellen Kimball and named Kimball House, were acquired. These added properties afforded the school considerable farm land and allowed, in the fall of 1912, four girls to be the first female boarders while two boys were the first to stay in Dix House.

Key’s history offers the most detail on record about the curricula at the Shelter Neck school. The “usual courses of academic studies” were taught alongside other multifaceted curricula, he writes. “The primary grades were instructed according to established kindergarten methods, including clay modeling in which some of them excelled.” With the arrival of some teachers with special talents, “musical, literary and dramatic entertainments were given occasionally.” Key singles out Miss von Lavner , a teacher proficient in music and languages, noting that “with the addition of this lady the study of French became part of the course of study. . . [and] occasionally recitations in French were delivered in public.”

“The older girls,” he continues, “were taught sewing, basketry and rug weaving, one of the rooms in Kimball House being equipped with an old time hand loom on which the girls quickly learned how to weave most attractive rugs.” In addition to the teachers, housekeepers were frequently retained at Dix House, and, one of them, Miss MacIntire, “held regular classes in cooking at Dix House for the boarding pupils, who were taught bread making and the preparation of all kinds of good wholesome food, and the preservation of vegetables and fruit. Miss MacIntire likewise gave regular lessons in millinery to all the girl students. . . [and she] remained at Dix House throughout the whole of the summers of 1917 and 1919 during which season she assisted in preserving literally thousands of cans, jars and bottles of fruit and vegetables for the Dix House family’s winter use.”

If the girls were being taught domestic skills, the boys were being offered the training which Foote must have, specifically, had in mind: agricultural and industrial instruction became such a successful program that the school became known for it around the state. There was, Mr. Key writes, “a commodious and well equipped workshop which was built soon after the new schoolhouse was completed.” Boy students were taught “the use of mechanical tools. . .to repair boots and shoes, carpentry, making and repairing harnesses, farm tools and agricultural implements, buggy and wagon work, etc. . . . “

As the school’s agricultural and industrial programs for boys and girls expanded, the school’s leadership reached out to connect its production with the surrounding area.   To Key, Mrs. Peterson “was the leading spirit in the organizing of county and community fairs, neighborhood welfare societies, school exhibitions and other uplifting movements.” She was able to “display every conceivable kind of school work in most attractive exhibits which invariably gained the notice and attention of all visitors. . . and the Carolina Industrial School always won the highest honors, the judges being invariably State experts in their respective departments.” Key obviously relished these successes and added a tale of an event in nearby Wilmington, North Carolina: at the Annual Corn Show, which he gives Mrs. Peterson credit for helping organize, “a New York financial and railroad magnate, whose summer home was located near that city, was so attracted by the beauty of these hand woven rugs that he bought every one then on exhibition and gave orders for additional ones.”

Whatever other fairs Mrs. Peterson organized, the events for which the school became most well-known were the “Farmers Institutes.” Key’s history says they were organized by the Department of Agriculture and held once or twice during the school term. Five or six “expert agriculturists, botanists, horticulturists and veterinarians equipped with lantern slides, diagrams, and specimens of almost every conceivable variety of Southern fruits, grains and vegetables” would give presentations and addresses, “the meetings being attended by a large crowd coming from all parts of the County,” he writes. The fame of these “Institutes” spread even to the pages of the Unitarian Christian Register,  where a 1914 article, “From Shelter Neck,” paints a colorful picture of them:

What proved to be the most important and successful event in the history of our work and movement in this section was the holding of what is known as a Farmers Institute, which was held on Tuesday and Wednesday, March 17 and 18. It was part of a campaign for social, domestic, farming and rural betterment, which for several years had been carried on by the North Carolina State Agricultural Department in conjunction with the Federal Agricultural Department in Washington, D. C., these Institutes being held at stated periods all through the year.   For this particular occasion no less than seven speakers were sent to us, and each speaker was an expert in his or her respective department of the movement. The lecturers included four gentlemen and four ladies, and the topics they discussed covered a very wide field, and included “The Improvement of Soil by Preparation of Land,” “Home Mixing of Fertilizers,” “Improvement of Soil by Rotation of Crops,” <Live Stock,” “The Value of Legumes and Cotton-seed Meal,” “Breadmaking,” “Canning Clubs,” “Child Training,” “Household Conveniences,” “Women’s Clubs,” “Care of Babies,” “Food for the Young,” “Sanitation and Hygiene,” “The Rural Credits Bill Now Before Congress.”

The meetings had to be held concurrently for men and women in the new school auditorium and class-rooms, so large was the attendance, and so eager were all to hear and learn. The addresses were illustrated and simplified by the use of diagrammatic charts, while practical demonstration lessons were given the women and girls by the lady speakers.

On Tuesday evening a stereopticon lecture was given, descriptive and illustrative of farm life in North Carolina. Many beautifully colored slides were also shown of the mountain scenery in the western part of the State, to-gether with a series of pictures of views of the Panama Canal. On both days a sumptuous picnic dinner was served on the church grounds, friends from a distance bringing well-filled baskets. The entire corps of lecturers were entertained at Dix House for the two days, and on taking their leave were unanimous in their praise of the delightful visit they had had, and expressed their readiness to hold a similar Institute in the near future. It was by far the best Institute that had been held for a long time past anywhere throughout Eastern North Carolina, and great good cannot fail to result among all those who had the good fortune to be present.

The school’s farm was the scene for testing innovative agricultural techniques and products and became a respected center not only for experimentation but for the dissemination of information. The school introduced “up to date intensive methods of gardening” in its early years and, according to Key, “from year to year new varieties of fruits and vegetables were introduced and successful experiments in acclimatizing and hybridizing have been carried on to such an extent that it was no uncommon thing to see from twenty to thirty varieties of fruits and vegetables growing and flourishing.” Shelter Neck tested roots, bulbs and plants and seeds from other regions of the country as well as Europe and South America, “in order that the soil and climatic conditions in the Southern States might be tested in the germination, growth and maturity of plants indigenous to Northern and Western sections of the United States.” Key points with particular pride to the experimentation with strawberries, which were grown in great quantity in the area, and to a new strain which the Shelter Neck school “developed to a fine state of perfection” and named the “Peterson Strawberry.”

The connection the school made with federal and state agricultural officials was apparently important and successful for all. Key makes particular mention of the role the school played in campaigns to eliminate such public health problems as hook-worm, cattle tick and hog cholera, illuminating for his unenlightened readers the “incalculable injury to our country” such diseases caused in those years. The school “at an early date began to co-operate with the Government experts” to eliminate these diseases, he writes, and “the school and its auxiliary institutions [became] the recognized headquarters for campaign work. On the School premises there were kept for free daily use by the entire community the scientific appliances, chemical ingredients for making the various remedies. Not only so, but members of the school faculty travelled hundreds of miles administering these remedies.”

The school trained its older pupils by involving them with these projects, affording them, in Key’s words, “practical instruction while actually assisting” in the various experiments, testings, and vaccinations. In the same vein, the school’s male students and faculty developed skills especially helpful in their low-lying and frequently flooded area of coastal North Carolina:

The school was early recognized as the source of various projects for improving existing roads or the laying out and constructing of new lines of travel; the building of bridges over brooks and Branches [sic] which too often were all but impassable during the rainy season, or the repairing of bridges which would otherwise have soon become dangerous, if not entirely unusable. Whenever these undertakings became necessary, and that was often, gangs of men and boys were organized by the school authorities and equipped with the necessary tools before entering upon their work which always ended in the doing of really good work in the benefits of which not only the residents of the immediate vicinity shared, but also the travelling public.

The disastrous flood in the summer of 1908, which submerged the entire district for miles around for nearly two weeks, and destroyed not only the people’s cattle, hogs, sheep and poultry, but in some instances their homes too, would have wrought utter ruin to many, but for the prompt assistance rendered by the school and its managers who were generously aided in the work of restoration by the Agricultural and War Department of the Federal Government in Washington.

Key reports that the male students also participated when new wells and an improved plumbing and sewer system were put in after the 1908 flood. He cites these experiences as well as the exposure to “more comfortable vehicles for work and travel . . .[and] up to date tools and implements” which, he writes, “aroused the ambitions of the people and prompted them to follow suit” and “contributed to the growing usefulness of the Carolina Industrial School.”

In 1974 Norma Rowe Sawyer, a former student of the school, wrote an article for the Burgaw, North Carolina, Pender Post , in which she reminisced about the school. Her memories contribute to the picture of daily life at the Shelter Neck school at the zenith of its success:

In the fall of 1913, I enrolled in school and was in school there until the spring of my 16th birthday, 1923. . .

From the first through the seventh grades we traveled three miles from our house to school by various modes of transportation. When just a little boy, my brother [Roy Rowe] used to ride the distance in his goat cart, tieing the goat by the barn pump on the place and feeding him at lunch time. Sometimes, we along with other neighborhood children drove the mule and cart or mule and buggy to school. Later we rode our bicycles or when the weather was pretty we walked. . .

Outstanding teachers I remember at the Unitarian School were Miss Brooks, Mrs. Pratt, and Miss von Lavner. I remember we had commencement programs at which time recitations were given, songs sung, and demonstration of various subject areas. . . An exile from her native Austria, [Miss von Lavner] escaped from that country to Paris, France [,] during World War I. A member of the nobility, a student at the leading conservatories in Europe, she was like manna sent from heaven for me. . .   She was a perfectionist and would not accept sloppy work from her students. I admired and respected her and worked diligently to become proficient, both in French and music. . . . Mrs. Pratt, a handsome aristocrat and relative of the Calvin Coolidge family[,] taught history. . . . [I]t was not unusual for us to put on skits from Shakespearean plays. Often with the old moss covered trees used as a backdrop for our performances.

When my sister Gladys and I were in our teens, our parents decided to board us at the girls’ dormitory which housed twelve girls and three teachers. . . Boys roomed on the second and third floors at Dix House which also housed the housekeeper, minister, and other teachers. Incidentally, I think our parents had us live there because they felt we would gain from the cultural environment, discipline and organization.

Let me give you a resume of a typical school day as I remember it. Rising at 6 o’clock in the morning, one girl would build a fire in the long wood stove, another would make up the six cots, while another would fill and trim the kerosene lamps, and one would bring in wood from the wood pile at the back of the house. Two girls from each room would hurry to Dix House to set the tables for breakfast and later washed the dishes. All work, of course, to be done of a rotating basis. Boys had similar chores along with the feeding the cows and chopping the wood.

We had three tables in the dining room at Dix House. Always there were linen tablecloths and napkins changed daily. French students sat at one table with Miss von Lavner and all conversation was in French. We sang the blessing and table manners were taught.

I remember especially Boston Baked beans, hashed brown potatoes, creamed chipped beef, rolls and butter, leg of lamb, cold milk and apple pie. . .

In school students began the day with singing and a devotional in the auditorium. All boarding students went to Dix House for a hot meal in the middle of the day. Day students ate under the old oak trees, fed their team, and played. We had a quiet hour after school when everyone went to their rooms to rest or sleep. Those who took piano had lessons twice a week and practiced one hour each day. 7-9 p.m. study hour was rigidly enforced. Teachers were in their rooms or living rooms and were ready to help with any problems we had. . .

Each school night at 9 o’clock all of the boarding students would come to the living room where joined by the teachers we would be asked to contribute to a round table discussion of anything of interest we had experienced that day. Always we would have read to us a great poem or an inspiring bit of philosophy from a great poet or thinker. Those who had French had some conversation with Miss von Lavner before we went to bed.

The highlight of the week was the Saturday night party. Here we were taught numerous folk dances and always would end up the party with the Virginia Reel. Young folks from nearby communities came and joined in the fun.

Sunday morning we had church, often after the sermon those of us who were interested had something like a seminar where we asked questions and expressed our views on religion. Sunday school was in the afternoon. Afterwards, when the weather was pretty, young folks always accompanied by a teacher would take a leisurely walk down to the river admiring ever changing sounds and beauty of the countryside. The Sunday night sing was when all of us went over to the school auditorium and sang songs for an hour. . . Particularly beautiful was the candlelight service at Christmas time. We would light our candles at the schoolhouse and march over to the chapel singing Christmas carols. . . .

For us it was the only life we knew and we exalted in it.

On December 6, 1918, fire destroyed the Kimball House. It was the beginning of a series of disastrous blows for the Shelter Neck school. Mrs. Peterson wrote to the Alliance board that the staff was “grateful that no one was injured, but the clothing of the boarding pupils was completely destroyed and the loss is keenly felt.” Mrs. Peterson, seemingly undaunted, determined to rebuild Kimball House.

The following April, however, a more profound tragedy occurred: Mrs. Peterson was taken ill and died only a few days later, on Easter Sunday, April 20, 1919, in the Wilmington hospital. The shock was felt at Shelter Neck and around the Unitarian world. The Alliance minutes in May 1919 note, “The President spoke of our great loss in the death of Mrs. Peterson. . . and read a touching letter signed by eight members of the Shelter Neck branch.” In The Christian Register Henry Wilder Foote wrote a May 1, 1919, article about her, noting that her death “brought a keen sense of grievous loss to many people in our fellowship for Mrs. Peterson had become widely known and much beloved in our churches.” Foote added that “During the weeks before her death she was engrossed in plans for rebuilding Kimball House at Shelter Neck. . . To have the work go on would be her dearest wish.”

That Mrs. Peterson’s death precipitated a gentle decline in the undergirding of the school is unquestionable. Norma Rowe Sawyer’s memory is revealing of the feeling in the Shelter Neck community:

It was a sad day for all of us when Mrs. Peterson had to be taken to the hospital. . . We watched Mr. Key, along with others, carry her gently and put her in the surrey to drive all the way to a hospital in Wilmington. Roads for the most part were unpaved, there were no rural telephones.

Mr. Key was never quite the same without her. She stood erect and was sure of herself–a fine lady from Boston who was a leader and one everyone looked up to. Not too long afterwards Mr. Key went back to Boston and others from Boston took over the school. . . .

1919-1926: THE LAST YEARS OF THE SHELTER NECK SCHOOL

About thirty years ago, in several remote and isolated spots on the southeast coast of North Carolina, Unitarians started churches and schools, where none existed….These churches and schools were maintained as long as there was need for them, but the object was to inspire and assist, not to rival or duplicate; so when the State began to progress and establish its own schools and build roads which made them accessible, the activities were gradually withdrawn.          The Christian Register – 1930

In the months immediately following Mrs. Peterson’s death the Alliance and the denomination moved quickly to maintain the school. “Miss Mary Nichols of Danvers, Mass., has consented to superintend the . . .schools for a year, and Kimball House will probably be rebuilt this summer,” the June 1919 minutes recorded. A story in The Christian Register that same month announced “Plans for Shelter Neck:”

We all know, of course, that no one can really fill Mrs. Peterson’s place, but the friends of the School will be very glad to hear that the trustees have secured the services for the coming year of Miss Mary E. Nichols of Danvers, Mass., to go to Shelter Neck as superintendent . . . Miss Nichols has been at Shelter Neck. . . serving as a teacher . . .for a year in the earlier days of the School. She is therefore familiar with the neighborhood, and is held in affectionate remembrance by the children who were then her pupils and who are now among the young married people of the community. . . The trustees of the School. . . also elected Rev. Abbot Peterson of Brookline, Mass., a son of Mrs. Abby A. Peterson, to membership on the board of trustees, and voted to proceed with the rebuilding of Kimball House, and to install the proposed water supply should funds permit.

Not only had the school lost Mrs. Peterson, but, by the winter of 1919-20, Mr. Key, too, would depart. Whether it was mainly Mrs. Peterson’s absence, as Norma Rowe Sawyer suggests, or a wider combination of factors, Mr. Key would leave Shelter Neck in the winter of 1919-20. His departure was at least partially his choosing and partially because available funds were “inadequate for his support.” Indeed that fall saw both the long-time ministers in the Shelter Neck area in some consternation. In October Mr. Cowan wrote a letter to the Alliance board “in which after referring to the mental confusion in which he finds the world, his section [eastern North Carolina] included, he says <I have decided that now is the opportune time to set forth our affirmations to take a decided stand for God and Humanity.’“ Although Mr. Cowan had been only peripherally involved with the school, he would continue to preach in nearby communities, being supplied that winter with “a tent and organ for which he has more than once expressed a desire.” Most importantly, however, the loss of Mrs. Peterson and Mr. Key in the same year removed the two most committed leaders from the Shelter Neck school.

In March 1920 the board retained Reverend J. W. Heyes to fill Mr. Key’s post, the new minister’s annual salary of $600 being split between the A.U.A. and the Alliance, which also voted “to pay our share of the expense of moving from Maine to North Carolina. Mr. Heyes goes with his family (and a Ford car).” In April Mr. Heyes wrote “with great enthusiasm of a community sing on Sunday evening at Dix House, Shelter Neck, when all sang heartily and with great enjoyment from Dr. Horton’s Sunday School Hymn Book.”

On April 19, 1920, a year after Mrs. Peterson’s death, the Shelter Neck community held a memorial service for her. “The congregation of the church and the parents of pupils in the school gathered from the neighborhood and filled the church to the doors,” reported an article in The Register, and her son Abbot Peterson unveiled a plaque to her memory .

By the fall of the year Heyes was “busy” at Shelter Neck “where Kimball House, the girls’ dormitory of the school is being rebuilt. Mr. Cowan has held many meetings in his tent loaned by the A.U.A. and writes that <my tent and my organ are surely fulfilling their mission.’“ The Alliance published a suggestion that the denomination’s Sunday School children might make a contribution to the rebuilding of Kimball House. On a grander scale, the denomination conducted its “first continent-wide” fund raising campaign, and the Alliance issued an appeal for $2000 for the Carolina Industrial School. Mrs. Jeanette. B. Damon replaced Miss Nichols as superintendent for the 1920 fall term; she would remain at the post for several years. Mr. Heyes, in contrast, would plan to leave Shelter Neck that December, “ as he proved unequal to the demands of his position.”

In December 1921, the trustees of the Carolina Industrial School, in a move that undoubtedly signaled a loss of faith in the work, asked that the Alliance resume the direct management of the school. The Alliance agreed to accept the responsibility, taking up essentially the same role it had played in the school’s formative years. In her May address to the Alliance’s 1922 Annual Meeting, President Lowell urged the women “to more success”. . . We must keep working with enthusiasm,” she implored. The Alliance reorganized its Committee on Southern Work to accommodate its expanded responsibilities and assessed the situation in North Carolina.

An October 1922 Register article noted that “the reorganized committee on Southern Work reported with great satisfaction that Reverend Margaret Barnard, who has been so successful at Rowe and Bernardston, Mass., is to serve as minister at Swansboro, North Carolina this year. . .The Alliance has now the full responsibility of administering the Carolina Industrial School and asks generous contributions for this work.” The arrival of Margaret Barnard positioned a competent and motivated woman in North Carolina again, but, this time, at Swansboro. While Mrs. Damon, who held the school superintendent’s post, was based at Shelter Neck, the prominence of Miss Barnard’s voice in correspondence and articles attests to her dominant personality. A lengthy article by her, “Going South by Motor” appeared in The Register the October she arrived in North Carolina, and her exchanges with the Alliance board reveal her strong influence. Her first report to the board “tells of the religious services held at Swansboro and White Oak. . . with good attendance, two-thirds being men. Both Schools have made a good start and never seemed more prosperous.”

Money continued to be an issue as the Alliance resumed the management responsibilities of the school, especially when building repairs at the school plants in both Swansboro and Shelter Neck seemed desperately needed. The Alliance channelled spare monies from various funds to the school operations through 1922 and 1923, and in the spring of the latter year, Miss Barnard was requested to “speak for the cause during the summer with the hope of securing the needed money.” Various scholarships for the Carolina Industrial School were also established, and in December 1923 the Southern Work Committee chair, Mrs. Coolidge, reported that the committee had voted “to reinstate the pledge system of contributions from the branches.” Mrs. Coolidge visited North Carolina in January and reported to the board about “the repairs and improvements needed. The [Southern Work] committee is persuaded that we must put our Southern plant in order before we expand it.” The January 1924 minutes reveal some additional changes:

On the recommendation of the committee it was voted that they be authorized to engage Rev. Stephen Palmer of Dighton, Mass., as minister and teacher at Shelter Neck, N.C., to begin service if possible on April 1, 1924, and to authorize the committee to try to raise at least $10,000. to put in repair both settlements in North Carolina, and to give the workers the comforts of running water, heat and light, and reduce to a minimum the menace of fire. It was voted to send a note of thanks to Miss Ellen F. Kimball, who has given $1200 toward the amount needed for Kimball House.

Clearly, maintaining the school was becoming a heavier burden. The cost of operating the schools was, as Henry Wilder Foote had noted several years before, considerably more than when the schools were smaller and the teachers worked on a volunteer basis. While her expenses had been paid, Mrs. Peterson was apparently never salaried; in contrast, her successor, Mrs. Damon, received $1000 a year as the school’s superintendent. Furthermore–and most significantly–the buildings and equipment had aged enough to need repair and, as the preceding reference from the minutes suggests, contemporary employees in 1924 expected running water, electric light, and heat from sources other than fireplaces. Times had changed in the twenty years since the school’s founding.

The Reverend Palmer was present at the May 1924 Alliance Annual Meeting where it was formally announced that “Rev. and Mrs. Stephen G. Palmer will go to Shelter Neck, N.C. the last of September, he to become principal of the school as well as to serve as minister.” Mrs. Damon would return as superintendent and Miss Margaret Barnard would continue in charge at Swansboro.

January 1925 found Mrs. Damon ill in the north, her position filled by Mrs. Edith C. Norton. Helen Howard, a member of the Southern Work Committee, brought back a “very encouraging report” from a visit at the schools, and “Miss Beard, newly elected chairman of the [Southern Work Committee] urged directors to help the work by talking of it to their branches.”   The committee discussed expansion at Swansboro with enthusiasm.

For the 1925-26 school term, “The Carolina Industrial School BULLETIN,” described the programs and costs at the Shelter Neck school; Mrs. Elizabeth Chadwick Twinning, who boarded as a student that year, kept a copy. The bulletin is one of the few extant documents about the school and contains information found nowhere else. The school’s location is noted as being at “Shelter Neck, post office, Watha, North Carolina, a few miles from the railroad station at Watha. It is ten miles from Burgaw, the county seat of Pender County. The nearest city is Wilmington, to which occasional trips are made by train or automobile.”   The brochure further discusses the facilities on site, noting the dormitories and describing the buildings as being “located in the midst of a grove of large native oaks and other shade trees.” It also states that “This school is the outgrowth of a social settlement and church started at Shelter Neck in 1895. The children of the neighborhood are day pupils, and the social life of the community centers here.”

The BULLETIN announces the leadership at the school: “Superintendent: Edith C. Norton and Principal: Rev. Stephen G. Palmer, who work with the assistance of three teachers.” It also includes an overview its history, its curriculum, and its fees:

The school offers Primary, Intermediate, and High School work. . . It has been in continuous operation for a period of twenty-three years. During that period it is estimated that there has been an average enrollment of forty pupils yearly, many of whom have found in this place their only opportunity for attending school. This institution has afforded an opportunity for educational development which has been maintained during its history, with growing usefulness in school, church and social welfare.

Courses of Study are those usually required in the public schools of the state; and the text books used and the subjects pursued conform to the state’s requirement in schools of like grade. . . [including] three full years of High School work; including a commercial course. During the past year work has been given in the fourth year of High School, and it is hoped that courses in home economics and other industrial training may be offered in 1925-26. Some instruction in music will be given, as well as piano lessons to all who are capable and desirous of taking them.

Industrial Activities: Certain activities in work are required of all boarding pupils, aside from the maintenance of satisfactory grades in their studies. For the girls there are domestic duties under the supervision of the Superintendent and House-keeper. The boys are directed for work about the buildings and farm, and a fixed number of hours of work is required. Text books are provided for all pupils. Pupils may do their own laundry work. The use of tobacco in the buildings is prohibited. Each pupil is expected to bring some household remedies required in minor illness. Otherwise supplies are furnished to pupils, when needed, at nominal charges. The flat rate of sixty dollars is charged each of the boarding pupils to help cover the expense of board, dormitory and incidentals. (This is an increase over the former rate, due to general increase in living expenses.) This amount is payable, one-half at the beginning of the school year, the balance at the opening of school after the holiday recess. There is provision for scholarships or partial scholarships under conditions to be arranged with the Superintendent.   Further inquiries are directed to the Superintendent, Mrs. Edith C. Norton. Contributions should be sent to Miss Louise Brown, 25 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass.

As history would have it, the brochure Elizabeth kept would describe the last year of the school at Shelter Neck. In January, 1926, the recommendation of the Southern Work Committee to the Alliance board signaled the end of the school’s operations:

The Committee on Southern Work after careful consideration of all conditions recommends that the Alliance withdraw from Shelter Neck, North Carolina, in order to consolidate for larger work at Swansboro, and asked that power be given the committee to carry out the details of withdrawal. The school enrollment is small. North Carolina is developing a system of good roads and giving free transportation for school children, and at the same time has raised its school standards. The attendance at church and Sunday-school is very small, and it seems to the committee that our church has ceased to be a necessity. The buildings are out of repair, the farm is not being worked, a large sum of money would be required to put the place in order. Therefore the committee recommends withdrawal. In so doing it wishes to make clear that this is not failure, it is rather the completion of a fine service of 23 years.

The Carolina Industrial School’s work was “consolidated” into the Swansboro facility, where Margaret Barnard was in charge.   The Southern Work Committee explained to the Alliance in 1926 that “Swansboro. . . is a fishing station, has a good harbor, there is a great call for vocational training to supplement the public school courses. . . families are interested and loyal to us.” Swansboro, clearly , seemed a more promising place than still-unincorporated Shelter Neck.

The face and pace of life in North Carolina were changing rapidly and, as Miss Barnard had noted on her trip to the state in 1922, “the roads as a whole surprised us by their excellence and there were many stretches with a vitrified brick pavement seven feet wide. North Carolina is spending much money to improve her roads, and in a few years will probably have a fine system of highways.” The Alliance struggled to keep the work going over the next four years and wrestled with the ethics of discontinuing the work to which so many Alliance women and other Unitarians had contributed of their personal and financial resources.

The Southern Work Committee viewed the 1929-30 school year as an experiment.   A January 1930 article, “Challenge of the Forgotten Man and Woman: How the General Alliance of Unitarian Women is Meeting It,” appeared inThe Christian Register. and would be one of the last to make an appeal for financial support for the North Carolina work. It noted that <the expense budget calls for $10,000, $8,000 of which is the Appeal to the branches.”

Between January and March 1930 Mrs. Eva Churchill, a member of the Southern Work Committee, traveled to North Carolina to have a closer look at the situation. She reported to the Southern Work committee on March 10, 1930:

After a ten day’s visit to our school and three churches in North Carolina and a subsequent week of reflection, one’s mind is so filled with conflicting emotions and opinions that it is difficult to know where to begin a report and just what to say . . .

North Carolina has begun to awaken to her own needs and her own responsibility toward those needs. . .

Mrs. Peterson and the early workers established churches and schools where none existed. They were maintained and continued by the next group of workers, until their example together with the example of similar schools and churches of other denominations have proven to the state their necessity. Now it is for our generation to face the fact that our usefulness is passing.

Last year [1929] North Carolina spent huge sums, up into the hundreds of thousands, on her roads and she has nearly as much more ready for this year. That means isolation is becoming a thing of the past. She is building big modern brick schoolhouses at frequent intervals and bringing the children to them in buses. .

North Carolina is considered the most progressive and enterprising of the Southern states. . .

Our first thought should be one of sincere congratulation to the state, and the next joy that we may be released from this service to turn our efforts into other channels. . .

“It will not be easy to relinquish the work. Such changes are never easy either for the benefactor or the beneficiary. . .

. . . I think the schoolhouse at Shelter Neck and enough land around it for an adequate playground should be given to Pender County.

Mrs. Churchill also reported to the Alliance board in late spring 1930 and asked what should be done about the North Carolina work:

At one time there were at least five churches and two schools. They were maintained as long as there seemed to be need for them, but the first trustees and later the General Alliance always followed the policy of keeping pace with existing conditions, and work has always been done because it was needed, never for the sake of working. As conditions changed the work changed, until at the time I came on to the committee, there were only three churches and one school. . . .

Your committee believes the time has come when the best educational service to North Carolina is to withdraw all school activities and encourage her to assume her own responsibilities.

The county has maintained a school at Shelter Neck ever since our school was withdrawn, and has paid us rent for our building.

. . .[T]he need for outside help in North Carolina is passing. . . other denominational school-committees. . . are “fighting for their lives.” Instead of fighting for our life, we rejoice that the need for us is passing and congratulate the state on her progress.

. . . The question I bring to you is shall we or shall we not cease our school activities in North Carolina?

On Monday, March 10, 1930, your committee on Southern Work, with eight members present, unanimously voted “that in view of the fact that the State of North Carolina is building adequate public schools and good roads by which they may be reached, this committee recommends to the Board that we close the school.”

In May 1931 the committee reviewed the year’s events for the Annual Meeting of the Alliance:

The policy of this committee for the year 1930-31 . . .was to continue the three churches [Swansboro, Shelter Neck and White Oak], with regular services in each, and to employ Mr. Sears to preach, to maintain the library, and to develop whatever social activities grew naturally from his relationship with the three communities.

Mr. and Mrs. Sears returned to Swansboro after the summer vacation on Sept 1st . . . On October 8th in the morning the church in Swansboro was set fire and burned to the ground, and three days later the same thing happened to Salem Cottage. Mr. and Mrs. Sears came to Boston to consult with the members of the Southern Work Committee . . . Mr. Churchill and Mrs. Elliott then went South with Mr. Sears to investigate. On their return they recommended that no effort be made to send a minister there and Mr. Sears’ resignation was accepted.

The attempt was then made to cooperate with the Universalists and Dr. Patterson went down from the A.U.A. to look over the field with Dr. Francis B. Bishop, State Superintendent of the Universalist General Convention. Going together they visited the three churches and upon his return Dr. Patterson reported that he had found it impossible to arrange any cooperation with the Universalists and his advice would be to withdraw entirely.

The committee learned that the County Commissioners of Pender County might be able to use the Shelter Neck property for a county institution and at the time of the writing of this report the Committee is awaiting a reply to the offer of this property to them as a gift.

In the fall of 1931 the committee continued its deliberations but acknowledged that it was coming close to resolution; its October 26th meeting voted to “turn all funds over to the General Alliance Treasury” but noted, at the meeting’s end, that “because small details are still unfinished, the committee decided not to dissolve.”

At the November 30, 1931, meeting the treasurer reported that “on October 28th, in following out the vote of the Committee she had sent to the Treasurer of the General alliance the sum of $1954.44.” The minutes of that meeting made a final report:

Mrs. Stebbins reported that immediately after the last meeting she wrote to Rev. Francis B. Bishop, D.D., State Superintendent of the Universalist Convention of North Carolina, Inc., asking him if he would accept the Pender County property for the Universalists, if offered. Mrs. Stebbins read a letter in reply from Dr. Bishop, saying that he would be glad to accept the property.

Mrs. Stebbins reported that at a meeting of the [Alliance] Executive Board on Nov. 13, she made the following statement;

“Your committee tried to give the property at Shelter Neck to the Pender County authorities for community service, to use for a home for the aged, a hospital or a school for defectives. After long delay we finally heard in August that the authorities of the county could not finance any of these schemes. Then your committee tried to sell the property and we had five people interested, but no one of these would buy the property outright–two offered $500 down and $500 on mortgage. Then we wrote to Dr. Bishop, State Superintendent of the Universalist Convention of North Carolina, Inc., who is willing to accept the property for the Universalists.   They have an incorporated organization acting in the State and in our opinion this is the best possible disposition that could be made of it.”

At the same meeting [of the Alliance’s Executive Board] the following vote was passed:

“That the real estate and buildings owned by the General Alliance in Pender County, North Carolina, be transferred without restriction to the Universalist Convention of North Carolina, Inc., and that Miss Louise Brown, Treasurer, be and is hereby authorized in the name and on behalf of the General Alliance to execute and deliver any deeds or other instruments in writing necessary or convenient to accomplish such transfer.”

The members of the Committee understand that this will be the last meeting of the Southern Work Committee.

MANAGING AND FINANCING THE SHELTER NECK SCHOOL

Mrs. Ellis Peterson is the mind and soul of the thing. She is not only the secretary of the Board, she is also the resident Director. She spends her winters at one of the schools, in general charge of the work, and she comes North in the late spring and spends the summers raising money and securing the necessary equipment. It is her life work. The rest of us who serve on the Board of Trustees try to give her such support as we can.               Samuel A. Eliot – 1915

The Shelter Neck school was, overwhelmingly, the creation and responsibility of the National Alliance of Unitarian Women and, ultimately, the passionate mission of Mrs. Abby A. Peterson. Both at the beginning and at the end of the school’s operation, the executive board of the Alliance, usually acting on the recommendations of its Southern Work Committee, oversaw the work at Shelter Neck. Mrs. Peterson, whose involvement had begun as chair of the Alliance’s Southern Circuit Committee and would continue until her 1919 death, superintended the operations, led the effort to raise funds, and recruited other New England women to staff the North Carolina school. Although the American Unitarian Association was always involved, all records point to the Alliance’s dominant role in the North Carolina work. In 1911 the school incorporated as the Carolina Industrial School and from then until 1921 had its own board of trustees. Yet the Alliance remained interested and supportive and Mrs. Peterson remained the project’s guiding light. In 1921, two years after Mrs. Peterson’s death, the Carolina Industrial School board asked the Alliance to resume the management responsibilities for the school, a task the womens’ organization performed until the school closed.

Almost all the women involved with the school were New England women, most of them from Boston and its suburbs. At the outset the Alliance’s Southern Circuit Committee, headed from the beginning by Mrs. Peterson, of the Jamaica Plain section of Boston, monitored the southern missionary efforts. Before 1902 it seemed that the committee was, almost solely, Mrs. Peterson; in 1899, for example, when the issue of building chapels was at the fore, “the President and Mrs. Peterson were chosen a committee to consider the erection of Mr. Dukes’ chapel.” After 1902 both the work and the committee expanded; by June of that year “it was voted that the Committee on Southern Work should consist of Mrs. Peterson, Miss Low [the President], and Mrs. Smith.” In 1907 the committee was increased to five members: Mrs. Peterson, Mrs. Atherton, Miss Low, Mrs. Strong, and Mrs. Noyes.

In those turn-of-the-century years the leadership of the Alliance was drawn primarily from Unitarian women in Massachusetts and New York. It is not surprising, then, that the turning point for the “southern work” was set in motion by “a meeting of the presidents of the Massachusetts branches of the Women’s National Alliance held in January [1900] to consider means to place the Southern Circuits on a more definite financial basis.” The meeting of the Massachusetts presidents appointed a committee to seek pledges for the southern work. The outcome was a five-year pledge plan which established the “southern fund” which underwrote ministers’ salaries and new church constructions for the “southern circuit work.” The Alliance board received the plan in April 1900:

This committee [appointed to develop a financial plan for the Southern Circuits] now reports to the Board of the National Alliance that, in response to the circular letter sent to all the branches, it has received pledges for five years from the eighty-eight branches amounting to $1218 in sums varying from $1 to $100. Also thirty-eight branches have sent small sums this year, amounting to $208.54, with the hope of continuing another year. The cordial and ready spirit of co-operation shown by the many notes received is an indication of strength in the organization, and a promise of greater effectiveness along general lines which will tend to re-enforce denominational work. The definite sum, therefore, of $1218, with small additional sum, is placed in the hands of the board for five years for southern circuit work.

In 1900 the work escalated significantly, the expansion made possible by the five-year plan’s “southern fund.” In early 1904 the Southern Circuit Committee reported that “the five year pledges of most of the branches would soon expire. . . .”   A similar system of pledging was reinstated. By the summer of 1906 the Alliance again discussed finances for the southern work, the issue raised this time by the Finance Committee, which voiced a strong concern:

It was noted that the receipts for Southern Circuit work for last year was $1811 while disbursements were $2128.33. About one hundred dollars pledged for this work for last year were not paid. The Finance Committee therefore recommend that the treasurer post a notice in Word and Work reminding branches of their unpaid pledges.

Attention was called to the fact that for the last three years the National Alliance has been living outside its income in Southern Circuit Work. At the end of the financial year in 1904 a balance of $1642 stood to the credit of the southern circuit. In 1905 there was $1140 and on April 30th of the present year the sum had diminished to $82. The committee feel that the board should spend only its income [sic] in this work. The amount paid in salaries, at this time, in the southern circuit work is $71 a month.

Though the Alliance continually felt the financial as well as the managerial responsibility for the Southern missionary work, the A.U.A. did contribute; indeed, particularly in the cases of ministers’ salaries, the A.U.A. and the Alliance shared the expenses. A typical arrangement was the one for the Reverend W. S. Key: “Realizing the importance of a well-equipped man in the southern circuits [the A.U.A.] had proposed that Rev. W. S. Key should be employed as Field Agent with a salary of $1500. That the Alliance should employ him in the south for six months and the American Unitarian Association should employ him in the north during the other six months.”   The two organizations also jointly supported other North Carolina circuit ministers, one being solicited with the understanding that the Alliance would “offer $250 a year for salary provided the American Unitarian Association will do the same.”

Even though it shared the responsibility with the A.U.A.,the Alliance continued to feel the burden of supporting the Southern work. Individual contributions were vital for the school’s financial health, and the job of fund raising was always pivotal to its success. With the expanding activity, the Alliance sought alternatives for undergirding the project. The quest led to the incorporation of the school, with a board of trustees who could broaden its base of its support.

At the Carolina Industrial School’s incorporation in 1911, the denomination proudly staked its claim to the work. A.U.A. President Samuel A. Eliot, the original chairman of the Carolina Industrial School’s board, noted in a 1911 article that “the incorporation of the Carolina Industrial School has provided for the enlargement and continuance of the educational work which has grown up in connection with the group of Unitarian churches which was originated by the Women’s Alliance in Pender and Onslow Counties, North Carolina.” Another article in The Christian Register on September 21, 1911, written by A.U.A. Education Secretary Henry Wilder Foote, also a board member, lists the new trustees:

The work of our schools at Swansboro and Shelter Neck, North Carolina, will open next month, full of promise for the best year the schools have yet had. The schools are now incorporated together under the title of the Carolina Industrial School, with a Board of Trustees of which Dr. S. A. Eliot is chairman, Mrs. Abby A. Peterson, secretary and Mr. Percy A. Atherton, 53 State Street, Boston, treasurer. The other members of the board are Miss Low of Brooklyn, Miss Ellen H. Crehore of Canton, Miss Lucy B. Wilson of Salem, Mrs. R. G. Shaw of Wellesley, Austin S. Garver of Wooster, Lyman Ward of Camp Hill, Alabama, W. S. Key of Watha, North Carolina, and John Rowe of Burgaw, North Carolina and H. W. Foote of Boston. This board was organized last February and now holds title to the property of both schools.

The association between the Alliance and the incorporated Carolina Industrial School was stressed out in a legal document, which claimed the close relationship lasted “during the entire existence” of the Carolina Industrial School, Inc.:

All of the incorporators of [the Carolina Industrial School] were Unitarians, and two of them were Unitarian ministers. Four of the incorporators of [the Carolina Industrial School] were members of [the Alliance’s] local branches, and one [Mrs. Peterson] was one of the incorporators of [the Alliance] in 1902. The schools and churches and work taken over by [the Carolina Industrial School] at the time it was incorporated had been established and had been maintained and conducted by Unitarians, and had received great support, financial and otherwise, from [the Alliance]. Said [Carolina Industrial School] was incorporated to carry on said work through the active assistance of [the Alliance] and of its local branches and members in the belief that the conditions then existing made it desirable to have such work carried on by an independent organization rather than directly by [the Alliance] or one of its committees. All of the persons who carried on the work of [the Carolina Industrial School], except certain male employees, were members of [the Alliance’s] branches. All of the funds received by [the Carolina Industrial School] were received from or in memory of members of [the Alliance’s] branches.

As the document attests, most of the Carolina Industrial School board members already had a connection to the school. Mr. John Rowe, of Burgaw, North Carolina, uniquely, represented the local North Carolina citizenry on the board; Mr. Rowe, whose grandchildren attended the school, was a respected citizen and had already acted as an agent for the school in listing its real estate with local tax officials.

Legal incorporation and the establishment of a board of trustees gave credibility to the school’s operations, and added to its prestige within the denomination. Articles about “The Carolina Industrial School” and “Our Work in North Carolina” abounded in The Christian Register, and Mrs. Peterson, Reverend Key and others frequently made presentations to Northern Unitarian groups. In December 1911, for example, The Register printed “An Invitation,” a brief article which announced that Key would speak in King’s Chapel, Boston, “under the auspices” of that church’s Alliance branch.

For Mrs. Peterson, managing the school operations at Shelter Neck with the corporation treasurer–and keeper of the checkbook–living in Boston was frequently a frustration. She also lamented the distance between the work at Shelter Neck and its supporters in New England, as an excerpt from one of her handwritten letters to the treasurer attests:

“It is rather difficult for me to get an opportunity to write in detail to each one of you–would you therefore read to them or allow them to read my letter? . . .Why can’t you [sic] come down and see us all and judge a bit for yourself–or if Dr. Eliot or Mr. Foote happen to be “coming by” that [sic] might help to solve several questions. . . The more I think of it the more I wish you could take three or four days off and come down–One can leave Boston at 8:15 a.m. one day and reach Watha at 8:40 the next morning. It is much of a trip–Do come!”

By the summer of 1915 two of the school’s most prominent board members felt compelled to resign, both feeling over-committed: Percy A. Atherton resigned as treasurer and Samuel A. Eliot resigned as president. In “one of the hardest letters I ever tried to write,” Eliot wrote to “My dear Mrs. Peterson” that he had reached “the conclusion that the Carolina Industrial School needs for the chairman some man or woman who can develop new resources and give a larger amount of time and interest to the school.”

Eliot’s letter of resignation offered to “do what little I can to raise the present deficit, but I confess that I have not courage enough to justify going on with the work unless larger financial resources can be developed” and apologized for retiring “just when conditions seem to be particularly adverse.” The challenge of attracting contributions continued. A 1917 article in the Register is exemplary of the ongoing effort and reveals something of the state of the school’s finances as well:

“This work in the two schools is most economically maintained. It now, indeed, costs a good deal more than it did in the first years when, with volunteer teachers, the work. . . was maintained for several years with a cost to its supporters of the incredible small sum of $300 a year for travel and living expenses.   The cost of living has gone up in Eastern North Carolina as elsewhere, the schools are larger and are undertaking a much wider range of instruction than formerly, and the teachers are now on regular, if still very modest, salaries, as is essential for the permanent maintenance of the work. Yet the whole budget for the two schools this year comes to only about $4,000. There are few better ways in which Unitarians interested in the advancement of liberal religion among people of old American stock, and in the establishment of high ideals of life and of service, can invest their money. The treasurer of the board of directors is Mr. Hollis T. Gleason, care of Stone & Webster, 147 Milk Street, Boston.

Whatever contributions were made by others, the driving spirit in the work continued to be Mrs. Peterson. A section from a letter by Samuel Eliot to a prospective board member captures the situation:

The enterprise is almost wholly a personal one.   Mrs. Ellis Peterson is the mind and soul of the thing. She is not only the secretary of the Board, she is also the resident Director. She spends her winters at one of the schools, in general charge of the work, and she comes North in the late spring and spends the summers raising money and securing the necessary equipment. It is her life work. The rest of us who serve on the Board of Trustees try to give her such support as we can and her splendid spirit is worthy of every sympathy.

In December 1921, a year and a half after Mrs. Peterson’s unexpected death and almost a year after Mr. Key, too, departed his North Carolina post, the responsibility for the school at Shelter Neck returned to the Alliance. The Alliance president, Miss Lowell, reported the official request:

[T]he trustees of the Carolina Industrial School ask that the Alliance take over the management of the schools as the schools were an outgrowth of Southern Circuit Work and the work is all one. This will mean a yearly budget of $8000. to $9000, a part of which as now individual gifts would be expected to cover. After careful consideration it was voted on motion of Miss Sawyer that the request of the Trustees of the Carolina Industrial School that the Alliance take over the management of the schools be acceded to and the responsibility assumed. It was voted that the matter of carrying out the details be left to the President.

A three-person “committee on reorganization” formed, and, by April 1922 “offered the following motion . . . to accept the gift and conveyance of real estate and personal property upon the terms set forth in a vote of the Corporation of the Carolina Industrial School passed at a meeting held upon the 13th day of April 1922.” An expanded committee–of eight members–now oversaw southern circuit work and the operation of the Carolina Industrial School. The following September Miss Minnie E. Rowe, sister of former board member John Rowe, was added to the committee. It was “voted that the name of the committee should be <Committee on Southern Work,’ and “that the committee . . . be empowered during the summer to engage teachers, fix salaries, and make such other arrangements as may be necessary for carrying on the Carolina Industrial School for the ensuing year.”

For the last years of their operations the schools at Shelter Neck and Swansboro would have neither Mrs. Peterson nor Mr. Key nor the board of trustees. The responsibility for the school and the deed to its real estate remained with the Alliance, and the Alliance women would, in the end, make the decision to cease the work.

A final financial note to the school’s history, is contained in a document filed after the dissolution of the school. The information in this document illuminates the schools’ final financial base–what counted as its endowment–by listing trust funds which had been set up for the schools’ support. The document notes that “ the doners of [the] funds were all Unitarians” and that they were “all interested in the work which [the Alliance] was carrying on at the time.” The document asks that the Alliance be allowed to “hold the eleven trust funds . . . in the manner in which [they]are now being held and to apply the income therefrom for scholarships, or general missionary work, in the south, or elsewhere, for any other purpses which are or may become legal under the corporate charter of [the Alliance], the exact application to be determined by [the Alliance], and upon consideration of the wishes of the doners of [the funds] or their representatives, so far as it is practicable to ascertain such wishes.” The portion of the document listing the funds, together with the Alliance’s statement about their management is quoted here:

These eleven trust funds have been held by [the Alliance] since the dates of their receipt, and they have been kept invested. They have not been kept segregated from the other trust funds held by [the Alliance], amounting to over $250,000.00, which are held in trust for the charitable and missionary purposes authorized by [the Alliance’s] charter, other than the work in North Carolina which [the Alliance] took over from the . . . Carolina Industrial School. Interest had been allocated annually to each individual trust fund.

 

NAME OF FUND                Principal                      Income on Hand

Harriet Rose Lee                $500.00                         $ 23.99

John S. Wellington             $1000.00                           47.97

Ellen O. Peck                           100.00                             4.80

Lulu S. Kimball                    3000.00                          143.90

Shelter Neck                        1545.00                             58.04

[plus real estate valued at $1000.]

Swansboro                            5500.00                          none

George C. Brackett             1500.00                           71.95

Emma C. Low                      2000.00                         95.94

Annie A. Wheelr                 1500.00                            71.95

Mr. Charles Walker           500.00                              23.99

Lucia Clapp Noyes             500.00                                23.99

$ 17,645.00                                  $ 566.52  

THE SHELTER NECK SCHOOL PROPERTIES

“It’s been a good, a good place—didn’t it’d been arotten down an gone before now. It was built good.”                             A. Taylor Tatum – 1992

In 1994 the buildings which housed the school at Shelter Neck still stand. Almost a hundred years after they were built one can find them in the curve of Crooms Bridge Road in Pender County, North Carolina. They present a neat and somehow timeless appearance, a quadrangle of tin-roofed white wooden structures standing around what, in the heyday of the school’s life, was the schoolyard. The chapel is the oldest of the buildings, but just barely; constructed in the fall of 1900, it was the first Unitarian church building erected in North Carolina.

Although it is not the purpose of this paper to track in detail the transfers of real estate or the construction of buildings at the school site, some notes about the physical properties seem appropriate. The simple fact that the property has been maintained for nearly a century invites comment.

Mr. Acie Taylor Tatum, an alumni of the school whose family property still adjoins the site, remembers being told that community people gave land for the chapel and school. Essentially, Mr. Tatum is right. At the outset and on at least one other occasion, Shelter Neck citizens contributed land and materials for the buildings. Their commitment to the undertaking was the deciding factor in the Alliance’s willingness to go forward with the project originally: “Mrs. Peterson had promises of land, lumber, nails and work which would leave only a comparatively small amount to be raised,” state 1900 Alliance minutes. Frances C. Newton and Charles Sears and wife deeded the first tract of land, for the chapel, “for the love of God and humanity and the sum of one dollar” to Mrs. Abby A. Peterson, in the summer of 1900, and to Mrs. Edith Dukes, the original minister’s wife. Mrs. Peterson would hold the first deed to the property in trust for the National Alliance; why Mrs. Dukes was a party to the transaction is not clear.

Another parcel of land was contributed to the school in 1907, this time by Mr. and Mrs. M. B. Hanchey, who gave “the parcel of land [connecting] Dix House and the main highway at Shelter Neck.” Mr. and Mrs. Hanchey deeded the “broad open space extending to the highway . . .[to be used by the Alliance] <for the advancement of the Gospel of God as taught by Jesus of Nazareth and for the good of humanity.’“ The Alliance accepted the property “with thanks.”

The Alliance was involved with Mr. Hanchey over several years when he leased acreage for farming, the March 1907 minutes showing that “the land connected with the house has been let, subject to the approval of the board, to Mr. M. B. Hanchey, who will repair the fences, clear the ditches, and plant in cotton from which the Alliance will receive a fourth the value of the crop, this being the usual rate, an amount sufficient to cover the taxes at least.” A similar arrangement was made in 1908, the year the Northeast Cape Fear River flooded much of the area around Shelter Neck, but at the end of that year the minutes note “that in view of his great losses by the autumn floods, the rental agreed upon by Mr. Hanchey . . . who hired the land about Dix House” be returned to him.

Taylor Tatum says that his father was “the head carpenter” for the buildings, and that “Mr. Louis Boney Saunders, he built the chimneys.” Since these two men were known to possess these skills, there is no reason to doubt Mr. Tatum’s assertion, although nowhere in written records have construction documents for the buildings been found. Mr. Tatum further explains that “They [the Unitarians] had the plans, and my daddy built it,” an assertion which, again, seems likely. The Alliance underwrote a number of chapels built in the South in early years of the century, and the few sketches still extant show buildings which almost exactly match the Shelter Neck church. Furthermore, in 1920, when Kimball House was “rebuilt” after the original stsructure burned, the minutes note that a northern architect had drawn the plans. In summary, it seems likely that the buildings were locally built from plans provided through the Alliance.

The chapel was the first Unitarian building in the state. Comins’ history is inaccurate, however, when it states that the chapel was “the first liberal church in that section;” Asheville and Highlands had fledgling Unitarian congregations in the mountains by the 1890s, and, furthermore, liberal Universalist churches had been established in eastern North Carolina before the Civil War.

In 1900 the Alliance voted $250 for the building of the chapel. The 1900 Alliance minutes observed, after the chapel’s dedication: “Everything appears to have been managed in a most business-like way. The deeds, policy of insurance, contracts, and receipted bills have been put into the hands of the Alliance, and Mrs. Peterson has been appointed one of the three trustees holding the property.” The arrangements for the chapel’s furnishings were also noted, in a report by Mrs. Peterson: “A reading desk, Bible, and small organ will be sent from Boston, and friends in the South will supply some other necessary furnishings.”

In the flurry of activity in the fall of 1900, a “house for Rev. Dukes. . . in the vicinity of the new chapel” was proposed, the board voting Mrs. Dix the “authority to expend one hundred dollars of the sum especially given to her for the use of Mr. Dukes and his work.” Exactly how the money was raised is not clear, but, most probably, an appeal for the “Dukes House Fund” was issued because the January 1901 minutes report $823.25 in such a fund. Two months later Mrs. Peterson reported that “Mr. Dukes’s house will be finished by May first and will cost $1150.”

The Alliance named the parsonage “Dix House” in honor of its pioneer president, Mrs. B. Ward Dix. The November 1902 minutes include a discussion about “that part [of the house] known as <Dix House’“ and Mrs. Dix’s wish that it “receive the name <Parish House’ or <Shelter Neck Parish House.’“ The Alliance board decided its name would be “Dix Parish House,” but the Shelter Neck community always called it, simply, “ the Dix House.”

The original idea for a schoolhouse seems to have been the Reverend Dukes’ notion, because the June 1901 minutes read, “[Mr. Dukes] has proposed to raise $10 to clear ground for the house or schoolhouse” and Norton’s 1924 article points to him as the instigator of the plan. In any event, it was this schoolroom in which Miss Ellen Crehore first taught in spring 1902 and which, the following November, the Alliance board rented to the state of North Carolina for school use. Key begins his historical sketch with the observation that Dukes’ schoolroom was the seed for the later work:

When Dix House was built at Shelter Neck, No. Carolina, for the use of Rev. Joseph Dukes, who was the first Minister, an annex was added on the northeast side of the house. This included a room measuring about 16×18 ft., with a wide entrance hall and door in front. It also contained a closet. The whole well-lighted with five windows. There was also a door for entrance from a piazza at the back, and a third door leading into a smaller room built between the large room and the front hall of Dix House; so that in all there were three entrances in the annex. The object in view, when the buildings were erected, was the providing of a rural school for the benefit of the children whose homes were in the immediate neighborhood, the nearest schoolhouse being over two miles distant. . . Mr. Dukes and his family took possession of Dix House on its completion and resided there until the spring of 1905. It was not, however, until the fall of 1902 that the educational work actually commenced when Miss Ellen Crehore of Canton, Mass. went to No. Carolina and opened the school. . . the small room referred to above was planned as a teacher’s living and sleeping room and it was so used by Miss Crehore during her stay.

Just whose money financed the first schoolroom and who held title to it is an unresolved aspect of the Shelter Neck story, but it seems likely, from discussions which ensued and the confusion which reigned when Dukes departed, that he built the schoolroom and considered it his. The Alliance must have been involved in its finances, however, and must have expected Mr. Dukes to reimburse the organization, because a discussion in February of the following year states: “Mrs. Peterson brought up the matter of Mr. Dukes helping to pay for the new house he had built and the difficulties met with in retaining a part of his salary for the purpose. In view of the fact that a sufficient sum had been raised to pay for the house . . . it was voted by those present that Mr. Dukes’ salary should be paid him in full from the present time.”

Dukes’ 1904 resignation forced some decisions about the Dix House’s schoolroom and its ownership, and, while one section of the records note a discussion about separating the schoolroom from the house, today the main house and annex, connected, still stand, and there are no other indications of their having been moved.   In January 1905, Mrs. Peterson’s report to the board “presented three propositions concerning the Ell of Mr. Dukes’ house, known as Dix house and belonging to the Alliance. It [this must mean the schoolhouse] can be given up, or moved away or the Alliance can buy the whole property.” The matter was referred to the Southern and Finances committees for resolution, but later minutes note that “Mr. Key has bought the Dukes House for $700 of which $400 is in hand and $300 to be raised” and, later, that “a letter of appreciation be sent to Mr. Key for his services in the settlement of Dix House” and “the insurance on Dix House should be carried by the Alliance.” Key must have negotiated the purchase of the schoolhouse “ell” for the Alliance and thus resolved the ownership issue with Dukes. At the January 1906 board meeting Mrs. Peterson “handed over the deed of the house at Shelter Neck which was formally accepted under the name of Dix House.”

Over the years the Alliance learned that it was valuable to have a trusted local citizen available to act on its behalf in North Carolina. In January 1907, having discovered that January 7th was the last day for declaration of real estate in North Carolina and that such declaration was required by the “owner or accredited representation who must appear before the accessors and make an affidavit,” Mrs. Everett, one of the teachers, was dispatched to list the property for the Alliance. Later that year an arrangement was made to authorize “Mr. John W. Rowe of Burgaw, North Carolina, . . . to act as agent to attend to the listing of the Alliance property.” Later Mr. Rowe was made a trustee of the Carolina Industrial School, and, in the last years of the school his sister, Minnie E. Rowe, was involved.

The Alliance minutes provide some information about the cost of furnishings and property maintenance. In 1906 the Southern committee asked for $25 from the “southern circuit fund” for furnishings for the Dix House, but, by March 1907, “$100 received from the Washington branch and a member of the Arlington St. branch . . . made the expenditure of the $25 appropriated for furnishings at Shelter Neck unnecessary.” By 1907 the Alliance minutes note that “the church has been painted this spring through the efforts of the [Shelter Neck] Alliance branch and the congregation” and that “repairs and painting of Dix House are nearly completed at a cost of eighty dollars, fifty of it paid as a special gift.”

Upon the incorporation of the school in 1911, a description of the school property shows up in an article written by Henry Wilder Foote for The Register:: “Dix House, and four acres of land adjoining the church property, belong to the National Alliance, the house having been intended as a parsonage. Another twenty-five acres is being held by Mrs. Peterson as trustee.” It seems probable that the twenty-five acres was acquired as farm land and for the Kimball House. Foote had made a trip to the area in the fall of 1910, when an article lamented that “an unfortunate phase of Mr. Foote’s visit to this district was the fact that at Shelter Neck he was unable to see to the full extent the work that is being done by reason of the planter, from whom a large new house and farm has been purchased, not having yet got another house completed into which he will remove his family . . .”

The larger school building and Kimball House were built in 1912, the year following incorporation, the latter having been underwritten by Miss Ellen Kimball. The new buildings completed the school “campus” and were the base from which the superintendent of the Carolina Industrial School would operate intil 1926.

On December 6, 1918, the Kimball House burned and would not be rebuilt until the fall of 1920, a year after Mrs. Peterson’s death and almost two years after the fire.

In September 1922 the Alliance, now responsible for the administration of the school and its plant, finally replaced Mrs. Peterson and the long-departed Mrs. Dukes, who had been listed as trustees since August 1900: Mrs. Helen J. Dinsmoor, recently elected chair of the Southern Work Committee and Mrs. J. B. Damon, superintendent of the school, were appointed trustees along with Miss Minnie E. Rowe, all of whom were “to hold in the name of this corporation [the National Alliance] land in Pender County, North Carolina.”   The Alliance also contemplated an additional land purchase; the minutes note that the Southern Work Committee was empowered “to buy two hundred acres of land near the school at Shelter Neck, needed for farming purposes, for the cutting of wood for fuel, and to give the boys opportunity to work. The price being $1500. . . .” The committee felt that the price was more than they could afford, however, and there is no indication that the two hundred acres was ever purchased. Indeed, a 1930 legal document filed by the Alliance pointed to the condition of the property as a primary reason for the discontinuance of the work at Shelter Neck: “In 1926 the buildings were getting into bad condition and a large sum of money would be needed to put them into proper condition or even to repair them sufficiently . . . This money was not available.”

The disposition of the school property after the Alliance’s decision to cease school operations took several years, although as early as March, 1926, the board voted “to dispose of the property at Shelter Neck, North Carolina.” A 1930 Alliance report noted that “the county has maintained a school at Shelter Neck ever since our school was withdrawn, and has paid us rent for our building.” In the course of 1930-31 the committee explored a variety of options for transferring the property, evaluating a recommendation of Mrs. Churchill’s that “the schoolhouse at Shelter Neck and enough land around it for an adequate playground should be given to Pender County” and even writing to the Governor of North Carolina to seek his advice. By the winter of that year they had talked with Pender County and with the Universalists of the state, with whom they had hoped to be able to share religious services at their North Carolina chapels.

In the end, however, neither selling the property nor sharing it proved successful solutions, and the final report which the Southern Work Committee made to the Alliance board explained the final transfer of the Shelter Neck real estate:

“Your committee tried to give the property at Shelter Neck to the Pender County authorities for community service, to use for a home for the aged, a hospital or a school for defectives. After long delay we finally heard in August that the authorities of the county could not finance any of these schemes. Then your committee tried to sell the property and we had five people interested, but no one of these would buy the property outright–two offered $500 down and $500 on mortgage. Then we wrote to Dr. Bishop, State Superintendent of the Universalist Convention of North Carolina, Inc., who is willing to accept the property for the Universalists.   They have an incorporated organization acting in the State and in our opinion this is the best possible disposition that could be made of it.”

At the same meeting [of the Alliance’s Executive Board] the following vote was passed:

“That the real estate and buildings owned by the General Alliance in Pender County, North Carolina, be transferred without restriction to the Universalist Convention of North Carolina, Inc., and that Miss Louise Brown, Treasurer, be and is hereby authorized in the name and on behalf of the General Alliance to execute and deliver any deeds or other instruments in writing necessary or convenient to accomplish such transfer.”

The school property, deeded to the Universalist Convention of North Carolina in 1932, would be used by the Universalists and tended by them–and by Acie Taylor Tatum.   Mr. Tatum, whose family property, now his, still adjoined the school site, remained watchful of the place that had been so significant to him. In 1990 the Universalist Convention presented Mr. Tatum with a $1000 check for his volunteer caretaking. Mr. Tatum used the money to re-install a flagpole and an American flag in the spot where one had always been when the “Dix House School” was in session.

Chapter III

NORTHERN UNITARIAN WOMEN AND SOUTHERN BACKWOODS FAMILIES

“Well, what they catch from Dix House cannot harm them.”   The Christian Register, 1922

In the relative isolation of the Shelter Neck school people who had spent most of their lives in New England interacted with folk who had never left backwoods North Carolina. At Shelter Neck North met South, urban Boston met backwater Pender County, and educated Unitarian met illiterate Primitive Baptist. At the “Dix House School” the diversity of experiences, belief systems and world views in residence kindled cultural interaction in and out of the classroom. What were the motives of the Unitarians who established and backed the school? How did the Shelter Neck community perceive these people and their mission? In what ways did these two disparate groups of people accept and appreciate each other? Where did they clash? How did the experience of the Shelter Neck school affect the lives of those who were there?

Shelter Neck, North Carolina, is only rarely noted on maps; even those well acquainted with rural North Carolina are frequently unfamiliar with it. It experienced its own heyday in the years the Unitarian school was there, and, to interpret its presentation–or the lack thereof–in historical documents, is to see that the community and the school were so closely identified that mention of one usually means mention of the other. In the 1940 History of Pender County, for example, the Shelter Neck community’s description is tied to the school: “It was in this vicinity of Croom’s Bridge, a short distance also from Smith’s Bridge, that . . . a school was established by the Unitarians from Boston, Massachusetts, who came to North Carolina for the purpose of extending that wing of the Liberal or Unitarian Church in the South.”[1]

In 1994 only one signpost marks the school site and, thus, the community: two green street signs reading “SHELTER NECK” are mounted on it back to back. The site and its sign face Crooms Bridge Road, just three miles north of that county road’s intersection with state highway 53. Crooms Bridge Road takes its name from the bridge near the school site which crosses the Northeast Cape Fear River at “Catfish Bend.” Southeast from Shelter Neck about nine miles, the county seat of Burgaw sits roughly in the center of Pender County, which at 869 square miles (12 of these are water), is the seventh largest in the state. The youngest county in eastern North Carolina, having been carved out of the northern corner of New Hanover County in 1875, the entire area of Pender County lies within the basin of the Cape Fear River.

Shelter Neck undoubtedly acquired its name because it encompasses the “neck” of land between the Northeast Cape Fear River and Holly Shelter Creek. “Neck” is found in other place names in eastern North Carolina–Porter’s Neck, Scotland Neck, and The Neck Plantation, to note a few–and generally refers to a dry area which juts between wet areas, although the circumstances of a “neck” are distinguished from those of a “peninsula,” where the area is surrounded by water. In Shelter Neck’s case, the wetness has frequently risen to cover its only slightly higher ground; floods in the area have been common in its history, and, indeed, one of the major reasons the Unitarians cited for the community’s “backwardness” was the isolation created by frequently flooded roads. The point of land at Croom’s Bridge, just a half mile from the Shelter Neck school site, is only sixteen feet above sea level, one of the lowest points in the county.[2] The Shelter Neck community stretches in an arc between Smith’s Bridge and Croom’s Bridge, bounded on the north by the Northeast Cape Fear River and extending to the south almost to Holly Shelter Creek.[3] The community is just barely outside the southern boundary of Angola Bay Wetlands, a state preserve through which go, even in the 1990s, few roads or trails.[4]

At the turn of the century Shelter Neck was a farming community and its roads were unpaved. Taylor Tatum points to the now reforested fields around his property and recalls that in his boyhood “this was clar’d land.” He describes what is now Crooms Bridge Road as having been “nothing but a lil’ ol’ bitty cart road.” The road runs north to the little town of Watha, the railhead where visitors from the North frequently arrived and which was the post office address for the school. In 1910 the population of Watha was 169. Shelter Neck, according to Taylor Tatum’s memory, had “about twenty-six families, and they had from about nine to twelve children in a family.”[5]

The people of Shelter Neck, in the years the school operated, made what money they had primarily from “chippin’ turpentine.” “These people, they didn’t have no money,” recalls Tatum. “But they could grow bout everything they needed. So they didn’t need much money.>[6]

Former student Roy Rowe’s description of his home community, reported in a Register article a few years after his graduation, painted a realistic picture:

The typical houses when the school opened at Shelter Neck were very poor. Everything was primitive, and often the kitchen was entirely apart from the house. There were usually two large rooms, and everyone slept in one of them. There was no glass in the windows, but just wooden shutters. The houses were of logs chinked with clay, and with clay chimneys. Most of these have been replaced now by modern houses. Because of the influence of the school, the houses in that community were modernized before the others. . .

The houses were built along the streams because there were no highways. . . The land was fertile, and they could raise practically everything they needed. It was easy to make a living, and they worked only three months a year. They raised their own hog and hominy’ and fished and hunted. Until Rev. William S. Key and Mrs. Peterson came, they were satisfied to live as they did.

They made their own clothing, both for the men and women, spinning and weaving the cotton. Except in the severest of weather, most of the people went barefooted. I remember that there was usually only one shoemaker to a neighborhood.

Tilling the ground was done with oxen. Mules and horses did not come until after the school was opened. Getting turpentine used to be one of the chief occupations. It was put in barrels, which were rafted together with rope and wooden pins, and floated down the river to Wilmington, fifty miles away. Lumber is so valuable now that this does not pay. They used to have the choicest of fuel, and wasted quantities of pine tar in burning wood. The main reason they did not cut the lumber earlier is because they did not have saws until about twenty years ago.[7]

The environment which greeted the first workers at the school was undoubtedly startling to the more educated urban New Englanders. When Mrs. Peterson first visited Shelter Neck, “she found people, pure Americans, many claiming colonial descent, living under most primitive conditions, more primitive than we can imagine, and with no schools, or very few,”[8] noted one report. Articles about the North Carolina schools published in The Christian Register contained phrases like “it is difficult for Northern friends to imagine . . .” and “often this [southern work] has been . . .a vague though commendable . . .activity.”

If the 1900 living conditions in Shelter Neck were vastly different from those in Boston, Northern and Southern attitudes, reflecting their regional distinctions, further underlined their contrasting perspectives. Edith Norton’s story observed the regional loyalty in North Carolina: “In the North and West we do not appreciate the strength of sectional feeling in the South. We who hail from Oregon or Massachusetts are, first of all, Americans, but most Carolinians do not look far beyond their own borders–they take little interest in the world outside and would like to keep in the same ruts their fathers kept.” On the other hand, a Northern writer for the Register honestly admitted that the South was not only an unfamiliar region but also one about which many Northerners had biased views: “We, whose childhood or early manhood was coincident with the Civil War, breathing the atmosphere of civil strife, naturally come to paint Southerners in our minds as hoofed and horned.”[10]

Behind the endeavor which planted the Shelter Neck school was, undoubtedly, the influence of what David Whistnant has called the “self-congratulatory resistance” found in “northeastern intellectual and cultural centers” to the notion that the South had any capacity for intellectual or progressive accomplishments. Whatever the good intentions of the school’s founders and workers and no matter how those who valued the school talk about it, an element of “Yankee imperialism” was at work here–a measure of Northern elitism and paternalism (and, perhaps, in all fairness, maternalism as well) rode down to North Carolina with these Boston Unitarians. But “they had come by it honestly,” a forgiving Southerner mignt say. They were preaching to folks at Shelter Neck what was being preached in Boston. Points out Mina Carson, “the early centers of liberalism were urban pulpils in the East and some of the northeastern seminaries, notably Harvard (Unitarian), [and] Andover (Congregational). . .”[11]

Unitarian-trained ministers found the brand of religion practiced in the South irrational, bordering on downright uncivilized. John Sears, one of the ministers in Swansboro, observed that while “most of the people are at least nominal members of some orthodox Christian church,” the “prevailing type of religion is primarily emotional in character.” Sears further elaborated: “No attempt is made to be reasonable in religion. The emotions are frankly used to win the allegiance of the individual to religious doctrines that are avowedly unreasonable. Religious revivals, which are common occurrences, usually take the form of emotional orgies.”[12]

Roy Rowe’s Register article included some observations about the church life of the Shelter Neck area, noting that Baptists and Methodists were strongest in the community, “although Presbyterian and Episcopalian groups are present as well.” He described a Primitive Baptist Church service :

Three-fourths of the men are out doors whittling and talking, and the other fourth are inside. They have tin pans indoors, where the members wash their feet. The leader talks for about three hours. When one is tired, another begins. Then they come back after dinner for another meeting. They do not believe in any musical instrument, and someone pitches the tune with the voice and lines out a hymn. They do not believe in Sunday school for young people. The building is large, and without paint or plaster. The seats are long, rough, wooden benches. The platform is rough, and the pulpit is a carpenter’s bench. They do not have any flowers in church. The lives of these people are primitive in every way. No primitive Baptist is educated.[13]

Whereas the school’s Unitarian leaders knew Boston, home to Harvard University and two centuries of historic American landmarks, the inhabitants of Pender County had no such cultural heritage. In education alone, the northern Unitarians and Pender County folk were generations apart. Only recently had efforts been renewed to improve the educational system in North Carolina (beginnings made before the Civil War had dissipated). The 1910 census revealed that fifteen percent of adult whites in the state could neither read nor write. In 1994 an eighty-nine year-old Roy Rowe recalled a comment of Samuel A. Eliot’s about the latter’s visit to Shelter Neck and his difficulty in making a connection to Shelter Neck’s citizens. Rowe recalls that Eliot lamented, “I just could not reach them. They did not have enough education.”[14] The disparity in education, along with the social, cultural and regional differences between the Northern Unitarians and the Shelter Neck natives sharply distinguished the two groups of people who met in Pender County.

Clearly the Northern Unitarian backers hoped the school would be an influence for change in the South. Carson has observed that “the American counterpart of English Christian Socialism was commonly called social Christianity,’ applied Christianity,’ or later, the Social Gospel[15] One can hear this “practical Christian” philosophy ringing through the articles which championed the Carolina Industrial School, especially in the voice of Henry Wilder Foote. In 1911 Foote declared that, indeed, the North Carolina work was doing good work, although perhaps more by deed than word:

The hold which our churches have obtained on the people of this region is due to the practical Christianity shown in the lives of our representatives there, rather than to the theological difference between our own and the evangelical churches. Until the Unitarian workers came to this region religion had been interpreted as meaning little more than the preaching of hell-fire by men who, only too often, were ill-fitted by character or training to be really leaders of the people. Our men and women have made manifest a religion which consists in going about doing good. This, rather than any theological distinctions, has been the cause of our success. It has been a case of a living and practical faith against a dead theology, which lacked all contact with the daily needs of men and women.[16]

Conflict between the Unitarians and the local southern evangelical leaders was surely inevitable. No Unitarian churches existed in eastern North Carolina. The entrenched evangelical denominations of the area perceived “Unitarian” as threatening and even sinful. One piece in a Unitarian journal noted that “Evangelists and revivalists who frequent these [North Carolina] parts try to prevent the people from coming to them [the Unitarian churches and schools].”[17]   Another story reported, more humorously: “Some of the Baptist and Methodist families are afraid their children will catch Unitarianism.”[18]

Though the work had begun as denominational extension intended to promote the “Unitarian and liberal Christian” message in the South, the success of that objective at Shelter Neck would be limited. Although the National Alliance established a local branch and a few of the school’s students might be Unitarian in their later lives, few adult citizens of those early years actually converted to the liberal faith. In her 1924 article Edith Norton would observe: “We scarcely hope to make our little church a real Unitarian Church. . . but we would like to make it a Community Church.”[19]   Furthermore, a 1930 report by an A.U.A. official who paid an investigative visit to the school site noted that one woman, “the mother of a large family, all of whom had been educated in the school. . . said, We sure do appreciate all that these folks did for us, but we think they’ve got a rotten religion.’[20]

Nevertheless, advocates for the school celebrated its mission of furthering the liberal cause when they promoted the school to those who might contribute to it. Northern periodicals boldly praised the school and its success in influencing the character of the area: “It is pleasant from time to time, as one visits these [North Carolina] communities to note the change of sentiment–how intolerance is slowly giving way and a kindlier spirit is showing itself among those of differing beliefs. Not the least of the causes of this change of attitude is the influence which goes out from the two schools which some of our good Northern friends are supporting. . .”[21] Although the work of the school might not have included a Unitarian catechism, the school’s backers clearly believed they were having a positive influence on the future of the South and the world by reaching children: “In both day school and Sunday-school the workers realize that it is education that is needed pre-eminently to induce and establish right thinking and right living. The hope of the South, as of all countries, is the children.”[22]

If the original intent of the “southern circuit work” had been to spread “our liberal message,” the school’s ultimate focus became educational and social. Whatever other expectations its supporters had of it, the central and never-debated mission of the school was to teach children, to train them so that they could be more enlightened than their southern backwoods parents. Obviously the school’s backers hoped to modify those cultural traits of the South’s which Northerners viewed as degenerate and offensive. In 1910 Sara Johnson, one of the teachers, wrote:

It is endeavored, by precept and example, day by day, to impress strongly upon their minds that to be good, law-abiding citizens is necessary for any religious life by what-ever name it is called.

They are taught to be clean in person and in conduct, to respect themselves and others, to drop those false sentiments that cause the deplorable feuds and lawlessness that are the curse of the South, and to be honest, friendly, temperate, and ambitious to get the best possible education, that they may place themselves in line with the progress in other parts of our land and in all lands.[23]

The statements of many of the school’s leaders and teachers reflect the values of the upper class New England women Whisnant discusses in his thorough study of Applachian settlement work of this same period. Referencing Jacqueline Jones’ study of Northern women–”soldiers of light and love”–who came South to teach in the Freedmen’s Schools, Whistnant notes that these daughters of the northeast upper middle classes, “‘shared . . . the vision of a truly unified American society in which competing interests would be cemented together in a national purpose by the tenets of Protestantism and capitalism.’. . .Not surprisingly, the primary mechanism of both personal and group advancement’ and broader social change were conceived to be education and moral suasion.[24]

The Shelter Neck school’s teachers and Northern Unitarian backers unquestionably hoped to pass on to this corner of the South their northeast establishment liberal Christian values. Edith Norton, the last superintendent at the Shelter Neck school, would reiterate the school’s mission in 1924: “On the whole . . . the children are the hope of their isolated communities in the South. . . Our little school may be a drop in the bucket, but we are working to make good citizens, good Americans, enlightened and progressive men and women, of these children.”[25]

If its unquestioned purpose was to reach children, the Carolina Industrial School’s frequently-state mission was, more specifically, to teach white children. Backers of the school never any equivocated nor did they seem to perceive any reason for apology about their goal of educating whites but not blacks. Not only were they straightforward about the school’s objective, but they declared it widely, both in the North and the South. These “liberal Christians” from the North, who, historian Cooke declares, “never defended slavery from the pulpit or by means of the press,” had a record of concern for African Americans in the South. Cooke asserts that “in proportion to its numbers no religious body in the country did so much to promote the anti-slavery reform as the Unitarians.”[26] Unitarians were also at the forefront of support for Tuskegee and Hampton Institutes, and numbers of them had forayed into the South to help foster better education for recently enfranchised African Americans after the Civil War. But at the turn of the century they justified aiding education for underprivileged southern white children and, even, for accepting the South’s segregated pattern of living.

A clear example of Unitarians’ sympathy with the Southern situation and their rationale for educating white children is a 1911 Christian Register article by Henry Wilder Foote, the A.U.A.’s Education Secretary, who was also a board member of the Carolina Industrial School:

It is not easy to many Northerners to imagine the need of schools for white boys and girls, which still exists in the South. They forget that it is far easier to provide schools for an urban than for a predominantly rural population; that the South labors under the necessity of maintaining a double school system for whites and blacks; that, though now prosperous as never before, the South lost practically all its accumulated wealth in the war, and is still relatively poor. Sometimes Northerners also say, “Let the South educate the white, and let us give for negro education.” They do not realize the need of some of the white boys and girls; nor that the generous donations coming from the North solely for negro education breed a certain resentment in the hearts of Southern whites; nor, above all, that the promotion of education and of high ideals among the white is one of the surest ways of helping the negro. It is the ignorant, low-minded, brutal white man who is the worst enemy of the negro. If you fill the hearts of white boys and girls with understanding and generosity, the black race will benefit accordingly. The fact stands that the South does need such schools as these and that, though they will, as time passes, be increasingly supported by local contributions, at present their success largely depends upon whether liberals the country over have the vision to see that here is an opportunity to advance our nation’s welfare by making an investment in patriotism.[27]

As antithethical as it may seem to the behavior of later liberals–many of whom were committed to the Civil Rights Movement–Northern liberals at the turn of the century wrestled with “the negro problem.” And, if another Register article is any indication, they found themselves confounded about solutions for it. “Impressions of a Southern Journey” appeared on August 16, 1900:

. . . [T]he law of Alabama requires that whites and persons of negro blood shall ride in separate cars. . . . And yet there is more excuse for such a law than one would at first imagine in southern States, where there is a very large negro population of a low class, whose presence at times in close proximity to whites of refinement is certainly objectionable. . . .

This Southern question has taken a very strong hold on my own mind. Most of us, who are not wholly absorbed in schemes of Oriental conquest and Christianization, will admit that it is one of the great questions which will tarry for a solution. We must, at least, begin to understand and to solve it now and in the immediate future. It cannot be solved by indifference, ignorance, idleness, or, I am strongly inclined to think, by taking a purely Northern conventional view of the question any more than by taking a purely Southern conventional view of it. We ­need knowledge; and, to get it, we had better study the facts and all the facts with a open mind.[28]

If dealing with the integration of Anglo and African Americans in the South seems to late twentieth-century observers something to which the founders of the Carolina Industrial School should have been more sensitive, it is important to remember that the politics of those years gave less priority to racial matters. Too, bringing the racial issue to the fore might have seemed to the local populace a contrivance, since the area immediately around Shelter Neck apparently–from such information as it is possible to know a century later–had only a small black population. Edith Norton observed: “In the immediate neighborhood there are so few negroes that no school is provided for them. But in a town nine miles distant, according to all appearances, more than half the population is colored.”[29]   Roy Rowe, writing about his home community, noted that “the Shelter Neck school is in the midst of an old slave plantation.” But, he claimed, “The racial question gives little trouble. The Negroes are peaceful, and the blacks and the whites get on well together. There are nine normal schools for the Negroes in the state.”[30] Asked about her memories of whites and blacks living in the area, Norma Hanchey Westmoreland remembers that “There were some [blacks] around. They were left over from slavery.” Did they attend school?   “They didn’t come to school,” Norma recalls, “but they weren’t forgotten.” She remembers that blacks as well as some whites from the area, helped with the house and farm work, and in such ways they received training and education.[31] More honestly, it is clear that the Carolina Industrial School accepted and followed the established local pattern of the time, which provided separate but not necessarily equal education for African Americans.

The Unitarian founders of the school not only determined to teach white children of the area but underscored the point that the school was educating “people of good stock.” Again, the values of the leadership were rooted in the northeast: “They . . . shared the general Protestant unease about the “dangerous classes” and about the stresses in the moral fabric of society arising out of rapid social change,” observes Whisnant. A major objective of northeastern reformers “was to effect moral character mentation based on class, political, religious and racial tensions,’” his book continues[32] Roy Rowe’s article claimed that descendants of original American settlers populated Shelter Neck: “The people are chiefly of Scotch and English descent, and there are few foreigners. . . . My grandfather, John W. Rowe, now eighty-seven years old, held most his land under grants from King George III. . . . The old grants did not always connect, and many people now hold vacant land, left between the boundaries, for which they paid nothing.”[33]   Edith Norton’s piece was one of the last examples of publicity for the school to champion “pure Americans:” “. . .[L]ike the mountaineers, they are of good stock. Most of the colonists came from New England and Virginia; most of the names are English or Scotch; an ancestor of one of the families in our neighborhood lies in Westminster Abbey. There are absolutely no recent immigrants from Europe or Asia.”[34] For turn-of-the-century Northerners, a philanthropy which supported “pure Americans” in an area where there were no suspicious foreigners had considerable appeal.

Shelter Neck folk were, early on, reticent to allow their children to attend the Unitarian school.   Key’s history notes forthrightly that “at first there was some hesitation shown by the parents . . . about the school which was owned and was to be carried on by Northerners.[35] But ultimately the school won the confidence and even the loyalty of the local citizens. Former student Norma Hanchey Westmoreland remembers that her mother stood up for the Unitarian school when the minister of the family’s church attacked it: “When that preacher said that they were teaching Unitarianism over there and that Mama ought not to send us, Mama stood right up in church and pointed her finger at the preacher and said You are a liar!’” A 1922 article told the story of a local evangelist who asked the mother of one of the school’s students “if her religion satisfied her.” “That little church over there,” the mother was said to have replied, pointing to the Unitarian chapel, “has the best religion there is.” The same report added that another parent had said, “Well, what they catch from Dix House cannot harm them,” while another put in, “‘Make them like you-uns, and I don’t care what you call them.’” Perhaps the observation most complimentary to the liberal denomination, however, quoted an elderly woman in the Shelter Neck community saying that “Dix House has taught them to love God instead of fearing Him.”[36]

Most local people associated with it came to see the school as non-sectarian, and it is that view that most residents and students reflect in their recollections.[37] Taylor Tatum, who attended the school along with all his siblings declares: “They didn’t teach religion. It didn’t make no difference which church you went to. All denominations were welcome. They didn’t go by religion.”[38] Mattie Bloodworth’s observations in her local History are especially significant since they reflect the view of a Pender County native daughter: “There was so much done in the way of social and educational work that little or no attention was directed to the talk of spreading Unitarianism. Unlike most Missionary enterprises the Unitarians found that common necessities of life, better living conditions, and general work for higher standards of education, came before the spreading of religious dogmas.”[39]

The school at Shelter Neck became more than a school: it was the center of community life for this remote and sparsely settled place which had no other site or buildings to call its own. The recollections of former students tell of an institution that was central to life in this rural area: it was school for children, recreation for whole families, work for some of the adults who helped maintain the farm and property, and a social life for young and old–the likes of which they had not previously known. By the middle years of the school’s existence Shelter Neck’s citizens had not only come to accept the Unitarian teachers and ministers but thought of them as part of their lives and eagerly anticipated the opening of school each fall. Shelter Neck revered Mrs. Peterson and Mr. Key as respected personages the community had been fortunate to attract, and the school’s activities became valued rituals in the community’s life.   A 1924 article told of life around the settlement: “Our schoolhouse. . .is the center of attraction for the neighborhood. I wish you could see our boys and girls. . . At our Saturday parties they dance and play quality ring games. . .   They love to take part in plays and pageants. . .”[40] Former students never fail to mention the weekend events on the school site; Taylor Tatum, in an interview in 1988, told a reporter for the Wilmington, North Carolina, Star News that “Every Saturday night, we’d have a big square dance. . . and every Sunday night we had a sing.”[41] No one who attended the school fails to mention the Saturday night dances which attracted people from miles around and which always concluded with the dancing of the Virginia Reel.

Christmas is remembered with special fondness by former students. Taylor Tatum recalls: “Some of the boys would always go out and get one of them great big pretty holly trees–and we had a lot of them great big hollies back then–for the Christmas tree. And the teachers and the Alliance, they would go to Wilmington to get the presents. . . Everybody got a present! Boy, everybody looked forward to Christmas!” Nora Hanchey Westmoreland remembers that Mr. Key always dressed up as Santa: “He was my Santa Claus,” she says. “When he came through that door with all the presents I knew it was Christmas!”[42]

Shelter Neck folk also looked forward to the “barrels of clothes” which were sent by northern Alliance branches for area families. Even today former students remember the arrival of these things with appreciation and no sense of discomfort. “Nobody around here didn’t have any money, and, with all these children coming along all the time, they were glad to get the clothes,” notes one now elderly member of the community.[43]

What did it feel like to be a student at the school? “Well, we was having fun,” remembers Hattie Ward Hanchey, “and we wasn’t used to that–we wasn’t used to all that luxury!” Alumni of the school, interviewed in the latter years of their lives, recall with fondness and appreciation–and sometimes downright glee–their school years. Mrs. Peterson, particularly, is remembered with admiration and affection. “She was a living doll!” says Norma Hanchey Westmoreland.[44] Roy Rowe remembers that the community, and especially his family, respected Mrs. Peterson and wanted to do things for her. “I remember my father had a particularly healthy scuppernong vine,” he recalls; “and Daddy said we were not to pick from that vine because he was saving it for Mrs. Peterson when she came back in the fall. It was Mrs. Peterson’s grapevine!”[45]

That the school was essentially free is almost always mentioned by alumni.[46] “Everything was furnished and it didn’t cost anybody anything but some firewood–and we had plenty of that,” Taylor Tatum explains. “If you didn’t have no paper and pencil, they furnished that, too,” he adds.[47] Roy Rowe recalls that Mrs. Peterson expected the children to be thrifty, however: “I remember one time she called me in and said, Roy, do you use up a pencil every week?’ Well, I told her I probably did. Now, I want you to see if you can make one last two weeks,’ she told me.”[48]

A 1906 article in the Wilmington Star News focused on the Shelter Neck school and its “tuition:”

Pender County school children at an institution near Watha have an [odd] currency. They pay their tuition in firewood. Two loads a term, valued at 50 cents a load, sees them safely through the scholastic year. The school, the Carolina Industrial School, maintained by voluntary contributions mostly from the North is turning out a lot of progressive youngsters to battle for their dues in this selfish old world.

The superintendent, W. S. Key, came to the school from Boston, but his policy is to settle his graduates in the country around the school. He is not a New Englander; he was an Englishman, but he is a “North Carolinian and proud of it.” Occasionally, though, some Bostonian comes down and carries off a “charming little girl” or a “bright young fellow, “ and a number of them are making good in business ways in the North.

The Northern friends of the institution keep it supplied with everything but fuel. The neighboring farmers are glad to furnish that. There are about 60 pupils in the Watha school . . . At the Pender County institution there is a little farm, about 12 acres of which is cultivated in vegetables, and on the miniature plantation there are a large number of blooded cattle and hogs. The curriculum is very high.[49]

The everyday school schedule varied for the students, depending on whether they lived close enough to be day students or were boarding pupils, but some elements were common experiences for all: “Every morning they’d ring two bells–with the church bell, because it was the bell for church and for school,” recollects Taylor Tatum. “The first bell meant you were supposed to be here and to line up around the flagpole. The second bell meant to start: they’d pledge allegiance to the flag, then they’d march in [to the schoolhouse], then they’d probably sing a song, then you’re dismissed to the rooms. And that’s how they taken in school here every morning.”[50]

Did it make any difference that Shelter Neck’s children were growing up under a Unitarian–a non-evangelical and non-Southern–religious influence? “Well, we could play cards and lots of others couldn’t,” remembers Nora Hanchey Westmoreland, comparing her life with those of cousins and friends she knew. “I remember we played rook over and over–and with the same deck of cards! I don’t know where we got that deck of cards, but I don’t think we ever had but one and just took care of it,” she notes.[51]

In the end, the community of Shelter Neck resented the closing of the school and felt some bitterness that the Alliance and the Unitarians had cut off the contributions they had for so many years poured into the community. After Mrs. Peterson’s death “others who came from Boston and took over the school” were never as devoted to the work as she and Reverend Key had been; many who arrived after 1920 had no prior acquaintance with the school and could not grasp the meaning it had for the community. In a letter to the Alliance’s 1930 Southern Work Committee–the group which would make, finally, the recommendation which would terminate the work of the schools–A.U.A. Vice-President Charles Patterson observed the Shelter Neck people’s resentment:

. . . we drove to Shelter Neck,–some forty miles as I recall. There is the church, the school building and one of the houses,–all rapidly going to pieces. It is a disheartening community. The children are now carried by bus to a sizeable town [Burgaw]           7 miles away where a fine new public school building has been erected. The people appear to be grateful for the more than twenty years of unselfish service rendered by the faithful and untiring workers of the Alliance, but they also seem to be somewhat peeved because, regardless of what the state has finally done, the work is no longer carried on. They have come to think of it as their right. For years it furnished not only education but also a community center whose influence was helpful, hopeful, friendly, and these qualities in their dull, drab and rather narrow lives were very precious.[52]

A document memorializing Mrs. Peterson reflects the Shelter Neck community’s passionate feeling about the school and their frustration at its abandonment by the Unitarians. The text of the document included: “. . .and now that the entire movement has been abandoned, the splendid school building, the new, handsome and commodious girls dormitory known as the Kimball House, dismantled and closed, the fine library destroyed, indeed the entire estate wrecked, we feel impelled to carry on the work to the best of our ability, as it was conducted for over 20 years.”[53] While it is unlikely that a local citizen wrote it and while there is no evidence that it resulted in any action, thirty-six Shelter Neck citizens, whose names had been associated with the school’s operations for over twenty years, signed the piece proclaiming the “Abby A. Peterson Memorial Society.”[54]

For the Alliance women who found themselves, in the late 1920’s, in charge of a project none of them had had a hand in starting and in a distant Southern state now significantly more modernized, a decision to discontinue the operations was probably inevitable. To their credit, however, they honored the efforts of their predecessors with a thorough investigation of the conditions and circumstances in North Carolina. Recognizing that the Shelter Neck community still wanted church services, the women made a genuine effort to come to an arrangement with the North Carolina Universalists, noting, “This would give us a share and a responsibility in the continuance of the work so nobly started over thiry years ago, while eliminating our greatest weakness, supervision at a range of one thousand miles.”[55]

The 1930 Alliance leaders explored several ideas for continuing the church work, but the sectional and social distances between the Northern Alliance women and the Southern backwoods families proved too great to overcome this time: “Shelter Neck very earnestly desires a church with a resident pastor,” wrote Mrs. Churchill and Mrs. Elliott in November, 1930, “but not earnestly enough to promise any support. . . and we tried to make it clear that support’ did not necessarily mean money. . . .This state of mind is difficult for an independent New Englander to understand.”[56]

The 1930 reports of Mrs. Churchill, Mrs. Elliot and Mrs. Stebbins expressed their mixed emotions, torn consciences and feelings of inadequacy about the North Carolina situation. Mrs. Stebbins said it forthrightly:

I remember saying at one of our meetings that we of this committee are a group of amateurs trying to direct another group of amateurs a thousand miles away from us in a very serious piece of social and educational and religious work. If we were employing experts perhaps we might not be doing any harm or if we were experts ourselves and were right there on the spot al the time we might venture to employ amateurs without making any very serious mistakes, but the present situation is an impossible one and the sooner it is ended the better it will be. I mean no criticism on the past. A great person could go down there now and live and do good, but there are many new influences at work.[57]

To the school’s late leadership in the 1920s the school was a more distant educational and social effort than before. The later leaders did not experience the affair of the heart which had occurred at Shelter Neck.

Had the North Carolina work–all those years of effort–been successful in the eyes of the Northern Unitarian women whose venture it had been? Had they accomplished what they set out to do? Had they influenced the area significantly?

In his historical sketch Mr. Key, surely on of the school’s most invested employees, declared that graduates of the school included “expert” carpenters, dressmakers, milliners, and saleswomen, “many prosperously married,” and concluded that the school’s presence was worthwhile in “improving the health, elevating the tastes, arousing the ambitions of the people at large, and bearing undeniable testimony to the value of the Carolina Industrial School.”

Asked to write a summary of his experiences as the “last lieutenant in charge” in the North Carolina circuit, Swansboro minister John Sears had some very different opinions about the success of the Alliance’s work there:

Frankly, it is my feeling that the Alliance, in its thirty years of work,. . . has not succeeded in even scratching the surface of the fundamental social problems involved . . .

This is not to say at all that the work has been a complete failure, or that all efforts were wasted. A number of individuals, I do not know how many, have been helped to better themselves. This, in itself, is probably justification enough for all that has been done. The children who have gone through our schools and remained in the community now must have higher ideals than they otherwise would have had, but if so it is an individual matter, for collectively they have well disguised any cultural advances. It is my belief that love can not be thrown away and that the influence of such consecrated men and women as Mrs. Abby A. Peterson, Mr. Key, Mr. Robinson, Miss Barnard, Miss Hawes, and the many others, still exists, a beneficent undercurrent in the life of the community.[58]

As they faced the 1931 situation, the leaders of the Southern Work Committee expressed frustration and confusion. As they reflected on the original reasons for the work and the questionable need for its continuation thirty years later, they wrestled with the issue of its value. Mrs. Eva B. T. Churchill, the 1930 chair of the committee, broached the inevitable question:

Now comes the question, have we been a success? I admit that may be debatable, but, to me, it is entirely a side issue. We may have been or we may not have been. Mistakes have undoubtedly been made. Every committee has been composed of human beings. Always the attempt and the aim have been to help. I thoroughly believe the net sum accomplished by our predecessors will balance up on the right side. I could argue it, but arguments do not change results. They speak for themselves and I am content to rest it there.[59]

And what about Shelter Neck? What effect, if any, had the school had on the community and the area? And what of the school’s alumni? How had their experience at the school affected their lives? Had the school, in their eyes, been successful?

In the document creating the Peterson Memorial Association, Shelter Neck citizens claimed that the school was extremely valuable: “the estate and establishment had come to be known as the garden spot of the Coastal Region,’ and was recognized by the educational authorities of the State as the best equipped, the highest grade, and the most successful rural industrial institution in the State.” This work, which some community citizens still value, also asserts: “the school had achieved phenomenal success during the entire period of its existence, as is proven by the long list of graduates, all of whom are today occupying responsible and lucrative positions in various parts of the country.”[60]

Were the religious affiliations of any of the former students influenced? In a few cases–Roy Rowe and Norma Hanchey Westmoreland, for example–the now adult alumni are members of Unitarian Universalist churches. But most alumni followed the path closest to their cultural roots and are members of Southern Protestant churches.

If individual comments of alumni nearly seventy years later are any indication, the “Dix House School” was a valued part of their lives. Clara Deal Watkins, who boarded at the school along with her brother, cherishes the memories of the “elegant” times at the school during her years there. She relishes her memories and appreciates the opportunities the school offered her: “We had a French teacher who taught us French, and we had sumptuous dinners and we danced the Virginia Reel every Saturday night.   It was a lovely place and we just had a lovely time and I’m just happy I could be a part of it.” Hattie Ward Hanchey remembers that, when she moved on to higher education after attending the Shelter Neck school, she found her preparation superior to those around her: “The school was highly rated,” she says, noting also that it offered many courses local schools did not. Taylor Tatum, one of the youngest of his many siblings, all of whom attended the school, would maintain the strongest connection to the place; still living on his family’s property adjacent to the school site, at nearly eighty years of age, he tells stories with relish. “I reckon we had about the best school there was anywhere around,” he declared in 1993.[61]

Roy Rowe, the former student whose successes have probably been the most visible, remembers the attention Key and other school staff members paid the students. “When I was at Chapel Hill, some years after I left the Shelter Neck area and was attending the university up there, I remember that Mr. Key came to see me one day–just dropped by,” recalls Roy Rowe, now in his eighties. “That sort of thing impresses a young man, you know.”[62] Rowe would consider becoming a Unitarian minister and, along with his sisters, Gladys and Norma, would visit a number of New England sites under the sponsorship of Unitarians. In the late 1920s an article about him, his interest in the Unitarian ministry, and his prior experience at the Carolina Industrial School would appear in The Christian Register.   Roy would not become a minister, but would later, as a citizen and businessman from Burgaw, be elected to several terms in the North Carolina legislature, serve on the board of trustees of the University of North Carolina, and be noted by Mattie Bloodworth in her History of Pender County as one of “Pender’s Sons Who Have Achieved Success.” He and his family would continue to count Pender County and the Shelter Neck community their home and would help sustain the memory and appreciation of the school.

In her 1974 article, Norma Rowe Sawyer concluded: “For many of us who were eager to learn, this school contributed greatly to our education, instilling in us a desire to continue to broaden our horizons; encouraging us always to question and to observe–always seeking for deeper insight, a fulfillment of our destiny.”[63]

The school at Shelter Neck, the inspiration of the now obscure Joseph G. Dukes and the passionate mission and “life’s work” of Abby A. Peterson, had offered education and exposure to the values of New England Unitariansm to a generation of the community’s children–but just one generation. No marker was left behind to inform the outside world that the chapel was the first Unitarian edifice in the state or that this place was founded by Northern liberals and run by Yankee women teachers or that these were the buildings a community called home. The primary legacy of the Dix House School’s presence would be found in the lives of those who had been its students.

In 1974 alumni of the school began a pattern of an annual reunion on the old school grounds. From the first it has been held the first weekend in October, the time school always opened. Over forty alumni attended in 1974, the local paper noting that “there were folk there for this special occasion from as far away as California, Michigan, Mass., Florida, Virginia, South Carolina, as well as throughout the state of North Carolina.”[64] The Universalist Convention of North Carolina, which had inherited the buildings that once housed the school, helped sponsor the first event.

In October, 1994, the twentieth “Dix House School” reunion was celebrated. Eddie Rivenbark, whose family has lived in the area for generations and whose parents attended the school, led the program and called the crowd to “gather round the flagpole to sing Bless Be the Tie That Binds,’” as they had done at each previous reunion. He also announced that the annual event would continue “as long as anybody wants to come.” Loyal friends and family members brought the total attendance to over forty, but only six of those were still-living former students

APPENDIX

Personal Sketches

Abby A. Peterson

No account of the Shelter Neck School or the Unitarians’ North Carolina work is complete without an understanding of the central and vital role Abby Peterson played. Samuel A. Eliot said it succintly when he wrote in 1915, “Mrs. Ellis Peterson is the mind and soul of the thing. . . It is her life work.”

Joining the Alliance Executive Board in 1895, Abby Peterson was at the heart of that organization’s work during its formative turn-of-the-century years. She represented the Alliance’s Suffolk County Branch, the organization’s largest, and her name was among the list of directors at the Alliance’s 1902 incorporation, making her, in a sense, a charter member. Her home was the Boston suburb of Jamaica Plain, her address listed as 305 Chestnut Avenue.

From the very outset she was an exceptionally active participant in the Alliance leadership, her name frequently mentioned as organizer of the anniversary meetings and chair for the southern circuit work. During her years of involvement in North Carolina she also represented the Alliance at gatherings in the South, one 1910 Register report noting that, at the Southern Conference held in Jacksonville, Florida, “Mrs. Abbie [sic] A. Peterson brought greeting of the National Alliance, and her presence and words were continually helpful.”

What drew Mrs. Peterson to the work in the South is not completely clear, but she made the first investigative trip to North Carolina in the summer of 1900 as well as the original arrangements for the properties at Shelter Neck. She may have been “hooked” by the needs of the area! At any rate, in the first years of the century, widowed and with mature sons, she perhaps viewed immersion in the North Carolina work as a satisfying response to the changes in her life. She was fifty years old in 1905, when she settled in to the work at Shelter Neck.

An outline of her life and her key role in the North Carolina work–the best so far located–appeared in an obituary Register article about her by Henry Wilder Foote:

The sudden death of Mrs. Abby A. Peterson on Easter Day, April 20, in a hospital at Wilmington, North Carolina, following an operation, has brought a sense of grievous loss to many people in our fellowship for Mrs. Peterson had become widely known and much beloved in our churches by reason of her work at Swansboro and Shelter Neck, North Carolina. She was born sixty-three years ago at Rutland, Mass. She married the late Ellis Peterson, who, after service as principal of high schools at Bangor and Worcester and as assistant professor at Harvard, became a member of the board of supervisors of the Boston public schools, a position which he filled with honor for twenty-seven years until his death, more than fifteen years ago. Mr. and Mrs. Peterson had long been attached to the Unitarian church in Jamaica Plain, Mass., and so, finding herself a widow while still in middle life, with her sons starting their own professional careers, she turned her attention to the work which had recently been inaugurated by the National Alliance in Eastern North Carolina. She went thither in September, 1904, and thenceforward threw herself with unceasing devotion into the religious and educational work which chiefly centered at Shelter Neck and at Swansboro. she made her headquarters at the former point for seven or eight months each year, served as superintendent for the two schools, engaged the teachers when she came North each summer, and became secretary of the board of trustees when the schools were incorporated in 1911. She was at Shelter Neck, active in the work so dear to her heart, up to the Thursday preceding her death, so that she died in the full swing of her busy life.

This bare record, however, conveys but little idea of what her life had come to mean in the community. For in these fifteen years she had become an untold influence for good through her unwavering devotion to the people among whom she had made her home. She was the soul of domestic life at Dix House; an unfailing reliance in strength to the weak; a guide to the perplexed; a helper to all about her who needed help. Seldom cast down by difficulties, she habitually put on a cheerful courage, matched with a wise understanding of human nature alike in its excellences and its defects, and an untiring faith in the efficacy of righteousness and love. Possessed of no extraordinary gifts of intellect or personality, she was a noble example of the power of intelligent goodness. Through these years she has given to the schools and to the community, without money and without price, that which no money could buy.

During the weeks before her death she was engrossed in plans for rebuilding Kimball House at Shelter Neck, which was burned last December, and with other developments which she had at heart. What can be done to carry out these plans,–or, indeed, to carry on the owrk at at all now that she is gone,–is as yet uncertain. But to have the work go on without slackening would be her dearest wish, and all who have known her will desire to lend their help to its maintenance. Somehow or other it must be sustained. However that be done, the influence of her life will long abide in the hearts of the men and women and little children among whom she moved, blessing and blessed.”

In her history of the Alliance, Comins, in discussing “Southern Work,” writes another tribute to her: “Among many names associated with the southern work that of Mrs. Peterson must stand pre-eminent. No one unacquainted with the local conditions can picture the range of her activities. She officiated as a midwife, attended the sick, and took charge when death came. Sanitary conditions were deplorable and traveling necesitated fording streams and having cars drawn out of the mire by yokes of oxen. By the refinements of her own life, simple and primitive as it was by necessity, she held up a pattern for better living which was seized upon by the people, who were keen to know “what people do away from here.”

Perhaps her sensitivity to the South was one of the major reasons for Mrs. Peterson’s success at Shelter Neck. Many references in the Alliance minutes and other records make clear her strong feeling for her North Carolina work. In 1915 Samuel Eliot worried that she was concerned for everyone but herself and admonished her to give some priority to extra help at Dix House “to take care of your large family.” While no record indicates that she was ever paid a salary, she was reimbursed for her travel expenses on several occasions, an exchange in the 1908 minutes revealing this and something of her relationship to her work in the South:

“Mrs. Peterson was warmly welcomed after her long sojourn in the south and for the southern committee gave an account of the work as it had progressed in North Carolina, adding some details to the reports sent in each month, and telling of the new places where preaching stations might be developed. . . While thanking the board for the confidence shown in her work, Mrs. Peterson asked that the vote taken at the last meeting should be rescinded. Especially did she dislike the term used “as a missionary,” explaining that the word was most distasteful in the south. On motion of Mrs. Noyes the vote sending Mrs. Peterson south as passed at the last meeting was reconsidered. After much discussion and the offering of several amendments the following was unanimously voted:   “That Mrs. Peterson be sent to North Carolina, with travelling expenses paid, to carry on our work during March, April and May, with an additional appropriation of $50 a month for travelling expenses within the circuit.

Appreciation for Mrs. Peterson can be found in many reports and articles, especially after her unexpected death. In the Shelter Neck chapel hangs a large plaque to her, put there at a memorial service a year after her death. Within months of her death, Mr. Key also left Shelter Neck to return to Massachusetts; from there a tribute to Mrs. Peterson by him would be published in an October 1920 Register article. Perhaps it is fitting to let Mr. Key, who, in the experience of this researcher was immensely loyal to her (and also given to effusive prose!), have the last word on Mrs. Peterson:

Mr. Key declared that for the measure of success which had attended his efforts, chief credit was due to Mrs. Peterson, who had been the soul of the entire movement from its inception, nearly twenty years ago, when he entered the field, up to the time of her death and even to the present time. During that long period of time Mrs. Peterson had been untiring in her efforts to aid the people at large all through Eastern North Carolina. Of a most optimistic disposition, and possessed of most versatile capacities, she succeeded in initiating many movements covering a wide tereitory which are to-day being carried on successfully.

Everywhere she went, Mrs. Peterson was received with the utmost cordiality. It is not to be wondered at, as one recalls how promptly she responded to any demand made upon her, where it was the organizaing of a county fair, a cleanup week, a social service conference, a historical pageant a fruit and vegetable exhibition, a musical festival or a county school Commencement demonstration. In the home life of the people she was a great factor. Many times she assumed the roles of hospital nurse, physician, housekeeper, and even clergyman.

Mr. Key said he had been inspired by Mrs. Peterson’s example, and heartened by her courage in carrying on the work. Only one who has been on the ground cane adequate conceive the nature of the work and appreciate the grip which work gets upon any one who enters that field of usefulness in a right spirit.

Reverend William S. Key

Along with Mrs. Peterson, the Reverend W. S. Key was an anchor figure at Shelter Neck. Hired as a circuit minister, Key served in the area, based at Dix House, for most of the years the school operated. Although he was not a regular in the classroom, he was much a part of the community and former students frequently and fondly mention him. Pershaps even more than Mrs. Peterson, he was widely known and appreciated in North Carolina, the 1906 Wilmington Star article and the Pender County History reflecting the perspective of the region about him.

Unitarian records contain very little information about the Reverend Key. That he was an Englishman is clear. Where his training for the ministry, if any, was had is unknown. Roy Rowe remembers that his wife, whom he referred to as “Mother Key,” often stayed in the North while Key was working in North Carolina. A 1911 article implies that both Mr. and Mrs. Key were there that year, however, and a 1912 letter suggests the possibility of Mrs. Key’s taking a housekeeping position at Dix House so that both she and he could be at Shelter Neck. []   But more information about his life and education is still unfound.

Key first came to the North Carolina circuit as a minister in 1904, but, because his salary requirements were high, the Alliance decided after a year and a half that they could not afford him. In 1908, however, Key returned to the circuit, although the records do not mention his salary or contract terms, and there he remained until after Mrs. Peterson’s death. Indeed, finding the funds to keep him at Shelter Neck may have been a year-by-year struggle, because a 1912 letter from Mrs. Peterson to Samuel A. Eliot, then the Carolina Industrial School board president, noted that his contract was about to end. Mrs. Peterson’s letter then sets out several possible ways to compensate him, the insistent tone of her writing implying that she was intent on retaining him. His employment was, obviously, not “tenured” either by the Alliance or the A.U.A. Within months of Mrs. Peterson’s death Key returned North, the minutes noting that there were not “funds adequate for his support.” (His pay scale may have been higher because he was not a Southerner, as this researcher suspects the less-salaried Dukes and Cowan were.)

Key was unquestionably a valued member of the Shelter Neck family, however. Roy Rowe, Taylor Tatum and others speak of him fondly with respect, and Nora Hanchey Westmoreland gleefully recalls that at the Christmas celebrations, “he was my Santa Claus.” Articles about services and programs at other churches in the North Carolina circuit mention him, one noting that “always a hearty welcome awaits Mr. Key wherever he goes.” []

Key is sometimes credited with founding and being the head of the school in North Carolina writings, (a perception which must reflect the typical assumption of the times that the male figure in an organization was its leader.) The History of Pender County, for example, is complimentary of him and assumes he organized the school: “The Reverend W. S. Key, an Englishman by birth, was sent to the school as minister, educator and special worker. . . Mr. Key was accepted in the County as a man with a great heart for all the people. He exerted a stimulus to fight harder for schools, colleges, and particularly the practical arts, such as domestic science, manual training for the school boys, etc.” An article in the Pender Post at the 1974 school reunion also, inaccurately, states: “Shelter Neck was established in 1902 through the efforts of a Community Unitarian Minister from Boston, Mass., W. S. Key.”.       Yet, in the clearly attributable writings and speeches of his, Key always gave Mrs. Peterson the credit for being the school’s leader; the document which he (must have!) written at the request of the Carolina Industrial School board and a piece in the Register in October, 1920, are illustrative: “Referring to the work in which he was himself most actively interested, Mr. Key declared that for the measure of success which had attended his efforts, chief credit was due to Mrs. Peterson, who had been the soul of the entire movement from its inception.”

Key was frequently a spokesman for the school, both in the South and in Boston. Further, many articles about the school focus on him and his work. Foote’s 1911 article in The Christian Register, for example, devotes a long paragraph to Key, describing his circuit work as both conscientious and strenuous:

Mr. Key has had his headquarters at Shelter Neck for the past half-dozen years, but is there only about ten days each month, spending the rest of the time going the rounds of the other churches. His parish thus covers a district some seventy miles long by forty wide.

The first Sunday in each month he visits the Middle Sound region; the second Sunday he is at Shelter Neck; the third Sunday he goes to Swansboro and the neighborhood; the fourth Sunday he goes to Pink Hill. Each journey means several appointments and many miles of travel by train, boat, horse or on foot. The total distance thus travelled each month comes to 586 miles,–more when there is a fifth Sunday in the month. This is itinerating with a vengence! In this far-flung field Mr. Key has labored with great devotion, giving his time and strength without stint. His tireless energy and varied accomplishments, in addition to his self-sacrificing spirit, make him an invaluable counsellor for the people, not only on spiritual themes, but also in practical affairs, as on matters of thrift and economy, of health, of improved methods of farming. The drain upon his scanty resources, and upon his strength, is heavy, but he is doing a work which few of our ministers would be competent or devoted enough to undertake.

Upon his return North in the winter of 1920-21, the trustees of the Carolina Industrial School wrote to him requesting that he write a brief history of the school. The typewritten document, titled “The Carolina Industrial School,” kept among the Southern Work Committee papers in the Andover Harvard Theological Library, is, this researcher believes, the result of this request . The letter is an unsigned copy. It reads:

60 State Street, Boston, Mass., September 27, 1921
Rev. William S. Key
Winthrop, Mass.

My dear Mr. Key: –

At the meeting of the Board of Trustees of Carolina Industrial School held last Saturday, September 24, 1921, the Board discussed the desirability of obtaining and filing with the valuable papers of the School a brief typewritten report describing the founding and development of the School from year to year both at Shelter Neck and Swansboro, together with as complete information as possible as to the teachers who had served from time to time, their length of service, and so forth, and any other information which would asisist in making an accurate and interesting brief historical sketch.

It was the unanimous opinion of the members of the Board that you are undoubtedly the person best fitted to prepare such a sketch, as you must have more complete information and recollection of the subject than any other person now living. The Board did not intend to use such a sketch for publication, but simply to file it with other valuable papers, so that an accurate record might always be on hand and could be used for whatever purpose future occasion might require. It was the feeling of the Board that the report should not be longer than fiteen typewritten pages. Unless some such effort is made to preserve the desired information it may some day be a matter of great regret to those interested in the past history of the School.

The Board has accordingly requested me to ask you if you will be good enough to prepare a report of this kind. If you can do so and will forward it to me I will present it at the next meeting of the Trustees, and I am sure they will be most grateful to you for the work which it may involve.

I trust you are well and happy and that I may hear favorably from you at your early convenience.

[The copy of the letter is signed “secretary,” with no name.]

If this writer is correct, the Reverend Key is the author of the first historical sketch about the Shelter Neck school–and the only one prior to this 1994 account.

Abby A. Peterson Memorial Association

We, the undersigned residents of Shelter Neck, and district of Watha, N.C.,patrons and friends of the Carolina Industrial School, are organizing the Abby A. Peterson Memorial Association for the purpose of perpetuating the memory of that estimable woman who gave her life in our service, and to continue the work of helping to build up the character and enlighten the lives of the present and rising generation, a task to which the devoted efforts of Abby A. Peterson and her many splendid co-workers were consecrated in the past.

That work, as is only too well known, was very dear to the heart of Mrs. Peterson, and now that the entire movement has been abandoned, the splendid school building, the new, handsome and commodious girls dormitory known as the Kimball House, dismantled and closed, the fine library destroyed, indeed the entire estate wrecked, we feel impelled to carry on the work to the best of our ability, as it was conducted for over 20 years.

And we feel inspired to undertake this task by the fact that the school had achieved phenomenal success dring the entire period of its existence, as is proven by the long list of graduates, all of whom are today occupying responsible and lucrative positions in various parts of the country; and the additonal fact that there is at the present time as urgent need for such an institution right here as at the time the movement was first begun.

To be a little more precise, there is quite as large if not even a larger number of children clamoring for education than ever; yet there is no school within several miles, neither is there a church within miles.

At the beginning of the movement the facilities were of the crudest and most primitive type. Today, or until quite recently, before the ruthless work of destruction was carried out, we had a splendidly equipped establishment–church, school-house, fine eleven-room residence, handsome, new and commodious dormitory for girls, large well built work shop, two barns, electric pumping plant recently installed, a four-acre garden and fruit orchard and 30 acres of as fertile and well cultivated land as is to be found anywhere in Eastern North Carolina.

Briefly stated, the estate and establishment had come to be known as “the garden spot of the Coastal Region,” and was recognized by the educational authorities of the State as the best equipped, the highest grade, and the most successful rural industrial institution in the State.

Having these facts in mind, and fully conscious that the benign spirit of Abby A. Peterson still lingers in our midst, we feel constrained to carry forward the upflifing work of that noble-hearted and self-sacrificing woman. In this undertaking we feel confident of achieving, by steady, persistent effort, a full measure of success. With this end in view we ask only the kindly sympathy and goodwishes of Abby A. Peterson’s innumerable friends everywhere.

Mr. S. M. Thratt
Mrs. S. M. Thratt
Mrs. R. H. Thratt
Mr. Walter Sears
Mrs. Mary B. Rowe
Miss Minnie E. Rowe
Mr. L. T. Hanchey
Mrs. L. T. Hanchey
Mr. Charles E. Smith
Mrs. Charles E. Smith
Miss Lena Hanchey
Mr. Bradford Hanchey
Mrs. Abby Tatum
Mr. Julius Tatum
Mrs. Charlotte Hanchey
Mr. Eilot Hanchey
Mr. J. A. Rowe
Mrs. J. A. Rowe
Mr. A. F. King
Mrs. A. F. King
Mrs. J. C. King
Mr. Luther W. Deal
Mrs. Luther W. Deal
Mr. Junius W. Dubois
Mrs. Junius W. Dubois
Mr. John W. Rowe
Mr. Edgar Rivenbark
Mrs. Edgar Rivenbark
Mr. Don Saunders
Mrs. Don Saunders
Mr. Louis B. Saunders
Mrs. Louis B. Saunders
Mrs. J. B Murray
Mr. Albert Murray
Mr. Z.P. Rowe
Mrs. Z.P.Rowe
And Many Others

1893 Map of  Southeastern U. S. from showing Unitarian  churches and preaching stations

1893 Map of Existing Unitarian Churches

1893 Map of Existing Unitarian Churches

VITA

Eunice Milton Benton is a Southern Unitarian Universalist. Most of her adult life has been lived in North Carolina where she is a member and past president of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Winston-Salem. She has been active denominational work in the southeast and is a past president of the Thomas Jefferson District Board. Her interest in the story of Shelter Neck was an outgrowth of these associations and her appreciation of this historic site.

She was born in 1944 and grew up in Marianna, Florida, where she was a valedictorian (one of five!) in the Class of 1962 at Marianna High School. Her undergraduate work began at Mississippi State College for Women and continued at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she was active in a variety of campus projects and in 1966 received a B. A. degree with a major in history.   She also, later, was a student in the interior design program at U. N. C.- Greensboro, and was a practicing interior designer in North Carolina from 1976-1992. The Southern Studies graduate program at the University of Mississippi was a mid-life work.

Footnotes and References

Chapter I

[1] Cory 81-82
[2] Brooks 5
[3] Both Cory and Brooks as well as other Unitarian records affirm this information.
[4] Cory 52-56
[5] Cory 81-82
[6] Cooke 343
[7] Cooke 338-339
[8] Register , “Journey,” 1914
[9] Cooke 383
[10] Cooke 395
[11] McGiffert
[12] Cashman 135-175
[13] Cooke 159
[14] Cooke 187
[15] Cooke 197
[16] Cooke 187-197
[17] This information is available in the A.U.A. Annual Reports and the National Alliance’s minutes and is noted, as well, by Cooke, Cory, and other historians.
[18] Minutes of the Executive Board of the National Alliance of Unitarian and Other Liberal Christian Women, 1891. So many references to these minutes will be made in this writing that, hereinafter, they are simple referred to as “Minutes.”
[19] Minutes, 1891
[20] Donahue 3
[21] Cooke 369-370
[22] Comins 5
[23] Comins 7-9
[24] Minutes, 1895
[25] Comins 7
[26] Minutes 1892
[27] Minutes 1893
[28] Minutes, 1896
[29] Minutes, 1900
[30] The Christian Register , September 30, 1909. Articles from this denominational periodical will hereinafter be referenced as Register.
[31] McGiffert 182
[32] Minutes, 1893
[33] Minutes, 1893
[34] Minutes, 1895
[35] Minutes, 1895
[36] Minutes, 1896
[37] Minutes, 1897
[38] Minutes, 1897

Chapter II

Archivist Note: During the transfer of the original document to the Archive website, the footnote annotation were lost in chapter II.
[1] A number of writings about the results of the Post Office Mission, in Comins, Cooke, the Southern Work Committee Papers and the Alliance board minutes among other places, cite the frequent occurence of conversions of ministers of other faiths to Unitarianism. Since, from what is known of Dukes, he received no training for the Unitarian ministry and since he is only mentioned in the South, this conclusion about him seems the most plausible.
[2] Minutes, 1895
[3] Minutes, 1899
[4] Minutes, 1899
[5] Minutes, 1900
[6] Minutes, 1900
[7] Minutes, 1901
[8] Minutes, 1904
[9] Woods and Kennedy, xiii.
[10] Percy A. Atherton would be the treasurer of the corporation when the Carolina Industrial School incorporated, serving in that capacity from 1911-1915.
[11] The full names of many of the school’s teachers have not been discovered. A chronology of teachers at the school with their names as Key’s historical sketch recorded them, is appended to this paper.
[12] Key, “C. I. S.”
[13] Eliot, “Tributaries” Register. 1911.
[14] Foote, “Southern Schools.” Register., 1911
[15] Register. “From Shelter Neck,” 1914.
[16] Key, “C.I.S.” SWCP, AHDSL
[17] Sawyer. Pender Post. 1974.
[18] Sawyer. Pender Post. 1974.
[19] Minutes, 1919
[20] “Plans. . .” Register . 1919.
[21] “Honoring …”Register. 1920.]
[22] “We Must . . .” Register. 1922.
[23] Minutes, 1924
[24] Minutes, 1924
[25] From personal and 1994 Reunion interviews.
[26] Minutes, 1926
[27] “Churchill Report.” SWC Papers. 1930.
[28] In Swansboro the Unitarians were not as cordially received as they were in Shelter Neck, but whether or not the fires mentioned here–which precipitated the closing of the entire operation–were deliberately or maliciously set was never conclusively determined.
[29] SWC Papers. 1931.
[30] SWC Papers. 1931.
[31] Minutes: 1899, 1902, 1907
[32] Minutes, 1900
[33] Minutes, 1906
[34] “Our Educational. . .” Register . 1911.
[35]“Bill of Complaint.” SWC Papers.
[36] Minutes 1907. Rowe was the grandfather of Roy, Norma, and Gladys Rose, all students at the school. Minnie E. Rowe was his sister.
[37] Register. 1917.
[38] Eliot to _____ 1915. SWC Papers.
[39] Minutes 1921
[40] Bill of Complaint. SWC Papers.
[41] Norman Rowe Sawyer, in her 1974 article, specifically reports some of these deed transactions and their language. The Alliance board minutes also include some information, including the fact that the original deed of land to Mrs. Peterson was executed August 4, 1900.
[42] Minutes, 1907-08.
[43] This assertion is made from interviews with Taylor Tatum in 1993 and from sketches of the chapel built in Faceville, Georgia (in January, 1905) and the few other photos of chapels attached to the Alliance board minutes.
[44] Key, “CIS.” SWC Papers.
[45] Minutes 1907, 1923
[46]The school building is referred to today as Williams Hall, but that name was not given to it until after the property was deeded to the Universalists of North Carolina. The name honors John Williams, a revered leader of the North Carolina Universalists.

Chapter III

[1] Bloodworth 93
[2] Bloodworth 8
[3] According to Bloodworths History of Pender County , soldiers in the Revolutionary period who found shelter under large holly trees along this tributary of the NE Cape Fear named Holly Shelter Creek.
[4] See Appendix for maps of Shelter Neck and Pender County areas. (not included)
[5] A. Taylor Tatum. Interviews. 1993.
[6] A. Taylor Tatum. Interviews. 1993.
[7] Rowe. Register. n.d. This article is found among the SWC Papers.
[8] Churchill Report. SWC Papers. AHDSL.
[9] Norton. Register. 1924.
[10] Impressions. . . Register. 1900.
[11] Carson 205
[12] Swansboro Report, SWC Papers.   Even though this piece acknowledges no author, like the report this writer believes can be attributed to Key, this one must have been written by John Sears, the last minister to serve the North Carolina circuit and who was based in Swansboro in 1930. The references he makes to his and his wifes experiences there could have been made by no other.
[13] Rowe. Register. n.d.
[14] Rowe. Interview, 1994.
[15] Carson 11
[16] Foote. Notes.. Register. 1911.
[17] ——————–
[18] The Carolina Schools. Register. 1922.
[19] Norton. Register. 1924.
[20] Patterson letter. SWC Papers. AHDSL
[21] —————-
[22] Johnson. From North Carolina. Register. 1910.
[23] Johnson. From North Carolina. Register. 1910.
[24] Whisnant, 9-10. He is referencing Jacqueline Jones Soldiers of Light and Love: Norhtern Teachers and Georgia Blacks, 1865-1873. (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press. 1980)
[25] Norton. Register. 1924.
[26] Cooke 353
[27] Foote. Notes… Register. 1911.
[28] Impressions… Register.
[29] Norton. Register. 1924.
[30] Rowe. Register. n.d.
[31] Westmoreland. Interviews. 1993.
[32] Whistnant 9-10. Whistnant is referencing Jones work again in this passage.
[33] Rowe. Register. n.d.
[35] Key. CIS SWC Papers.
[36] The Carolina Schools. Register. 1922.
[37] Cooke points out, as do other writers, that Unitarians preferred to support nonsectarian schools: As a body, Unitarians have not only been opposed to denominational colleges, but they have been leaders in promoting unsectarian education. (Cooke, 389.)
[38] 1993 Reunion Interviews.
[39] Bloodworth 93
[40] Norton. Register. 1994.
[41] Wilmington Starr News. 1988.
[42] 1993 Reunion Interviews.
[43] Tatum. Interviews. 1993.
[44] 1993 Reunion Interv iews.
[45] Rowe. Interviews. 1994.
[46] Apparently only boarding students paid tuition.
[47] Wilmington Starr News. 1988.
[48] Rowe. Interviews. 1994.
[49] Wilmington Star. 1906.
[50] Tatum. Interviews. 1993.
[51] 1993 Reunion Interviews.
[52] Patterson letter. SWC Papers AHDSL
[53] See Appendix for this document in its entirety.
[54] This researcher believes that Mr. Key was the author of this document, the tone and style of the writing being reminiscent of earlier pieces of his work. He was also known to be extremely loyal to Mrs. Peterson.
[55] Chruchill Report. SWC Papers. AHDSL
[56] SWC Papers. It is also interesting to note, in this commentary on social and cultural differences, that these Northern Unitarians could not find a way to work with the Southern Universalists either; although theologically the groups wee kin, socially and culturally they were very different. The different heritages of these two denominations sometimes still created conflict even thirty years after they joined forces.
[57] Stebbins Report. SWC Papers.
[58] Swansboro Report SWC Papers.
[59] Churchill Report. SWC Papers.
[60] See Appendix.
[61] 1993 Reunion Interviews.
[62] Rowe. Interviews. 1994.
[63] Sawyer. Pender Post. 1974
[64] Shelter Neck Reunion. Pender Post. 1974.

 

List of References

Andover-Harvard Theological Library:

National Alliance of Unitarian and Other Liberal Christian Women: Minutes 1898-1930 [bMS 11021-1 and 11021-2]

General Alliance of Unitarian and Other Liberal Christian Women. Southern Work Committee. Records, 1921-1931.

Personal Interviews

1993 “Dix House” Reunion Attendees. (Primary Speakers: Eddie Rivenbark, service leader; Tom Fry; Taylor Tatum; Clara Deal Watkins, Hattie Ward Hanchey, Hazel Hanchley Wells, Nora Hanchey Westmoreland. ) Recorded on videotape. October 1993.

1994 Dix House Reunion Attendees. (Especially Roy Rowe, Elizabeth Chadwick Twining, Taylor Tatum, Hazel Hanchey Wells, Eddie Rivenbark.) Recorded on videotape. October 1994.

Hanchey, Hattie Ward, et al. Personal interview recorded on video. October 1993.

Rowe, Roy. Personal interviews recorded on viedotape. July, August, 1994.

Tatum, A. Taylor. Personal interviews recorded on videotape. March, June, and October 1993.

Twining, Elizabeth Chadwick. Personal interview recorded on videotape. October, 1994.

Wells, Hazel Hanchey, et. al. Personal interview recorded on videotape. October 1993.

Westmoreland, Nora Hanchey, et al. Personal interview recorded on videotape. October 1993

Books and Pamphlets

American Unitarian Association. Annual Reports 1901 – 1935.   Boston: American Unitarian Association.

Bloodworth, Mattie. History of Pender County, North Carolina. Richmond: The Dietz Printing Company. 1947.

Brooks, Arthur A. “The History of Unitarianism in the Southern Churches: Charleston, New Orleans, Louisville, Richmond.” Boston: American Unitarian Association. 1961.

Carson, Mina. Settlement Folk: Social Thought and the American Settlement Movement, 1885-1930. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1990.

Cashman, Diane Cobb. Headstrong: The Bilgraphy of Amy Morris Bradley, 1823-1904, A Life of Noblest Usefulness. Wilimngton, NC: Broadfoot Publishing Company. 1990.

Comins, Sara. In Unbroken Line: History of The Alliance 1880-1955.   Boston: The General Alliance of Unitarian and other Liberal Christian Women. 1955.

Cooke, George Willis. Unitarianism in America: A History of its Origin and Development. Boston: American Unitarian Association. 1902.

Cory, Earl Wallace.   The Unitarians and Universalists of the Southeastern United States During the Nineteenth Century.   Ph.D. Dissertation. Athens: University of Georgia. 1970.

Donahue, Jessie E. Candle Power: A Brief History of the General Alliance of Unitarian and other Liberal Christian Women. Boston: The General Alliance of Unitarian and other Liberal Christian Women. 1937.

Federal Writers’ Project. North Carolina: A Guide to the Old North State. American Guide Series. Sponsored by the North Carolina Department of Conservation and Development. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. 1939.

Garner, Leslie H. , Jr. and Arthur Mann Kaye. The Coastal Plains: Writings on the Cultures of Eastern North Carolina. Rocky Mount: North Carolina Wesleyan College Press. 1989.

Hill, Samuel S. Religion in the Southern States.   Macon: Mercer University Press: 1983.

Hobbs, Samuel Huntington, Jr. North Carolina, Economic and Social.   Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina press. 1930.

Leonard, Steven W., and Richard J Davis. Natural Area Inventory of Pender County, North Carolina. CEIP Report No. 11. Raleigh: Coastal Energy Impact Program, Office of Coastal Management, North Carolina Department of Natural Resources and Community Development. 1981.

McGiffert, Arthur Chusman, Jr. Pilot of a Liberal Faith: Samuel Atkins Eliot, 1862-1950. Boston: Skinner House Books by Beacon Press. 1976.

National Educational Association. “Industrial Education in Schools for Rural Communities.” Report of the Committee to the National Council of Education, July 1905. N.p.: National Educational Association. 1905.

Whisnant, David E. All That Is Native and Fine: The Politics of Culture in an American Region. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 1983.

Williams, John E. and others. A History of Universalism in North Carolina. N.p.: The Universalist Convention of North Carolina. 1968.

Articles from Periodicals

“From North Carolina.” The Christian Register.   February 10, 1910.

“The Dix Memorial Service.” The Christian Register.   February 17, 1910.

“Meetings: The Southern Conference.” The Christian Register.   April 7, 1910.

“From North Carolina.” The Christian Register.   November 17, 1910.

“The Carolina Industrial School.” The Christian Register.   December 26, 1912.

“Notes on Some Southern Schools,” by Rev. Henry Wilder Foote The Christian Register.   January 5, 1911

“Personals.”The Christian Register.  April 13, 1911.

“From North Carolina.” The Christian Register. May 25, 1911.

“From North Carolina.” The Christian Register. June 8, 1911.

“Some Tributaries and Overflows,” by Samuel A. Eliot. The Christian Register. June 22, 1911.

“Our Educational Work in North Carolina.” The Christian Register. September 22, 1911.

“An Invitation.” The Christian Register.   December 21, 1911.

“From Shelter Neck, N.C.” The Christian Register.   March 26, 1914

“The Work at Swansboro and Shelter Neck.” The Christian Register.   February 8, 1917.

“Mrs. Abby A. Peterson,” by Henry Wilder Foote. The Christian Register.   May 1, 1919.

“Plans for Shelter Neck, by Henry Wilder Foote. The Christian Register.   June 5, 1919 .

“Announcements.”The Christian Register.   October 30, 1919.

“The Alliance: January Meeting.” The Christian Register. January 22, 1920.

“Honoring the Name of Abby A. Peterson.”The Christian Register.   May 6, 1920.

“The Alliance: October Meeting.” The Christian Register.   October 28, 1920.

“Unitarian Work in North Carolina.” The Christian Register. October 28, 1920.

“The Alliance: November Meeting.” The Christian Register.   December 16, 1920.

“The Alliance: December Meeting.” The Christian Register.   December 21, 1921.

“The Carolina Schools.” The Christian Register.   March 30, 1922.

“The Alliance: April Meeting.”The Christian Register. April 20, 1920

“We Must Keep Working With Enthusiasm: What We Have Done, says Miss Lowell, Urges to More Success.” The Christian Register.   June 8, 1922.

“The Alliance: September Meeting.” The Christian Register.  October 12, 1922.

“Going South By Motor,” by Margaret B. Barnard.The Christian Register.  October 19, 1922.

“Life in a North Carolina School: Backward Conditions and People of Good Stock–An Opportunity.” by Edith C. Norton. The Christian Register.   September 25, 1924.

“To Discontinue North Carolina School: Are Considering Churches and Library: A Statement From the General Alliance.”The Christian Register. April 17, 1930.

“Roy H. Rowe of North Carolina Will Become Liberal Minister: Education Betgun at Shelter Neck to be Completed at Northern Divinity School. Young Carolinian Sees Duty in Southern Field.” Unitarian New Letter. nd. [The only copy of this found is a clipping from which the date is torn. The article must have been published about 1928-29.]

“What I Rember [sic] About the Unitarian School at Shelter Neck,” by Norma Rowe Sawyer. The Pender Post. Burgaw, North Carolina. Wednesday, October 16, 1974.

Unitarian Universalists in Atlanta 100 Years

1 January 1982 at 02:48

Chalice

Unitarian Universalists
In Atlanta

Centennial Issue
1882-1982

Published by the Centennial Anniversary Committee of the Atlanta Area Unitarian Universalist Congregations
Feriel Feldman Chair

 

©1982 Centennial Anniversary Committee of the Atlanta Area Unitarian Universalist Congregations

Jo Graham Stern Editor

Click here to view a PDF Version.

Unitarian Universalism: The First Hundred Years in Atlanta

For a hundred years fighting for human rights has been the hallmark of Atlanta Unitarians. Despite tumultuous times, three churches and three fellowships have emerged from the first stalwart congregation of eight members.

by Charles C. (Spike) Brooks

Charles C. (Spike) Brooks is a member of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta. He is a 1942 graduate of Yale University and served during World War Il as a member of the Navy’s Underwater Demolition. A native of Baltimore, he has lived in Atlanta since 1948.

Who was first?

The fact is the Universalists were here first, and it was in 1879, not 1882, that Rev. W. C. Bowman organized a small Atlanta congregation. But within a year Bowman “was called to other fields,” and the Universalists, who had first come to Georgia (in Macon) in 1838, withdrew from Atlanta not to return until 1893.

Chaney: (1882-1890)

Thus the real beginning can fairly be marked by the arrival in January, 1882, of a remarkable man named George Leonard Chaney. He had been a Unitarian minister for 15 years at Boston’s Hollis Street Church. He was a product of the finest schools: Boston Latin, Harvard (1859), and Meadville Theological School (1862).

Chaney was independently wealthy and happily married to Caroline Isabel; he was a Yankee abolitionist and a Unitarian Christian; he came south to establish an outpost for his religion and to pursue his interest in helping the Negroes. The Emancipation Proclamation was then only 19 years old, the end of the Civil War only 17, and Atlanta had been incorporated just 35 years (1847).

He helped found The Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute For the Training of Colored Young Men and Women in Tuskegee, Alabama. Booker T. Washington was principal, and George Washington Carver was a distinguished faculty member; Chaney was a trustee for many years and president for one. He was a trustee of Hampton Institute, a black school in Virginia, a trustee of Atlanta University and a founder of the Artisan’s Institute, a vocational school which was the forerunner of Georgia Tech.

This brilliant Yankee endeared himself to the white Southern community: he started the first free lending library which was also the first library open to women and blacks. Filling many speaking engagements, he probably enjoyed his finest hour in 1887 when he spoke to a record crowd of 2,000 on Memorial Day at the Civil War Cemetery in Marietta, Georgia.

George Chaney stayed nearly nine years preaching sermons which were not those of a radical dissenter from traditional Christianity. At his first service on February 19, 1882, he preached to a congregation of eight; but by February 27, 1883, (Archivist Note: Correct date is March 27, 1883) when he organized the Church of Our Father, he had 26 charter members and on April 23, 1884, he dedicated the first church building on the site of what is now the Central Atlanta Public Library.

However at his departure in November 1890, only 66 people had signed the membership list, and some of these had moved or died (the record is not clear). Thus the small church clung precariously to an existence possible only through generous funding by the American Unitarian Association in Boston.

The members were mainly northern, liberal, intergrationist outsiders then (as they mainly still are) with a sprinkling of born-askew native Georgians. On the other hand, the Universalists were largely rural conservative Southerners. And they still are, in such small north Georgia towns as Canon, Winder, and Senoia.

Universalists

Universalism returned to Atlanta in 1893 in the person of Rev. Q. H. Shinn. On February 24, 1895 he organized the First Universalist Church with 12 founding members; and in July, 1900, under Rev. W. H. McGlaughlin the first church building was dedicated at 16 East Harris Street.

During Rev. E. Dean Ellenwood’s eight-year ministry (1905-1913) the Atlanta church had “encouraging growth” with a membership of 170 in 1910. Up to the merger with the Unitarians in 1918, the Universalists appear to have been happier, more successful, and more prosperous than the Atlanta Unitarians, who by 1908 had seen their number plunge to 55 from a high of as many as 160 several years before.

Langston (1900-1905)

By the advent of the fourth Unitarian minister in 1900, Clarence A. Langston, the starting salary was down from the $2,000 annually paid to George Chaney to $1,400 and dipped further to $1,200 by 1903, prompting Langston to resign. The board refused to accept his resignation saying: “We were directed to tell you of the undivided love and affection in which you are held by our entire church” (but offered him no increase); he decided to stay.

Langston had dedicated the second church building, at Spring and Cain Streets on November 16, 1900 ( the first had been sold in 1899 to the Carnegie Free Library).

On June 9, 1904, the congregation finally summoned the courage after 21 years to use the word “Unitarian” in the church name. It was designated in the new charter as The Unitarian Church Of Atlanta.

Clarence Langston stayed two more years, until 1905; then he resigned again and left Atlanta for good. Langston’s resignation changed the board’s tone from that of “undivided love and affection” (in 1903) to that of ugly criticism. From a letter to Samuel A. Eliot, president of the American Unitarian Association (AUA), from the board, October 16, 1905:

“No doubt you are aware that our pulpit has been filled (by Langston) with mediocrity, coupled with indolence and indifference, for the past five years …

“We now believe the right leader (new minister Moore Sanborn) and the exact psychological moment have come to ensure us success.”

Crisis of 1908

But Sanborn lasted less than a year. By April 1908 the Unitarian position was desperate. In spite of their differences, the Unitarians and Universalists were a lot closer to each other religiously than to any other denomination, both in Atlanta and in their Boston home offices. Consequently, to save the day for the Unitarians “fusion” with the Universalists was proposed but lost by a close vote of the congregation. W. M. Francis (a Southern member) then moved that “in order to admit of the church becoming a more local movement and to efface any local prejudice through there being a considerable number of Northern people connected with it more or less prominently, that the present organization vote to disband.” The motion failed. Francis and T. C. Perkins, who were the two lay officers, and Rev. A. T. Bowser all resigned. Universalist minister E. Dean Ellenwood wrote to offer refuge in his church to the beleaguered Unitarians.

From a letter to Bowser from President Eliot of the AUA, April 23, 1908: “I regret to hear that the merger proposition has been laid on the table. This seems to me a question of unite or die. They can hardly expect further financial support from their Association.” Samuel Eliot’s letter is attached to page 335 of the first book of records of the Church; the remaining pages in that book are blank; the first entry, in the next book still in the archives, is dated November 13, 1925, 171/2 years later.

Third Building (1915)

Somehow the Atlanta Unitarians survived the crisis of 1908; and by 1915 the AUA was optimistic enough about the future to finance construction of a beautiful new 240-seat church at 669 West Peachtree Street.

George Chaney, then 79, was invited to make the principal address at the dedication ceremony of the new church on November 7, 1915. He and his wife Caroline came back to Atlanta from Salem, Massachusetts, from the house where he had been born in 1836 and where he would die in 1922 at the age of 86; they appreciated the stained glass windows of the church, which bore the inscription: “In honor of George Leonard Chaney and Caroline Isabel Chaney.” The Rev. Joseph Wade Conkling (1912-1918) was minister of the Unitarian congregation.

Merger

Ten years after the first proposal for fusion in 1908 and 43 years before the national bodies merged, the Atlanta Unitarians and Universalists finally did merge on November 14, 1918. The Rev. Conkling had died in France earlier that year, so John W. Rowlett returned to be the first minister having served in the Unitarian pulpit previously (1908-1911); the name was changed to Liberal Christian Church.

Scott (1926-1929)

On October 20, 1926, the Rev. Clinton Lee Scott became minister, at the age of 39 (in 1982 he is still active at age 95 and preaches occasionally). Scott hit the ground running, and soon after his arrival, he proposed: A name change to United Liberal Church; by-law revisions; a purge of the membership list; permission to speak often to outside bodies; approval for 40 new hymn books (which he had already purchased); and an outside bulletin board, “The Wayside Pulpit.”

On June 10, 1927, at the quarterly meeting he set a three-year goal: “doubling of all the resources of the church, in members, finances, and in members of auxiliary organizations”; at that same meeting his name change was adopted. He also spoke favorably of Humanism, “an attempt to get away from vague and loose definitions of God.” The minutes state: “he (Scott) thought it would be a fine three year program. It wasn’t long before the rest of us thought so, too, for a motion was made for adoption, and it was voted unanimously.”

Haynie Summers

That motion was made by Haynie Summers of Senoia, Georgia. Now in his eighties, Summers is presently a member and prime mover of the Harmony Universalist Church in Senoia, and editor of the Universalist Herald, whose roots go back to 1847. Besides writing his own editorials, he inserts pieces by ministers from around the country including one by Clinton Lee Scott in the September 15, 1980, issue.

Scott’s ministry

Clint Scott has written of his Atlanta experience: “Atlanta was rather primitive at that time (1926), with no hard roads leading into the city. Every institution, including all churches, was ‘Jim Crow.’

“There was an elaborate system of intercolor relations baffling to a Yankee…. I found all such superficial but deeply rooted formalities difficult to live with, and I never could explain them to my children. Martha, returning from school and remembering something her grade school teacher said about Negroes, asked: ‘Daddy, are colored people human beings?’

“My Atlanta pastorate was for me a happy experience, a fine cooperative membership, a free pulpit ……

In addition to fighting racial injustice, he took on the Ku Klux Klan, the American Legion, and renowned Southern Methodist Bishop Warren A. Candler who did not like liberals. Bishop Candler wrote a pamphlet “The Menace of Unitarianism” which made Unitarians responsible for the doctrine of evolution, the secularization of religion, and all social reforms not approved by the author. Scott promptly bought large quantities and used them for publicity for his church. He left in December 1929 after only three years but with his goals fulfilled. Rufus McCall (then and now a member) says “the congregation was sorry to see him go.”

Hess (1930-1935)

Eight months later, on September 1, 1930, the pulpit was filled by the Rev. Aubrey F. Hess, and the effects of the Great Depression hit the United Liberal Church. The financial status became so bleak that on June 8, 1934, it was moved that the church be closed for an indefinite period. But by severely reducing expenses, and with additional aid from the Universalist General Convention (for which Clinton Lee Scott was largely responsible), the doors stayed open.

At the same time Dr. Hess faced a crisis of confidence in his ministry brought on by the continuing diversity between the Unitarians and Universalists in the ranks. On June 15, 1934, a ballot was mailed to the members stating, “A frank expression from all the members in regard to the pastor is most necessary at this time,” and asking if Dr. Hess should remain or resign; he survived by a 47-23 vote, with 7 “indifferent.” Aubrey Hess died suddenly on Oct. 27, 1935. His widow Jean Hess and daughter Jean Wells are now members of the Northwest Congregation.

Death in Atlanta

The basic differences that nearly wrecked the church in 1908 finally did destroy it 40 years later. In 1944 the Atlanta church had severed its affiliation with the AUA which had criticized its policy of segregation.

In 1948 a black Unitarian from Columbus, Ohio, Dr. Thomas Baker Jones, came to Atlanta University to be chairman of the Department of Social Work. The United Liberal Church refused him membership, prompting the minister, the Rev. Isaiah Jonathan Domas, to resign. He had distressed many of his flock not only by favoring Jones’ membership but also by supporting Henry Wallace and opposing universal military training.
The American Unitarian Ministers’ Association scored the church for denying membership to Dr. Jones and urged that none of its members take the pastorate until that action was revoked. The Atlanta church refused to change its position.

Apparently the Universalist Church of America took a similar stand to that of the Unitarian Ministers Association. Earle LeBaron the minister who replaced Isaiah Domas was of the Christian Church denomination (Disciples of Christ), and the congregation remained segregated. LeBaron left at the end of 1949.

In 1951 the American Unitarian Association, which had for 69 years supported the Atlanta church and owned the building, had the last word when they sold it out from under the small remaining membership; the purchaser was the Bible Research Foundation, Inc., headed by Finis J. Dake, a fundamentalist preacher.

Liberal religion in Atlanta was dead officially although a small group hired Baptist minister Joe Rabun to conduct services at the Cox Carlton Hotel until the spring of 1954.

In early 1952 the AUA was ready to try again. It sent the Rev. Glenn O. Canfield to Atlanta to revive the United Liberal Church. He held services for a year at the Briarcliff Hotel, complete with talkback, “an unusual feature”which was the subject of an article in the May 5, 1952 Atlanta Constitution. The headline: “Pastor’s Sermon Debated.”

A year later a church building at 605 Boulevard Drive N.E. was purchased from the Mormons, and on January 20, 1954, the church was officially reorganized with 127 members. Dr. John E. Beck was elected president, and Morgan Stanford was named to chair the constitution committee. A provision to exclude “nondesirable persons” was defeated; and the new congregation became integrated.

By the time Glenn Canfield resigned his very successful ministry on October 15, 1956, the membership had doubled, and Unitarianism had been successfully born again in Atlanta.

Human rights

Rev. Edward Allision Cahill arrived on February 10, 1957, and was installed on March 26. At the ceremony, the opening sentences were read by Dr. Rufus E. Clement, the black president of Atlanta University and a member of the United Liberal Church. The installation sermon was delivered by Frederick May Eliot, president of the AUA. Mayor William B. Hartsfield welcomed Cahill to the community, and Ed Cahill had the last (closing) words.

It was an impressive start for a dynamic four and-a-half-year ministry. The right person had arrived at the right time for the right causes of human rights, civil rights, and liberal religion. The story is best told in the following excerpts from a recent letter written by the Rev. Cahill from his home in Concord, N.H., where he is Minister Emeritus of The Unitarian Church:

“I look back on my ministry in Atlanta as one of the most important periods of my life and with great satisfaction and gratitude. Gratitude for the opportunity to work with a congregation who knew what liberal religion was all about and who realized that words like Justice, Truth, Compassion, Love, were sterile and empty unless backed up by blood and muscle of human commitment.

“Glenn Canfield had been commissioned to established a (new) United Liberal Church clearly committed to human and civil rights. The church made a complete break with its past. The congregation demonstrated, with courage and sacrifice, that principle and integrity need not be sacrificed in order to build a church. There were few summer patriots. The members were geared for action.

“The City of Atlanta knew where the church stood on the critical issues. The church was integrated, not just desegregated; Whitney Young, then Dean of the Atlanta School of Social Work (and later national head of the Urban League), was a black member of the Board of Trustees. (Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., then assistant to his father at Ebenezer Baptist Church, was a pulpit guest, as was Sam Williams, another outstanding black minister).

“Let me recount two incidents which characterize the United Liberal Church in those days.

“Atlanta University students had organized a sit-in at the segregated lunch counter in Rich’s. Several hundred were arrested for trespassing, and jailed. On Sunday morning during the talkback, the chairman of the Public Affairs Committee asked how many members would be willing to return their Rich’s charge cards in protest. Over a hundred hands went up, and over a hundred cards were in the mail that afternoon.

“The second illustration involved the Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Coretta Scott King (now King’s widow) was leader of the Youth Group. Our church arranged joint Sunday evening programs, alternating between the two churches, so black and white young people could get to know one another.

“The Klan called Mrs. Cahill, in my absence, and threatened violence at the next Sunday evening meeting at the United Liberal Church. Coretta King was consulted; she said to go ahead. All parents were called to give them the option of keeping their children home. Not one parent held back. In fact, all the fathers came that evening and ringed the church outside to form a visible wall of protection.

“Every ministry is important in some sense,” Cahill concluded, “but Atlanta stands out for me.”

Pickett (1962-1974)

The Rev. Eugene Pickett, (now President of the Unitarian Universalist Association), was installed as minister in January, 1962. Speakers included Dana McLean Greeley, first president of the newly, nationally merged UUA, and Mrs. Aubrey F. (Jean) Hess, widow of the former pastor and very active in Atlanta church affairs after his death in 1935. Among the chamber musicians (who played Brahms and Mozart) was recently deceased cellist Donovan Schumacher who continued to play for UUCA until several years after Pickett’s departure in 1974.

Canfield had revived it; Cahill had fired it with purpose; and now Pickett guided the church to full and prosperous maturity. By the end of Pickett’s twelve-and-a-half-year ministry, the membership had grown eightfold, from 127 in 1954 to 1,040 members in 1974. The fifth and present church building had been outgrown and two new satellite churches were organized.

The first serious challenge came in August, 1962 Having outgrown the Boulevard church, the board appointed a site selection committee, and after many tries the committee found a suitable eleven and-a-half-acre tract on Shady Valley Drive, between Lenox and Roxboro Roads. But when it became known that the congregation was integrated, the neighborhood looked to Atlanta Alderman Buddy Fowlkes to lead the fight against issuing a building permit. Fowlkes based his objection on “potential traffic congestion.” The August 23, 1962 North Side News front page headline read: “Blockbusting in North Side defeated by Aldermen, 11 to 3.” Rodney Cook, later to run for governor as a Republican, was one of the three on the side of the church.

In November 1962 the Boulevard church was sold; the congregation moved to temporary quarters in Clark Howell School on Tenth Street and continued to look for an appropriate site.

On Thursday, January 24, 1963, The North Side News lead headline stated: “Cokesbury Methodists reject bid by blockbusters for Northside property. Bi-racial United Liberals lose despite fat offer.” The Methodists, located at Cheshire Bridge and Sheridan Roads, issued a categorical denial that an offer had even been made.

Growth

Later in that year, the Cliff Valley Way property was purchased, and a groundbreaking ceremony was held for the new building on January 10, 1965; President Harry C. Adley broke the first ground on a cold, happy day, and those who gathered there sang Finlandia.

On February 21, 1965, a new constitution was adopted and the name of the congregation changed for the fourth time to a fifth name, Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta. The church was finished by the end of the year at a cost of $449,000 and the first service held on January 2, 1966. After two summers without it air conditioning was installed in August, 1967, for $40,000.

Gene Pickett remembers his early days: “One of my early apprehensions was the talkback after the sermon. In those days it lasted almost as long as the service itself, and my predecessor, Ed Cahill, was known for the brilliance with which he responded to questions and challenges. After my first few Sundays, I decided the talkback would have to go. It was not a showcase for my talents. But I was naive in the ways of congregations. When I left, the talkback was still there!”

Pickett carried on from Cahill the leadership of the congregation in fighting the human rights and civil rights battles of Atlanta in the sixties. When the heat of those battles cooled and the chief concern became personal growth, he continued to lead the church well. Like Cahill he was always very visible to the Atlanta community. On July 27,1974, five days before Gene Pickett left Atlanta, The Atlanta Constitution printed a long and positive article about his twelve-year ministry. The headline: “Unitarian Shift Inward Began With Rev. Pickett.”

In the article he explained that as the times changed and the issues changed so did the congregation under his leadership.

“There has been a shift from community involvement and social action to increased emphasis on personal growth and development,” Rev. Pickett said. “The issues are different now. In 1962 the church was very much involved with integration and the entire race issue and later with anti-war activities. Now there is a lot of defining what the new issues are and how a religious organization can best deal with them.”

The Canfield-Cahill-Pickett era of rebirth and great growth was over.

Van Buren (1967-1969)

In 1967 UUCA hired a second minister for the first time as assistant to Gene Pickett. Edgar T. (Toby) Van Buren stayed for two turbulent years to be in charge of the youth program — “confused kids and worried parents,” to quote from his vivid description of his ministry. Other excerpts from Van Buren’s description:

“Survivors of the late sixties will remember them as times of massive upheaval and conflict. The church reflected these conflicts, suffered with them, and also tried to be a field for dialog and working out of differences. In this it partially succeeded. We had untold numbers of meetings, sermons, and counter-sermons.

“Fortunately, through all of this UUCA maintained its sense of humor. There were secret chuckles even when marijuana sprouts were found growing in some of the indoor plant containers.

“Also, it seemed that the people would define some project or area as their own sacred turf — an understandable way of coping with the largeness of the church and the unsettling pace of change.

“We had lots of close friendships and our share of sidesplitting laughs at UUCA. Most of all, I enjoyed the chance for Penny and me to have after-service lunch with Helen and Gene Pickett, a chance to laugh over the foibles of what surely was a crazy age.”

Toby Van Buren left the ministry, and is now a commercial fisherman on Sullivans Island, S.C.

Jacobsen (1970- )

Don Jacobsen came to UUCA in September, 1970, as associate minister and minister of education. Jacobsen is a religious humanist, and has been a Unitarian Universalist minister for 27 years. Recently he wrote about educating children on Sunday mornings:

“Thirteen groups of children are in our building, and something of significance is going on in each group. Observing the satisfaction of the teachers is a special joy. There are college professors challenged by the high energy levels and short attention spans of bright 4th, 5th, and 6th graders; attorneys, administrators, architects, psychologists, and research scientists excited by the level of sensitivity of our older children; social workers, physicians, sales reps, market analysts, and computer programmers experiencing the tender wonder of creating a nourishing religious environment for preschoolers.

“The resources are there, the caring is there, the concern is there; the teachers feel it, the children feel it. For me it’s very frequently an experience of worship.”

Pruce

Interim minister Glyn Pruce spent six months at UUCA, from September 1974 to March 1975.

Reinhardt (1975-1976)

The Rev. Charles Allan (Chuck) Reinhardt arrived in August, 1975, and stayed 15 months. He followed on the heels of a minister with the longest tenure, the most tremendous record of growth, and at least the equal in popularity of any church leader in Atlanta Unitarian history. For those reasons it was the most difficult assignment possible. Here is the report of Reinhardt’s ministry by Holly Wyand, president of the congregation:

“This (1976) has been one of the most difficult years that UUCA has struggled through. Beginning in April with a frank discussion between Mr. Reinhardt and the Board about dissatisfaction with the Sunday services, efforts were made to turn around a disturbing situation — loss of Sunday attendance, general unease, and constant behind the-scenes agitation. In October Mr. Reinhardt suggested that the Congregation be asked its opinion of his ministry, since he felt a lack of committed support from the lay leadership. The Congregation met on Dec. 5, 1976, to discuss and to vote on his affirmation. The vote was 236-231 (4 abstentions) to affirm. On December 9, the Board accepted Mr. Reinhardt’s resignation.”

UUCA had no senior minister, interim or otherwise, for the next two-and-a-half years. Associate Minister Don Jacobsen, and a strong lay leadership were steadying influences during that time.

Rankin (1979-1982)

The Rev. David Oran Rankin describes his initial experiences in Atlanta: “I arrived at UUCA in May of 1979. While amply warned that the Congregation was odd and independent, the first seven weeks were hardly predictable.

“A young woman resigned from the Congregation because she did not want hymn singing on Sunday morning.

“A long-time member said he liked the sunken pulpit so he could look down on the minister.

“A pro-life advocate marched around the gallery shouting that all Unitarians were murderers.

“A piece in Atlanta Magazine charged that our sanctuary was a bordello.

“A prayer from the pulpit brought 412 dazed, perplexed, and puzzled expressions.

“But the seven weeks finally ended. The next three years were a piece of cake. I discovered some of the nicest and most gifted people I will ever have the pleasure of knowing.”

Rankin had fought in the ring as a middleweight boxer (192 wins in 200 bouts); and he had taught political science at Cornell College in Iowa before entering the ministry. He is a first-rate preacher and in 1978 published a collection of his sermons called So Great a Cloud of Witnesses. The After-word, “A Sermon on Sermons”, begins:

“I delivered my first sermon over twelve years ago. My head was pounding; my hands were sweating; my knees were knocking; my stomach was churning. And it was still the night before!”

David Rankin left UUCA in July 1982, after three years for a new post as senior minister at Fountain Street Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

New Churches

Central (1967-1969)

The concept of a Central City group was first discussed in 1965 by those dissatisfied with the new UUCA location on Cliff Valley Way. The group evolved into the Central Unitarian Society, then to a Fellowship, and went out of existence in 1969.

Northwest (1968- )

The Northwest Unitarian Congregation began as a “third service” of UUCA, with services in the Liberty Guinn School in 1968, and then at a school in Sandy Springs in 1969. In September, 1969, John Burciaga was called as minister for a three-year stay.

Robert W. Karnan was named minister in 1974. In February, 1977 the Congregation moved into its present building at 1025 Mt. Vernon Highway, and in 1982 has a membership of 235, including many former members of UUCA.

The widow of Dr. Aubrey F. Hess (minister 193035), Jean Hess, is a member of Northwest and has been an active Atlanta Unitarian Universalist for 52 years. Her daughter, Mrs. Robert E. (Jean) Wells, is also a member. On March 9, 1980, Bob Karnan’s sermon honored Jean Hess for her 50 years of devoted effort in Atlanta and the Southeast, and he read a letter of congratulation from Helen and Gene Pickett.

Karnan’s 1974 installation ceremony was held in the Abbey Restaurant, 669 West Peachtree Street, the home of the United Liberal Church until 1951. He studied the stained glass windows that had been installed in honor of George and Isabel Chaney, and realizing their historic value, negotiated with MARTA to obtain them “on indefinite loan.” Karnan intervened before the building was demolished to make way for the MARTA rail line. Half the windows are now on display at the Northwest church, and due to a generous gesture on the part of the Northwest Congregation, the remaining windows are at Cliff Valley.

Southside (1975- )

First, Frances West (now an ordained minister) and then the Rev. Lanier Clance served this group, which became an official fellowship in January, 1977, with ten members.

Existentialist (1976- )

The front page lead story in the October 15, 1981 UU World was about this church, which first met in the Decatur living room of the Rev. R. Lanier Clance, with eight members, his children, and four cats. The headline read: “Atlanta church: 8 to 350 in five years.”

Lanier Clance says: “Our congregation began as a dream, in which liberal-progressive concepts of religion and philosophy could be combined with the spirit and energy found in fundamentalistic religious groups.”

In 1978 the congregation moved to the Decatur YMCA, and in April, 1980 to a church building at 470 Candler Park Drive in Atlanta, purchased from the Phoenix Unitarian Fellowship. (The Phoenix group had been organized in 1973, and still continues on an informal basis.) New members are attracted by the enthusiasm of the congregation and by a two-inch ad on the Saturday religion page of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The First Existentialist Church of Atlanta now has 450 members and is the second largest Unitarian Universalist congregation in the Atlanta area.

Northeast (1981- )

The Northeast UU Fellowship was organized in May 1981, with over 50 founding members, and meets at the Mountain Park Depot, within sight of Stone Mountain. Its formation had strong support from UUCA and from the Rev. Todd Taylor, UUA Interdistrict Representative.

Several years ago when the concept of “Communities” was revived at UUCA, one community located in Gwinnett County was called “Way the Hell Out;” that former Community and the new Northeast Fellowship are not related; but the old name clearly describes the reason for the new congregation.

Emerson (1982- )

The newest UU group is the Emerson Fellowship, begun in May 1982 by 32 former members of the Northwest Unitarian Congregation. They meet at DeKalb Federal Savings and Loan, Merchant’s Walk, in Southeast Cobb County.

Reflection

The successful growth of the Unitarian Universalists in Atlanta suffered from the beginning because of the problems of race. For the Northerners come South, “liberal” had to include an integrated society. For many Southern religious liberals it could not include such a society or even an integrated congregation. After 72 years of internal conflict the Atlanta Church in 1954 along with Atlanta itself took a strong stand for racial justice, and the basic racial tension was eased.

In its 100-year history UUCA has had 28 ministers. By comparison, the 100-year-old (in 1981) First Unitarian Society of Minneapolis, roughly as remote from Boston as Atlanta geographically and philosophically, has had eight ministers. But UUCA has had only five in the last 30 years, an accurate reflection of stability in the new church and in the New South.

In 1905 The Unitarian Church of Atlanta had 100 members, one-tenth of one percent of the city’s population of 100,000; the Rev. Clarence Langston reported at that time on the state of the church:

“The most notable failing of members was a want of cordiality to strangers. . . . Attention was called to the large number of people in the community who should be in active membership. ‘Work your friends’ was suggested as an appropriate slogan.”

In 1982 the combined membership of the Atlanta area churches and fellowships is 1,500, almost exactly the same one-tenth of one percent of the population (of 1,800,000) as in 1905.

Does this mean that future growth of the Atlanta Unitarian Universalists will be limited to one-tenth of one per cent of the population? Or is there a greater percentage out there, who would join if they knew of our existence in the community?

Atlanta’s Legacy: Tireless Ministers, ‘A Few Courageous Members’

by Robert W. Karnan

Robert W. Karnan is minister of the Northwest Unitarian Congregation. He received the doctor of divinity degree in 1970 from Meadville Theological School, University of Chicago.

One hundred years is a long enough time to preclude anyone now living from remembering the events that precipitated the beginnings of Unitarianism in Atlanta. If we are to recover any of that early story we must now go to second hand testimony, incomplete and inadequate records, and whatever letters and diaries we can garner from the participants in the beginning events.

The story that emerges from what partial information we can now rely on tells of ministers and lay people of foresight and determined courage who kept working despite many setbacks and a hostile environment. The story has three main themes: a reconstruction-era southern city that was an unfriendly environment for a clearly “Yankee” abolitionist and an anti-fundamentalist liberal Christianity; the persistence of the race issue as a dividing line causing protracted conflict within the Unitarian church members in Atlanta; and the generous and loving care that ministers and lay people alike gave to the Atlanta Unitarian effort which made its survival possible over the last one hundred years.

Both Unitarianism and Universalism existed in one form or another in Georgia prior to the beginnings of Unitarianism in Atlanta (or even the Atlanta area). The first Unitarian congregation formed in Augusta, Georgia in 1826. A meeting house was erected in 1827 and a minister called in 1830. But by 1837 the minister had departed and the congregation dissolved because of internal strife, conflict with the American Unitarian Association over their anti-slavery stand, and severe criticism from the community for their liberal Christian beliefs.

A Unitarian Church formed in Savannah in 1830 but it also experienced the same problems as the group in Augusta and by 1859 had disbanded. The experience was so disheartening to Unitarians that when the then brash and young minister of the Savannah church suggested in 1854 that a Unitarian denomination-sponsored mission group be established in the Atlanta area (specifically in Marietta), he was soundly rebuked by one of the founders of the Augusta congregation and a pillar of Unitarianism in Georgia. Dr. Richard Arnold
chastised the young minister gently but firmly in a letter saying, “No, no, Georgia is too new a country, in that section of it, for Unitarian Christianity. A few from the land of steady habits may carry it thither with them, but if it were strangled in Augusta, I have no hopes of its reviving and flourishing in Marietta, Cobb County, which twenty years since was an Indian Hunting ground. . . ”

Universalism began in Georgia in the late 1830’s and has had many ups and downs since. But that story will have to wait for another telling, perhaps in a 150th year celebration in 1989.

The Atlanta Unitarian story begins with the coming to Atlanta in January of 1882 of the Rev. George Leonard Chaney. The American Unitarian Association was advised by knowledgeable ministers that Atlanta would be a great waste of time for Chaney; but Chaney argued: “If we could not find acceptance there, we could not live anywhere in the South.”

He set out from Boston on January 9, 1882, and arrived in Atlanta late in the month after speaking in various cities on the way. His first act was to identify those who would be likely prospects; he found about ten people. Advertising in the local paper, he gave his first service and sermon February 19, 1882, in the Senate chambers of the state legislature. There were eight people present and his topic was: “How much is a man worth?” Aside from monetary worth which Chaney thought a poor way to measure worth, he thought that it is the dreams we hold, the ideals we cherish, and the hard work through times of failure until our dreams are realized that is the measure of the worth of a person.

The second service was held in the same place and was titled, “The Positive Principles of Unitarian Christianity.” There were 10 people present and these were the same 10 he had previously identified as interested Unitarians. No one from the community responded to his newspaper ads. This lack of response continued for some time and he wrote later: “This went on for six months — the voice of one crying in the wilderness, and awakening few responses beyond its own echo. I returned to the place from whence I came out (Boston) and reported progress, or rather, want of progress…… It took Chaney until March 1883 to gather enough people to found a congregation. The covenant signed by the 27 original members is in the records of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta.

Chaney had a very quick sense of humor. I must believe it was at work when he used Paul’s letter to the Ephesians 6:4 for his text in his second sermon. His bleak notice of the few gathered and the southern alliteration are quite funny. The text goes like this: “One God, and Father of all — above all —through all — and in you all.”

The sermon was so compelling in its summarizing the enthusiastic center of Unitarianism that the members in March 1883 decided to name their church, The Church of Our Father. There is something devilish in me that wishes they had instead named it “The Church of You All.”

Chaney came alone to Atlanta that winter of 1882. He worked hard, but by July when he set out for home in Massachusetts, all he had were his original and faithful ten. He returned in October 1882 and started where he left off, preaching in the Senate chambers, the federal court room in the Post Office building, and in a place called Concordia Hall. In December 1882 Chaney’s wife, Caroline Isabel and his son, Carter, joined him in Atlanta. Actually, it is not quite as simple as that.

Uncle Harry came too. Uncle Harry brought Mrs. Chaney and Carter and all the servants. Mr. and Mrs. Chaney were people of means; their families had come to the New World to do good and had done well. Chaney was a descendent of the original Puritan settlers of Salem, Massachusetts; he was born in the family home in Salem and died there too in his 80’s in 1922.

So when the family arrived, they came with all the trappings. But Chaney was smart enough not to intimidate his little group. He and his wife lived in simple rooms in the Kimball House in downtown Atlanta, while the rest of the party lived in the full splendor to which they were accustomed on an estate in Marietta.

By April 1884, the church had been covenanted, incorporated, built, and dedicated. The money came from the AUA to build the church. The salary for Chaney was paid by the AUA, and the program subsidized by the AUA. This support was to last without termination until well into the 1950’s.

It was clear from the very beginning that Unitarianism would be an uphill effort in Atlanta. The Unitarians were clearly perceived as abolitionist advocates and part of the reason the South had rebelled.

Following the war it was understood that Unitarians were leaders in progressive thought and politics; they were leaders in the founding of the public school systems of many states. They sent educators to the South to found high quality schools intended for anyone, regardless of race, who desired a fine education. They helped found new Unitarian churches and new public libraries. Unitarians were in an aggressive missionary mood. The denomination had just been formed in 1865; prior to that people were Unitarians on an individual basis. But after 1865 churches formed the AUA and sought to expand the Unitarian message of englightened educated thinking of all matters religious and otherwise.

In 1884 a zealously missionary book was published by the young denomination to declare its goals and its agenda. It was called Word and Work of the American Unitarian Association. In that book one author comments:

“What was done for Northern Orthodoxy by the Unitarian Church needs doing for the yet more Calvinistic Orthodoxy of the South … It has a new calling in the present need of the South. If any man doubts it, let him go South; he will find it there. For in the popular preaching of that section there are still such ‘blasts from hell’ as need the cooling and disinfecting touch of ‘airs from heaven.”‘

This was the public image that the denomination wished to perpetuate, and it was also held by many in Atlanta as they beheld the prospect of a new Unitarian Church. “What kind of radical hell-raisers have they sent us?,” they must have asked. There was virtually to attendance at any church function by anyone not already a convinced Unitarian for the first two years of Chaney’s years in the Atlanta pulpit.

But Chaney’s manner was not radical, abrasive, or rebellious. It was gentle, thoughtful, warm, inspirational, and very deep. He held ethical principles that he lived by; but he communicated their virtue by example, not by preaching sin or guilt.

Although there was a private Young Men’s Library in Atlanta, a library of 12,000 volumes, it was not for use by women or blacks. A fee was required that also prevented those of low income from being able to use it.

Rather than use a caustic attack on the powers that be, George Chaney simply set out to etablish a free lendig library for everyone male, female, black, white, poor, wealthy. It had a wide variety of good books, numbering about 1,500 volumes. It so set the stage for a consciousness raising in Atlanta that the Carnegie Foundation set up a public library, bought the church building (in 1895) and accepted the donation of the Unitarian library by the church. So began the Atlanta public library; the brand-new showcase Central Atlanta Public Library in downtown Atlanta is located on the spot where the Church of Our Father once stood.

The example was so powerful that church members living in Marietta began a public library, and reading room there. These two libraries were supported by contributions from Northern Unitarian churches and gifts of books as well; Oliver Wendell Holmes donated to the Marietta Library (now the Cobb County Library) a set of all of his published works. Many other authors did the same.

George Chaney’s strategy of good works and quiet example won over the Atlanta community in a big way. By 1887 Chaney’s high regard in the community was so widespread that he was invited to be the Memorial Day speaker at the Civil War Cemetery in Marietta. According to the Atlanta Journal, the crowd of 2,000 was the largest ever and Chaney was thought by his listeners to have been a remarkably fine speaker.

Chaney was a tireless worker in the service of human good. A list of his accomplishments would have to include his efforts in behalf of improved education.

While minister of the Hollis Street Church in Boston (1862-1877) Chaney became concered about the education of large numbers of immigrant children and adults who came to America for a new chance but who were instead incarcerated in urban ghettos and offered only menial employment. Witnessing the terrible abuses of child labor, the low wages and awful conditions of the factories, he resolved to do something. The something he did was to establish a school in his church for the teaching of advanced wood working and cabinet making skills to immigrant children. It was called first the Whittling Scool, later the Industrial School and finally became a part of the Boston public education system. George Chaney can be credited with being an early pioneer in technical and vocational education eventually serving in national positions in the technical and industrial school movement. He worked closely with the Hampton Institute and the Freedman’s School in Nashville. The members of the Church of Our Father also worked with Chaney to found the Artisans Institute in Atlanta, an effort to provide an adult advanced technical training school and to show the need for one in the Atlanta community. Georgia Tech emerged out of that effort. Chaney also served on the board of trustees of the Atlanta University system working hard to insure quality education to blacks.

George Chaney remembered his years in Atlanta in a brief remembrance he wrote in 1893. “The church of Our Father was fortunate to have far more than its share of authors, educators, artists, musicians, ministers, statesmen … (Dr. Chaney here gives a list of outstanding people who visited his church). I doubt if any evenings so replete with good literature and accomplished art were ever held in Atlanta as those held in this church under the auspices of the Literature and Art Club.”
His philosophy of working by quiet but determined example was the philosophy behind Booker T. Washington’s Tuskegee Institute in Alabama and its most famous scientist-professor, George Washington Carver.

It was a famous philosophy declared by Booker T. Washington at the 1895 Cotton States Exposition in Atlanta, where Washington was able to show off many black educational and industrial accomplishments. His speech was called, the “Atlanta Compromise” and in it he argued passionately that the aim of the black person in the South was to live an exemplary life, to be educated fully for liberal arts and especially industrial and agricultural skills, and to leave the vicious field of post war Klan style politics to those who lived in fear and hate. This philosophy dominated black education until the middle of this century.

George Leonard Chaney was on the Tuskegee Board of Trustees for 25 years and served at least once as its president (in the year 1895.) His philosophy of progress in the brutal climate of the post war south obviously sat well with Booker T. Washington. Chaney dedicated the first building

erected at Tuskegee and worked tirelessly on its behalf until his death.

Throughout the Deep South the return of politi’ cal control to Southern whites meant a great loss of advancement for many blacks. There were on average 190 lynchings a year from 1877 to 1900 in these states. The Klan rode high and few dared to speak out. Many who did died for their courage.

A non-confrontational philosophy of self-advancement made a great deal of sense to Southern blacks, as it did as well to the tiny Unitarian community of Atlanta. But advance they did.

Chaney and the Unitarians became well known for their support of art, literature, music, and culture. The church was a forum for the highest and best. Chaney was a sought after lecturer; his seven books were popular and well read, and his involvement in the initiating of a united appeal to support public-health was pioneering and generally supported by Atlantans as well.

Controversy was not Chaney’s way, but human advancement was especially for those who were in greatest need.

By the time Chaney resigned his ministry, November 3, 1890, his congregation had an average attendance of nearly 60. For six more years he worked in the South starting new churches and helping existing ones as the southern superintendent of the AUA. In 1896 he retired to Salem, Massachusetts.

From 1890 until 1915 the Atlanta church had many ups and downs, mostly downs. The members were, according to my readings of the financial records, a very cheap bunch. They constantly begged the AUA for money to subsidize the operation, yet they never really supported it well themselves. Contributions of $5 per year were quite normal. Finally in 1908, the president of the AUA, Samuel Eliot, wrote the Atlanta members a letter, outlining their inability to keep a minister longer than three years (most left after one), their organizational mismanagement, their financial lack of commitment, and their constant expectations for being bailed out. Dr. Eliot told them to fish or cut bait. Choose death or choose life, he said; the choice from there on was theirs. They chose to muddle along, generally as they had been. One fine minister after another came and went, and their reputation fell until it was no more. In the early 1920’s because of lack of payment of back taxes a fifa was executed in the Parish House at the West Peachtree Street Church, and it was almost sold in auction; but the AUA bailed it out.

Records indicate that a few courageous members carried the work of the church. The board was rarely larger than four or five members. The membershp shrank to about 30. In 1915 a new beginning was attempted and the church on West Peachtree was built. Chaney and his wife came down and a great dedication and founders’ day event was celebrated. Stained glass windows were dedicated to George and Caroline and were known as the Founders Windows.

By 1918 the Universalists who were also in trouble, were selling their building and joining an uneasy alliance with the Unitarians. The Univer
salists were largely segregationists and the Unitarians integrationists; Universalists sat on one side of the aisle, Unitarians on the other; a Universalist usually held the treasurer’s post, while a Unitarian became president of the board.

They alternated ministers, but none stayed longer than a couple of years. This sad situation continued until the mid 1920’s when the feisty and now famous Universalist minister, Clinton Lee Scott, came to Atlanta.

Clint Scott is one of our most highly regarded ministers. (He lives in aged retirement in Florida.) He went from Atlanta to become the general superintendent of the Universalist Church in America. But while he was here he performed one of those ministries that is hard for anyone to forget. He shook that little congregation by its collective neck until their teeth could be heard to rattle all the way to Boston. His directness became legendary to a denomination involved with polite avoidance of conflict.

His main accomplishment was the facing of the race issue in the life of the church, and in moving the congregation from a stance of quiet shyness to one of outspoken courage. Scott feared nor lynch mob or night rider. He taught his little congregation that courage as well.

He was followed by Dr. Aubrey F. Hess, a minister of great skill and insight. Aubrey Hess held doctorates in philosophy, psychology, theology and medicine. His widow, as many of you know, is a member of this congregation: Mrs. Jean Hess; so is their daughter, Mrs. Jean Wells.
By the late 1940’s the congregation had dwindled to a mere handful. The AUA sold the West Peachtree Street building and the church became moribund until the early 1950’s when a missionary minister, Glenn Canfield, was sent by the AUA; his message was a frank and forthright religious liberalism and was integrationist as well. The group began to prosper. After a few years he moved on and the Rev. Ed Cahill replaced him. The congregation grew.

By the early 1960’s Eugene Pickett was the minister and a new facility was constructed on Cliff Valley Way. With rapid growth, the congregation easily topped a thousand members. It became once again a headquarters for art, music, drama and poetry and was a firm white support group for early civil rights activity. Members were arrested for holding integrated meetings, and crosses were burned on members’ lawns.

But the group held fast to its views and its vision of a world united not in hate, but in love; it stood for the equality of all — an equality above all, through all, and in all.

Today with three churches and three fellowships scattered throughout the Atlanta area, a total of almost 1,500 Unitarian Universalists meet in our congregations. We exist in typical diversity; yet we have a common history and a common heritage.

Inspired by Clinton Scott, we are willing to speak out, to declare that injustice exists, and to seek redress and correction. Ours has always been a public commitment to the broadening and deepening of the human soul; a commitment to intelligence, education, and culture; to loving care of those in need; to support for those treated unjustly, to acting as a witness for the deepest and the best of which human beings are capable.

This is the story of our first 100 years in Atlanta. As I look about me and the needs that face our day, I can only pray that we meet our next 100 years with as much courage, faith, and commitment, as we have our past 100. And further, that we exceed manyfold that record. Our world needs it; our city needs it.

May our vision, our dreams and our hopes lead us, may our courage and commitment sustain us, and may we celebrate our next 100 years with satisfaction and joy.

Northwest - Letter, Northwest to UUCA About Sharing Stained Glass Windows, Apr 22, 1980

22 April 1980 at 02:43

April 22, 1980

Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta
1911 Cliff Valley Way N.E.
Atlanta, Georgia 30329

Attention:  Ms. Kay Montgomery

Dear Kay:

We are delighted to be able to share with UUCA the stained glass windows which are on indefinite loan to us from MARTA.

Please inform us when they are installed, since we are the primary church responsible for them. We need to have this information on record in our files.

It will be another wonderful event in the lives of our churches when the windows are mounted at UUCA, and we all here at Northwest look forward to it.

Sincerely,

Jeanette Schmitz

Secretary to the Minister

The Mountain Highlands Camp and Conference Center Newsletter (April-May, 1980)

1 April 1980 at 21:16

The Mountain
Highlands Camp and Conference Center
Volume 1, No. 7            Wendie Highsmith, Editor         April – May, 1980

A NAME . . . AT LAST, A NAME

Our UU camp site in the Southeast shall henceforth be known as THE MOUNTAIN or Highlands Camp and Conference Center, the top two preferences of those who voted. Much thanks to Shirlee Gaines Edwards and her hard working committe for all the “footwork” on the contest.

BOARD WORKS ON LONG RANGE PLANS

At the end of March, the Highlands Camp and Conference Center Board met on THE MOUNTAIN for a full weekend of work and play (mostly work). Among the highlights of the meeting were:

  • Formation of a long range planning committee to be co-chaired by Don Chery, Athens, GA and Walt Pirie, Blacksburg, VA.
  • Concluding the name contest.
  • Initiation of a project to establish goals and objectives for the corporation. Over six hours were spent on this effort, and several more meetings are planned. The resulting goals and objectives will be published in the Fall for comment and refinement by the membership.

When the Board was not working on these activities, we helped scrape the kitchen floor in preparation for laying the new epoxy seal.
Roger Comstock, President

SOCIETIES MEET FUND-RAISING GOALS!

The fund drive for the Highlands Camp and Conference Center continues. Our pledges exceed $184,000 now, including 120 life memberships!
At the end of March, six of our societies had met or exceeded the fund raising targets established for them. The societies and their fund raising coordinators are:

Deland, FL, Bob Clabeaux
Clemson, SC, Ted Taylor
Gulfport, MS, Chris Kayes
Franklin, NC, Myrtle Lockwood
UUCA, Atlanta, Carnot MacDonald
Tullahoma, TN, Don Male

DIRECTORS’ CORNER

Mo & Larry Wheeler

That title reminds me of ROCKY sitting in the corner of the ring. . . halfway through the fight! Perhaps our idealism matches his, as we imagine the “victory” of being ready on opening day. At times, it seems impossible. . . at other times, we look around and see all that has been accomplished, and we are believers again!

The UU person-hours that have gone into work on THE MOUNTAIN in the past 2 months are incredible — a rough estimate is about 300 people at 9 hours each, or 2700 hours!! At minimum wages, that’s almost $9,000. Not to mention the special skills donated for electrical and plumbing work—and you know what that costs.

But THE MOUNTAIN pays good wages. It wears out your body, but uplifts your soul. It gives us a home for UUs—a place to be together and know the bonds between us. We thank all of you who have given so much, but THE MOUNTAIN thanks you better.

Program descriptions are now available in the brochure. Registrations are coming in. Our first family registration was from Jo and Bob Birdsall of Asheville, NC, who are hosting their family and grandchildren for a week on THE MOUNTAIN.

Our first paying group (UUCA—Atlanta/ Board Retreat) has met at THE MOUNTAIN. Other groups have come for work weekends from Charlotte, NC, Chattanooga and Oak Ridge, TN, Atlanta, GA, Auburn, AL, Greenville, SC, Charlottesville and Blacksburg, VA, Deland, FL and Columbia, SC. Much has been accomplished under the able direction, of Steve Carter, our Maintenance Manager.

It’s all very exciting. So are the reactions of our many visitors: “I saw the slides, but I had no idea it was like THIS!” “I expected it to be one step up from tent camping—This is terrific—bathrooms in every cabin, even rugs, curtains and comfortable beds!” And on the way home from the Camp the other day, our son, Brian, expressed it for our family, “I just love that place!”

BROCHURE OUT, BUT . . . IN HASTE . . . WE ERR’D

Oops, a few omissions were made in the recent brochure about summer programs. We left out the camp phone number (704/526-5838) and the fact that ALL cabins have bathrooms. Also, the rates given for rooms are weekly, not daily! Apologies.

If you are on the mailing list or if you requested information and have not yet received the brochure, let us know and we’ll send another.

KEY SUMMER STAFF PEOPLE HIRED

We are pleased to announce the following persons have been hired for Summer, 1980. Their combined talents and experiences will add much to our programming at THE MOUNTAIN this summer. How can we not succeed?

Many of you already know Lee Knight from Summer Institute. Lee is now residing in Murphy, NC, and is coordinating evening programs for some of the family weeks. Lee will be available for folk singing, square and folk dancing, athletic events, and lights & sound for other programs.

Nancy Suda is from Atlanta and is our Nature Director. She has a long time love of the out-of-doors and a wonderfully warm and open manner. Nancy has been discovering new trails, waterfalls, gem mines and wildflowers for us to enjoy.

Bob Geller is Food Services Director and will be cooking up a fancy storm of food for us this summer. Bob was trained in cooking schools abroad and is a professional caterer in Atlanta.

Sally Gaines is our Waterfront Director and comes from Boone, NC. Sally has many skills besides swimming and lifesaving, and is a delightful addition to our staff.

We also welcome Evelyn Carter, who is Crafts Director of the camp. Evelyn has been teaching high school art in Pennsylvania and especially enjoys pottery, weaving and painting.

FLASH!!!

At Press Time, Pledges Have Increased To $200,000!!!

IT’S TRUE – WE’RE GOING TO BE IN THE MOVIES!

A CBS made-for-TV movie is scheduled to be shot at our Mountain in late May and during our Work Week.
CBS film crews have already begun arriving to do preliminary work on “The Mating Season.” The movie is set at a camp for bird watching and involves a lonely professional woman and another camp participant. It stars Lucie Arnez and Lawrence Luckinbill.

About 60 people are expected in the CBS film group, which was attracted to this area through the effort of the new movie department of the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce.

NEEDS CONTINUE . . . DONATIONS KEEP A COMIN’

The Mountain has many needs. Please call the Wheelers if you have something to donate or sell (cheaply) or know of someone who does. Donations are tax deductible. Here are a few things we’re looking for now:

 

Item Needed Item Needed
Fabric for Curtains Building Supplies
Nursery toys Tools
Pool Table Craft Supplies
Yarn Games
River rafts Leather
Canoes, paddles Clay
Day packs Potter’s wheel
Maps Pliers
Science equipment C-Clamps
Dip nets/insect nets Box cameras
Film developing equipment Books
Magnifying glass Enlarger
Hammers Fishing poles
Rolling Pins Scissors

YOUR BOARD UP CLOSE

UU Mountain has own Moses!

Easily distinguished by his height, hair and very presence, Roger Comstock is no stranger to SE UUs. A driving force behind getting the new camp established, it is fitting that Roger be THE MOUNTAINS’s first Board president.

As SUUSI’s Board President last year, he was an active member of the camp feasibility study committee. This year he headed the capital fund drive for the camp, seeking to raise $330,000 from UUs all over the SE.

Roger has been a Unitarian since 1963, having served as Finance Director and treasurer in two UU churches and in a variety of other administrative posts in his present church, UUCA-Atlanta. He was active on the SUUSI staff for 5 years in various capacities. He and wife, Faith, lead the UUA-sponsored Couple Enrichment Program (CEP) for the Mid-South District.

In his business life, Roger is a management consultant with the firm of Robert Davis Associates in Atlanta. They are specialists in governmental and school finance, accounting and business systems, practicing nationwide. Prior to becoming a consultant, Roger had eight years of experience in electronic data processing systems and sales. He holds a BS in industrial engineering and a Master’s in business administration.

Digress a moment to Roger, the UU . . . . He’s been a part of the camp and conference center from its very inception . . . he’s truly committed to it to the point of heading the fund raising. He’s proud of its present accomplishments and has dreams of its future. SE UUs, the leadership of your camp is in good hands.

THANKS AND MORE THANKS! to Susan Thompson and William Benedict for their contributions to the 1980 T-shirt and newsletter designs; to John Vasher for donating several weekends of electrical work; to Ruth Marston for carpeting, curtains and furniture; to Paul McClelland for helping us buy Marlite for the new bathrooms; to Jo and Bob Birdsall for the electric typewriter; to Karolyn Kirk for office furniture; and to Walter and Glendia Manka for printing the brochure (so cheaply) and our newsletters (free!); to Joe and Gloria Gross for records and things; to Dick and Mary Weston-Jones for addressing 1000 brochures; and to the others of you we may have forgotten!

THE MOUNTAIN OFFERS FALL COLORS AT THEIR BEST

It’s not too early to sign up for Fall. October is filling up quickly. Call the Wheelers if you would like to bring your church group or family or friends to The Mountain.

MANY WAYS TO SERVE
Your help is needed by the Highlands Camp and Conference Center Nominating Committee. They are seeking:

  1. Names of persons qualified to be nominated for the positions of Board Member-at-Large (3 year term, beginning Nov., 1980) and Nominating Committee (1 year term, beginning Nov., 1980).
  2. Names of persons qualified to serve on the Board (to be appointed by the Board itself) who have specific skills fitting them for the job of Board Secretary and Board Treasurer.

The persons you suggest should be UUs in the Southeast. They do not have to be members of the Camp and Conference Center.
Please notify the nominating committee as soon as possible. They need your suggestions to help them make good nominations. Please reproduce this notice in your newsletter and ask your membership for help.
The election will be conducted by mail in September. Eligible voters will be those persons who are members of the Camp and Conference Center by virtue of a Life Membership or Annual Contribution.

DON’T FORGET

June 29-July 12   Youth Camp   Ages 8-10
July 13-July 26    Youth Camp   Ages 11-14

All youths planning to attend camp are urged to send in your completed applications and registration fees as soon as possible. If you need an application, contact: Pam Phelps, 2812 Vann Circle, Tallahassee, FL 32312.

We are in need of Junior and Senior Counselors and especially need male counselors. Senior Counselors must be entering 3rd year of college or older. For application, contact: Jan Machler, 2265 Sharkey Rd., Clearwater, FL 33515.

Camp and Conference Center Newsletter (January 23, 1980)

23 January 1980 at 21:03

CAMP AND CONFERENCE CENTER NEWLETTER
Volume 1, number 5                           January 23, 1980

I’M DREAMING OF A….

Some memories from the holidays on our mountain… Snow on Christmas morning and again at midnight New Year’s eve; a new trail finished to Glen Falls; a beautiful waterfall discovered (unknown even to the Park Service); our own Christmas tree-cut and trimmed by the Wheelers; Walt Pirie’s surprise Birthday Patty on December 31st; a small party of rock-climbers discovering the “other” rock-faced side of our fascinating mountain; New Games and noise makers on New Year’s eve, then a quiet time of remembering and thinking ahead, Hilary, age 7, said its all: “This mountain is so beautiful I could hug it!!

NAME-THE-CAMP CONTEST DEADLINE EXTENDED SO YOU CAN ENTER…BUT DO IT NOW!

When the Southern Railroad ran a contest to name the new train, 21,263 people suggested names. Of those, 21 suggested “Southern Crescent” (the winner). Will YOU be a winner too? It’s not too late to enter the contest. Send your name to Shirlee Gaines Edwards, Rt. 1, Box 233, Blowing Rock, N.C. 28605. Your entry definitely needs to be in Shirlee’s hands by February 15 to be considered.

MAINTENANCE MANAGER SELECTED

We are pleased to announce the selection of Stephen Carter as Maintenance Manager. Steve and his wife, Evelyn, have been living on their own farm in Northwest Pennsylvania for the past six years Steve comes highly recommended by Mike McGee, former minister of the Roanoke, Va. church. Mike is now minister of the Meadville, Pa, church where Steve has been active as Properties Director).

The Carters recently visited the camp and are excited about joining our Southern UU family. Evelyn teaches art and is interested in helping with the crafts program at the camp.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

To…John Phelps for a free-standing stove for the dining hall…to Bob Winchester for a saw, jack, and intercom system…to Barbara & Myles Smith for bedding…to Betty and Carl Pirkle for screens, screen doors, and a chest of drawers…to Jake Haun for a saw and jack…to York Jander for a file cabinet and check writing machine…to Bob and Carole Jordan for kitchen supplies, lamps, and bedding…to Ann Brandau for drapes and carpeting…to 40’s-50’s (UUCA) for the rummage sale leftovers…THANK YOU!

Keep it comin’–we can use most anything. Check with the Wheelers.

PLAN NOW FOR SPRING WEEKENDS

Come participate in a Work Weekend. Bring a group for a program or just to be together. Come as a family or alone. Watch Spring come to our mountain. Contact the Wheelers for information and reservations:

Mo and Larry Wheeler
1120 Gunnison Ct.
Clarkston, Ga. 30021
(404) 299-2677

Reduced Rates for Work Weekends
$5 per person for age 4 and over (age 3 and under free)
Other Weekends or Weekdays
$12 per adult (18+) per night,
$6 for ages 13-17, 12 and under free

Additional charge for use of cooking equipment, utilities, etc. of $1 per adult per weekend if you do your own cooking. If we provide meals, Board charges will be: $10.50 per adult (age 13 and over) per day; $8 for 8-12, $5 for 4-7, and age 3 and
under free.

LONG RANGE PLANNING

A long range planning committee is needed to chart the direction of our camp and conference center in the coming years. The Board of Trustees has begun the process of forming such a committee with the appointment of Don Chery as facilitator and contact.

Many talents will be needed to interpret the objectives of our camp, consider future growth and demands, and then put them into a plan for our 85 acres and 30 buildings, roads, trails, mountain climbing rock, etc.

If you are interested in this long range planning endeavor, you are invited to write a letter stating your interests and the talents and experiences that you would contribute. Mail to Don Chery, 550 Cloverhurst, Athens, Ga. 30606. The Board will appoint a committee soon.

SUMMER POSITIONS AVAILABLE

Do you know someone who’d like to spend the summer working at the camp and conference center? Yourself?

Available positions include Food Service Director, Waterfront Director, Kitchen Assistants, and Maintenance Assistants. Minimum age for the Directors is 21, with 17 for the Assistants.

Interested? Want an application and job description? Send your name and address to Mo and Larry Wheeler, 1120 Gunnison Ct., Clarkston, Ga. 30021.
Also, if you’re interested in working on the youth camp staff, send your name and address to Pam Phelps, 2812 Vann Circle, Tallahassee, Fl. 32303.

BOARD DIGGING IN…

In its second meeting, the new camp and conference center board tackled a wide variety of ‘bread-and-butter” issues, providing the policy framework necessary to get the camp functioning smoothly. Specifically, the Board:

  • Authorized purchase of a van and a tractor (contributions are still welcome).
  • Established the framework for setting rates.
  • Reviewed summer program plans.
  • Established annual membership dues at $25.00.
  • Approved by-laws for the corporation.
  • Appointed a nominating/election committee.
  • Authorized formation of a long range planning committee.
  • Appointed Jan Reinhardt of Knoxville to a one year term as Secretary of the Board.

Camp and Conference Center Newsletter (December 8, 1979)

8 December 1979 at 19:42

SOUTHEAST UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST
CAMP AND CONFERENCE CENTER NEWLETTER
Volume 1, number 4                           December 8, 1979

Announcing the One and Only Anyone Can Play Camp and Conference Center Naming Contest

Whether you’ve seen it in person, or only in your imagination, our beautiful mountain-top camp and conference center, covered with oaks, surrounded by breathtaking views, rushing waters, national forests, and located in Highlands, N.C., needs a name. So be creative. The name could be connected with our Unitarian Universalist faith, geographic location, history, a symbol of nature, or a clever combination of all of these.

CONTEST DEADLINE. FEBRUARY 1ST!!!

EASY RULES:

  • One entry per person.
  • No age limit.
  • Entries will be reduced to 10 by the Contest Committee.
  • Final vote on these 10 will be by mail ballot open to everyone who has made a pledge by February 1, 1980.
  • WINNER gets ONE FREE WEEK AT THE CAMP whenever it is appropriate to take it, within two years!
  • If more than one person submits the winning name, final winner will be decided by a drawing.
  • Mail entries to contest chairperson:

Shirlee Gaines Edwards
Rt. 1, Box 233
Blowing Rock, N.C. 28605

  • Be sure to include your address & phone number.

CAMP AND CONFERENCE CENTER NAME SELECTION COMMITTEE (and only persons not eligible to submit names)

  • Jack Stein, Jackson, MS.
  • Jane Upshur, Charleston, S.C.
  • Roger Comstock, Atlanta, Ga.
  • John Durham, Ft. Lauderdale, Fl.
  • Terry Sweetser, Charlottesville, Va.
  • Margaret Ann Link, Raleigh, N.C.
  • William Benedict, Knoxville, Tn.
  • Shannon McNair, Birmingham, Al.

VISITORS WELCOME–PLEASE CALL FIRST

The Wheelers will be at the camp from Dec. 22 to Dec. 25. We’d love to have you stop by. Remember, however, that weather may not permit easy access to the mountain during the winter. And please call first so there will be space. In Atlanta, 404/ 299-2677, or on the mountain, 404/526-5838.

DON’T FORGET

SWIM – Southeast Winter Institute of Miami
December 26-January 1
Contact: William Sax (305/595-8700)

SUUSI- Southeast UU Summer Institute
July 27-August 1
Contact: Jake Haun (804/272-3759)
10296 Iron Mill Road
Richmond, Virginia 23235

PICK UP THE KIDS ON THE WAY TO SUUSI!

Many UUs in the Southeast have expressed the need for a UU camp for youth. This is one of the many rewards the new camp and conference center brings to us. The camp is ready to go! This summer, 1980, you can PICK UP YOUR KIDS ON THE WAY TO SUUSI!!!

Youth camp will be held:
June 29 – July 12 for 8, 9, and
10 year olds
July 13 – July 26 for 11-14 year olds

Both sessions are coed, for two weeks. only, and cost $275 per camper, with a reduction for the second camper in the same family.
We are delighted to have Pam Phelps and Jan Machler as leaders of this program. Both of these wonderful people have played active roles in the very successful youth program at Summer Institute. Prospective counselors, contact Pam at 2812 Vann Circle, Tallahassee, Florida 32303.

CARETAKER AND STAFF SOUGHT

Mo and Larry Wheeler are presently taking applications for the position of caretaker of the new camp and conference center. The person would be expected to live on the site and needs various maintenance and some administrative skills. Send your resume and a letter explaining your interest to the Wheelers.

Other positions include a cook, cook’s helpers, cleaning crew, lifeguard, and possibly a nurse. Contact the Wheelers if you are interested: 1120 Gunnison Court, Clarkston, Ga. 30021; 404/299-2677.

SPIRITS MATCH THE ELEVATION ON THANKSGIVING WEEKEND

Fifty-seven life and board members attended a Thanksgiving Work Weekend at the camp and enjoyed it in Spite of the rain. Highlights were a Seder-type service before Thanksgiving dinner, telling the history of the pilgrims, a candlelight march from the dining hall to the lodge, and a wet trip to nearby Dry Falls (so-named because one can supposedly walk behind them and stay dry).

Much work was also accomplished and good things happened with adults working with other people’s children, Many thanks to you all!

MO & LARRY WHEELER ELECTED DIRECTORS

At its recent meeting, the camp and conference center Board of Trustees appointed Mo and Larry Wheeler as Directors. Larry is a District Sales Manager, with a broad background in sales and marketing, and Mo has a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology and is interested in working with families. The Wheelers’ commitment to this project has been demonstrated in their hard work on the Feasibility Study.

The Directorship is viewed as a single full-time position which will be shared by the Wheelers. They will continue to maintain their residence in Atlanta, but will live at the camp during the summer and other peak periods.

Compensation includes a $20,000 salary, lodging, and suitable benefits. They are expected to go on the payroll around February 1st.

FOR HEARTY SOULS

For hearty souls who’d like to spend New Year’s-weekend at the camp, Wet Pirie, Cecile Keller and Kay Montgomery are planning a trip beginning Friday evening, December 28 through noon, January 1.

They’re looking for folks who are able to deal with and enjoy very cold weather and who may have to hike the last mile up the mountain. At least one day will be spent working on the camp; special winter hikes will be planned; a New Year’s Eve family celebration–and the opportunity to begin the new year at our new “home.”

Charges? $10 per person to cover expenses, and your family will be asked to bring and prepare one meal for the group. Space is limited to about 35 people and will be reserved on a first-come basis. Call or write Kay if you’re interested: 2421 Oldfield Rd., NW, Atlanta, Ga. 30327; 404/351-5888; 634-5134. She’ll send you more detailed information when your space is reserved.

Heard to have asked: “Is camp and conference center fever a virus or a bacteria?” Attributed to Ben Edwards..

FUND DRIVE GETS UP A HEAD OF STEAM

The fund drive is swinging into high gear now. Fundraising leaders have been recruited in most of the 104 societies in the Southeast and are being trained. Training sessions are being held in Raleigh, Atlanta, St. Petersburg, and Ellisville.

It is expected that most societies’ fund drives will be held during the first quarter of 1980. Meanwhile, over $85,000 has been pledged by the canvas organization and other interested UUs. As soon as the total pledged reaches $100,000, we will be able to begin drawing on the second Veatch loan.
NEW BOARD HOLDS FIRST MEETING
The new board of the camp and conference center held its first meeting in Atlanta on November 17-18. The group worked well together for two full days of meetings. The board decided that the secretary and treasurer should be filled by specially skilled individuals serving as ex-officio members, without vote. Board members are:

Member Home Society Appointed/Elected Term Ends
Roger Comstock President Atlanta. Ga. (UUCA) Membership 1982
Ben Edwards Vice President Boone, N.C. Membership 1980
Wendy & Jim Highsmith Co-Treasurers Atlanta, Ga. (UUCA) C&CC Board 1980
Don Chery Athens, Ga Mid-South District 1981
Jack Gray Atlanta, Ga. (NW) C&CC Board 1982
Sue Male Tullahoma, Tn. Membership 1981
Margrit Nash Atlanta, Ga. (UUCA) SUUSI 1982
Walt Pirie Blacksburg, Va. Thomas Jefferson District 1982
Bob Winchester Clearwater, Fl. Florida District 1980

A search is being conducted for a qualified secretary for the Board. Persons interested should contact Sue Male (615/728-7321).
Besides matters discussed in other articles in this newsletter, the Board:

  • Approved draft by-laws to govern the corporation.
  • Authorized the President to form a nominating/election committee.
  • Authorized the recognition of churches, fellowships, or groups which had undertaken significant repairs on various cabins and buildings.
  • Decided to seek UUA affiliate status as soon as possible.
  • Approved the designation of an appropriate space at the cam as the Mark S. Wheeler Nursery, in memory of the Wheelers’ second son, who died at 3 1/2.

FORGIVE US!

We who have been so involved in the plans for the camp and conference center sometimes forget what a shock it must be to some of you just finding out it exists. Feeling the need to back-track, we’ll try to save some space in each newsletter to bring newcomers up to date. This time, we’ll describe the site.

The camp is situated on top of a 4,200-foot mountain near Highlands, N,C. It was formerly Camp Highlander for 14 years and contains over 30 buildings. At the foot of the mountain are three small lakes, stables for 24 horses, and two new tennis courts. On the top are 20 cabins, a modern six-bedroom lodge, a large dining hall and recreation building, a tower, a craft building, and several others.

The camp overlooks 10,000 acres of national forest. Glen Falls, a 75-foot waterfall, is within hiking distance, and the Highlands area boasts of numerous other waterfalls and natural attractions.

The view from the lodge and all the cabins is spectacular! We hope you’ll make a visit to see the camp soon, or sign up for one of the many activities to be planned for this summer. (A schedule will be out in January.)

In the meantime, please don’t be afraid to speak up and ask any questions you have. The Wheelers or your Board Members will be delighted to talk with you.

Northwest - Newspaper Article about Installation of Stained Glass at Northwest Nov 11, 1979

11 November 1979 at 02:45

Home Again
Stained Glass Memorial Winds in Back in Unitarian Hands

By Helena Jones

Reporter, North Fulton Extra

The stained glass windows have been in place behind the pulpit of the Northwest Unitarian Church for two months. – yet the story is not in their arrival.  It’s the 52 years they spent getting there.

They originally graced the old Unitarian Church on West Peachtree Street, the church were Margaret Mitchell was married.  The saw the Unitarian headquarters turn to a Baptist one, then a bookstore.

When the church became the Abbey Restaurant in 1969, the windows stayed.  Although the Abbey’s menu is religious in theme, the restaurant didn’t give the windows the highest priority

By the time they were re-discovered, the stained glass was covered with shellac and very dirty.

It took Terry Ann Karnan, wife of the Rev. Bob Karnan, eight hours to get the shellac off.  Underneath she found a serene blue sky, in the center pane, a pulpit with two books and a lighted chalice.  On the successive panes, green grapevines and clusters of purple grapes surfaced

“The colors became vivid and the beautiful tones showed through as I removed the dirt and shellac,” said Mrs. Karnan.  “Cleaning the windows was a very rewarding experience, since there are so many intricate pieces and every pane is different.”

Since the panes are built into the structure so that the outdoor light shines through there is a fluorescence light behind then which when turned on causes the blue sky to have the yellow glow of a new day, a new beginning.

Karnan said that the panes were not crafted from the highest quality glass and iron, and that the patterns are not highly ornate.

Since the Unitarians do not adhere to strict dogma, the symbols illustrated in the panes may be understood by all people, said Rev. Karnan

“They portray ancient Jewish and Christian symbols.  The free pulpit means that anyone who speaks from it is speaking the truth as he or she sees its; the books represent the knowledge that is contained in the lamp, or chalice, for all to share,” he said.  “Knowledge lights the flame, symbolizing triumph of truth over fear and suspicion.   And the grapevines and grape clusters represent the good life and those individuals who comet together to share in it.”

The stained glass panes had been viewed by many other devotees to Atlanta’s history before reaching their new home.

They were built into the old Unitarian church located on West Peachtree Street I 1915.  The congregation dedicated the edifice to a Unitarian leader and his wife.  At the bottom of the panes the inscription reads, “In Honor of George Leonard Chaney, Caroline Isabel Chaney.”

“The artist who crafted the panes is unknown, but the Chaneys were probably the important Unitarians in Atlanta’s history.

MARTA obtained the land and church in 1977 through eminent domain, with the intention of building a rapid rail station behind the Fox theater.

Historians employed by the transportation system inspected the property, removed the valuable items including $55,000 worth of stained glass and deposited it all with the Atlanta Historical Society.

The building was destroyed the same year.

At this time the Rev. Karnan applied for possession of the panes, which are now on indefinite loan to the Unitarians.  “The other congregations showed no interest in acquiring the pane,” said Karnan.  “A great deal of history has been forgotten because of this lack of interest.”

Camp and Conference Center Newsletter (November 5, 1979)

5 November 1979 at 18:23

SOUTHEAST UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST
CAMP AND CONFERENCE CENTER NEWLETTER
Volume 1, number 3                                    November 5, 1979

It’s Officially Ours! ! !

The closing on the Highlands property was Oct. 15. It’s ours! But it’s only a beginning. We still have to raise the money. Let’s get the pledges in and make it REALLY ours.

The Veatch Program has loaned us $100,000 for the down payment. Another $100,000 loan will match pledges in excess of $100,000. (We currently have pledges of over $60,000.) Don’t wait to pledge. Do it now! Your local society fund raiser will be in touch with you soon — or you can contact your cluster leader (see article on Fund Raising, this page). This is your opportunity to “buy a piece of the rock.”

FUND RAISING

To cover the costs of start-up of the new facility and to help pay off some of the loans, $330,000 is needed. A capital fund drive for three-year pledges is being launched. Organization of the drive is in high gear, district and cluster leaders having been recruited in each of our 104 societies in the Southeast. Enthusiasm abounds!

District and Cluster Leaders

FLORIDA – Dick Boyce, Ft. Lauderdale

  • Northeast – Bob Clabeaux, Deland
  • Northwest – Pam Phelps, Tallahassee
  • Southeast – Howard Lambert, Boca Raton
  • West/Central – Bob Winchester, Clearwater

MID-SOUTH – Ellie Prince, Birminigham, AL

  • Georgia – Rhea Baiad, Atlanta
  • N. Alabama – Robin Scheib, Florence
  • S. Alabama – Sam Camp, Montgomery
  • Gulf Coast – Shiltey Gallagher, Pensacola
  • Mississippi – Pat Cruise, Ellisville

THOMAS JEFFERSON – Sae Male, Manchester, TN

  • E. Virginia – Ed Stephens, Richmond
  • W. Virginia – Bonnie Parker, Charlottesville
  • E. North Carolina – Carol Cox, Greenville
  • Cent. North Carolina – At Faber, Greensboro
  • W. North Carolina – Ben Edwards, Lenoir
  • Mountains – Allie Gooding, Clemson
  • SC/GA – Sue Folk, Columbia

ELECTION RESULTS FOR NEW BOARD MEMBERS

Congratulations to Roger Comstock, Sue Male, and Ben Edwards. They are the new at-large board members for the Camp and Conference Center. Roger will serve a three-year term, Sue a two-year term, and Ben a one-year term, according to the by-laws.

Other board members to date are Bob Winchester of Clearwater representing the Florida District, Don Chery of Athens the Mid-South District, and Margrit Nash of-Atlanta the Summer Institute. The Thomas Jefferson District will choose its board member at its November meeting.

The new board meets for the first time on Nov. 17-18, at which time it will consider appointment of a camp director. It may also fill up to three other board positions.

YOUR CAMP AND CONFERENCE CENTER CONTACTS

Fund Raising
Roger and Faith Comstock
979 Springdale Rd., NE, Atlanta GA 30306
Phone 404/373-8320

Most Everything Else
Mo and Larry Wheeler
1120 Gunnison Ct., Clarkston, GA 30021
Phone 404/299-2677

Wonderful Work Weekends

Many thanks to all of you who have participated in the work weekends so far. A great deal has been accomplished: the lodge is spotless (down to the boulder in the basement), several cabins have been cleaned, the tower has been reinforced, the electrical system has been repaired, the craft building and dining hall have been cleaned, and many other odd jobs done.

Special thanks to the Decatur Community and to the 40s/50s club from UUCA (Atlanta). Also to UUCA’s Graham Henderson for his electrical work. The weekend of Oct. 20-21 there were 53 people working together and enjoying the mountain air and spectacular colors.

More work weekends are planned. The Macon fellowship, the Blacksburg fellowship, and the Athens fellowship have already reserved dates this fall. If you would like to plan a work weekend for your congregation, it’s easy. Just call the Wheelers to set a date, then get your group together. It’s a great way to get to know each other better and to meet other UUs from around the Southeast, as well. If you want to come without a group, that’s ok, too.

FALL COLORS AND SUNSHINE DRAW A CROWD

Over 60 visitors came to see the Camp and Conference Center on Oct. 27-28. All were impressed by the spectacular view and the facility. Fall colors in the area were still beautiful even though leaves had fallen from the trees on top of the mountain.
There will be someone at the camp every weekend in November. Feel free to stop by and see it. If you want to stay, however, please call the Wheelers.

THANKSGIVING CELEBRATION IS PLANNED

A weekend of work and fun and thanksgiving is planned from Nov. 21-25 for board members and charter life members. We have to limit attendance at this weekend, but hope those of you who are unable to attend this time will make arrangements for another weekend.

POSITIONS AVAILABLE

for a camp director and a maintenance manager. Full-time. Other summer staff positions you might want to consider: a waterfront director and kitchen and cleaning personnel. Interested? Call Roger Comstock.

CONFERENCE SCHEDULE FILLING UP

We plan to be “open for business” starting in March of 1980, and the schedule is already starting to fill up! Hospice Atlanta, the UUCA Board Retreat, and Couples Enrichment are already scheduled. We have room for 40-60 people on weekends or weekdays. Call Mo or Larry Wheeler to arrange a date.

CONCERT ENTERTAINS WORK CREWS

Two people sounded like a whole choir when singing inside the 20,000-gallon reservoir on top of the mountain. Thanks to Richard Speck and Mark Van Talys of Birmingham for the con-cert…and for cleaning the reservoir. Clean water is on the way!

UU YOUTH CAMP

Youth camp has been tentatively scheduled for the month of July. One or two weeks will be available for those entering grades 4-6 and one or two weeks will be available for those entering grades 7-9.

We are very pleased to have as the co-leaders for the camp Pam Phelps and Janice Machler. Pam runs a school in Tallahassee and directed the Youth Program at SU:SI for six successful years. Jan is a registered nurse and has worked on the older youth program at Summer Institute. More details later!

LIFE MEMBERSHIP LIST GROWS

The-idea of life membership in the Camp and Conference Center has been an appealing one. Although the new board has not formally sanctioned the process, life membership is being offered for a $1000 contribution in cash, or for a pledge of $1200 over a five-year period, with a minimum payment of $200 per year. Don’t forget, it’s all tax-deductible.

Membership entitles the person and his/her family to one vote in the new organization; use of the facilities on a space-available, at-cost basis; avoids payment of annual dues for use of the facilities; gets your name on a plaque in the lodge (for charter life members); and most importantly makes you part of the creative process of making this mountain a real home for UUs in the Southeast.

The names of charter life members to date are listed below. A very special thanks to you all: Without you, this whole project wouldn’t be possible.

Emily Adler, Atlanta, GA
Stanley Bach, Norfolk, VA
Barb & Dick Boyce, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Ronald & Barbara Buck, Norfolk, VA
Rosemary & John Burns, Oak Ridge, TN
Robert Clabeaux, DeLand, FL
Faith & Roger Comstock, Atlanta; GA
John Dunham, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Ben & Shirley Edwards, Lenoir, NC
Jack Gray, Atlanta, GA
Estelle & Bob Greene, Atlanta, GA
Jake Haun, Richmond, VA
Walt & Alicia Hodges, Atlanta, GA
Don & Betty Hostetler, Augusta, SC
Howard Lambent, Boca Raton, FL
Richard Lee, Tallahassee, FL
Margaret Ann Link, Raleigh, NC
Arthur & Myrtle Lockwood, Franklin, NC
Juana Mae & Larry Long, Atlanta, GA
Jan & Ted Machler, Clearwater, FL
Sue & Von Male, Manchester, TN
Von Marshall, Atlanta, GA
Kay Montgomery, Atlanta, GA
Margrit Nash, Atlanta, GA
Walt Pirie, Blacksburg, VA
Pam & John Phelps, Tallahassee, FL
Carole Selvey, Atlanta, GA
Myles & Barbara Smith, Atlanta, GA
Ed Stephens, Richmond, VA
Janet & Bill Upshur, Charleston, VC
Mo & Larry Wheeler, Atlanta, GA
Bob Winchester, Clearwater; FL
Charlie S Arlene Wollmer, Atlanta, GA
Bob S Donna Zurcher, Atlanta, GA

THINGS WE NEED (besides money—)

Radial saw, hang saws, fireplace screens and tools for four fireplaces, extension cords, space heaters, pots and pans, dishes and silverware, long folding tables, chairs, lamps, curtains, large bulletin board, athletic equipment, van, tractor, beds and bedspreads.
If you can help us find any of the items (as donations or at a good price), please write or call the Wheelers.

And THINGS WE THANK YOU FOR

Lumber from Don Marshall, a car from—Al Lycn, quantity cooking books from Joe Gross, and furniture from John and Nancy Beck. THANK YOU!

A C&CC LOGO IS NEEDED

so be creative. Send your ideas to the Wheeler’s (or contact them if you need more information.

Letter - Don Hostetler to Larry Wheeler Strong Support for Camp Purchase (Oct 8, 1979)

8 October 1979 at 00:17

Thomas Jefferson District
Unitarian Universalist Association

716 Hammond Dr.
N. Augusta, SC 29841
Oct. 8, 1979

SUSSI Board
Camp & Conference Center Committee
c/o Larry Wheeler
1120 Gunnison Ct.
Clarkston, GA 30021

Dear Larry,

At the June 1979 meeting of the Thomas Jefferson District Board the following resolution was passed by a unanimous vote.

The Board of Directors of the Thomas Jefferson District applauds the completeness of the studies by the Camp and Conference Center Committee and strongly supports the efforts of the SUSSI Board to obtain Camp Highlander as a permanent Camp and Conference Center.

Further the Board encourages consideration of this project by societies and individuals within the Thomas Jefferson District.
Good luck as this project becomes a reality.

Don Hostetler
<signature not shown>
President, TJ District

cc: Gretchen Bremer
Ed Stephens
Rosemary Burns

Camp and Conference Center Newsletter (October 1, 1979)

1 October 1979 at 17:28

SOUTHEAST UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST
CAMP AND CONFERENCE CENTER NEWLETTER
Volume 1, number 2                           October 1, 1979

A Dream Comes True

A dream that has long been held by Southeastern UUs became a reality this month. A contract was signed to purchase an existing camp atop a 4,200 foot mountain in Highlands, North Carolina – a beautiful site overlooking thousands of acres of National Forest land near the South Carolina and Georgia border.

The dream was made possible by the hard work of many volunteers, the SUUSI board’s dedication to a thorough feasibility study, and the generous support of the Veatch Program which will provide a $200,000 loan.

The property will be formally acquired on October 15th with a down payment of $100,000. The camp will be renovated over the next nine months in preparation for a full program in the summer of 1980. Details will be forthcoming. A monthly newsletter is planned to keep Southeastern UUs apprised of progress in readying the camp for use.

HOW WILL WE PAY FOR IT?

Purchase price of the camp is $490,000. The down payment amounts to $100,000 and the balance will be financed by the present owners (Pinecrest School of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida) over 10 years at 9% interest. It is estimated that about $250,000 to $300,000 additional will be
needed to make the facility-operational. This includes the costs of repairs, furnishings and equipment, salaries and other operating costs, publicity, and fund-raising expenses.

To help us meet immediate cash needs, these costs will be repaid from contributions ($330,000 is sought) and from the operations of the camp itself. Obtaining money from these sources will take time.

The Veatch Program (North Shore Unitarian Society, Plandome, Long Island) has approved a $200,000 loan in two parts. To cover the down payment on the property, $100,000 will be made available. The second $100,000 is an incentive loan to help us with fund raising. This amount will be matched dollar-for-dollar with pledges offered in excess of the first $100,000 of pledges. Clearly, this gives us a real challenge.

The total Veatch loan is to be repaid over eight years at 5% interest. Very favorable repayment terms were offered.

Help

…work weekends with other UUs at the camp through the fall.
…design a new logo for the Camp and Conference Center. Send sketches and ideas.
Write for call Mo and Larry Wheeler if you can contribute to one or both of the above (1120 Gunnison Court, Clarksville).

EQUIPMENT NEEDED

Lots of equipment and furnishings are needed for the new camp but only items that are in good, useable condition, please. Just a few of the more important needs:
A PICKUP TRUCK . . . MULTI-PASSENGER BUS(ES) . . . A TRACTOR WITH ATTACHMENTS FOR LEVELING, GRADING, PLOWING, CUTTING, ETC . . . ATHLETIC EQUIPMENT . . . OFFICE EQUIPMENT. . . FURNITURE FOR LODGES AND STAFF QUARTERS

If you can help us find one or more of these item (as donations or at a good price) or if you have something you think the camp could use, please write or call the Wheelers.

OUR KIND OF PEOPLE

The “home” congregation for the C&CC will be the Franklin, NC, Fellowship, about 20 miles away. Already their warmth has been evident in welcoming many of us into their homes and hosting social activities. And work… boy, have they worked! They’ve cleaned buildings, cut grass, sawed wood, even unplugged drainage ditches. Also their local knowledge has been of great assistance since we began our activities at the site.

We know you’ll enjoy getting to meet them. And when you do, say, “thanks.”

Two full-time position are available: Camp Director and Maintenance Manager. Those interested, call Roger Comstock 404/373-8320.

FUND RAISING STARTS

Plans for a capital fund drive to raise $330,000 are underway. All of our 11,000 UUs in the Southeast will be provided with an opportunity to pledge. Other UU districts have also indicated an interest in participating. Pledges for annual (or monthly) contributions over a three-year period (1980-82) are sought.

Heading the fund drive is Roger Comstock of Atlanta, former president of the SUUSI board District coordinators are as follows:

  • Florida
    • Dick Boyce, Ft. Lauderdale,
  • Mid-South
    • Ellie and Dan Prince, Birmingham, AL
  • Thomas Jefferson
    • Sue Male, Manchester, TN

Each of the 100 societies in the Tri-District Area will determine the timing and approach for its own canvass, using support provided by the fund-raising staff. For most societies, the actual canvass will occur in the early months of 1980.

Over $50,000 already has been pledged by UUs interested in promoting this project. Four of these pledges are for $5,000 or more. Additionally, the SUUSI board has voted to review its finances annually and will contribute to the Camp and Conference Center as long as sufficient reserves are available.

Because of the importance of this project, individuals will be rewarded with a life membership in the Camp and Conference Center for a substantial contribution. Life memberships are offered for an immediate contribution of $1,000 or a pledge of $1200 to be paid in increments of not less than $200 over a five-year period.

SUPPORT COMES IN A VARIETY OF WAYS

The idea of owning a permanent Camp and Conference Center in the South has obviously caught the fancy of a great many UUs. Offers of help have been pouring in from all over the Tri-District Area. Some noteworthy contributions:

  • Mo and Larry Wheeler have devoted endless time and energy to every-phase of the project, from finding the site to talking it up, to organizing and planning the start-up.
  • Roger Comstock has made an important contribution through managing the feasibility study and overseeing the negotiations to buy the property.
  • Al Faber contributed his time and energy to the market survey, a key element of the successful feasibility study.
  • Jack Gray has provided free legal service throughout extended negotiations with Pinecrest.
  • Jim Coe has made a beautiful tape-, slide presentation of the Discovery program, a probable program offering of the new camp.
  • Dick Boyce has made a movie.
  • Edmund Cannon contributed a supply of T-shirts for sale at the camp store.
  • Walt Pirie made an inventory of repair needs.
  • Jake Haun has tracked and diagramed the water, sewage and electrical systems.
  • Elliott Pavlos and Don Hostetler walked the property line through heavy brush to save us the cost of a survey. Truette Stubbs used his deep-sea diving talents to open the dam.

The list goes on. The excitement is spreading.. But lots more help is needed to fix up the property which has not been used for five years. All offers will be gratefully accepted!

WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO SUUSI?

No Changes Are Planned! SUUSI has been and will continue to operate independently of the new Camp and Conference Center. It will continue to be the exciting, wonderful week Southeastern UUS have come to look forward to each year…. While the SUUSI board has been instrumental in the purchase of the new camp, a new board now being formed to operate the Camp and Conference Center.

The camp will be incorporated as a non-profit corporation. The new board will have representatives appointed by SUUSI and each of the three districts, as well as members elected at-large and some appointed by the board itself. The camp director will serve ex-officio….For the first year, any UU having made a pledge to the new camp will be eligible to vote for the at-large members. In future years, this will become the responsibility of the members.

Letter - Jan Vickery Knost to Roger Comstock Support for Purchase from NJ (Aug 9, 1979)

9 August 1979 at 00:23

THE UNITARIAN CHURCH IN SUMMIT 4 WALDRON AVENUE. SUMMIT, NEW JERSEY 07901
August 9, 1979

Mr. Roger Comstock
979 Springdale Road, N.E.,
Atlanta, GA

Dear Roger,

It has been some months since we enjoyed your company as a guest in our home in Dedham – which you might quickly
perceive as a former ministry.

We are all well – busy as lobstermen with rotten rope – and looking forward to the beginning of a challenging pastorate in the city of Summit.

I wanted to write to you in regard to the Southeast Camp and Conference Site you described to us at dinner the night you were with us. The more we think about it, the more it seems that this is a project and a vision second to none on the horizon in our movement at this writing, as far as summer conferences are concerned. It is also one of the most exciting possibilities for forwarding the message of a liberal faith that could be imagined for the growing Southeast.

As one who comes from an entirely different district, (Mass. Bay was my former district – I am now in New York Metro), I would like to add my voice of approval and support to the very careful planning-and promotion that has been given to this time. As I understand it, you already have a tremendous groundswell of enthusiasm for its eventual success that is a reality.

Please add Lorna and my tame to that list. Enclosed is a very modest, but sincere token of our trust and caring. I would hope that I, like many others in other districts, could use their time to promote the joy and obvious qualities of inspiration and human growth that I (we) know will come from such an idea. Allons!

With every best wish for your happiness and peace,

<signature not shown>

Jan Vickery Knost
186 Ashland Road
Summit, NJ 07901

Letter - Ted Machler to Roger Comstock Support for Purchase (Jun 22, 1979)

22 June 1979 at 23:59

2265 Sharkey Road
Clearwater, Fl. 33515

June 22, 1979

Mr. Roger Comstock
979 Springdale Rd.
Atlanta, Ga. 30306

Dear Roger,

I am very enthusiastic about the possibilities for a conference and camp site. The pictures and slides fire my enthusiasm even more!

I feel that the growth and growth potential is great for this endeavor. You can count on my support–both personal and financial.

Best wishes,

Ted Machler

Letter - Donald Male to Roger Comstock Support for Camp Purchase (Jun 20, 1979)

20 June 1979 at 23:53

1305 Sycamore Street
Manchester, Tennessee 37355
1979 June 20

Mr. Roger Comstock
979 Springdance Road
Atlanta, Georgia 30306

Dear Roger,

I am writing with regard to the prospect of the acquisition of property near Highlands, N.C. as a camp and conference center primarily for the use of Unitarian Universalists in the Southeast. My view can perhaps best be expressed as one of enthusiastic cautious optimism.

Please permit me to indulge for a moment in some personal reminiscence. As a newly identified Unitarian, I first attended Blue Ridge Assembly in 1959. It was an exhilarating experience–truly one of the most meaningful ones of my life–living for a whole week in a 1007o Unitarian community. I have taken part in all Summer Institutes since then–Blue Ridge, Brevard, Boone, Sewanee, Fontana and Radford. The current success of SUUSI is much tooted as the second largest gathering of UUs in the continent, General Assembly being the first.

There are, of course, many other annual (principally summer) gatherings–deBenneville Pines, Unirondack, Ferry Beach, Star Island, Rowe, etc. I receive and read the newsletters of many of them and have talked with many of their alumni. Enthusiasm is everywhere evident. The spiritual contribution of all of these to our movement is beyond all reckoning and in my opinion immense. Delete-all these experiences and our congregations, churches, fellowships, districts, the APF and “25 Beacon Street” itself would all be significantly impoverished. I salute them all.

Now let’s look at the Southeast. We definitely ought to have a camp and conference center. We do not have one. Ours is a growth area. As the energy crunch steadily increases, and there is absolutely no doubt that it will, our part of the country becomes more and more desirable for commercial and personal location alike. The long range future in this aspect looks optimistic.

The market survey indicated that we can raise enough funds to proceed with purchase. With all due respect to my good friend Al Faber, I do have some reservations about the results of the market survey. As one of my acquaintances who answered one of the questionnaires remarked, “I have completely forgotten what I said.” Nevertheless, I believe that the financing to purchase can be arranged. Purchasing the property may be less a problem than the consideration of the sustaining on-going operational financial and management requirements.

I do not believe there are enough Unitarians in the Southeast market area now nor in the immediate future to sustain the operation. The proponents of the project are, of course, aware of this and plan to rent the facilities to other groups. The proximity of Atlanta is most fortuitous in this regard. Also the UU market area is not limited to the Southeast. Our neighboring districts northward have a large UU population and are not all that far away. Milwaukee, Toronto and New York City are all about the same distance away as Miami!

Sue and I drove to the site on April 3 in order to see it “in person.” We were both favorably impressed. It is a mountain top quite literally and worthy of countless mountain top experiences. Real estate of that kind is very difficult to find on the market today and probably will become more so as time goes on. Certainly no more of it is in production today. The buildings, though needing work, were mostly sound and could be made usable in the immediate future.

I commend the SUUSI search committee for both its diligence in its hunt for suitable property and the thoroughness of the proposal study for acquisition and operation.

The commitment, capability and efforts of Larry Wheeler are crucial to my overall feeling about the feasibility of this project. Were there not such an individual willing to virtually give himself to its success, it is unlikely I could support the project. Given his presence, along with all the foregoing comments, it is my pleasure to add whatever encouragement I can to proceeding with the attainment of a Unitarian Universalist Camp and Conference Center for the Southeast.

It is a risk. It will take much hard work by many. But few worthwhile things in this world are accomplished without risk. Our youth will benefit perhaps more than any others if this project succeeds, and the future of our movement inexorably is transmitted into the hands of our youth. And so with enthusiastic cautious optimism I wish this project all success.

With all good wishes,

Donald W. Male

<signature not shown>

UUA Trustee

Northwest - Letter, Bob Karnan to Roger Comstock Northwest Endorses Purchase of Camp (Jun 6, 1979)

6 June 1979 at 01:03

NORTHWEST UNITARIAN CONGREGATION
Robert W. Karnan, Minister
1025 Mt. Vernon Highway, N.W.
Atlanta, Georgia 30327
404/955-1403

June 6, 1979

Mr. Roger Comstock
979 Springdale Rd.
Atlanta, GA 30306

Dear Roger:

This is a letter of endorsement for the southeast camp and conference center effort. For three years running the annual meeting of the Mid-South District voted unanimously to seek the development of such a place. I am delighted that SUUSI has moved so carefully
and thoughtfully ahead in this matter.

As a professional in liberal religious leadership, and as one with eighteen years experience with UU summer camps and conference centers, I am encouraged that the UUs of the southeast might soon enjoy the resource of such a place. As our region has grown in UU membership and emerged as an active and vibrant corner of American UUism, so too are we looking in a timely fashion toward the appropriate creation of institutional resources to provide a framework for our area UU programming. I think this camp and conference center can be such a place.

Warmly,

<signature not shown>

BK:js – Bob Karnan

Letter - Beverly Filippi to Roger Comstock RE Purchase of Camp (May 9, 1979)

9 May 1979 at 00:05

FLORIDA DISTRICT
OF THE
UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST ASSOCIATION
Please Reply To: Beverly Filippi
15399 NE 6 Ave. #120A
North Miami, FL 33162

May 9, 1979

Mr. Roger Comstock, President
SUUSI Board
979 Springdale Road
Atlanta, GA 30306

Dear Roger:

This is to respond to the exciting news about the purchase of a camp site. Hank Shinners and Richard Lee generously shared at our recent District meeting their experience and the slides of their visit to the site. I must tell you that the enthusiasm those two cynics displayed would have convinced even the most reluctant observer that we have hit the jackpot.

You will be receiving a formal letter from the District secretary stating that a resolution was passed by the Florida District at its May meeting which endorses the efforts of SUUSI to purchase a campsite in the location described as the “Oval”, geographically. The purpose of my letter is to tell you of my support in this endeavor in my new role as District President.

As you know, I was honored to have served as a special consultant on the needs assessment and am familiar with the outcome of the marketing survey. I was very much interested in the responses from the Florida District because of my involvement with this State’s Camp and Conference Center Committee, on which I have served for nearly three years. In addition, I was one of the Florida people who attended the Council of Camps and Conference Centers (CU2C3), at which meeting I became familiar with other Camps,. Conference Centers, and Institutes throughout the denomination. In all of these efforts, I have become more and more convinced that the permanent campsite idea will work. My only reservation for the Florida District has been that we have not seen emerge from the District leadership a cadre of people who are dedicated and enthusiastic enough to follow through on the tremendous task of needs assessment, fund raising, site location and purchase, promotion, programming, staffing, and maintenance. It is obvious that the SUUSI group has the professionalism, the enthusiasm, the expertise, and the energy to do the job.

My best wishes to you for its success, and if I can be of help, please let me know.

Sincerely,

Beverly Filippi
President

Document - Organization of the Camp and Conference Center (Apr 8, 1979)

8 April 1979 at 14:22

ORGANIZATION

It appears that three basic forms of organization (with, perhaps, many variations) are available for the Southeast UU camp and conference center. It can continue to be an activity and responsibility of the SUUSI Board; a separate board could be formed to handle the camp and conference center which would be responsive to the three UU districts in the Southeast; or it could be developed as a private, non-profit enterprise responsive to an independent board of trustees.

Upon consideration, it appears that this question should be dealt with in two parts: (1) how to organize during the three to five year period of formation of the camp and conference center, and, (2) how to organize after the camp and conference center is in full operation. There are many imponderables impeding a careful look now at the second part of this question; among them:

a) Whether or not the camp and conference center is actually successful
b) Its size and programming
c) The attitudes and intention of the membership and the district boards at that time (3-5 years in the future).
d) The then current status of SUUSI.

It would seem that any decision now on the second sub-question would be premature; therefore, this paper addresses itself only to the organizational structure during the years of formation of the camp and conference center and suggests that this structure be reviewed carefully at the end of that period.

Private Non-Profit Enterprise

From review of the by-laws of several UU camp and conference centers around the country, this appears to be the most common form of organization. The advantages to the formation of a private non-profit venture would be:

  • Activities could be coordinated geographically; board members and director chosen from a common area.
  • Project would sink or swim without impact on existing UU organizations.
  • Would enable the Board to devote full attention to a very different kind of enterprise.

Some of the disadvantages would be:

  • Lack of direct district involvement in camp and conference activities.
  • Currently, no supporting constituency or “membership.”
  • More difficulty in coordinating program with SUUSI Board; hence, possible competition.
  • Currently, no funding source.
  • In the short run, loss of the SUUSI management enterprise.

On balance, it would appear that this is not the appropriate organization form to be employed during the start-up period. Perhaps, it would be more attractive after a camp and conference center is operational and has developed its own constituency.

Separate Tri-District Board

It seems that the main advantage of forming a new board responsive to the three UU districts, but separate from the SUUSI Board would be to relieve the latter of juggling multiple projects concurrently. At the same time, most of the disadvantages of the private, non-profit structure would accrue in this situation.

Expansion of SUUSI Board Function

The third option would be to expand the role of the current SUUSI Board to encompass the planning and development of the new camp and conference center to a fully operational state.

The advantages in this arrangement would be:

  • Continued district involvement and control through district representatives on the Board.
  • Close programming ties between SUUSI, “Other Week(s)” and the camp and conference center.
  • Ability to use SUUSI and Other Week programming to help build a market and a constituency for the camp and conference center.
  • Limited financing to cover some start-up expense.
  • Use of the SUUSI management expertise; cross-pollination of staff.

The disadvantages are:

  • Considerable additional workload on the SUUSI Board.
  • Higher coordination expense due to geographical dispersion of the Board.
  • Places some responsibility on the districts to help achieve success.(This could also be an advantage.)

It is proposed that if this feasibility study is approved, the third form of organization be adopted; that is, the SUUSI Board’s role would be expanded to include the development of the camp and conference center. To accomplish that, two further moves are suggested:

1) A by-laws committee be formed immediately to review the SUUSI By-Laws in light of this decision.
2) A permanent camp and conference center committee of the Board be established.

Each of these ideas is discussed further.

By-Laws Revision

The SUUSI by-laws as written focus on the management and operation of a single one-week summer program for adults and children. To encompass the much broader role of overseeing UU leisure activities in the Southeast, a substantial revision is needed.

Camp and Conference Center Committee

The organization and operation of a camp and conference center is a very different, and probably much more demanding enterprise than the present SUUSI. To carry out this heavy charge, a permanent committee should be formed and charged with all activities related to camp and conference center development. While having considerable latitude, this Committee should be required to obtain Board approval prior to taking any major action, such as:

1) Engaging professional help.
2) Acquiring property or signing leases.
3) Initiating building and/or remodeling activities (including major supplies purchases).
4) Hiring staff.
5) Purchase of major equipment items.
6) Making across-the-board contacts with the SUUSI “membership” or member churches and fellowships.
7) Establishing contacts or “liaison” with other organizations, such as schools.
8) Fixing the annual program.

Document - Camp and Conference Center Statement of Purpose (Apr 8, 1979)

8 April 1979 at 14:02

CAMP AND CONFERENCE CENTER STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

The camp and conference center would be organized for Unitarian Universalists in the Southeast to provide educational, recreational, and spiritual experiences in the context of an intergenerational al
community.

I. An educational, recreational and spiritual experience

Educational – quality programming:

  • Institutes
  • Workshops
  • Craft Program
  • Nature Program

Recreational

Activities at the camp:

  • Swimming
  • Tennis
  • Horseback Riding
  • Competitive Sports (Basketball, Volleyball, Soccer, Softball, etc.)
  • New Games (cooperative games)

Activities in surrounding area:

  • Whitewater rafting, canoeing, etc.
  • Hiking and nature walks
  • Trips to nearby lakes and waterfalls

Spiritual

  • Daily worship experiences
  • Fellowship of the community

II. An intergenerational UU community

To develop a sense of belonging:

  • With other camper
  • With our UU neighbors in the Southeast – With the facility
  • With our natural environment
  • With the neighboring community

To strengthen the bonds of fellowship among people through participation in community building:

  • Making rules
  • Planning activities
  • Helping prepare and serve meals
  • Building more living space
  • Cleaning up
  • Paying dues and contributing financially

To help individuals move toward harmony with themselves, with their friends and families, with their natural environment, and with their religion.

Document - Members of SUUSI and Camp and Conference Center (Apr 8, 1979)

8 April 1979 at 13:46

THE SUUSI BOARD

  • President: Roger Comstock, MBA – Management Consultant
  • Secretary: Richard Lee, PhD – College Professor of Communications
  • Treasurer: John Jones, MPA – Former City Manager

Other Members:

  • Rosemary Burns, MS – Marriage and Family Counselor
  • Ben Edwards, PhD – Chemist
  • Sue Folk – Manager, Medical Clinic for Women
  • Kay Montgomery – Church Administrator (UUCA)
  • Pam Phelps, MS Candidate – Owner, Creative Playschool
  • Hank Shinners – Real Estate Sales
  • Carol Taylor, BA – Elementary School Teacher
  • Larry Wheeler, MBA – District Sales Manager
  • Mo Wheeler – PhD Candidate, Counseling Psychology
  • Jerry Wright, MSLS – College Librarian

Legal Counsel: Robert Holt, JD – Partner Alston, Miller & Gaines
Consultants: Sandy Eagle – Student, Youth Council Representative
Margaret Link, MLS – Academic Librarian

THE CAMP AND CONFERENCE CENTER COMMITTEE

Board Members:

  • Roger Comstock
  • Ben Edwards
  • Hank Shinners
  • Mo Wheeler
  • Larry Wheeler

Consultants:

  • Shirlee Edwards, MS – Social Worker, Protective Services/Children
  • Al Faber, MA —President, Marketing Research and Consulting Firm
  • Beverly Fillippi, BS – Assistant to College President
  • Jake Haun, MD – Emergency Medicine
  • Jim Highsmith, MS – Certified Public Accountant
  • Bob Karnan, DMn – Unitarian Universalist Minister
  • Bill Mason, MS – Environmental Engineer
  • Carole Selvey, PhD – Clinical Psychologist in Private Practice
  • Charlie Simpson, MBA – Real Estate Developer
  • Carl Taylor, BArch – Principal in Architectural Firm

Legal Counsel: John Gray, JD – Partner Gray, Hinson & Weyant

Letter - Gail Gibson to Richard Lee Highly Supportive of Camp Purchase (Apr 6, 1979)

6 April 1979 at 00:14

April 6, 1979

Mr. Richard Lee
2103 Croydon Drive
Tallahassee, FL 32303

Dear Mr. Lee:

The Board of Trustees of the Mid-South District of the Unitarian Universalist Association has reviewed the preliminary reports and the feasibility study of the Tri-District UU Camp and Conference Center.

It is with overwhelming gratitude that we commend you and the SUUSI Board for the careful and thoughtful study. We are highly supportive of your very exhaustive efforts and will do whatever we can to assist you.

Heartfelt thanks to each of you for your continued efforts.

Sincerely,

Gail S. Gibson, Secretary

Mid-South District
UUA

GSG/bkw
cc: Mr. Larry Wheeler

Northwest - Letter, Northwest to MARTA Thanking for Copies of Historic Report on Stained Glass Nov 3, 1978

3 November 1978 at 02:40

November 3, 1978

Mr. Richard M. Stanger
Manager of Urban Design
Metropolitan Rapid Transit Authority
2200 Peachtree Summit
401 West Peachtree Street N.E.
Atlanta, Georgia 30308

 

Dear Mr. Stanger:

I am writing to thank you for the two copies of the historical report on The Abbey: The Atlanta Unitarian Church, Re-Used. We deeply appreciate your kindness in sharing this document with us and for MARTA’s funding the project.

The report is well done and will be useful to all area Unitarian Universalists.

Atlanta area UU’s owe you in particular a debt of gratitude for your conscientious and able efforts to explore in detail the meaning and importance of the former Abbey Restaurant building to area UU’s. We especially need to thank you for facilitating the indefinite loan to our congregation of the stained glass windows and for this able history.

Warmly,

Robert W. Karnan, DMn. Minister

BK;js

bcc: Ray Levine (encls.)

Peggy Beard (encls.)

Northwest - Letter, Northwest to MARTA Thanking MARTA to Indefinite Loan of Windows Oct 31, 1978

31 October 1978 at 02:36

October 31, 1978

Mr. Alan F. Kiepper
General Manager
Metropolitan Atlanta
Rapid Transit Authority
2200 Peachtree Summit
401 West Peachtree St. N.E.
Atlanta, Georgia 30308

 

Subject: Abbey Restaurant Stained Glass Window           (LN 170)

Dear Mr. Kiepper,

We are delighted that the MARTA Board has agreed to the indefinite loan of the above window to the Northwest Unitarian Congregation. This window is a wonderful historical link to our heritage and history in the Atlanta area. We are deeply appreciative of your thoughtful consideration and sensitive helpfulness in making this loan a possibility.

We will be displaying this window in our building for the benefit of all Atlanta Unitarians and will hold a public dedication celebration when the display is completed. We especially want to acknowledge our indebtedness to you and the MARTA Board during our dedication celebration.  We hope that you or a MARTA representative will be able to attend. We will advise you as soon as possible as to the date.

We additionally want to commend Mr. Richard Stanger of your staff for his able and thoughtful attention in this matter.

The sensitivity and thoughtfulness displayed by you and the MARTA Board about the historical value of structures that must be removed to facilitate progress and community growth is to be celebrated. This is an unseen side of that awesome responsibility you carry for the entire community. Please know that at least a few of us are aware and grateful for your efforts,

Sincerely,

Robert W. Karnan, DMn.

Minister

RWK:js

Cc: Richard Stanger

bcc:  Kay Montgomery  Peggy Beard Ray Levine  Stan LeBow

Northwest - Letter, MARTA to Northwest Enclosing Historic Report About Stained Glass Windows Oct 31, 1978

31 October 1978 at 02:33

Department of
Planning and Public Affairs

MARTA
2200 Peachtree Summit
401 West Peachtree Street, NE
Atlanta, GA 30308

October 31, 1978

Ms. Sara B. Beard, Chairman
Memorial Committee
Northwest Unitarian Church
1025 Mt. Vernon Highway, N.W.
Atlanta, GA  30327

Subject: Historical Documentation of the Abbey Restaurant Building (SD250)

Dear Ms. Beard:

Enclosed are two copies of a historical report on the Abbey Restaurant done by the History Group, Inc. for MARTA.  University libraries in the area have each been sent a copy.   A set of the original report and photographs are on file with the Atlanta Historical Society and MARTA’s Division of Planning and Marketing.

I hope the report will be a useful addition to the Atlanta’s Unitarian Church.

Sincerely,

 

Richard M. Stanger

Manager of Urban Design

MARTA Commissioned Historical Report on West Peachtree Street Church before Demolition

20 October 1978 at 21:54

October 20, 1978

Mr. Richard Stanger Urban Design Section
Planning and Marketing Division
MARTA
401 West Peachtree St., N.W.
Atlanta, GA 30308

Dear Mr. Stanger:

Enclosed herewith is the historical narrative with photographs of The Abbey (The Atlanta Unitarian Church, 669 West Peachtree Street, N.E.), which was prepared at your direction as mitigation against the loss of the building to the City of Atlanta due to MARTA construction.
This report conforms with professional standards for historical documentation and archival standards for permanence in materials. It is our understanding that this document is to be presented to the Atlanta Historical Society for permanent retention in the public domain, to be available for future research and reference as a part of the Society’s collections of original materials.

We believe this portrait is an accurate recapitulation of the Abbey history, and we are pleased to be of assistance to you. We hope that this report meets with MARTA’s own requirements for this inquiry.

Sincerely yours,

Darlene R. Roth President
This report partially fulfills a mitigation agreement made between MARTA and the Georgia Historic Preservation Officer, Ms. Elizabeth Lyon, Acting. It was the feeling of both parties that the building, while not eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, merited such a report. The building was described in 1977 as part of the construction of MARTA’s rapid transit system. The effort was coordinated by Richard M. Stanger, Manager of Urban Design.
METROPOLITAN ATLANTA RAPID TRANSIT AUTHORITY BOARD OF DIRECTORS:
ATLANTA:
Dr. Johnnie L. Clark
Mr. John Evans
Mr. John R. Myer
Mr. Lyndon A. Wade, Secretary
CLAYTON COUNTY: Mr. John G. Glover, Jr.
DEKALB COUNTY:
Mr. Daniel B. Pattillo, Chairman
Mr. William R. Probst, Vice Chairman
Mr. John H. Weitnauer, Jr.
FULTON COUNTY:
Dr. J. E. Lowery
Mr. Harold Sheats, Treasurer
GWINNETT COUNTY: Mr. K. A. McMillon
EX OFFICIO:
Mr. G. W. Hogan, State Properties Commission
Mr. Thomas D. Moreland, Georgia Department of Transportation Mr. W. E. Strickland, Georgia Department of Revenue
Mr. Alan F. Kiepper, General Manager
Mr. Morris J. Dillard, Assistant General Manager of
Planning and Public Affairs Mr. Manuel Padron, Director of Planning and Marketing

THE ABBEY:
The Atlanta Unitarian Church, Re-used Mitigation Documentation prepared for Urban Design Section Division of Planning and Marketing
Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA)
by
The History Group, Inc.
Steve Grable, M.A. Darlene Roth, Ph.D. with
Dana F. White, Ph.D. Elizabeth J. Meredith
October 1978

Note: Preparation of this report has been financed in part through a grant from the Urban Mass Transit Administration, under provision of Section 3 of the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1969, as amended.
The primary research copy of this document, with original photographs, has been placed on deposit with the Atlanta Historical Society, 3099 Andrews Drive, N.W., Atlanta.

A second copy with original photographs has been retained by MARTA.

ABSTRACT

In 1977 the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) demolished a Gothic Revival church building at 669 West Peachtree Street, N.E., since it lay in the path of the north rail line currently under construction. The church, which was erected in 1915, served the local Unitarian congregation until 1948, when the building passed into ownership of the Bible Baptist Church. In 1969, the building changed hands again and was converted into a restaurant known as The Abbey.

This report seeks to recapture the religious, social, and artifactual history of the building, as mitigation against the loss of the structure to the City of Atlanta. The report is given in three sections covering 1) Unitarianism in the South, 2) the local Unitarian congregation, and 3) the use of the building as a restaurant, including a full pictorial record of its architectural features.

The original congregation has long since removed to another location, and The Abbey, which was displaced by the demolition, has relocated at 163 Ponce de Leon, N.E., to another church building, itself renovated for restaurant usage.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT    iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS iv
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Methodology 1
I. Unitarianism in Georgia and the South 2
II. The Atlanta Unitarian Church 6
III. The Abbey: The Church Re-used 16
Footnotes 39

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Map, Unitarian & Universalist Churches, 1884-1953 8
Photo 1: West elevation, 669 West Peachtree St. 11
Photo 2: Details of the west elevation 13
Photo 3: Interior of former nave 19
Photo 4: Nave looking north 21
Photo 5: Chancel space with bar 23
Photo 6: Details of the west windows 25
Photo 7: Narthex of the church 27
Photo 8: Detail of west windows, narthex level 29
Photo 9: Octagonal “chapel” 32
Photo 10: Interior of the “chapel”/bar 34
Photo 11: Detail of nave ceiling 36
Photo 12: Stairway from narthex to balcony 38

METHODOLOGY

In the preparation of this report, The History Group, Inc., was confronted with special research problems, most notably, the absence of organizational records for the Unitarian Church for the period 1915 to 1948, when the congregation occupied the structure in question. Apparently, all these records were destroyed in a fire at a member’s house in the late 1940s.

Without institutional records, it was necessary to resort to other sources to reconstruct the building’s history. Preliminary research during the summer of 1977 included an examination of city directories, building permits, and Sanborn fire insurance maps, which together revealed basic structural information, the date and cost of construction, the successive uses of the property, and the occupants of the building after the Unitarians sold it in 1950. Interviews were conducted among local church members and others to obtain information not otherwise available, and a review of secondary literature was made to prepare the background sections on Unitarianism in Georgia and Atlanta.

In addition, MARTA supplied The History Group with a set of photographs highlighting the building’s physical setting and architectural features. Assistance in captioning these pictures and describing the building’s interior was provided by Elizabeth Meredith, architectural consultant to MARTA.

UNITARIANISM IN GEORGIA AND THE SOUTH

Unitarianism came to the South from New England in two waves of missionary activity–one before the Civil War and one after. Antebellum efforts were largely unsuccessful in establishing permanent congregations, and the Unitarian congregations which were formed–such as in Augusta and Savannah, Georgia–regularly floundered from insufficient funds, opposition from the local orthodoxy, and hostility to the abolitionism of the national association.

Formed in 1825 in Massachusetts, the American Unitarian Association propagated its faith successfully in New England, but it was unable to promote large scale expansion in the developing sections of the country, including the South.’ By 1850, 90% of the Unitarian congregations in the country were still located in the Northeast, especially in and around Boston.

Unitarianism was itself self-limiting. To begin with, the movement had no formal creed to bind together its constituents; instead, it looked to a “larger intellectual and religious life, free of restraints imposed by a doctrinal system.”2 Then, too, the liberal faith of Unitarians often bred internal controversies and dissension, precluding unified action on specific goals, such as expansion. Finally, other sections of the country were simply not prepared to accept the Unitarians socially and religiously and therefore to support them financially.

During the first quarter of the nineteenth century, Unitarian missionaries established churches in Richmond, New Orleans, and Charleston, to serve congregations primarily composed of commercial merchants who had migrated in from New England.3 The first Unitarian congregation in Georgia was formed in Augusta in 1826.4 In 1827 the congregation erected a meeting house, with fund-raising assistance provided by Samuel Gilman, the Unitarian minister to the Charleston congregation. In 1830 the Augusta congregation welcomed its first (and only) full-time minister, Stephen Greenleaf Bulfinch, recently graduated from Harvard Divinity School. Although Bulfinch attempted to win community acceptance, he was unsuccessful, and he departed in 1837 for a position in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Without a strong leader, the Augusta church dissolved, beset by financial difficulties and continuing religious controversy.
The Unitarian Church formed in Savannah in 1830 had a better chance for survival, since its congregation was larger to begin with. Nevertheless, in its twenty-nine year history it never gained economic independence from the American Unitarian Association, upon which it depended for operating subsidies and minister’s salary. It also faced severe criticism from the Savannah community.

Increasingly, during the pre-Civil War period, southern Unitarians felt trapped between the presence of slavery in their communities, on the one hand, and the anti-slavery stance of their main funding sources, the New England churches.5 Northern Unitarians often threatened to halt the flow of financial contributions unless the missionary churches in the south began to support the abolitionist cause; southern congregations protested, pointing out the difficulty of opposing the racial views of their section. During the late 1830s at least two attempts were made to burn down the Savannah church, indicating the intensity of local antipathy toward the Unitarians. Economic instability and the political controversy surrounding the parent organization finally led to the dissolution of the Savannah congregation in 1859.

II. THE ATLANTA UNITARIAN CHURCH

Of the Unitarian churches in the south, only Charleston and New Orleans survived the Civil War, and these two disappeared by 1884.6 Concerned that it might be lagging behind the expansion of other denominations, the American Unitarian Association undertook a more aggressive missionary program. Accordingly, the Reverend George Leonard Chaney was sent to Atlanta to organize sympathetic individuals into an active congregation. During the spring and fall of 1882, Chaney preached around town, and succeeded in getting ten members for the new church.7

The congregation held its first meetings in the Kimball House, then, after a while, bought a lot on the corner of Forsyth Street and Church (now Carnegie Way) for a building. [Refer to church locations on the Map, page ] The Forsyth Street location served the congregation from 1884, when the building was dedicated, to 1900, when the property was bought by the Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Library. Reverend Chaney made certain that his sermons and civic involvements were not offensive to the orthodox religious groups, so he avoided embroiling the Atlanta church in controversy.8 Yet, though they did not face stringent local opposition, the Atlanta Unitarians remained small in numbers and dependent on the national organization. They had to borrow $7000 from the American Unitarian Association for the construction of their church, and they continued to rely upon the Association as a constant source of funds. Between 1883 and 1900, the congregation never exceeded 133 persons, and the average attendance at meetings rarely rose above 60.9 A random sample of the parishioners in these years shows that the membership was largely drawn from white-collar occupations–respectable persons, but not wealthy ones, and unable to make substantial contributions to their church.10

Selling the Forsyth property in 1900–for $25,000–enabled the congregation to pay off its loan, build a new church in a different location, and declare a surplus of $500.11 But solvency was short-lived; to meet operating expenses the congregation had to turn to its parent organization. In 1913 the second church building was sold, presumably also to pay off debts.12 Again, the Unitarians were able to profit from the sale: the northward expansion of the Central Business District had encroached on their site, but it had also increased the property’s value significantly. The Unitarians moved out of the commercial area and relocated further to the north in an environment that was still predominantly residential.
LEGEND
1 Unitarian, Forsyth and Church (Carnegie Way), 1884.
2 Unitarian, Spring and Cain (International), 1900.
3 Universalist, 16 East Harris, 1900.
4 Unitarian-Universalist, 669 West Peachtree, 1915. [Subject of this report.]
5 Unitarian, Boulevard and North, 1953.

It is this third Unitarian structure, located at 669 West Peachtree Street between Ponce de Leon and Third, which is the subject of this report. [See Photos 1 and 2.] Construction began in 1914 under a contract with builder C. Shelverton, and was completed in 1915, for a cost of $15,000.13 Situated next to the church, on the rise above West Peachtree, was a house, dating from around 1904, which the Unitarians used intermittently as a parish and which was demolished when this property was finally sold in 1951.14

Photo 1 (Archivist Note: Insert of Photo Pending – Jul 19, 2014)

West elevation of the Unitarian Church building, as it looked in its days as The Abbey. Gothic Revivial in style, the former church had a traditional east-west orientation with the opsidal end facing east towards the rising sun. An elaborate, but non-figurative stained glass window marks the west elevation.
(Photographer, Martin Stupich, 1977)

Photo 2 (Archivist Note: Insert of Photo Pending – Jul 19, 2014)

Details of the west elevation connote English Medieval architecture. Note the use of red brick with limestone trim, 4 centered arch over the main window, and perpendicular window mullions.
(Photographer, Martin Stupich, 1977)

Three years after the completion of their building, as an economic measure, the Unitarians merged with the Universalists, a local branch of another liberal Christian organization.15 For some years the combined congregations were known as the Liberal Christian Church, but in the 1930s, the groups reverted to earlier nomenclature and referred to themselves as the Unitarian-Universalist Church.16

The local merger was accomplished years before the two national associations combined memberships, which happened in 1960. The first “official” act of cooperation between the two denominations occurred when the American Unitarian Association and the Independent Christian Society (the Universalists) issued a joint hymnal in 1937.17 Later, the organizations became the Unitarian-Universalist Association.

Universalism, like Unitarianism, began in New England as a reaction against the orthodox churches, and like the Unitarians, the Universalists attempted to extend their congregations to the south in the last decades of the nineteenth century. In 1879, the Reverend W. C. Bowman organized a Universalist church in Atlanta, which lasted only one year. A second attempt was made in 1895 by missionary-minister Q. H. Shinn, and he succeeded.18 The Universalist congregation erected its own house of worship in 1900 at 16 East Harris Street in Atlanta, which was used until the merger with the Unitarians in 1918.
Despite their similarities, the two groups differed toward questions of race. The Universalists, said to be the more politically and socially conservative of the two groups, opposed opening the church to black members. In the late 1940s, the congregation split over an application for membership from a black faculty member of Morehouse College.19 About the same time, the American Unitarian Association declared its opposition to all forms of racial segregation and informed its churches that it would not support unintegrated congregations. The Atlanta congregation, like the Savannah congregation of the nineteenth century, refused to capitulate to national pressures against regional racial practices. The conflict was not resolved, and the Atlanta Unitarian-Universalist Church disbanded in 1948. The West Peachtree property, which reverted to the national association, was sold in 1951.20

THE ABBEY: THE CHURCH RE-USED

In 1951 the Bible Baptist Church bought the building and used it as a meeting house and a bookstore until it sold the property in late 1968.21 During this time, the premises underwent no structural alterations. The next owner was William Swearingen, who bought the old church in 1969 and converted it into a restaurant called The Abbey. The name, the decor, and the continental cuisine of the restaurant made good use of the building’s medieval architectural style. The church nave became the main dining room with the side windows plastered over and then decorated with tapestries depicting medieval scenes. [See Photos 3 and 4.] The room was filled with heavy wooden tables, leather “monks” chairs, carved wooden accessories, and brass candelabrae. At one end of the nave was the bar, filling the old choir chancel. [See photo 5.] At the other end of the nave, on the west wall of the building, and above the balcony, were the original stained glass windows of the church, once a gift from a sister Unitarian congregation in Massachusetts. The windows were altered only enough to fit the name “Abbey” among the glass panes. [See Photo 6.] Additional dining space was obtained in the narthex, which was furnished the same as the main dining room, with the lower panels of the west wall windows dominating the room. [See Photos 7 and 8.]

The only major structural changes made to the original building were in the downstairs area, which was converted into the kitchen. Kitchen installations included, new cabinets, modern lights, ovens, cleaning equipment, and electrical appliances. A small room on the same level was equipped as a cocktail bar and given the ambience of a monasterial wine cellar. It served as a bar and waiting room until 1973, when a 2300 square foot “chapel” was added to the church at a cost of $90,000 for this purpose.21 Both the interior and the exterior features of the new room iterated the architectural style of the church. [See Photos 9 and 10.]

When MARTA demolished the restaurant-church at 669 West Peachtree, the Abbey was able to relocate on Ponce de Leon at Piedmont in another church building very near its previous location. Although the original Abbey building was lost, the experiment in adaptation was continued in the new quarters, and the same solution was found to the dual problems of locating a restaurant and filling a vacant downtown structure.

Photo 3 (Archivist Note: Insert of Photo Pending – Jul 19, 2014)

Interior of former nave looking towards east. Interior detailing uses English Medieval vocabulary of 4 centered arches and wood trusses.
(Photographer, Martin Stupich, 1977)

Photo 4 (Archivist Note: Insert of Photo Pending – Jul 19, 2014)

Former nave interior looking north. Nave windows were blocked in on interior, but remain intact on exterior.
(Photographer, Martin Stupich, 1977)

Photo 5 (Archivist Note: Insert of Photo Pending – Jul 19, 2014)

Detail of original chancel space as bar for The Abbey.
(Photographer, Martin Stupich, 1977)

Photo 6 (Archivist Note: Insert of Photo Pending – Jul 19, 2014)
Interior details of the west windows. Interesting grape vine motif connects original function of the building with re-use as a restaurant. Inscription “Abbey” was a later addition to the window.
(Photographer, Martin Stupich, 1977)

Photo 7 (Archivist Note: Insert of Photo Pending – Jul 19, 2014)
Narthex of the church. Balcony is located above this anteroom.

(Photographer, Martin Stupich, 1977)
Photo 8 (Archivist Note: Insert of Photo Pending – Jul 19, 2014)

Detail of west windows, narthex level. (Photographer, Martin Stupich, 1977)

Photo 9 (Archivist Note: Insert of Photo Pending – Jul 19, 2014)
Octagonal “chapel” or English chapter house design was added to the existing building, when the church was used as a restaurant. The well detailed “chapel” was functionally a bar.
(Photographer, Martin Stupich, 1977)

Photo 10 (Archivist Note: Insert of Photo Pending – Jul 19, 2014)
Interior view of the chapel/chapter house/ bar. A very thoughtfully detailed addition befitting both the original church function and the building’s reuse as a restaurant.
(Photographer, Martin Stupich, 1977)

Photo 12 (Archivist Note: Insert of Photo Pending – Jul 19, 2014)
Stairway from narthex up to balcony. (Photographer, Martin Stupich, 1977.)

FOOTNOTES

‘Edwin S. Gaustad, Historical Atlas of Religion in America, (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), p. 129.
2Gaustad, p. 129; see also Clement Eaton, Freedom of Thought in the Old South, (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1940).
3 George H. Gibson, “Unitarian Congregations in Ante-Bellum Goergia,” Georgia Historical Quarterly, 54 (1970), 147.
4 Gibson, 148-149. 5Gibson, 159.
6 Louis D. Becker, “Unitarianism in Post-War Atlanta, 18821908,” Georgia Historical Quarterly, 56 (1972), 349-364, p. 349.
7 Thomas H. Martin, Atlanta and Its Builders, (Atlanta: Century Memorial Publishing Co., 1902), vol. II, pp. 574-575.
8 Becker, 351-354.
9 Becker, 358.
10 Becker, 360-361.
11 Becker, 359.
12 lnterview with Peggy Beard, Unitarian-Universalist Church member, August 13, 1978.
13 Building Permit, 1914, Atlanta Historical Society.
14 Interview with Peggy Beard; with Jean Hess, Unitarian-Universalist Church member and widow of Dr. Aubrey F. Hess, pastor of the West Peachtree congregation during the 1930s, August 14, 1978.
15 Gaustad, 130, 131-132.
16 Atlanta City Directories, 1915-1938.
17 Gaustad, 133.
18 Undated pamphlet, Unitarian Church; Universalist Church Pamphlet, 1934, both from Unitarian-Universalist Church, 1911 Cliff Valley Way, N.E., Atlanta.
19 Interview with Peggy Beard; Jean Hess; with Jean Wells, Unitarian Universalist church member, August 14, 1978.
20The American Unitarian Association sent the Reverend Glenn 0. Canfield to organize a new society in Atlanta in the early 1950s. This time no barriers existed in gaining members and forestalling racial integration. By 1953 a church was constructed at North and Boulevard. In 1960 this same church began another structure on Cliff Valley Way, which was completed in 1966. From interview with Peggy Beard.
2 ‘Building Permit, 1973, Building Inspector’s Office, City
of Atlanta.

SOURCES NOT LISTED IN FOOTNOTES:
Sharon Bailey, “‘The Abbey’ Moves to Another Church,” Atlanta Constitution, July 18, 1977, p. 5B.
Earl Wallace Cory, “The Unitarians and Universalists of the Southeastern United States During the Nineteenth Century,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Georgia, 1970.
Willie Downer, interview, spokesperson for the Bible Baptist Church, August 15, 1978.
Franklin Garrett, Atlanta and Environs, (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1969 [1954]).

Northwest -Letter, MARTA to Northwest Approving Proposal to Display of Stained Glass Windows Oct 19, 1978

19 October 1978 at 02:28

Office of the General Manager
2200 Peachtree Summit
401 West Peachtree Street, N.E.
Atlanta, Georgia .30308
(404) 586-5050

October 19, 1978

Ms. Sara B. Beard, Chairman
Memorial Committee
Northwest Unitarian Church
1025 Mt. Vernon Highway, N.W.
Atlanta, Georgia 30327

Subject: Abbey Restaurant Stained-Glass Window   (LN170)

Dear Ms. Beard:

I am pleased to inform you that the MARTA Board has agreed to the indefinite loan of the above window to the Northwest Unitarian Church. The loan will provide the present Unitarian congregation of Atlanta a link with earlier members of their Church. The pub­lic-at-large will also benefit from the proper display of this lovely window. And it is good to remind ourselves that building for the future must also mean preserving the past.

It is understood that MARTA will accrue no costs of transportation or display of the window. Furthermore, to conform with its enabling legislation, MARTA must retain full rights to the window.

Please coordinate the removal and display of the window with Richard Stranger (586-5025) of my staff.

Sincerely,

Alan F. Kiepper

General Manager

Northwest - Letter, Northwest to MARTA Proposal to Display Stained Glass May 24, 1978

24 May 1978 at 02:21

May 24, 1978

Mr. Richard M. Stanger, P.E.
Manager of Urban Design
401 West Peachtree Street, N.E.
Atlanta, Georgia 30308

Dear Mr. Stanger:

This letter is to convey to you our proposal for a permanent display In our church building of the stained glass windows from the now demolished Abbey Restaurant.

As you know, the windows commemorate the first Unitarian minister in Atlanta and his wife, and their efforts toward establishing a Unitarian church In our city. We now have four Unitarian societies in the Atlanta area. Each of these groups has encouraged us to display on a permanent basis these commemorative windows in our building. After long study, we discover ours Is the only facility with adequate space.

We would like to display the windows with back lighting along with a plaque indicating their historical significance as well as the generous cooperation we have experienced from you and the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority.

We hope this proposal meets with your approval.

Yours,

Sara B. Beard, Chairman Memorial Committee

SB:RK;js                                                                         Robert W. Karnan, Minister

Heritage and Hope A Personal View by Dr. Robert Wells

19 November 1972 at 20:49

The opportunity that I have had in the past week has been an experience that I would recommend to each of you. A formal presentation of one’s views requires an analysis and search that can be both rewarding and frustrating. It may lead to a definition of outlook not previously understood.

I think that in giving me a very general direction for this morning’s presentation, Don Langham felt that at this juncture in our church life, a brief review of history might be helpful in gaining perspective and that, perhaps, one member’s view of his own ideas about the value and meaning of church and religion might also be useful. Thus, my title Heritage and Hope. The remainder of the title represents the usual disclaimer – that is, the opinions expressed are explicitly those of, the speaker and do not necessarily reflect the views, either individually or collectively, of the management.

The Unitarian Universalist, presence in Atlanta has been a continuous one since the late 19th century. It is of interest to note that the first president of a Unitarian congregation in Atlanta was also the president of the then fledgling Georgia Tech. The first church was located on the property now occupied by the City Library on Carnegie Way and the property was donated by the church to the city for that specific purpose. Of denominational interest, is the fact that long before the Unitarian and Universalist denominations merged nationally, the two congregations in Atlanta merged into one church – The United Liberal Church – in the early 20’s. Dr. Aubrey Hess – Jean Hess’ husband and my wife’s father – served as minister of that church from 1929 until his death in 1935.  The United Liberal Church was on West Peachtree between Ponce de Leon and 3rd Street. The building now houses a most unusual restaurant – The Abbey. Most of the original design and function of the church is maintained. It makes for a different dining experience.

The current Cliff Valley Church, officially named The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta, has been a continuous congregation since the early 50’s, meeting first in the Briarcliff Hotel, later in a church at the corner of North Avenue and Boulevard (a site now occupied by the proverbial filling station), and later at the old Clark Howell School on 10th Street which has since burned. The congregation’s current beautiful home on Cliff Valley Way was built about ten years ago.

The Cliff Valley congregation experienced a phenomenal growth very rapidly after occupying its new home. In 1966, a projection developed by its Board indicated that their two services would reach the saturation point by December ’68 and that even three services would fill the facility to capacity by June 1970. After considering several possible expansion plans, the Board and Congregation approved in early ’68 the establishment of a third service to be held in Northwest Atlanta. The area was carefully chosen after a demographic survey showed this area to be the second largest concentration of Unitarians in Atlanta. Most of the initial leadership of that early effort came from the active leaders of the Cliff Valley group. Despite the anticipated loss of leadership and financial resources, it was the express expectation at that time of the Cliff Valley Board and Congregation that this “third Service” would develop into a full-blown church. Herb Beattie was the Vice-President of the Cliff Valley church and it was under his personal guidance that this idea was nurtured. As attendance grew during 1968, the meeting place was changed in the fall of that year from Liberty Guinn Elementary School to the Sandy Springs High School.

During the fall of 1968, just four years ago, Dr. Russell Lockwood, of the Department of Extension of The Unitarian Universalist denomination office visited Atlanta, evaluated the situation, and also recommended that this new group organize a separate church entity. A meeting was held of those attending the third service, the concept was thoroughly debated again, and then a steering committee of 22 members was selected to guide the organizational process. With the adoption of By-Laws and the election of officers on January 23, 1969, the Northwest Unitarian Church was officially born. A charter from the State was legally obtained. The congregation at that time consisted of 43 families.

The Department of Extension of the UU Association approved the request of the Northwest Church to participate in the Minister-on-Loan program. Thus, the Rev. William De Wolfe, then of San Antonio, now in St. Louis, was with us for six weeks from January to March of 1969. During this time we were stimulated to a rapid period of organizational development. This brief period of activity, probably because of the known time limits, resulted in more membership involvement and therefore a closer feeling of community than perhaps at any other time, before or since. Committees, already organized, formulated specific goals and methods to accomplish their needs. The dinners-for-8 idea was begun. The concept of sisterhood, rather than childhood as our relationship to the Cliff Valley church was urged. Bill De Wolfe proved an inspirational leader and counselor and departed with many new friends and warm feelings.

A pulpit committee was formed that spring, the spring of ’69, and late that summer, John Burciaga, then the minister of the Bethlehem, Pa. church was called by the congregation as our minister. During John’s three years with us, many things have happened. Our membership doubled from its early 1969 size. New programs have included an Adult Education Committee) a Public Issues Committee, a Youth-Adult Advisory Committee, a very active Drama Group and others. We are acquiring a beautiful piece of land that will develop into a permanent home, allowing a more extensive development of programs and social exchanges.

Unfortunately, two months ago, John resigned. I use the word unfortunately with specific intent because I will miss his sermons, his convivial presence amongst us, and his frequent stimulation to my thinking. I hope he will visit us frequently.

The Northwest Unitarian Church has now entered a period of challenge, and, in my view, a time of renewal. The internal resources that exist within the membership of this Church represent a fantastic depth of abilities and interests which we can draw on to provide a religious community of infinite reward to each of us. Yes, we are changed since 1969. We are stronger and wiser than we were then. And we have an existing framework offering an opportunity for each to participate in this cultivation of a church, with all that name implies.

In the absence of a prescribed form of church worship, required creedal recitations, and within a congregation that tends to reject many of the mystical concepts of a faith oriented denomination, I hear one frequent question from the casual or infrequent visitor. In what way does this movement differ from a debating society, a service club, or a town meeting?

It differs because it is a church. The prime purpose of the service club or debating society is the influencing of others – the persuasion – the effort to lead others to one’s own point of view. The goal of a church is, and should be, to encourage each to develop and nurture his own purpose and spirit… The supportive congregation is that which encourages difference rather than requiring conformity.  The freedom that one feels to express his own deepest convictions within a community of fellows should be the essence of church.

And yet the church community is a place for learning – it is most definitely a forum for new ideas, freely expressed and freely accepted with the worth and dignity that the product of any thinking brain deserves. But for each person, this new idea must be measured against his own. It may be accepted, it may be rejected outright, or it may be “filed for information”.  But it may not be ignored.

Why does the religious liberal seek a community, a congregation, a church? If the prime goal is to develop one’s own faith, one’s own philosophy, can this not be done at home, at work, on social occasions. Why go to all the difficulty, and, at times, pain to become a member of an organization in order to work out one’s own concepts of religion.

For me, there are two reasons. The first – I’m one of that unfortunate majority who must compartmentalize my time. If I didn’t have a specific time for church affairs, I doubt if the quietly contemplative time so necessary for the honing of reason would occur. The second – I suspect that each of us requires the crucible of challenge that comes with new ideas in order to continuously redefine our own outlook. Therefore, I have not only the privilege of participating in this milieu, but the responsibility to help preserve it. And while I would be the last to soft pedal the need for financial and other means of support – in this instance, I have in mind other responsibilities.

You see, the Unitarian Universalist movement generally, and this church specifically, is a vast gathering of “come-outers”. Aside from my wife, Peggy Beard, and Ray Levine, I doubt that there are more than two or three people in this room that were born into a Unitarian or Universalist family. Let’s see a show of hands. We’ve come here initially from a framework of religious doubt – for some a very painful transition was necessary – for others, the finding of this congregation came as a clear relief from the necessity of dogmatic recitation never firmly felt in the first place. At any rate, the religious basis that most of us bring to the Unitarian process, is one of doubt. The transition into a framework of positive conviction of religious principles can be difficult. To protect and encourage this transition both for myself and my fellow parishioners is the greatest responsibility I bring to my church. A church is a place that helps individuals articulate their subjective beliefs.

I’ve heard other definitions of a church. One that I’ve always enjoyed as it applies specifically to a Unitarian church was coined by a minister when confronted with one of those signs frequently seen along Southern roadsides – you know the ones that say something like “Come to the Lakeside Baptist Church – the Church with the Answers”. My minister friend remarked, “Now I know what the Unitarian church is – it’s the Church with the Questions”.

What is a religion? First of all, it is simple – it is elemental – it is personal. It involves a one-to-one relationship – the relationship of Man to man, of man to himself, of many to his conscience, of man to universal relationships (the latter, t0 me, means man to God). Secondly, it is not limited to worship. That occurs, for me at least, only on Sunday morning – it is an integral part of religion – but only a part.

Many of us religious liberals have not given sufficient thought to what we believe. We recite no dogma. We have no finished faith, once revealed and now neatly packaged. We find it easier to define what we are not than what we are. Are we in danger then of going to the opposite extreme – of being hopelessly vague about what we do believe? Perhaps we should realize that our need is not to find something to believe – but rather to discover what our lives indicate we believe right now. This is the place to start. Ralph Waldo Emerson, himself a great Unitarian, said, “The gods we worship write their names on our faces.”

What did I enjoy most in the day just past? How did I spend my time?

How did I wish I might have spent it? How did I feel about myself at the end of the day? Do I like the kind of person I am? What do I worry about? What am I afraid of? What do I hope for? Whose life did my life touch during this day? Was it for better or worse? How do I feel about my parents, my spouse, my children, my neighbors, my city? Am I aware of the natural universe? Do the arts influence me?

To bring my attitudes, my convictions, my practices out into the open and look at them systematically is to find out what I actually believe. My beliefs then become my religion – the expression of my beliefs in my daily intercourse with myself, my fellow man, and that aspect of my life that I call God.

This kind of religion is neither immature nor irrelevant. Rather it humanizes and it educates. It does not generate smugness. As it looks to the future it does not foster the illusion that utopia can be achieved without human effort. A mature religion looks at the world with open eyes. It does not believe in short cuts to a better tomorrow. It prepares us for the possibility of failure while, by its very nature, it generates the type of act that is necessary for success.

So what is my hope for us – for the Northwest Unitarian Church?  I hope that each of us looks upon this community, this congregation, as a place to develop a personal religion. A religion developed within the framework of understanding of the differences which make us human and the commonness that makes us humane. A religion that is bolstered by our common search to give us strength in our diverse and varied daily living.

In the course of reading in preparation of these comments, I came on two old familiar passages which, for me, sum up the essence of my personal Unitarianism.

Micah 6: 6-8

Invictus, William Henley               pg 372

 

Archivist Note: Add Micah 6: 6 – 8

Micah 6:6-8 New International Version (NIV)

6 With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?

7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams with ten thousand rivers of olive oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

8 He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.  And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly[a] with your God.

 

Unitarian Congregations in Ante-Bellum Georgia by George Gibson

1 June 1970 at 19:08

COLONIES of commercial men in the seaport cities of the ante-bellum South were not unlike enclaves on a foreign shore. The colonists’ birth, education, tastes, and sometimes even their religion and politics were strongly bound to New England. For practical reasons they sometimes sublimated their heritage. Often they went native and adopted with fierce pride the habits and customs of their new homes. Occasionally their alien points of view found a few adherents in port cities, and New Englanders and Southerners struggled to gain respectability for their mutual philosophy.

The latter is the case of Unitarianism in the ante-bellum South. New Englanders found in Richmond, New Orleans, and Charles­ton a native brand of liberal, unorthodox religion in the first quarter of the nineteenth century which they imbued with Unitarianism and which they attempted to foster and nurture in Powhatan (Virginia), Mobile, Augusta, and Savannah in the second quarter of the century.

The experiences of Unitarians in Georgia are typical of those of Unitarians in the Southern ports engaged in the coast wide trade before the Civil War. A congregation with a few native members of the local power structure and a minister with a Harvard education and literary ability could win toleration, even acceptability, and hold its own against the sharp criticisms of the orthodox. A congregation without leaders of local society and without a settled minister quickly eroded and invited bitter attacks from the orthodox who branded Unitarians with heresy and abolition.

The Unitarian congregations in Augusta and Savannah ex­perienced the extremes of acceptability and utter rejection and were typical of Unitarian congregations in the ante-bellum South. The experience of these congregations, therefore, may offer useful insights not only to the history of Georgia but also to the history of ideas in the New England enclaves on the coast of the Old South.

Continue reading paper at Georgia Historical Quarterly JSTOR.

Unitarian Congregations in Ante-Bellum Georgia
George H. Gibson
The Georgia Historical Quarterly
Vol. 54, No. 2 (Summer, 1970), pp. 147-168
Published by: Georgia Historical Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40579063
Page Count: 22

 

 

 

Unitarians and Universalists of the Southeastern United States During the 19th Century by Earl Wallace Cory 1970

1 January 1970 at 21:02

Unitarians and Universalists of the Southeastern United States During the 19th Century

Earl Wallace Cory

B.A. Degree from Linfield College, 1957
M.A. Degree from the University of Georgia, 1961

A Dissertation Submitted to Graduate Faculty of the University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Athens Georgia 1970

Acknowledgments

I wish to express my gratitude to all those who have helped me in my search for information on my topic. I am particularly indebted to the staffs of the Libraries of the University of Alabama, Columbia Theological Seminary, Duke University, the University of Iowa, Meadville Seminary of the University of Chicago, the University of North Carolina, the University of South Carolina, Starr King School of Theology, Tufts University, Boston Public Library, and the Library of Congress. Particular gratitude is expressed to Mrs. J. C. Bowers of Canon, Georgia for the material she supplied and to Dr. Richard H. Shyrock of the American Philosophical Society Library in Philadelphia for his discussing with me the role of Richard Arnold. Particular thanks is extended to the staff of the University of Georgia Library and to Mrs. Susan B. Tate and Mr. John Bonner who have taken so much time and shown so much interest, in searching out materials. I wish to express my heartfelt gratitude to the faculty of the History Department at the University of Georgia and to Professor Horace Montgomery under whom I have written this dissertation. His patience, understanding, and encouragement will always be remembered.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter

Chapter I. Early Churches

Chapter II. Personalities

Chapter III. Unitarians and Universalist Beliefs

Chapter IV. Church Activities

Chapter V. Confronting Society

Chapter VI. Concluding Observations

Bibliography

Chapter I. Early Churches

The widespread dominance of conservative religion in the life of the southeastern United States might tempt one to assume that liberalism never emerged. Those familiar with the history of the South recognize that during the age of Jefferson there did exist a vital liberal religious voice in the South. Recognizing that denominational labelings do not tell the entire story, we could expect to find examples of liberal theology even among those technically tied to the more conservative denominations. But in order to tell at least part of the story of liberal religion in the Southeast, it is necessary to look at the Unitarians and the Universalists of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida during the nineteenth century.

These two denominations did not effect a merger until 1960. During the nineteenth century they were two distinct entities but they are treated together in this survey because they both manifest liberal theology. Both groups had reacted against the orthodox creeds of traditional Christianity. Unitarians distinctive belief was a rejection of the doctrine of the Trinity while the Universalists stressed that all mankind would eventually achieve salvation and eternal bliss. Both denominations emphasized God’s mercy rather than His wrath and shared a conviction that man’s nature was not totally corrupt as orthodoxy taught. Both advocated the application of <start page 2> reason to the interpretation of the Bible. As the century advanced many Unitarians embraced the Universalist doctrine of ultimate salvation for all mankind and many Universalists followed the Unitarian view that Jesus was not God but reflected the nature of God. In this chapter a survey will be made of the communities and the areas where Unitarians and Universalists established churches during this period.

The oldest Unitarian church in the South has an interesting history. Many assume that Unitarianism in the South was the direct result of New England influences or immigration from that area. The establishing of Unitarianism in Charleston, South Carolina has parallels with the conversion of New England Congregational churches to Unitarian. The Charleston church that gave birth to the liberal doctrine had been known as Presbyterian, Congregationalist, Independent. Sometimes all these titles were used. This church was located on Meeting Street. In 1734 the strict Presbyterians withdrew, although those who were left continued to call ministers from both Congregational and Presbyterian denominations. [1] One of the ministers of this church was William Tennent, who was active with William Henry Drayton in attempts to arouse Loyalists against Great Britain in the Revolutionary Period. [2] In 1777 Tennent was a leader of the dissenters in their effort to disestablish the Church of England in South Carolina; [3] (start page 3) Tennent was the moving force in the erection of a second church building on Archdale Street and the time of its dedication is sometimes used as the founding date of what later became the Unitarian church. This building was nearly completed before the Revolution, but after the war the congregation used the older Meeting Street edifice until the Archdale building was dedicated in October, 1787.

The two buildings reflected a unique church arrangement. There was one corporate institution, with two equal and undivided parts, with two ministers who each delivered his sermon twice, once on Sunday morning in one building and second in the afternoon in the other. Neither pastor could consider the one edifice exclusively his own pulpit. This arrangement lasted about thirty years and then in 1814 and 1815 both churches got new pastors. One of these, Anthony Forster, underwent a period of theological turmoil. His wife was a daughter of Joseph Gales, Unitarian newspaper publisher of Raleigh, North Carolina and in order to convert his father-in-law from his heretical views, Forster commenced reading Unitarian books to disprove them. Instead his own views changed and he announced to his congregation that he could not sign the creeds and articles of the church he was called to pastor. These were based mainly on the Westminster Confession. Controversy in the joint congregation resulted. Forster resigned, but those who favored his stand were interested in retaining his services. A business session led to the breakup of the <start page 4> twin congregation, the Calvinists taking the Circular Church and the Unitarians the Archdale Church. [4] The Circular Church had been built in 1806 to replace the smaller Hooting House on Meeting Street. [5]

This split was finalized in 1817, and the Archdale group became the Second Independent or Congregational Church of Charleston. It assumed $10,000 of the mutual debt of the two congregations, agreed to pay $500 for a small building and some ground south of the Arch, dale Church, and relinquished claim to the original endowments. [6]

In 1819 Reverend Samuel Gilman came to the church from Massachusetts as an avowed Unitarian, [7] but it was not until 1839 that the church officially changed its title to “The Unitarian Church in Charleston”. [8]

Charleston had the only organized Unitarian church in South Carolina during the nineteenth century, although in 1894 a Unitarian group did hold regular meetings each Sunday in Greenville. The local opera house in Greenville was also used for some public Unitarian services conducted by Reverend George Chaney of Atlanta, Georgia. [9]

In 1826 Reverend Gilman of Charleston preached in Augusta, Georgia. A Unitarian church building for Augusta was dedicated on <start page 5> December 27, 1827. Stephen C. Bulfinch served as Augusta pastor from about 1830 until 1838 when he became the Unitarian minister in Washington, D.C. [10] Richard Arnold wrote in 1845 of the “strangulation” of the Unitarian work in Augusta. [11] J. Allen Penniman was listed in 1851 as serving both Augusta and Savannah. [12] The Unitarian yearbooks continued to list Augusta until 1856 but without a minister. [13]

In 1831 the Savannah, Georgia, Unitarian Society petitioned the city council for a lot to build a church. [14] During 1833 and 1834 religious services were held at the hall of the Unitarian Society, Court House Square, Savannah. These services were generally held both mornings and evenings and were conducted by Reverend Ezekiel Lysander Bascom and Reverend Bulfinch of Augusta. [15] <start page 6>

In 1833 the subscribers to a fund to build a church for the Unitarian Society held several meetings at the society’s hall in Court House Square, Savannah. [16] In February, 1833, the Unitarians petitioned the city council for permission to sell or exchange the lots that had been granted to the society. The petition was referred to a committee that was composed of four aldermen including Richard Arnold, a leading Unitarian. The petition was reported favorably and an ordinance was acted upon to allow the trustees of the Savannah Unitarian Association to sell the lots, provided that the funds be used to buy a lot or lots to be used for church construction. [17] May 7, 1833 was the day set for the auction of “Lots, No. 36 and 37, Brown Ward, containing each 60 feet square, bounded North by McDonough street, East by McIntosh st., South by Percy street & West by Chippewa square, the same being the Lots lately granted by the Hon. the City Council to the Unitarian Society.” [18]

The Unitarians advertised in May for bids to build a church seventy-two by forty-seven feet, requesting separate bids for brick and wood buildings. [19] <start page 7>

An editorial in the Savannah Georgian praised the new edifice which was in Ionic design. The acoustics were singled out for favorable comment. [20] The treasurer of the Savannah Unitarian Society invited the public and clergymen of all denominations to the dedication. The dedication of the new edifice was held on December 21, 1834 with Reverend Bascom, who had become the regular Savannah minister in October. [21]

In 1846 Dexter Clapp was the Savannah minister. Reverend Penniman succeeded him in 1848. [22] In 1851 Penniman served Augusta as well as Savannah. After the Civil War the church in Savannah was not listed in the national register, but from 1868 to 1873 Charles Andrews Farley, a Unitarian minister ordained in 1837, was living in that city and preached occasionally. [23] <start page 8>

In early 1882 steps were taken to organize a Unitarian church In Atlanta. A local survey had indicated that there were only three Unitarian families and one man whose parents had had Unitarian ties. The Reverend George L. Chaney was the organizing force. The first service was held in the old Kimball House with Mrs. W. S. Morrill and Miss E. E. Collidge the only persons attending. The second service was held at a house on Ivy Street near Peachtree. Mr. and Mrs. J. Russell Hodge and their young sister attended this second meeting and swelled the attendance to five.

The first public service was held in the Senate Chamber of the old State House. Seventy persons attended, and about a dozen of these eventually joined the church. Governor Alfred H. Colquitt permitted the use of that site for two Sundays. Thereafter services were held at 4:00 P. M. on Sundays, for six months, upstairs in Concordia Hall. [24]

In the fall of 1882 Reverend Chaney returned to Atlanta, and during that winter services were held in the U. S. District Court Room. In the spring of 1883 the first Unitarian church in Atlanta was organized in an upper room of the old Kimball House. [25] Ten people were present. They signed the constitution and the new church was duly formed. The group bought property at the corner of North Forsyth and Church Street for $7,000. There was a private school house on the property and this was used for the Sunday service. A <start page 9> chapel was built on the land and was in use by 1884 and on April 23 of that year the edifice was dedicated debt free. [26] Thus during the century three Unitarian churches were established in the state of Georgia.

In Alabama, the first and only Unitarian church during the nineteenth century was established in Mobile. It may well have been inspired by a visit of James Freeman Clarke to that city in December, 1835. At that time Clarke was the minister of the Louisville, Kentucky Unitarian Church. [27] In 1837 the Mobile congregation was in its new building. [28] During the 1840’s the Mobile church was apparently conducted by lay leadership. In 1850-1851 Samuel Larnard was the pastor; he appears to have been the last regular minister at this church. [29] Its listing in the denominational register was dropped after 1856. [30] Though Mobile was without an organized church; Frederick G. Bromberg of that city was Vice-President of the Southern Conference of the Unitarians in 1891. [31]

After the Civil War Florida attracted numerous Unitarian ministers, who were usually without pastoral responsibilities associating them with a given congregation. The influence they exerted for the cause <start page 10> of denomination in the area in which they resided cannot be determined. Records show that there were five Unitarian ministers living in Florida during this period, [32] including Jonathan Christopher Gibson. He was ordained in 1870 and was in Mt. Pleasant, Florida in 1891. [33] In 1894 he was located at Edwards, Florida preaching and holding meetings at Pine Grove, Rock Bluff, Alligator, Bristol, and Mt. Pleasant in the western section of Florida. [34] Gibson observed in 1894: “But few are enrolling their names yet the general interest is deepening.“ [35] In the same year he reported to the Southern Unitarian Conference meeting in Atlanta that he preached nearly every Sunday and on other days as well. He traveled on <start page 11> horseback, by buggy, on foot, and sometimes by steamboat and railroad and generally ranged from Decatur County, Georgia to Apalachicola and Carrabelle on the Gulf Coast. [36]

In 1895 Gibson reported two Unitarian societies in his district, one with nineteen members and one with thirty-five. He also referred to a ministerial recruit who would probably attend the denomination’s Meadville Theological Seminary at Meadville, Pennsylvania. [37] In 1898 the report from Gibson disclosed meetings held at Bristol, Rock Bluff, Faceville, Blue Springs, and Quincy. [38] Ministers such as Gibson introduced the Unitarian faith in Florida; the establishing of churches in that state would come later.

Unlike Unitarians, Universalists, with few exceptions, located their churches in the rural areas in the Southeast. While the denomination never became firmly entrenched in Charleston, South Carolina, the First Universalist Society of that city did draft a constitution rural areas in 1836. [39] The site of the first Universalist Church in Charleston was at the corner of Anson and Laurens streets. [40] Very little information <start page 12> on this congregation has been found. Reference was made in 1848 of the move to Charleston of Reverend. I. D. Williamson; neither his activities nor those of the church have been determined and by 1858 the church edifice had been sold. [41]

Most of the Universalist churches in South Carolina were clustered in the Piedmont area. The earliest Universalists in this region appear to have emerged from the Dunkers, a German pietistic sect. This sect spread the doctrinal viewpoints, later held by the Universalists, in rural South Carolina. [42] Andrew Feaster, Sr., a Swiss immigrant form the Canton of Berne who had settled in Pennsylvania, moved to South Carolina during the latter part of the eighteenth century. [43] The Feasters were Dunkers who established a community that espoused Universalist views. The Feasterville Church seems to have been the oldest Universalist church in South Carolina. [44] <start page 13> It was located in Fairfield County, north of Columbia. Reverend Daniel B. Clayton helped to reorganize the Feasterville Church in 1871. [45] Two other early Universalist churches of the Piedmont were located in Fredonia and Huntsville. The 1842 South Carolina State Convention was held at the former church, which was located seven miles northwest of Newberry. The 1843 Convention was held at the Huntsville Church in Laurens County. This church was jointly owned by the Universalists and the Baptists. [46]

Another of the early Universalist churches, the Partlow Church near New Market in Abbeville County, had its origin about 1844 amidst unusual circumstances. When a wealthy man named Partlow died, his sons wanted the funeral service to be conducted by a Universalist minister that having been their father’s wish. One son was a Baptist and believed he could get permission to use that denomination’s church for the funeral. When his request was denied, the sons built their own church to fulfill their father’s request. Meanwhile the deceased was interred, and about four weeks later Universalist services were held in the new church. (In rural areas sometimes a few weeks, or even months, would intervene between interment and the funeral service.) The new church hosted the 1845 South Carolina Universalist State Convention. [47] In February, 1845 The <start page 14> Universalist Miscellany reported that a new Universalist meeting house had recently been dedicated in Abbeville District (County), South Carolina. [48] The meetinghouse referred to was doubtless the Partlow Church.

Throughout 1845 Reverend Clayton preached one Sunday a month at Partlow’s Church, one Sunday at Feasterville Church, one Sunday at Huntsville Church, and on the other Sundays of the month he alternated between the Fredonia and the Hartford churches. The Hartford Church was about seven miles southeast of Newberry. Thus, in 1845 the Universalists of South Carolina had four churches that were owned by their denomination and one whose ownership they shared with Baptists. [49]

That Universalist churches in South Carolina were ephemeral is suggested by the official report of 1873. It listed but two churches. One of them was at Feasterville where preaching was irregular; and the other was at Columbia. It was credited with twenty-two members. [50] The Columbia church had been organized in 1872. [51] In 1887 two churches were organized to the southwest of Newberry, one at Ninety Six and the other at Chapel’s with the <start page 15> former lasting only a short time and the latter for about a decade. [52]

In January, 1867, Universalist preaching took place in an abandoned cotton gin factory in a community known as Chapman’s Store in Edgefield County, South Carolina. A church was organized there with nineteen members, and they built a meeting house in 1888. [53] This congregation was known as Bethel Church. In November, 1888 Reverend E. C. L. Browne of the Charleston Unitarian Church was invited to participate in a four day meeting at Bethel Church. [54] It was a rarity for a Unitarian to participate in a Universalist gathering.

The Universalist Register for 1899 listed four Universalist churches in South Carolina, representing fifty-two families, with 153 members, and two church buildings with a combined value of $2,650. These four churches were at Columbia with twenty members, Feasterville with fifty-one members, Irving with seventy members, and Mountville with twelve members. C. C. Carson was listed as the pastor for all four churches of the state. [55] The Mountville congregation, organized <start page 16> in 1893, had dedicated an $800 wooden church in 1897. [56] Thus during the nineteenth century South Carolina had twelve Universalist Churches, eleven of them in the Piedmont to north and northwest of Columbia.

The Universalist churches of Georgia were spread along a path that crossed the state from Canon in the northeast to Americus in the southwest. At the centennial of organized Universalism in Georgia in 1938, Reverend Nellie Mann Opdale observed that extant state records dated from 1906. She called attention to the probability of itinerant preaching in the early period of the Universalist Church’s existence in Georgia. Though a church was organized in Macon in 1838, little is known about it. [57] At a place called Gordon, near Macon, there was a Universalist church by the end of the century.[58]

The Mulberry Church, later called the Rockwell Church, at Winder, was probably the first Universalist church in Georgia. Founded in 1838, it was reorganized a few years after the Civil War and continued as an active church throughout the century. [59] To the <start page 17> southeast of Winder, at Gratis, a parish with thirteen families was listed in 1899 as Consolation Church, but the parish was dormant at that time. [60]

The area near Americus in southwest Georgia had four Universalist churches. In 1846 William Coleman petitioned for the Georgia Universalist Convention to be held near Cuthbert, even though there was no church there. He felt that this would help the cause in southwestern Georgia. On his own land, and almost entirely at his own expense, Coleman built a frame church that cost about $500. The 1850 Georgia State Convention of Universalists was held in that church, which was located about six miles from Cuthbert, between that community and Lumpkin. [61] The 1858 Georgia State Convention was also held in southwestern Georgia, at the Plains of Dura Church in Sumter County. [62] In 1871 a church was established in Dooly County, apparently at Gum Creek where the records disclose regular preaching on the second Sunday of the month. [63] The fourth church in this area is listed in the denominational register in 1873 at Ellaville in Schley County. [64] <start page 18>

To the southwest of Atlanta there were five Universalist churches, Meriwether and Coweta counties having two each and Carroll County the other. One of the first congregations organized after the Civil War was the Universalist Alford Chapel in Meriwether County. It was formed in 1867. Two years later the second Universalist church in the area was organized. [65] It was named Old Harmony and was located between Senoia and Turin in Coweta County. [66] In 1870 a Universalist church was established at Woodbury, Meriwether County. Its wooden meetinghouse, valued at $300, was erected in 1860 and may have been purchased from another denomination. The other Universalist church of Coweta County was the Senoia Church which in 1873 shared a minister with the Old Harmony Church. [67] On March 20, 1897 the latter congregation moved into a new $1,800 wooden edifice. [68] The church in Carroll County was organized in 1881, no exact location being reported. [69]

Under the leadership of Reverend W. C. Bowman the Universalists unsuccessfully attempted to organize a church in Atlanta in 1879-1880. [70] <start page 19>

It was not until 1895 that a Universalist church was organized in Atlanta. Its twelve members held their first meeting at the Fulton County Court House. Reverend Quillen H. Shinn was an important figure in this achievement. [71] Services were conducted at various places in the city until 1900, when a church was built at 16 East Harris Street. [72]

Actually, Universalists were more numerous in the environs of Atlanta than in the city itself. In August, 1881, a two-day meeting of Universalists was held at the Pleasant Valley Church, which was about twenty-five miles from Atlanta. [73] This church had been organized in 1874. [74] New Hope Church, in Cobb County just north of Atlanta, had part-time services in 1899. [75] There were two other Universalist churches east of Atlanta. One was established at Ebenezer in Morgan County in 1872. [76] The other was the New Harmony Church at Windsor, <start page 20> built in 1837 at a cost of $500. [77] This congregation hosted the Georgia Universalist Convention that created the post of State Superintendent or State Missionary, a post to which Reverend Thomas Chapman was appointed. [78]

One of the strongest of the Universalist churches of Georgia was the Canon Church in the northeastern section of the state. In 1879 a new church was organized at West Bowersville (the name for Canon at that time) called the Church of Christ of West Bowersville. It was formed by members of the Poplar Springs and Old Canon churches that were known as Reform Baptist churches. Their differences with the main body of Missionary Baptists led them to form their own group. In 1886 this Baptist congregation installed Reverend Marion Cheek as minister. Dr. Q. H. Shinn, the Universalist missionary for the southern states, visited this church in 1888, and when the congregation heard the Universalist views they decided that the Church of Christ at Canon should become the Canon Universalist Church. [79] There were two other Universalist churches near Canon. To the southwest of Canon a church was organized in 1871 at Centre Hill. [80] To the south of Canon, the <start page 21> Universalists of Comer dedicated a $1,000 wooden church in September, 1898. [81]

Three Universalist churches were located in north central Georgia. The Salem Church in Cherokee County was established in the 1850’s. [82] The Walesca Church, in the same county, dedicated a $1,000 wooden church September 4, 1897. [83] Immediately to the northeast of Cherokee County, Universalists of Friendship, in Dawson County, erected a wooden meetinghouse in 1871. [84]

People in the extreme northwest corner of Georgia were not to be without Universalism. In 1860 a Universalist church in Walker County drafted a constitution and by-laws. [85] A Universalist church was listed in Floyd County from 1878 until 1883 although the exact location is unknown. [86]

There were also two Universalist churches in the extreme southern part of Georgia. A meeting house was built in 1858 in Lowndes County. [87] <start page 22>

In 1873 the denominational register listed a parish at Cairo in Thomas County. [88] Thus a total of twenty-eight Universalist churches existed in Georgia between 1838 and the end of the century. The Universalist Register for 1899 listed a total of eighteen churches in the state with an aggregate membership of 581 distributed among 293 families. There were twelve church edifices, and the total value of all property was estimated at $8,750 [89]

Much of the Universalist activity in Alabama was centered around two communities northwest of Columbus, Georgia. In 1846 a Universalist church was organized in Camp Hill, Alabama which was to become the largest Universalist church in the South. Another church was erected at Notasulga during the spring and summer of 1850. [90]

The nomadic quality of much of the Universalist preaching in the South can lead one to assume that a church was organized in a community when in actuality there were only occasional visits by a minister. Many times such services were held in homes or public buildings such as county courthouses. [91] The Universalist Herald of 1855 listed an appointment for preaching by a Reverend H. Lake of Gainesville, Alabama in Livingston on Wednesday evening June 6. Preaching by Lake was also scheduled in Rock Springs on the first <start page 23> Sunday in June, in Pineville on the second Sunday, and in McKinley on the third Sunday. [92] Gainesville end Livingston, both in Sumter County, were northwest of Montgomery near the Mississippi state line. Rock Springs, in Chambers County, was four miles north of Fredonia west of LaGrange, Georgia. Pineville, in Monroe County, was between Selma and the Mississippi state line. Except for Pineville, which was in the southern section of the state, these communities form a path across the central portion of the state.

In the northern parts of the state there were two Universalist churches near Huntsville. One of them was at Gunter[s]ville, in Marshall County. It was organized in 1870. The following year a church was established at Barren Ridge, in Madison County. [93]

Eight Universalist churches were located in the southern section of Alabama. Three of these churches erected new buildings in 1860. They were located at Andalusia, in Covington County; at Garland, in Butler County; and at Lewis Station, in Conecuh County. Ten years later churches were established at Abbeville, in Henry County and at Pollard, in Escambia County. [94] There was a church at Troy, in Pike County that had monthly services in 1875. [95] A $5,000 brick <start page 24> church was dedicated at Brewton on January 31, 1897. [96] The eighth church in this part of the state was at Grove Hill, in Clarke County and northeast of Brewton. [97]

Universalist sources in Alabama indicated that in 1873 their denomination had nine churches with 224 members; five meeting houses were built, or in the process of being built. They were estimated to be worth $3,500. These sources also listed ten union meeting houses, but failed to give their locations. Seven resident ministers were living in the state. [98] In 1875 other sources indicated that Alabama had six Universalist churches with two edifices and property valued at $1,400. [99] At the end of the century denominational records showed Alabama had nine Universalist churches with 412 members; there were six meeting houses, and all property was valued at $8,700. [100] <start [age 25>

In Florida Universalist activity was most conspicuous in the western part of the state. What appears to have been the earliest Universalist church in Florida was located in Walton County near McDade’s Pond. This church was organized in 1859, and in 1873 it boasted forty-one members. [101] In 1898 the Universalists built a wooden church at Pensacola, in Escambia County. The next year, the congregation at DeFuniak Springs, in Walton County, built a church and held services on a part-time basis. In 1899 the churches at Cottage Hill and Laurel Hill had monthly services, while the groups at Bluff Springs and Cantonment were considered missions that were not financially independent. [102] Cottage Hill and Cantonment were in Escambia County, north of Pensacola and west of Milton. Bluff Springs, also in Escambia County, and Laurel Hill, in Okaloosa County, were both near the Alabama state line.

Records list four communities in other areas of Florida with Universalist activity. Three of these were located in eastern <start page 26> Florida and one on the west coast of Florida near Tampa. In 1873 there was a Universalist Sunday school at Enterprise in Volusia County and at Sandy Point, in the same county, a building was used for occasional preaching as well as for holding a Sunday school. [103] These locations were southwest of Daytona Beach. In 1887 a church was organized at De Land. [104] The year before the Universalists built a wooden church at Tarpon Springs near Tampa, but in 1899 this church was active only during the winter. [105]

The Universalists had numerous retired ministers living in Florida. Among them was Russell P. Ambler, who had been ordained in 1848, and in 1899 was living in De Funiak Springs. Another was William Cathcart Brooks, formerly Universalist State Missionary of Indiana. He had been ordained in 1857, engaged in missionary work in Florida during the 1880’s, and in 1899 was living in Sorrento in central Florida. [106]

The Universalist Register for 1899 noted that there were seven churches in Florida with ninety-seven members and property valued at $6,300. Only Pensacola and Tarpon Springs had church buildings owned by the congregation. [107] <start page 27>

During the nineteenth century the Unitarians were largely confined to a few urban areas in Georgia and South Carolina and the Universalists clustered in the Piedmont areas of Georgia and South Carolina, the southern and central areas of Alabama, and western Florida. This clustering appears to have been related only to individual preference. There do not seem to be any particular factors that made one rural area welcome liberal groups more than other areas. Where there were liberals that had established good reputations tolerance would be created for others bearing the same label. This tolerance may have attracted some to settle in that area.

Another supposition might be made that some rural areas had more Universalist activity because they were more convenient for itinerant preachers. This convenience would not necessarily relate only to road conditions and railroad access. The location of homes where the traveling minister would be welcomed could establish a certain pattern of Universalist activity. The judgment of these itinerant ministers as to what areas would be most fruitful may have been based upon a solid appraisal of the strength of the orthodox, statistics of church memberships, and other such information but probably was based more on personal choice. Since most of these preachers also engaged in secular business pursuits, their economic prospects would weigh heavily. If a teaching position was available in a given community this could be the deciding factor for a preacher who sought to augment his income in the field of teaching.

The rural clustering was also connected with the fact that Universalist families often had children marry into other Universalist families and settle in the same neighborhood. One contingency faced by both <start page 28> Unitarian and Universalist denominations was the attrition rate that resulted from marriages of members to individuals of orthodox denominations. While such sects as the Amish have prohibited marriages outside their group, southeastern liberals apparently never considered such proscription. Those who chose mates of orthodox affiliations were often lost to the liberal churches, even though they might privately continue to espouse liberal theology.

Being strictly congregational in church polity the Unitarians and Universalists did not have master plans drafted by an ecclesiastical hierarchy that assigned ministers and picked areas for the establishing of churches. This independence of the local congregation also frustrates the historian. Minority groups and those without strong ecclesiastical chains of command could be expected to lack reports and records that would be more readily available within the more highly organized denominations.

The individualism of both Unitarians and Universalist denominations necessitates looking at many individuals rather than official pronouncements of a few leaders. In the next chapter a closer look will be taken of some of the personalities who made up these early liberal churches in these four southeastern states. <start page 29>

 

Chapter II. Personalities

In South Carolina prominent Unitarians were identified with the city of Charleston. Reverend Anthony Forster was a native of Brunswick County, North Carolina, who had graduated from the University of North Carolina. While serving in the army he was stationed in Georgia. His army service lasted from March, 1804 until October, 1806 and shortly thereafter he practiced law in Milledgeville. Forster supplied various Presbyterian churches before he became the pastor whose theological alteration led to the split within the Charleston congregation. He died at Raleigh, North Carolina, on January 18, 1820, at the age of thirty-five. [1]

Forster’s successor was Samuel Gilman who was serving as a tutor at Harvard when called to Charleston. Gilman was born at Gloucester, Massachusetts, February 16, 1791. His duties in Charleston commenced on December 1, 1819. [2] In 1836 Gilman wrote Fair Harvard for the bicentennial of his Alma Mater. During the nullification crisis he had written Hail Our Country’s Natal Morn. He received a Doctor of <start page 30> Sacred Theology degree from Harvard in 1837. [3] Gilman was a full-time minister, except for a time during the 1840’s when he worked as a teacher to earn funds to buy a house. He was able to cease teaching when friends gave him a thousand dollars to use for the purchase of a home. [4] Reverend Gilman died on February 9, 1858, at Kingston, Massachusetts. [5] His funeral in Charleston was attended by Roman Catholic priests, Jewish rabbis, Episcopal priests, and Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian ministers. [6]

Serving as a junior pastor under Gilman at Charleston was Charles Manson Taggart. Born in Montreal, Canada, October 31, 1821, he died in Charleston October 22, 1854 at the age of thirty-three. [7] On May 24, 1858 James R. McFarland was chosen to succeed Gilman. McFarland was born in Charleston, Virginia on December 17, 1828. He died at the age of thirty in Charleston, South Carolina on April 4, 1859. [8]

After the Civil War some members of the Charleston Church discussed the wisdom of calling English Unitarians to their pulpit. <start page 31> It was thought this might soothe sectional feelings. If ministers were sought from the stronghold of Unitarianism in New England the memory of abolitionism might be aroused. Thomas Hirst Smith was the first of two Englishmen who served in Charleston. Smith was born in Clifton Heights near Bradford, England in 1837 and graduated from the University of London. He came to Charleston in November, 1866 and served as Unitarian minister until February, 1868. [9] The second Englishman to serve Charleston Unitarians was James Boyd, ordained in 1867, who served as pastor in 1873. [10]

Between the pastorates of the two Englishmen a northerner, Rufus Putnam Cutler was pastor. He was ordained in 1846. [11] Cutler came to Charleston from Brooklyn, New York in December, 1866 and served as Charleston pastor for about four years. His health failed and he died in Brooklyn in 1877. [12] Three other ministers led the Charleston Unitarians during the balance of the century. Henry Fitch Jenkins, a graduate of Harvard University and Harvard Divinity School, who was ordained in 1867, served in Charleston from 1873 to 1875. [13] His successor was Edwin C. L. Browne, who was ordained in 1863. [14] Browne was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, April 22, 1835. He <start page 32> served as Charleston pastor from January, 1876 to August, 1889. Browne died in Pomona, California, January 30, 1892. [15] Henry A. Altman, who was ordained in 1878, served as the minister of the Unitarian Church of Charleston in the 1890’s. [16]

The Charleston Unitarians numbered among their ranks numerous active laymen. Alva Gage was for forty years a member of this church. He was born March 18, 1820 and died September 12, 1896.[17] Gage contributed the money to build the parish house adjoining the Charleston edifice and this structure was named in his honor.[18] Gage and his wife served as directors of the Southern Conference of Unitarian and Other Christian Churches.[19] Arthur B. Rose, a physician of Charleston, served as the first president of the Southern Conference. He officiated from 1884 until 1892. [20] Another active layman was the physician, Dr. James Moultrie, who was senior deacon at Charleston and president of the Charleston Unitarian Book and Tract Society. [21]

One of the noted Unitarians of Georgia was Richard D. Arnold. He was born in Savannah in 1808. His parents were northerners who had moved to the South. Arnold was educated by tutors in Savannah <start page 33> before attending a private academy at New Brunswick, New Jersey. He graduated from Princeton in 1826 and then received his M. D. at the University of Pennsylvania. Arnold returned to Savannah in 1832 and in addition to his medical practice published the Savannah Georgian. [22] He disposed of his interest in the newspaper in January 1835. Arnold turned the paper over to his partner William H. Bullock. [23] Arnold served as an alderman, president of the board of education, and mayor. His six terms as mayor included the period of the Civil War. He surrendered Savannah to General W. T. Sherman in 1864. [24] Arnold was the first secretary of the American Medical Association. This distinguished Georgian was honored in 1858 by dinners given in Washington, D. C. by Howell Cobb, Robert Toombs, and Alexander H. Stephens. [25]

The Atlanta Unitarians lost two of their most active members in 1894 and 1895. John Y. Dixon, a native of Newton-Ards, Ireland, was treasurer of the Unitarian Church of Atlanta for seven years. He was business manager of the Southern Unitarian, and was serving as president of the Southern Conference of Unitarian Churches when he died in 1894 at the age of forty-six. [26] Theodor Schumann, who was born in Wurtemburg in 1823 and studied chemistry at the University of <start page 34> Tubingen, came to New York in 1854 and moved to Atlanta in 1869 where he operated a drug store. He was a trustee of the Atlanta church at the time of his death in 1895. [27]

Unitarianism in Alabama did not entrench itself during the nineteenth century, but a prominent physician, Dr. Thomas D. Hall, spread the Unitarian doctrine. He lived in the Robinson Springs neighborhood ten miles north of Montgomery. Hall had read an advertisement on the Unitarian Post-office Mission, and he wrote for Unitarian literature. [28] His efforts illustrate the influence of individual Unitarians, even where churches of this denomination did not exist.

Much of the story of Universalism in South Carolina revolves around certain families. Mention has been made of the Feasters. Andrew Feaster, Sr. was one of the first Universalist ministers in South Carolina. He died on July 15, 1821 at the age of eighty-six. His wife was a native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; she died on October 10, 1833, aged ninety-five. [29]

The Coleman family lived in the same area as the Feasters and the two families intermarried. In 1871 Miss Jennie Coleman, a great-great-granddaughter of Andrew Feaster, Sr., joined the reactivated Feasterville Church. [30] John Coleman C. Feaster, a great-grandson of <start page 35>  Andrew Feaster, Sr., entered the Universalist ministry in 1859. [31]

The Feasters and Colemans of South Carolina helped to spread Universalism to other areas of the South. Capt. David R. Feaster, a great-grandson of Andrew Feaster, Sr., led a group of immigrants to Arkansas. An old Baptist edifice was located on their Arkansas property and during the 1880’s plans were made to use this for a Universalist church. [32] Descendants of the Colemans were influential in the life of the Universalist Church in Winston County, Mississippi. [33]

The Chapman family was active in Universalist circles. Giles Chapman was born in Virginia in 1748. The family moved to South Carolina where Giles became a saddler. He was ordained a Universalist preacher in 1782 and died in 1819. [34] John A. Chapman, a grandson of Giles Chapman, was a Universalist minister for a few years in the 1840’s and then ceased preaching and left the Universalist denomination. He became a Swedenborgian and operated a book and stationary business at Newberry Court House, South Carolina. [35] Thomas Chapman, a great-grandson of Giles Chapman, was ordained a Universalist minister by <start page 36> Reverend D. B. Clayton on February 10, 1889 and became the first state missionary for Georgia in 1893. [36] Reverend Elijah Linch, who lived in Newberry County, married a niece of Giles Chapman in the last decade of the eighteenth century. Linch commenced preaching Universalism in 1809. [37] He served both the Fredonia and Hartford churches in South Carolina. [38] Linch preached his last sermon in June 1842 at Fredonia Church and died August 10, 1842. [39] His funeral was held the day before the opening of the 1842 South Carolina State Universalist Convention and numerous Universalist ministers attended the funeral. [40]

The Teague family contributed to the Universalist cause in South Carolina. Dr. Abner G. Teague, the son of a physician, left the field of medicine at the close of the Civil War. He farmed and then entered the life insurance business about 1870. This Universalist died near Edgefield Court House, South Carolina, October 29, 1871 at the age of fifty-nine. [41] M. N. Teague of Mountville, South Carolina <start page 37> was president of South Carolina State Universalist Conference in 1898 and 1899. [42]

Allen Fuller was a Universalist minister who died at Dr. Abner Teague’s residence in February, 1864. He had come to South Carolina to recover his health. Fuller exerted a strong influence on Reverend Daniel Clayton, who considered Fuller an ideal Christian gentleman. [43]

Clayton, a tireless Universalist preacher, was born April 8, 1817. Reared a Baptist, he subscribed in 1837 to the Evangelical Magazine and Gospel Advocate. This was a national periodical, published in Utica, New York, that propagated the denominational tenets of Universalism. Thus at the age of twenty, Clayton was exposing himself to Universalist views. In the spring of 1838 Clayton went to teach school at Van Patton’s factory on the Enoree River and boarded with a Universalist family. Another young boarder was also a Universalist. In the summer of 1838 Reverend Fuller came to the factory to get his wool carded and preached the first Universalist sermon that Clayton heard. Clayton left the Baptist denomination and spent about two years of reading and informal study preparing for the Universalist ministry. <start page 38>

Late in the fall of 1841 he preached his first sermon. He spoke on several occasions in Baptist churches. He preached little for about three years while he was mainly engaged in secular teaching. Clayton was ordained a Universalist minister at the Partlow Church in the summer of 1845 in a service conducted by Allen Fuller and C. F. R. Shehane. [45]

In the summer of 1846 Clayton moved to Mississippi where he lived for seventeen years. While in Mississippi he edited a newspaper and engaged in preaching. During the Civil War he volunteered for a Holley Springs, Mississippi company called the Jeff Davis Rifles. This company became part of the 9th Mississippi Regiment, which arrived at Pensacola, Florida, April 8, 1861 on Clayton’s forty-fourth birthday. He suffered diarrhea for several months and when a young man agreed to be his substitute he returned home. The Claytons left Mississippi during the Civil War and returned to South Carolina. Daniel occupied himself with teaching and preaching. At the end of the war his only possessions were a gold watch, two domestic animals, and eighteen dollars in gold and silver. He lived near Feasterville for about four years and then early in 1868 moved to Columbia. Part of the time at Feasterville was spent in the operation of a store. Clayton moved from Columbia to Atlanta, Georgia in March, 1880 and engaged in newspaper work as well as preaching until early 1883 when he returned to Columbia. [46] In October, 1880 Clayton <start page 39> represented Georgia at the Universalist General Convention at Hudson, New York. He was the first southern delegate after the war. [47]

The Clayton family ran a boarding house in Columbia that augmented their meager income. Clayton kept two rather large suitcases always packed. He carried two heavy blankets so that he could make a pallet on a house floor. This habit was due to his insistence that he always sleep alone while on his preaching trips. Clayton also carried twenty-five or thirty feet of rope for emergencies. He was met a various railroad stations and he never knew when he might need to help repair a harness. [48] <start page 40>

As late as 1897 Clayton was still active as a minister. Although he lived in Columbia, South Carolina, Clayton visited several churches in North Carolina three or four times a year. [49]

The last national denominational convention that Clayton attended was held in 1899 in Boston. Lyman Ward had made arrangements to meet him at the railroad station in that city. Clayton arrived early and took a street-car to a suburb that he thought was Roxbury and went to a house that he thought was the home of an old friend. When Clayton found that he was mistaken the couple in the house insisted that he stay overnight because of the snowy weather. The next day Clayton arrived at the convention late but safe. Ward had been greatly concerned for his safety since he knew that Clayton carried considerable money on his person. This habit was due to Clayton’s belief that at his age he might die away from home and the money would provide for his body’s return to South Carolina. Reverend George L. Perin had mentioned the day before, in his welcoming address, that New Englanders were cold and inhospitable and had asked the delegates to overlook this. After Clayton’s experience Ward asked permission to relate the incident to show that Bostonians were indeed hospitable. A collection was taken at the convention for Clayton, and Ward surmised that it was the largest amount of church money that the elderly minister had ever seen at one time. [50]

Universalism in Georgia numbered among its adherents numerous interesting personalities. Several of the Georgia ministers had come <start page 41> to the Universalists from other denominations. Dr. Lewis F. W. Andrews was born in North Carolina in 1802. He came to Georgia about 1835. He had been a medical doctor in his earlier life but he turned to journalism and engaged in newspaper activities in Macon, Columbus, and Americus. [51] His father was a Presbyterian minister. [52] Andrews was ordained a Universalist minister in 1831 and thereafter divided his time between preaching and journalism. [53] He died on March 16, 1875. [54] James C. Kendrick spent about twelve years as a Baptist minister prior to his conversion to Universalism. This resident of Meriwether County, Georgia continued to be highly esteemed by his Baptist friends. [55] He served as a Universalist minister from the time of his ordination in 1844 until his retirement. [56] Kendrick died at the home of a daughter in Terrel County, Georgia in December, 1884. [57] W. C. Bowman served as a Methodist minister in western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee for about twelve years prior to becoming a Universalist. He came to Atlanta in 1879 and served as pastor and journalist. He was interested in Spiritualism and some Universalists <start page 42> questioned his views. He resigned as Atlanta pastor and retired from the ministry in 1881. [58]

The lack of economic remuneration affected many ministers during this period. In the area near Americus, Georgia there were two farmer-preachers. Micajah B. Pickett was ordained a Universalist minister in 1846. [59] He farmed and also preached at the Plains of Dura Church.                 [60] George R. Harper, who lived in the same county, was similarly occupied, but he finally left the ministry due to the small compensation. [61] Willis Harrison Grigsby was ordained a Universalist minister in 1868. [62] In 1870 he was living in Notasulga, Alabama. He had come from New York to engage in ministerial work in the South. When he found that a full-time religious pursuit was impossible, he turned to secular employment, serving as secretary to both Alexander H. Stephens and Georgia Governor James M. Smith. [63]

Georgia also contributed her share of interesting Universalist lay workers. Robert White was one of the founders of the Rockwell Universalist Church near Winder. He was also the first president of the Georgia Universalist Convention organized in 1838. [64] Known <start page 43> as “Uncle Robert,” White was opposed to brutality. There was an old muster ground in his neighborhood where men would fight “fist and skull,” but only after they had made certain that “Uncle Robert” would not come that way. [65]

Stephen Matlock, seventy-five years old in 1846, was a farmer who lived on the Altamaha River, fifty miles above Darien in Tattnall County. Since he had never heard a Universalist minister, arrangements were made for Reverend Clayton to preach in that area. Matlock rode fifty miles on horseback to meet Clayton at the home of Joseph Riall, a Universalist of Laurens County. Matlock was the wealthiest man in his area and was held in high esteem. He secured permission for Clayton to use various churches between his own home and the residence of Riall. Sunday morning services were held in a Baptist church about seven miles from Matlock’s home. There was an overflow crowd, and people stood in the rain outside the windows under umbrellas to hear Clayton’s sermon. Matlock offered to build a home on 260 acres that he would give him, if the minister would settle in their neighborhood. Clayton wrote in later life that he would have been tempted it the elderly gentleman who tendered the offer had been younger and could have thus provided a greater likelihood of the continuity of the endeavor. Some months after Clayton’s visit, Matlock’s third wife, some forty years younger than her husband, gave birth to a baby girl and the parents named her Clayton in honor of the minister. [66] <start page 44>

Reverend Clayton visited Marietta, Georgia in 1870 while on a trip to Texas. A young lady, attending a female school there, boarded at the house where the Universalist minister was staying. She was a Baptist and studied the Bible with Clayton. Within about two years she asked the Baptist deacons to remove her name from the church roll. They told her that there were only two ways to get out of a Baptist church: “to sin out or die out.” Soon thereafter, she attended a party and did some dancing. When news of this reached the deacons they visited her and inquired about the matter. She replied: “When I requested you to erase my name from the roll of your church, you told me that I could only get out of the church by dying cut or sinning out. I intended to get out, and preferred to sin out rather than die out, and so I attended the party and danced.” [67]

About seven years after their first meeting, Clayton extended the right hand of fellowship as this young lady joined the Universalists. She said that her first favorable impression of Universalism came from the breakfast-hour discussions in Marietta. The young lady became the wife of H. D. McCutcheon who served as clerk of the Georgia State Convention of Universalists in the 1880’s. [68]

Despite their minority status, some Universalists succeeded in politics. John Durden was an outspoken Universalist of Ebenezer in Morgan County, Georgia. He was elected to the state legislature more than once, despite the orthodox complexion of this county. Durden <start page 45> opened his home for Universalist preaching and Reverend Clayton visited there in 1846 and again in 1870. [69] The death of a transplanted Georgia Universalist, J. B. Cone of Gonzales, Texas, was noted in the denominational register in 1899. Cone served one year in the Texas state legislature. [70]

Alabama contributed Universalist ministers who were active in journalism and education. Charles F. R. Shehane was born in North Carolina and grew up in Tennessee. He became a member of the Disciples of Christ while living in Columbia, Tennessee and thus followed the theology of Alexander Campbell. Shehane entered the field of religious journalism and in September, 1835 he released the prospectus for The Religious Investigator to be published at Jefferson, Georgia. Shehane became a Universalist about 1843. [71] He published the Universalist Herald at Notasulga, Alabama. Reverend Clayton noted Shehane’s remarkable memory and the vast amount of Scripture that he knew by heart Shehane died at his home near Notasulga on May 17, 1857. [72]

John Crenshaw Burruss was another Universalist active in journalism. He was ordained in 1844. [73]  He served as a missionary in <start page 46>. North Carolina, Mississippi, and Alabama. [74] He published, with Shehane, the Universalist Herald at Notasulga, Alabama from 18147 until he sold this religious journal to John C. Bowers of Canon, Georgia in 1897. [75] That year he received an honorary D. D. from Buchtel University in Akron, Ohio. [76]

Lyman Ward was a native of Hounsefield, Jefferson County, New York and graduated from Watertown High School. He received his college degree in 1892 from St. Lawrence University. Ward served Universalist parishes in New York state for five years and in the spring of 1898 he went to Alabama where he became a prominent educator. [77]

The influence of Universalism in the lives of Alabama citizens is illustrated by John Green, Judge William Harper, and Dr. Jerome Cochran. Green was a native South Carolinian who grew to manhood in Georgia, and went to southern Alabama in the early part of the nineteenth century. He was a farmer who helped to establish schools and churches. He used his own library to aid the neighborhood school. Reared a Presbyterian, he aided both Methodists and Baptists in establishing churches in the area and he attended preaching held by <start page 47> the various circuit riders. His study of the Bible led him to liberal convictions and he wrote to the Universalists in Boston. He attempted to aid Universalism in his area. [78]

The rural complexion of Universalism in the South should not lead to the assumption that professional people were not influenced by the denomination. Judge William Harper of Covington County, Alabama, who died at eighty-seven on October 28, 1874, was a well-known Universalist of his area. [79]

While Daniel Clayton resided in Mississippi, a fifteen-year-old boy attended his preaching. Years later Clayton was in Greenville, Alabama while the Alabama State Medical Association was in session and he met Dr. Jerome Cochran. This doctor was the boy of a quarter century before. Dr. Cochran credited Clayton’s inspiration for his entry into the field of medicine. [80]

The ties between Universalists in southern Alabama and those in western Florida were strong. William M. Jones of Troy, Alabama, a former Baptist, joined the Universalist Church in western Florida. He had been a friend of W. C. Bowman when they both had been students at the University of Virginia; and both later became Universalists. [81] Jones was licensed to preach by a vote of the West Florida Universalist <start page 48> Church in 1874. [82] Elias Ball Arms was ordained in 1853. [83] Arms was one of the founders and the first pastor of the West Florida Universalist Church. In 1871 he became a pastor in Escambia County, Alabama. [84] Arms lived in Garland, Alabama for many years. [85]

One of the best-known Universalist ministers in Florida was James Lewis Corbin Griffin who was born in Gloucester County, Virginia on March 17, 1814. He graduated from William and Mary College in 1833. After serving as a Methodist minister, Griffin received his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in February 1839 but he only practiced medicine a short time. In 1844 he joined the Universalists and the following year he served as pastor of the Richmond, Virginia Universalist Church. [86] He taught at Lombard University in Galesburg, Illinois and at Madison College in southern Mississippi. [87] About 1859 he left Sharon, Mississippi and teamed with Reverend J. C. C. Feaster in preaching in the South Carolina counties of Fairfield, Laurens, Newberry, Edgefield, and Spartanburg. [88] He also preached in various communities of North <start page 49> Carolina and Virginia but he is particularly identified with Florida. [89] He was serving as minister of the West Florida Universalist Church in Walton County in 1873. [90] Griffin retired in Alexandria, Virginia although he continued to contribute articles for the Universalist Herald. [91] He died October 22, 1878. [92]

In addition to the resident Unitarians and Universalists the southeastern states were visited by prominent members of the two denominations. Jared Sparks, the noted Unitarian of Baltimore and close friend of William Ellery Charming, visited Charleston for the installation of Samuel Gilman as pastor in 1819. [93] In December, 1821, Sparks became the Chaplain of the United States House of Representatives. [94] Ralph Waldo Emerson preached in Charleston, South Carolina and in St. Augustine, Florida in 1826-1827 when he stayed in the South due to poor health. [95] Edward Everett Hale preached at the Charleston Unitarian Church for the Anniversary of the Unitarian Book and Tract [96] Society in 1848.               The well-known Universalist, Clara Barton, made <start page 50> a trip to Andersonville, Georgia in 1895 to mark Union graves. [97]

Doctors, lawyers, teachers, journalists, farmers, merchants, ministers – varied personalities bore the title of Unitarian or Universalist living and laboring as a religious minority in a bulwark of orthodox beliefs. The presence of numerous doctors, merchants, and prosperous farmers would point to an upper middle class following for the religious liberals in the Southeast. It might be supposed that those in lower economic and social status in the region would tend to greater conformity to the majority religious beliefs. If your economic livelihood depends upon deference to majority opinions, those in greater economic need would tend to shy away from unpopular opinions such as religious liberalism.

When these individual Unitarians and Universalists held places of esteem, such as Richard Arnold in Savannah, their influence, of course, was greater. Such individuals could make an impact in their area even if no church was established or no converts gained for the minority denomination. The beliefs of these Unitarians and Universalists of the Southeast is surveyed in the next chapter. <start page 51>

 

Chapter III. Unitarians and Universalist Beliefs

A survey of the beliefs of the Unitarians and Universalists of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida poses several problems. First of all, there is the problem of semantics, that is, how the meanings of words and idioms used in sermons and debates during the nineteenth century have changed. Actually, the beliefs of these southerners were being challenged and undergoing change throughout the nineteenth century. The Unitarians preferred the theology of William Ellery Channing to that of the more radical Theodore Parker. The controversy that agitated New England Unitarians influenced southern Unitarians less, because of the identification of both Parker and Ralph Waldo Emerson with abolition. The impact of both higher criticism and German scholarship would in time influence southerners, but readjustments in their beliefs were probably delayed because sectional animosity inclined them to distrust much that men like Emerson and Parker espoused. The diversity of Unitarian beliefs was noted in the secular press. Under the heading of “Miscellaneous Letters on the Eastern States” The Daily Georgian in 1820 referred to seven or eight churches in Boston called Unitarian. With some percipience the article cautioned that:

you must not understand that they are all strictly so, or that they agree in their creed. Probably no <start page 52> two of them agree exactly. There are shades of difference among those who have ceased to acknowledge the doctrine of the Trinity, but some have diverged much more than others. A part of them would be satisfactory to the orthodox, on most points of their preaching –  generally their discourses turn more on morality and the great practical duties of Christians. [1]

The central idea of Unitarianism was shared by those who bore this name, whether in the North or the South. This idea embraced both denial of the dogma of the Trinity and an emphasis on the unity of God. But even here there were degrees of affirmation. Channing’s views were more conservative than those of the English Unitarians, including Joseph Priestley, who settled in Pennsylvania in 1794, and Thomas Belsham. Channing affirmed that there is one God who sent Jesus and that this was the belief held by Jesus and His disciples. Channing stressed that Jesus surrendered Himself completely to the will of God and that Unitarians believed that Jesus reflected the Supreme God, although He was not God Himself. [2] Many American Unitarians, particularly those in the South, agreed with Channing. While they denied the deity of Jesus, these Unitarians ascribed to Him a unique position.  Samuel Gilman of Charleston, along with the denominational register, expressed the belief that Jesus was the Messiah. [3] <start page 53> Northerners and southerners cited numerous times the words of Jesus: “The Father is greater than I.” [4]  Thus Channing and conservative Unitarians generally followed the Arian viewpoint which held that while Jesus was inferior to God, He was the first and greatest of all created beings. Many other Unitarians came to the view of the English Unitarians which stressed the humanity of Jesus. [5] Basically, southern Unitarians emphasized the uniqueness of Jesus Christ. [6] <start page 54>

The early Unitarians grounded their theology in their interpretation of the Bible. They were shocked when charged with unscriptural opinions. In his famous sermon at the ordination of Jared Sparks in Baltimore, Charnning laid down principles of Biblical interpretation. The reader should seek the general spirit, the intentions of the scripture authors, and the circumstances of time when framed. [7] Gilman also referred to using “correct interpretation” when reading the Bible. In an 1826 sermon he said: “We only wish to understand and interpret that precious and sacred book, on principles of criticism, which, if stated without any reference to previous doctrines or prejudices, every man would cheerfully allow.” [8] The Bible “correctly interpreted” was a rallying point for many Unitarians.

The appeal to Scripture was widespread in early Unitarian sermons and literature. The Virginia pastor, J. B. Pitkin, criticized the Trinitarian formula declaring “it is no where stated in the Sacred Volume, but is a mere assumption – a mere supposition of uninspired men.” [9] The Bible was considered by the Unitarians as their only guide in faith and practice. [10] Gilman contrasted Deism and <start page 55> Unitarianism on the issue of the Bible. He said that Deists rejected revelation, whereas Unitarians believed “in the truth of the Bible. ” [11] This Biblical orientation was not confined to the South. Horace Mann opposed the introduction of religious libraries in Massachusetts’s public schools on the grounds that the Bible alone should be employed in religious instruction. [12] Thus Mann, as a Unitarian, revealed the deep attachment of early Unitarians to the Bible.

Despite their reliance upon the Bible, Unitarians also saw God’s revelation in other areas of human experience. At the dedication of the Second Unitarian Church in New York City, Channing declared that Unitarianism “leads us to seek Him in nature. It does not shut us up in the written word, precious as that manifestation of the Divinity is. It considers revelation, not as independent of his other means of instruction.” [13] In 1893 the Atlanta pastor, George L. Chaney, referred to Unitarianism as the “New Protestantism” and asserted that it “frees men from Biblical domination.” [14] By the close of the nineteenth century, Unitarians generally had come to mistrust their earlier attachment to the Bible, fearing that it might be construed as a kind of “paper pope.” In consequence they sought God in even wider realms. <start page 56>

The application of reason to man’s religious feelings was another characteristic of Unitarianism. Were revelation and reason at opposite ends of the spectrum? Channing did not think so. He tied reason to the Bible when proclaimed: “We profess not to know a book, which demands a more frequent exercise of reason than the Bible.” [15] In 1831 the Unitarian publication in Augusta stated: “We do not exalt reason above revelation; – but we believe that by reason we must find out what is revelation, and what revelation teaches.” [16] Chaney in his 1893 contrast between the old and new wrote: “The old Protestantism was a falling back on the recorded word of God; the new is a going forward in His present spirit. The first Reformation subordinated church to a book; the second submits both church and book to their common source the God-illumined Reason.” [17] Reason increasingly became a hallmark of Unitarianism and this would gain for the denomination the appellation of a reasonable religion.

Those holding the orthodox theology doubted the role of reason, because they considered man’s nature corrupt and dominated by the power of evil. Channing considered that man’s nature had been misinterpreted by Trinitarianism. He rejected the notion that man was as bad as the exaggerated view of the older theology. While he thought man had a “propensity to sin” and therefore was not perfect, he <start page 57> believed the emphasis should be corrected. [18] In discussing man’s nature, he explained in 1847 that “Unitarians believe in human depravity, not in innate and total depravity and the imputation of Adam’s sin – but in the very great depravity of mankind, the deceitfulness and wickedness of the human heart, the alienation, of man from God through ignorance and sin.” [19] Samuel Gilman and Charles Taggart, the two Unitarian ministers in Charleston in 1854, affirmed that “man is, by nature, capable of good as he is of evil, and however much depraved, is not totally depraved.” [20] The Unitarians professed to see a quality in man that they considered to be overlooked by many of the orthodox.

If Unitarians saw man’s nature differently from the orthodox they also had a certain perspective for observing God’s nature. The doctrine of the atonement caused controversy between liberal Unitarians and those of orthodox views due to the doctrine’s concern with the nature of God. While most Unitarians considered that the concept of a vicarious atonement presented a God of wrath who was totally foreign to their view of God, the doctrine had its supporters among the more conservative Unitarians. Frederic Dan Huntington was one of the chief conservatives among the Boston Unitarians. He stressed a “supernatural redemption from sin” and “thought the Atonement the crowning work” of God’s compassion. [21] A close friend of Huntington was James T. Coolidge, <start page 58> pastor of Purchase Street Unitarian Church in Boston. Coolidge referred to the “Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world.” [22] Conservative Unitarians such as these Boston pastors had less clash with the orthodox. They used the same terminology and this helped to prevent controversy.

Despite the conservative wing within their denomination, many Unitarians, including Channing, objected to aspects of the doctrine of atonement that considered the death of Jesus made God change His mind and His nature.[23] In 1895 the Charleston pastor, H. A. Whitman, referring to Jesus said: “Certainly he never made the slightest reference to himself as a victim prepared and offered us by God to approve the imagined divine wrath and thus save the believing sinner from the consequences of his wrong doing, as is so abundantly set forth and emphasized by the so-called old views of salvation and vicarious atonement.” [24] Thus the word atonement was respectable among Unitarians, but it evoked a variety of images within the denomination.

The concept of God’s judgment of mankind had many ramifications within Christian theology. It might be considered as applicable <start page 59> during life, or beyond the grave, or both. Much of the older theology placed the emphasis on judgment after death. The Unitarian Christian of Augusta, Georgia asserted in 1831 that Christ’s death “removes not one particle of our guilt or its punishment, except in so far as it became a motive to us to repent and abstain from future sin.” [25]

This journal continued by saying that the “good will be blessed and the wicked punished in another life.” [26] The denominational volume for 1847 noted that “Unitarians believe in the resurrection of the dead – a judgment to come, and a life beyond the grave ‘that without holiness, no man can see God’ – that for the good, there is happiness, without end; for the evil, the finally impenitent there is misery and woe beyond the grave.” [27] This pessimistic view of judgment that included eternal punishment would be discarded by many Unitarians as they accepted the Universalist doctrine on this point. [28]

Unitarians also took a stand on the age-old theological conflict between grace and works. Channing explained that Unitarians attached great importance to Christian works but “Still we always and earnestly maintain, that no human virtue, no human obedience, can give a legal claim, a right by merit, to the life and immortality brought to light by Christ.” [29] Unitarians expressed belief in salvation by grace, <start page 60> through faith, but also felt that true repentance leads to amending life and doing good. Righteous living was considered the only proof that atonement had been received. [30] The Atlanta pastor in 1893 summed up the issue as follows: “As Luther preached justification by faith, in opposition to justification by works of penance, so Channing preached justification by working faith in opposition to faith without works.” [31] Christian morality would fill a large part of Unitarian religion.

The supernatural aspect of miracles was an issue that points to the difference between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Augusta Unitarian journal expressed belief in miracles in 1831. [32] A one-time Augusta pastor said that the Apostles’ Creed generally expressed Unitarian sentiments but he continued: “A few indeed may question the doctrine of our Lord’s miraculous birth, or that of the resurrection of the body.” [33] Channing believed that in the miracles of Christ man could see God acting. [34] Although many early Unitarians believed in the supernatural and the New Testament miracles, these would be debated later in the century when a reaction against the supernatural emerged. [35] <start page 61>

As might be imagined, the Biblical basis of southern Unitarianism made members of this denomination react strongly against any who would deprive them of the Christian title. The Charleston Unitarian newspaper of 1822 concerned itself with the attempts of some to deny Unitarians the name of Christian. [36] This controversy was still agitating Charlestonians in 1827 when a Unitarian answered a newspaper article critical of Unitarians. He stated that the Roman Catholic Church, even during periods when it was the most dogmatic, had not denied Unitarians the name of Christian. He resented being lumped with “pagans, Mahometans, and infidels” and felt that these critics could at least call Unitarians “mistaken Christians, imperfect Christians” if they so differed with their theol1ogy. [37]

Unitarians shared with Universalists certain theological tenets, but in the earlier days the points of emphasis differed. The central doctrine of Universalism revolved around the two concepts of salvation and judgment. Universalists believed in the universal salvation of mankind. This belief was criticized by those of orthodox persuasion on the ground that it saved sinners with their sins intact. The Universalist Herald sought to explain the denomination’s view of salvation by pointing out that Universalists did not believe that men would be saved in sin but from sin. [38] The belief in Universal salvation <start page 62> was associated with the promise to Abraham that “in him all families of earth should be blessed” and it was sometimes known as the Abrahamic. [39]

The ultimate destiny of mankind was the central doctrine that differentiated Universalists from other denominations. This stirred arguments, not only regarding salvation, but also about judgment. Universalists believed that judgment took place within this world. They felt a second judgment beyond, that is in eternity, would be unfair. Rewards and punishments, they believed, took place on this earth.  [40] Some Universalists granted that man might have to go through intermediate processes before final salvation would be achieved. [41] The denial of a judgment that would usher in eternal punishment was grounded on the belief that God’s nature was expressed as a loving father. Shehane asked believers in endless misery: “Upon what principles do you account for the fact that God is not as good as yourself?” [42] <start page 63>

Seeking to prove their claims against eternal punishment, Universalists questioned the application of the word everlasting to eternal punishment. [43] The contention was made that the Hebrews learned the concept of hell and the devil from the heathen. [44] The New Testament use of “last days” was said to apply to the end of the Jewish dispensation and not to universal judgment and damnation. [45]

Universalists believed as they did about salvation and judgment because of their appraisal of man’s nature. They denied original sin and total depravity. Total depravity would indicate that a person was not “an accountable being.” Eternal bliss was not denied a person because he had not undergone a miraculous change of nature. Faith and repentance were both listed by Universalists as <start page 64> important to the enjoyment of life but not as essential to man’s eternal destiny. [46]

Due to their convictions about the nature of God and man, Universalists basically agreed with the Unitarian interpretation of the atonement. One Universalist document stated: “The word Atonement means simply reconciliation, and the sinner was the recipient thereof, not Jehovah.” [47] The atonement reflected God’s love, not an appeasement of His wrath. [48]

The denial of the Trinity that characterized Unitarianism would in time capture Universalism as well. The profession of faith adopted by the Universalists at Winchester, New Hampshire in 1803 expressed belief in “one God, whose nature is Love, revealed in one Lord Jesus Christ, by one Holy Spirit of Grace, Who will finally restore the whole family of mankind to holiness and happiness.” [49] The statement of Universalist belief adopted at Boston in 1898 stated: “We believe in the Universal Fatherhood of God; The Spiritual Authority and Leadership of His Son, Jesus Christ.” [50] The preamble to the constitution of the First Universalist Society of Charleston affirmed belief in one God who was love as revealed in the Bible and gospel of His Son, Jesus Christ. [51] This constitution <start page 65> was preached by a summary of Universalist beliefs which stated that they were not Tri-theists, or Trinitarians, or Polytheists but rather believed in one God. [52] The Unitarian viewpoint was not shared by all Universalists but as the century progressed more and more Universalists came to accept the unity of God.

Like many early Unitarians, Universalists stressed that their views were based upon the Bible. Universalist ministers appealed to the Bible in their defense of Universalism. In one debate Shehane stated: “With my opponent, I rejoice that the question is purely a Scriptural question, for I am willing to appeal alone to the tribunal of the word of God, and to abide its decision, anxious that the truth, and the truth only, should prevail. ” [53] Daniel Clayton called himself a “Bible Universalist” and he was a strict textualist. [54] Clayton told Lyman Ward that he had never read a life of Christ because he considered the whole story in the New Testament, but he borrowed Renan’s life of Christ and later wrote how much he enjoyed <start page 66> it. [55]

Clayton contrasted the God of Calvinism and the God of Arminianism with the God of the Bible that he respected. [56] The Universalist writers found the Bible an ally in their theological arguments. [57] Their statements of belief echoed this Biblical basis. [58]

The Biblical interpretation changed with the passage of time. Many Universalists accepted the account of miracles as supernatural intervention of God in the universe, but other questioned these aspects. Universalists called the belief in the devil a ridiculous superstition that would be discarded like beliefs in witches, ghosts, and goblins. They continued by saying:

Nor would it have been pretended that the notion derives any authority from the Bible had it not been the interest of the translators and their priestly successors to have some “bug-bear” with which to frighten the credulous. We are certain at least that a candid interpretation of the Holy Oracles will give no countenance to the common opinion on the subject. [59] <start page 67>

Like Unitarians, the Universalists would in time feel the impact of the new scholarship that opened fresh ways of looking at miracles. Being rural in orientation, it may be safely assumed that the impact of the new thought would take longer to reach southern Universalist congregations. Universalists generally had fewer professionally trained leaders than the Unitarians; hence many of the new views from German scholarship attracted fewer adherents.

To many people of the last decades of the twentieth century, nineteenth century debates over theology may appear strange. Doctrinal subtlety seemed to have more reality during the nineteenth century. Yet from these debates emerged the fact that Unitarians and Universalists looked at God and man from a different perspective than their orthodox neighbors. Universalists shared with Unitarians a higher estimate of man’s nature than did the older theology. Both professed to liberate man from the restrictions of the older theologies. Because of this contribution both have been regarded as liberal religions.

The basic difference between the two denominations in the early part of the century had become almost non-existent by 1900. The Unitarians had denied the validity of the Trinity and Universalists had denied belief in the endless punishment for mankind. Both groups came to accept the cardinal tenet of the other denomination but it must be remembered that these denominations were strictly congregational in their church government. There are no official beliefs for them. Even when they drafted professions of faith, these were only loose guidelines and were not binding upon the individual congregations. This congregational independence was reflected in the varied aspects of church activities. <start page 68>

Chapter IV. Church Activities

The theological tenets of Unitarianism and Universalism disturbed nineteenth century southerners more than doctrinal arguments agitate modern church members. Despite the difference of emphasis both centuries have witnessed the involvement of these two churches in a variety of activities. The size of the church, its rural or urban setting, and whether it was Unitarian or Universalist created differences. A rigid order of service was more likely in an urban than a rural church because of the congregational informality in the latter.

The long established Charleston Unitarian Church used a formal order of service. In 1854 this church prepared a service book for local use. It relied particularly upon the Old and New Testament, quoted selections for morning and evening worship services and for special occasions such as Christmas, days of fasting, Good Friday, marriage ceremonies, funerals, the Lord’s Supper observance, and baptismal services. Though the service was basically liturgical, complete with introductory sentences and closing ascriptions, provision was made for an extemporaneous prayer by the minister. [1] Many of the rural Universalist churches would have found a liturgical service strange due to its more rigid formality. <start page 69>

After the Civil War the Charleston Unitarians prepared an enlarged service and hymn book. Additions were taken chiefly from English Unitarian sources, showing the persistence of sectional feelings. This 1867 edition also altered the worship posture. The recommendation was made that the congregation kneel during prayer and stand during the hymns of praise. Selections in this Unitarian hymnal came from the pens of many persons of varied religious background. Hymns such as “Come Thou Almighty King,” “Nearer My God, to Thee,” and “Abide with Me,” were included along with those from Episcopal collections, Charles Wesley, and Mrs. Samuel Gilman. [2]

At least some Universalists could join in singing some of these hymns. There were other activities where Unitarians and Universalists found a common ground. Both observed the religious ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. [3] The Lord’s Supper was considered a <start page 70> memorial, and it was practiced because of scriptural admonition. Individual churches, both Unitarian and Universalist, varied manner of conducting this ordinance. In the Charleston Unitarian Church Samuel Gilman attempted to change the Lord’s Supper so that it would be held in the presence of the whole congregation. He eliminated the Charleston custom of congregational voting on who could accept the Lord’s Supper and allowed all who desired to participate. [4] Some of the Universalist churches practiced the southern custom of “opening the doors of the church” to new members after the Lord’s Supper had been observed. [5] The ordinance of baptism was administered by immersion or sprinkling in both Unitarian and Universalist churches. [6] The mode of baptism disturbed a few. The Universalist, Charles Shehane, wrote that “to baptize” was never translated “to pour or sprinkle.” Generally the method of baptism appears to have generated little real controversy within the liberal ranks. [7]

The significance of pulpit oratory has been considered a characteristic of the South. No statistics of sermon lengths have been found, but probably the rural churches, having at times a scarcity of preaching, were more tolerant of the long-winded minister than their <start page 71> city brethren. Daniel Clayton maintained that a minister could not get started in a thirty-minute sermon, and it is recorded that he often preached for two hours and a half. He preached to small audiences, recalling that on one occasion only four were present, one of whom was a minister. [8] Since much Universalist preaching occurred in private homes, court houses, and lodge halls, the service was intermit. A southern Universalist minister recorded that he preached to a crowd gathered in a home and recalled favorably an elderly Universalist who uttered frequent “amens.” [9] Such spontaneous outbursts might have disturbed a Unitarian congregation in an urban setting.

The sermons, ordinances, and hymns were accompanied by more adornments in the larger congregations. These churches provided for the employment of sextons, organists, and choristers. [10] In May, 1835 the Savannah Unitarian Church purchased a new organ. This was the third such instrument in the history of the Savannah congregation. [11] <start page 72>

To provide these extras the urban churches increased revenue above that received from Sunday offerings. Charging for the use of church pews was one method used to collect money. Assessment on pews was provided by the Charleston Universalists. [12] An auction was held in December, 1833 to assign the choice of pews in the Savannah Unitarian Church. After the choice was purchased the pew holder occupied the same pew exclusively as long as the annual assessment was paid, and no additional tax was collected without the proprietor’s consent. [13]

The worship service provided the focal point for church life, but special groups within the congregation were also organized. Sunday Schools were founded by some of the churches early in the nineteenth century. In 1831 the American Sunday School Union held an Augusta meeting at the Baptist Church. Stephen Bulfinch, the local Unitarian pastor, endorsed the community attempts to organize Sunday Schools. While he recognized that his denomination had no connection with the Sunday School Union and that views differing from his would be taught, yet he believed it was better for children to be taught “truth with some mixture of error, than not to be taught at all.” [14] This gathering decided that a committee with one representative from each religious group in the city and county would collect funds. The money was to <start page 73> be divided on a proportional basis to form Sunday Schools and to provide clothing for children in want. Bulfinch publicly relinquished any Unitarian claim to any of the funds after the Presbyterian, Baptist, and Episcopal members of the committee refused to cooperate with Unitarians. [15] In 1852 the Charleston Unitarian pastor reported that for about twenty years he had conducted the religious education of the children with an average of between forty and fifty pupils. [16] By the end of the century the Unitarians had well established Sunday Schools in Charleston and Atlanta, and the workers in these endeavors were advocating a graded curriculum with interesting and instructive lessons. [17] Some Universalist churches in the four southeastern states organized Sunday Schools during the 1870’s. [18] <start page 74>

The distaff (archivist: concerning women) side of the church program was not neglected. In antebellum Charleston the Unitarian women had a Ladies Society and a female Bible class that met every Friday afternoon. [19] the principal organization of Unitarian and Universalist women did not occur until the last decade of the nineteenth century.  Unitarian ladies of Atlanta and Charleston had active women’s alliances during that decade.  These groups aided local charities and raised money for church projects by selling homemade candy and aprons [20] A Ladies Aid Society was organized by Atlanta Universalist in 1895 and in March 1897 this society was replaced by the women’s mission circle. [21]

The men of liberal churches like their counterparts in orthodox denominations found and outlet for their business acumen in the financial aspects of church life.  Some of the churches attempted to involve men in other matters.  That Atlanta Unitarian Church founded a Liberal Church League that enlisted the interest and talents of the men in progress to strengthen their congregation, such as lectures and debates. [22] <start page 75>

The organization of young people for separate activities occurred rather slowly. In 1893 the youth of Rockwell Universalist Church had their own group, and in 1896 a Georgia state young peoples unit was established. [23] The Atlanta Unitarians sponsored a debating society known as the Young Men’s Saturday Night Club, but a majority of this club were not church members. [24] Other activities not geared exclusively to youth had an appeal to that age group. The Atlanta Unitarians had a literary and musical society known as the Fortnightly Club. Concerts by various musicians and discussions on cultural topics were presented. The average attendance was about forty-five. This club felt that if developed “a social feeling among members of the church and interested others in Unitarianism. [25]

Sometimes the ministers’ attempts to provide innovations proved unsuccessful. For about two years, Samuel Gilman held prayer conferences in his home but these were discontinued due to the poor response. His attempt to bold Friday evening lectures at the church also failed. [26] The ministers were sometimes frustrated when they sought to inaugurate new activities. They also had to face the problems presented by the weather. Rural churches had the challenge of muddy roads. Sultry summers curtailed church activities. In Charleston so many Unitarians were <start page 76> scattered throughout the northern states on vacations that the decision was made to close the Sunday School and worship services for the months of August and September. [27]

Discouragements came to ministers and laymen alike. Confronting the specter of orthodox pressure and numerical weakness, liberal religion found one solution by looking to a higher level of organization than the lone parish. Although the Unitarians and Universalists remained congregational in church policy, they adopted state and regional apparatus to achieve particular results. The Universalists had state conventions in Georgia and South Carolina prior to the Civil War and reorganization took place after that holocaust. There were state organizations in all four southeastern states by 1897. [28/30] (Archivist: There is an error in the sequencing of the footnotes in the original document.  This footnote is listed as 30) Regional meetings were recommended by the national Universalist denomination. These were to be held in the period intervening between the national sessions. One such conference was held October, 1898 at Chickamauga, Georgia. [29/31] Unitarians were also interested in regional operations. The Southern Conference of Unitarian and other <start page 77> Liberal Christians was organized April 24, 1884 at Atlanta. [30] This Southern Conference brought isolated liberal ministers and lay people together and they could “rejoice” in their convictions, even if their group was destined to remain a tiny minority. This group helped to unite Unitarians and Universalists in their labors. In 1893 Georgia Universalists created the post of State Missionary with Thomas Chapman being appointed to that post.[31] The following year Chapman wrote a letter of regret that he was net able to attend the Southern Conference meeting in Atlanta and he spoke “of our common cause.” [32] A state missionary helped supply preaching to weak and struggling congregations. His visits bolstered sagging morale. He did not have to proselyte but rather encouraged the faithful already in the liberal fold.

Another factor that helped to encourage the literal minority was the belief that liberal religion would thrive if the educational level of southern communities was raised. The multitude of motives for education can stagger the imagination. Education for some people is sheer indoctrination; to others it is the liberating of the human mind from the chains of tradition. Unitarians generally favored public education. To attach a denominational label seemed secondary if not undesirable. The Unitarians of Savannah were interested in the work of the Union Society. This was a group devoted to “the moral and <start page 78> mental education of orphan boys.” The Union Society held its eighty-fifth anniversary meeting at the Savannah Unitarian Church in April, 1835. [33]

After the Civil War the national Unitarian body undertook various educational endeavors with Negroes in the South. Reverend Henry F. Edes worked in Georgia and Miss N. Louisa Shaw in Florida. Commencing in 1868 northern Unitarians aided the African Methodist Episcopal Church by a $4,000 annual donation and presented a selected fifty volume library to each Negro minister who made a request. A school for Negroes was organized at Calhoun, Alabama in 1891 by Miss Mabel W. Dillingham and Miss Charlotte R. Thorn who had taught at Hampton Institute. After Miss Dillingham’s death in 1894 her brother, Reverend Pitt Dillingham, became the school principal. The main support for this school came from Unitarians. During the first eight years of the Tuskegee Institute $5,000 a year was given by Unitarians but not as an official denominational activity.[34] Southern Unitarian attitudes towards black education are not easily ascertained due to the absence of distinctly southern periodicals during this time. The plight of southern education captured the attention of northern Unitarian periodicals. [35] It was suggested that those interested in helping finance southern education should contact George L. Chaney, <start page 79> the Atlanta pastor. The training of public school teachers at Atlanta University was described. Chaney had lectured in the chapel of this Negro University.36 In addition to these educational concerns, Atlanta Unitarians aided in the founding of Georgia Tech, but it was not recorded how this aid was advanced. [37]

Universalism seems to have displayed greater denominational sensitivity than Unitarianism, and hence it exerted more energy in the cause of a more strictly denominational approach to education. Evidently an unsuccessful educational venture was launched by the Universalists in 1840 – 1841 at Feasterville, South Carolina. Little is known about it, though the Southern Universalist for March 31, 1841 gives it brief mention. It was announced that the second quarter of the Feasterville Academy was to commence April 18, 1841. The male and female departments were headed by Dr. and Mrs. L. F. W. Andrews respectively. Students boarded with the Andrews family while plans were made for a two story, forty-feet square dormitory to accommodate them. Jacob Feaster, Jr., Andrew Feaster, Henry J. Coleman, and Henry A. Coleman comprised the Board of Trustees. The Southern Universalist editor appealed to the people in Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina to support the Feasterville Academy, offered his readers the following puffery:

the location of the Seminary is in a salubrious section, in the north-west part of Fairfield district, South Carolina, remote from the temptations and allurements of city or town life; and presenting advantages on the <start page 80> score of economy, which are believed to be worthy of notice of parents and guardians having children to educate. The annual expense for Boarding and Tuition inclusive of washing, fuel and lights, will not exceed $125 to $139, in the higher branches of English and in the Classics. Music, Painting, etc. are extra branches, but the price of instruction in these, will be 25 per cent less than the usual charges in the South. [38]

There were two Universalist educational ventures in Georgia during the decade prior to the Civil War. One took place in Griffin in 1855 and was known as the Southern Liberal Institute. William Wallace was the principal, his wife was the principal of the female department, and Charles Shehane was the general agent. [39] How long the school lasted has not been determined. Less successful was a project that began in 1858. That year the Georgia State Universalist Convention passed a resolution to commence a drive to raise $25,000 to establish a denominational high school the site to be determined later. A financial committee was organized which asked Daniel Clayton to solicit stock subscriptions from Universalists and other liberals in the state. His business affairs prevented him from commencing until the spring of 1859. Clayton received subscriptions of stock amounting to between $12,000 and $15,000 and many of the subscribers promised to double their pledge if necessary. Amidst the political excitement of the 1860 presidential election Clayton suspended his efforts in behalf of the high school, but the Civil War doomed the educational project. [40] <start page 81>

The most successful of the Universalist educational ventures in the Southeast still exists. Opening as the Southern Industrial Institute at Camp Hill, Alabama, September 21, 1898, it stressed vocational education. The initial faculty totaled three with Lyman Ward serving as principal. [41] This institution is now the Lyman Ward Military Academy and is under private, non-denominational auspices.

Education helped to lay a foundation upon which the structure of religious liberalism could be expanded. But some Unitarians and Universalists sought more immediate results. Some labored to gain converts in the traditional area of missionary endeavor. Reference has been made to the 1838 trip of twenty-three Unitarian missionaries to southern and western states. Unitarians also had foreign missions in India and Japan. [42] The mission in India attracted interest particularly in 1825 and 1826. [43] Universalists also had missionary interests. Missionary enterprises are not confined to recruiting converts; they had social concerns as well. The destruction of the Civil War called forth humanitarian responses from northern Unitarians in behalf of the defeated South, such as the economic aid given to Charleston. No account of southern missionaries or southern support has been found. <start page 82>

At best the ventures of Unitarians and Universalists in both education and missions were only modestly successful. While neither denomination can be said to have been aggressively committed to involving itself in community affairs, yet both saw the need to witness to the South. Atlanta Unitarians cooperated with other southern Unitarians and the national organization in arranging an exhibit at the Cotton States and Industrial Exposition held in Atlanta in 1895. Atlanta ladies staffed the exhibit, which consisted of books, pictures, and other items. [44] Recognizing the achievements of their faith and aware of the misunderstanding around them, Unitarians saw the Atlanta Exhibit as offering a practical remedy.

Universalist chose the theological debate as a means of addressing the community. Although this form of religious expression was characteristic of the nineteenth century, it sometimes required extended correspondence to arrange the details and agree on the areas of doctrine to be argued. [45] Such debates generally lasted at least three days, with the contenders performing four hours per day. Several of these encounters found Universalist ministers pitted against Methodist and Disciples of Christ minister. [46] <start page 83>

One such debate netted thirty converts to Universalism. Some years after this particular encounter twelve individuals, one a physician, signed a statement professing that their Universalism dated from this experience. All twelve lived about ten miles from Centre Point, Tennessee, the site of the debate. [47]

While education, missions, debates, and other activities all helped to keep liberal religion alive in the South, perhaps denominational publishing was the most important single means of promoting both Unitarianism and Universalism. During the nineteenth century four Unitarian periodicals were published in the Southeast in addition to columns that appeared in several secular newspapers. Attacks by journals of orthodox denominations in South Carolina aroused the Unitarians to strike back. [48] On June 22, 1822, the Unitarian Defendant commenced publication at Charleston, stressing that it was not seeking theological proselytes. [49] The periodical was not attempting to make new Unitarians but to answer the attacks made by the orthodox. Only eleven issues were published, the last on November 16, 1822. In it the conviction was expressed that it was unnecessary to multiply controversial publications when the Christian Disciple in Boston and the Unitarian Miscellany in Baltimore could fulfill this need, except when “local oppression and misrepresentation” occurred. [50] The editor of the short-lived Unitarian Defendant <start page 84> was Martin L. Hurlbut, a layman of the Charleston Unitarian Church, who was assisted by his pastor, Samuel Gilman. [51]

The second Unitarian publication in the Southeast published only three issues: in March, June, and September, 1831. Founded to meet an immediate need the Unitarian Christian was published in Augusta by Stephen G. Bulfinch. Local attacks had been directed against Unitarian ism in Augusta as in Charleston earlier. Bulfinch acknowledged a debt to the Charleston Unitarians who aided and encouraged the periodical by contributing articles and apparently money. [52] A third Unitarian publication was the Unitarian Monitor, a small local paper, issued in Charleston from January 4, 1852 until May 30, 1852. [53] The fourth was the Southern Unitarian, a monthly journal published in Atlanta. The first issue appeared in January, 1893. [54] This enterprise lasted for five years. [55] These four Unitarian journals spanned the period from 1822 until 1898.

In addition to the four Unitarian publications, other denominational periodicals were distributed in the Southeast. The Unitarian Miscellany and Christian Monitor, published at Baltimore by Jared Spark had a wide circulation in the South and maintained agents in both <start page 85> Charleston, South Carolina and Pensacola, Florida, as did the Christian Inquirer that was published in New York City. [56]

Some secular newspapers reprinted Unitarian material from various sources. In 1824 the Cheraw Intelligencer published at Cheraw, South Carolina was reprinting material from the Unitarian Miscellany. The South Carolina editor printed two letters, pro and con, on this policy of using Unitarian news. The negative letter writer discontinued his subscription, but the writer who favored the reprint policy enclosed payment for two subscriptions. [57] Another secular paper that utilized articles on Unitarianism was the Georgian, publishing Savannah by the Unitarian layman, Dr. Richard Arnold. [58]

Book and tract societies provided a significant service for Unitarianism in South Carolina and Georgia. These tracts were not mere one-or two-page missals passed out on street corners. Rather they were generally pamphlets and sometimes even bound volumes of Unitarian sermons and theological writings. The Charleston Unitarian Book and Tract Society was organized May 20, 1821, with thirty-three members. [59] Members paid two dollars a year, and elected nine managers <start page 86> who arranged the purchase and printing of books and pamphlets. An annual meeting was held each May, while the managers met in January, April, July and October to transact necessary business. [60]

When the American Unitarian Association was established the Charleston group used the national tracts, and in 1827 the Charlestonians became an auxiliary of the national association. [61] Samuel Gilman’s sermon at the dedication of the Augusta Unitarian Church December 27, 1827, was published the next year as a forty-three page pamphlet by the Charleston Society. [62] The following year the American Unitarian Association printed this sermon in its series of tracts. [63] Works published by the Charleston Society were sometimes sold by regular booksellers with the proceeds aiding the group. [64] <start page 87>

The Civil Jar destroyed the society but it was reactivated before 1893 when a business session of the Charleston group was held December 10th. [65] This long-lived auxiliary to the Charleston Unitarian Church exerted a strong influence by spreading the doctrines of their denomination, increasing the theological knowledge of their own members and letting others learn Unitarian views. Its output over the years was substantial. In 1854 Samuel Gilman reported that the Charleston Tract Society had printed about sixty tracts in Charleston in addition to the national tracts purchased and about seventy works were issued in bound editions. An average of twenty tracts per year were distributed. [66]

Unitarian tracts were distributed beyond the immediate Charleston area. The American Unitarian Association in 1829 listed agents for <start page 88> its tracts not only in Charleston but also in Augusta, Savannah, and Milledgeville. [67] In 1826 the Charleston Tract Society listed three members from York District (County), South Carolina and one from Milledgeville, Georgia, among the seventy-seven members. [68] Prior to establishing the Augusta Unitarian Book Association, that Georgia community supplied members for the Charleston Society and distributed its tracts in their area. [69] Once the Augusta Association was operating, it also engaged in publishing sermons. [70] Yet another storehouse of religious information was the church library.

The Unitarian churches in Charleston and Atlanta operated libraries. The theological library of Anthony Forster was purchased from his widow to provide the nucleus of the Charleston Unitarian library. [71] In Atlanta the Unitarians had a 1,500 volume library which in 1893 was being opened on Sunday afternoons and two evenings a week.  The following year public interest in the library was sufficient to keep it open four nights a week. [72] <start page 89>

Like their liberal religious partners, nineteenth century Universalists of the Southeast became involved in the publishing business and experimented with numerous short-lived periodicals. Lewis F. W. Andrews, the minister-journalist, was associated with several of them. In 1834 he began publication of the Southern Evangelist at Montgomery, Alabama and later moved it to Charleston, South Carolina. In April, 1838 Andrews and John Gregory, also a minister, established the Evangelical Universalist at Macon, Georgia and for a time issued a weekly edition. [73] It appears that this paper became the Southern Universalist that in 1841 was published in Macon under the editorship of Philo Brownson. This Georgia publication had a Charleston section and evidently served both states for a brief time. [74] Later in his life Andrews attempted another publication, the Christian Crucible, an eight page, semi-monthly in Macon that apparently failed in a short time. [75]

Two other Universalist periodicals were also destined for short lives. One of them was listed in the denominational registers for 1858 and 1859, as The Progressionist, a semi-monthly, published at Newnan, Georgia. It had been owned by Charles Shehane and after his death Reverend J. N. H. Smith of Pulaski, Tennessee edited this journal <start page 90> for the benefit of Shehane family. The other periodical was started by W. C. Bowman as the Atlanta Universalist. In 1880 Daniel Clayton came to Atlanta to assist in this venture. [77] Bowman withdrew from the enterprise in October, 1880 and since Clayton was committed to itinerant preaching, he suspended the paper until 1881 when R. E. Neeld came to Atlanta from Tampa, Florida, and worked on the paper for thirteen months. When Neeld withdrew, Clayton changed the Atlanta Universalist from a weekly to a semi-monthly and arranged with the semi-monthly Universalist Herald of Notasulga Alabama, to appear during alternate weeks. This compact was operative for less than two years, for in 1883 Clayton returned to South Carolina. The Atlanta Universalist then merged with the Universalist Herald. [78]

Of all liberal religious periodicals in the Southeast the Universalist Herald was destined for the longest life. It was founded as the Religious Investigator in June 1847 at Montgomery, Alabama. In 1849 it was moved to Notasulga, Alabama, and changed its name to The Universalist Herald. [79] Charles Shehane, who started this publication, was joined by John C. Burruss in 1849 at the time of the move to Notasulga. [80] Burruss issued a statement of the paper’s <start page 91> purpose in 1850,affirming that it was to promote and defend the Biblical doctrine of Universal salvation. He said that the periodical would publish literature, science, general news, and essays on scriptural interpretation to show that “God will finally destroy sin and misery from the universe, and cause righteousness and peace, to prevail universally.” [81]

The problems of the Herald were shared by many religious periodicals of the nineteenth century. To a subscriber in Fayetteville, Georgia, who complained the paper was delayed a week in the Griffin area, the editor pointed out that he had no control over the paper after it was mailed. In 1855 he printed the laws governing delinquent accounts and stressed that subscriptions automatically continued until subscribers ordered them discontinued. Names of delinquent subscribers were frequently published in a column entitled, “Names of Subscribers who will not Pay.” When a subscriber paid, his name was printed in the paper and this served as a receipt. [82]

The Herald served Universalism throughout the Southeast, appointing, agents in such remote places as Alligator, Florida. [83] During the <start page 92> nineteenth century the paper was both a weekly and a bimonthly. In 1897 it was sold to John N. Bowers and moved to Canon, Georgia where it was published every other week. [84] The Herald has continued into the present century and has helped to make Canon, Georgia a center of Universalist influence.

As already observed, numerous Universalist ministers engaged in journalistic endeavors, some of which were in the secular field. Although the motives of such ministers may often have been financial, they did provide a friendly auxiliary press for the Universalist cause. These secular enterprises were widely advertised in the religious papers. One such enterprise was the Democrat and the Independent Miscellany, two newspapers published in Aberdeen, Mississippi by Daniel B. Clayton. In 1855 he advertised an interesting subscription contest in the Universalist Herald. Clayton announced a $8,657 premium drawing that that was to be held July 4, 1855, if 10,000 subscribers had been gained by that time. The premiums included an eight-room house and lot in Aberdeen or $2,500 in cash, a piano, books, rings, bracelets, watches, sheet music, and 1,000 copies of “Self instructor in phrenology and physiology.” Clayton provided for the contest even if the numerical subscription goal was not reached. If 3,000 subscribers were obtained $2,000 worth of premiums mere to be given; 5,000 subscribers would provide $3,000 in premiums and 7,000 subscribers would provide the full $8,657 if it was determined the additional 3,000 subscribers could not be enlisted. The minister-journalist asserted that this scheme was not gambling since everyone <start page 93> would be gaining a fine new paper. [85] Another Universalist minister, Elias D. Arms, published The Troy Bulletin in Troy, Alabama. [86]

Universalist books were sold at the Herald office as well as by ministers and agents in the various areas of the Southeast. [97] The books together with the periodicals gave some people their first impressions of Universalism. For both Unitarians and Universalists the printed word was a strong tool in the producing of the morale of a religious minority among a sometimes hostile majority.

The varied church activities of Unitarians and Universalists provided the vehicles for their expression of liberal religious convictions in the Southeast. Worship services, Sunday Schools, educational ventures, missionary enterprises, and particularly publications enabled the religious liberals to provide a minority voice amidst the orthodox stronghold. This voice did not speak with uniformity. Due to the congregational government of Unitarians and Universalists, variations of belief would influence the activities of individual congregations. Uniformity of opinion was not a trademark of these loosely organized religious groups. They engaged in cooperation beyond the local unit in the form of state conventions, regional organizations, and their national conventions. These larger bodies brought together lay and clerical representatives, and <start page 94> resolutions were drafted but without binding authority on individuals members or congregations.

Thus the educational and publication enterprises bore the stamp of individualism.  The Southern Industrial Institute at Camp Hill, Alabama reflected the personality of Lyman Ward rather than Universalism in general. The various publications reflected the editor’s and his writers’ opinions and were not official organs of a denomination. This fact can present frustrations to one seeking to generalize about the views held by religious liberals of the Southeast.  These individuals collectively comprised a minority that was not always understood by the majority.  Their orthodox neighbors tended to generalize about the views held by the religious minority and at time hostility was expressed.  The degree of this hostility is part of the story of Unitarians and Universalists as they confronted their society. <start page 95>

Chapter V. Confronting Society

The perception of religious liberalism in the Southeast varied from both place to place and time to time. In an age of sectarian rivalries religious disputes were common. The large denominations attacked each other while still informing the minorities that their heresies were not forgiven. Points of doctrinal difference among the orthodox divided the major denominations, but they united in objecting to the liberal groups. Thomas Belsham, the noted English Unitarian, observed that “in England the spirit of the times is more liberal than the spirit of the laws. In America it is the reverse; and the bigotry of individuals sometimes labours to counteract the unlimited freedom of faith and worship, which is the glory of the Constitution of the United States.” [1] Some intolerance was expressed in deeds and some only in words. Publications of the various denominations engaged in verbal arguments. The attitude of some of the orthodox periodicals spurred Unitarian and Universalist use of journalism. In the second quarter of the nineteenth century Charleston Unitarians responded to <start page 96> criticism of their faith by Methodist, Presbyterian, and Baptist publications. [2] Universalist also counterattacked in books and periodicals. [3] Universalism was challenged particularly by questions <start page 97> of morel tendency. Some orthodox critics charged that Universalism removed the fear of God, and led to decline in ethical standards and to sinful behavior. Moral tendency had been a test applied in New England during the Unitarian controversy that debated whether the orthodox or the liberals had the “superior tendency to form an elevated religious character. [4] Some opponents of Universalism charged that disbelief in hell led to immorality. Daniel Clayton encountered this argument during his itinerant preaching. He reported that a minister in eastern North Carolina stated that if Universalism were true, he would not mind cutting someone’s throat for money. [5] This argument of moral tendency was an issue in the Pierce-Shehane debate, the 1850 Methodist-Universalist clash. Lovick Pierce charged that Universalism led to wickedness because all people would achieve bliss and hence religion would not he needed. Charles Shehane brought counter charges against. Methodism on the question of moral tendency. Shehane accused Methodists of teaching that all the world’s sin had been put on Christ and He had been punished for those sins before the modern sinner was born. Shehane felt that Methodists emphasized the pleasures of sin and if it were not for the restraints of human laws modern man would seek to sin since the <start page 98> amount of sins committed could all be charged against Christ’s punishment. Christ’s death paid for many sins just as much as for few sins and hence Methodists were preaching a dangerous doctrine. [6]

Debates were not the only arenas for religious differences. Threats to disturb Universalist services wore not unknown. Daniel Clayton faced these threats from time to time, but they usually amounted to little. While conducting religious services at the courthouse in Sandersville, Georgia, in 1846 some of the orthodox threatened that they would run him out of town, but he delivered a long discourse without, disturbance. During a Clayton sermon delivered on July 4, 1881 some firecrackers were set off in front of the hall. [7]

Providing locations for itinerant Universalist preaching also afforded opportunities for friction between denominations. On one occasion in 1848 or 1849 a relative of Clayton arranged for Universalist preaching at a Hardshell Baptist church in Greene County, Alabama. It was rumored that reconsideration of the offer took place and the Baptists agreed to hold their service and then leave the church doors open so Clayton could preach. The Universalist preacher declined entering the church but preached near the front door with the ladies sitting inside the church and the men standing outside. In 1881 it was proposed that Universalists and Presbyterians share the use of a schoolhouse for a Sunday, but a few Presbyterians resisted this arrangement. [8] <start page 99>

Despite these examples of tension, relations between liberals and orthodox denominations were sometimes cordial. In 1833 the Charleston Unitarian Tract Society reported that “no attack has been made upon us by Christians of other denominations in this city, for the last five years. A more catholic and liberal spirit is beginning to prevail.” [9] A liberal Presbyterian approached Charleston Unitarians about purchasing a complete library of American Unitarian Association tracts to present to a southern school. [10] When unprecedented cold weather struck Charleston in January, 1893, and ecumenical relief committee aided blacks and whites, the Unitarian pastor serving as the treasurer of this group. [11] When Charleston Unitarians closed their church for summer vacation in 1894, the Methodist pastor cordially invited the Unitarians to worship with his group. [12] Charleston Unitarians had the advantage of being a long established part of the life of their city, and this may have created more toleration for their congregation.

The more rural Universalists had both good relations with their neighbors and frequent misunderstandings. Despite what they might think of liberal doctrine, some of the orthodox Christians acknowledged the good character of individual Universalists. A group of women at Goosepond in Oglethorpe County, Georgia attacked Universalism, <start page 100> but one elderly widow insisted that no matter what was said about Universalism that Manoah Bolton, a wealthy Universalist, was the best friend of the poor widows in the neighborhood. [13] In 1879 Baptists of Camp Hill, Alabama requested that Daniel Clayton preach at their church on Saturday evening. [14] In 1888 when Clayton preached at Ringgold, Georgia a Methodist and a Baptist preacher attended and both were cordial to him. [15]

Sometimes friendships developed between orthodox and liberal ministers. In 1875 A. B. Woodfin, a native Virginian, became the Baptist pastor in Columbia, South Carolina, and Clayton attended the Baptist service where he heard allusions to Universalism which prompted him to write a letter to Woodfin. He met the Baptist minister as Woodfin was on his way to Clayton’s hotel. The Baptist said that he had used the sermon in Alabama where lived some professed Universalist who he believed were wicked. Woodfin declined to hold a public discussion in Columbia, because it would give Clayton a larger audience to advertise Universalism. Clayton appreciated this candor and for two years the Woodfin family boarded at the Clayton hotel. The two ministers shared a study room where they had friendly discussions. [16]

Relations between the orthodox and religious liberals were not always confined to publications, church activities, and individual <start page 101> contacts. Despite constitutional guarantees, religious intolerance erupted in both legal and political fields. For example, on January 17, 1840, in Oglethorpe County, Georgia, A. A. Bell, a medical doctor, and his father, James Bell, witnessed David Patton murdering Miles Jenning. The trial was held in the court of Judge Garnett Andrews of Lexington, Georgia in April, 1841. Joseph H. Lumpkin, the defense attorney, protested the Bells as witnesses due to their Universalist belief. After a mistrial the case was postponed for about a year, and the suspect escaped without recapture. [17] The judge had held that the testimony of those who did not believe in eternal punishment was not as valid as that of an orthodox believer. On November 13, 1841, a bill was introduced in the Georgia state legislature to correct this situation. Ten days later by a vote of seventy-six to nine any disability in court testimony due to religious opinions was removed. [18] Judge Andrews was defected as the Know-Nothing <start page 102> candidate for governor in the Georgia election in 1855, and his role in depriving Universalists of their rights to testify was an issue in the election.  Progress was made so that no judge dared the political consequences of depriving any citizens of their political rights because of their religion. [19]

The removal in 1834 of Thomas Cooper as South Carolina College President has shown the religious conservatism of that state. [20] This mood apparently persisted and late in the century helped to precipitate an unpleasant state of affairs.  In 1891 Governor Benjamin J. Tillman, the leader of the agrarian political movement of South Carolina, recommended to the legislature the reorganization of the state university, with a resulting teaching staff reduction from twenty-five to thirteen. One of those dismissed was William J. Alexander, a Unitarian and Professor of Logic and Rhetoric. [21] Since the Trustees <start page 103> had questioned him on matters of religion, he considered that this was the reason for his dismissal and a controversy developed. [22] The dismissal created divisions within the state, some considering it a display of religious discrimination and others crediting it to the reorganization alone. The vestry of the Charleston Unitarian Church passed resolutions that cited the tax-supported nature of the university; that charged a religious test had been applied to Alexander; that discrimination was being practiced; and that “in the dismissal of Professor Alexander for his religious views not only has South Carolina College lost one of its ablest and most distinguished professors, but the cause of religion has been injured more than it has been helped by those who profess to be its friends.” [23] Ira B. Jones, Speaker of the South Carolina House of Representatives denied that the Alexander case involved religious persecution but that there was just no place for the professor on the faculty due to the reorganization. Jones stated that “the friends of Dr. Alexander do him a great injustice by posing him as a martyr to religious convictions on so slight foundation.” [24] Alexander replied to Jones with information that he could not publish all the evidence in his favor in order to preserve confi[dence] (Archivist: assumed completion of hyphenated word in original document which is incomplete) but that one of the trustees had authorized him to publish what he <start page 104> had said to Alexander on the day before the second meeting of the board. That trustee had said, “Professor, I think I know the feeling of all the trustees toward you, and can say that, while they all appreciate your ability and high character, your religious views, and nothing but your religious views, will cause your removal. ” [25]

The dismissal of Alexander led to religious controversy. Two ministers particularly entered the fray. G. A. Blackburn, pastor or the Second Presbyterian Church in Columbia, “commended” the trustees and H. A. Whitman, pastor of the Charleston Unitarians, “censured” them. [26] One South Carolina newspaper, the Manning Times, considered the religious question of enough significance to observe that “it is barely possible that an investigation of the infidel views and teachings of some other professors is in order.” [27] A woman wrote a letter to The State, an anti-administration newspaper in Columbia, attesting to her own orthodoxy but championing Professor Alexander. She argued that “right living is of far greater moment than orthodoxy of belief. The State College is not a theological seminary and should have no ‘Thirty-Nine Articles’ for the faculty to subscribe.” [28]

Governor Tillman had written Alexander a private letter on April 22, 1891 saying:

I cannot refrain from giving expression to my own feelings in the matter and to say that while I <start page 105> fear your open avowal of such doubts will inevitably sever your connection with the college I do not share in the slightest in the feeling which will cause men to cry out against you and demand your dismissal. The masses of mankind inherit their religion and have no well-defined opinion on this subject. In proportion as they are ignorant are they bigoted–but I must not trespass further on your time or patience. I only desired to let you know that I do not share such feelings. [29]

On May 18, 1891, Alexander asked the governor for permission to publish this letter but Tillman refused stating “that as I am not a professor of religion of any kind, I would not like to appear before the public in the role of a critic.” Although denying permission to publish he said he would make a statement if needed. [30] Alexander requested this and the statement was provided May 20, 1891 with Tillman contending that the college reorganization plan led to Alexander’s dismissal and not the religious issue. [31] <start page 106>

The Charleston Sun published a reference to Tillman’s first letter to Alexander in which the governor expressed sympathy for the dismissed professor. Alexander wrote Tillman that he did not know how the Sun came to publish this private letter. A few days later Alexander wrote and informed Tillman that the governor’s public statement about the affair was not satisfactory and questioned the facts presented by the governor in the matter. [32] Sides were taken, newspapers defending the governor or upholding the deposed teacher.

The State in Columbia expressed support for Alexander. The editor stated that although religious liberty was a part of our national foundation there is always the danger of the religious majority seeking to impose its beliefs on the minority. The Columbia editor felt that there was no evidence that Alexander had influenced any students towards skepticism or Unitarianism or in any way affected the Christian faith of his students. [33] Exchange continued, Tillman asserting that Alexander was “ungenerous and ungentlemanly” and repeating that:

the chair which he occupied would have been abolished if he had never mentioned his religion. Instead of being a martyr to truth he now appears to want to make <start page 107> merchandise out of his religion, and seems to be one who would elevate himself in the opinion of mankind by the cry of persecution. [34]

Alexander referred to the governor’s “slight mistakes” and said that “it is another ‘slight mistake’ to say that I accused him of deliberate falsehood at all, and when I saw that my metaphor was misunderstood I immediately disclaimed any intention of charging him with falsehood.” [35] By continuing long afterwards to argue the case partisans publicized the fate of a minority religion when confronted by majority politics.

Religious liberals were not only involved in strictly religious pursuits concerning their own unique theologies, but they also found themselves part of the everyday life of their time. The attitude of Unitarians and Universalists toward various nineteenth century social and intellectual movements has not always been easy to determine, but isolated references focus on some aspects. Both denominations expressed interest in the Lyceum. The Lyceum presented the only organized lecture program for many American communities during the nineteenth century. The visiting speakers covered a wide range of subjects designed to enlighten and instruct their audiences. Prior to the organization of this cultural attribute in Savannah, the Unitarian lecture room was used for an illustrated lecture on astronomy. [36] When a meeting was held to organize a Savannah Lyceum, the Unitarian Richard Arnold was one of three selected <start page 108> to draft a constitution. [37] The editor of the Southern Universalist endorsed the Lyceum in 1841 but cautioned against the introduction of sectarian issues into the programs. [38] Even after the heyday of the Lyceum movement related activities continued, W. R. Cole, the Atlanta Unitarian pastor, for example, delivered three lectures on Buddhism in 1893. [39]

The interesting remedies and fads of nineteenth century life affected at least one Universalist publication. The Universalist Herald carried advertisements for books dealing with the water cure, diet, and phrenology. One such public notice stated that a book showed the “water cure applied to every known disease — a new theory.” [40] This particular paper did not state whether the application “cured” every known disease! How much faith the Universalist editor had in these theories and how much his motivation for accepting such advertising might have been strictly mercenary is a matter of conjecture.

In the antebellum South many “isms” were suspect, but there were at least two reforms that enlisted support. They were temperance and the establishment of asylums for the insane. A Unitarian welcomed throughout the South was Dorthea Lynde Dix who had been a teacher of William Ellery Channing’s children. Miss Dix labored in South Carolina, Alabama, and Georgia to persuade state legislatures to build and improve asylums for the insane. She did not speak on the issue of slavery, <start page 109> knowing, that the South would be closed to her if she involved herself in such a controversy. After the Civil War she returned to South Carolina seeking to further her cause. [41]

Unitarians of the Southeast were also active in the temperance crusade. The Unitarian Christian of Augusta joined in advocating this reform, stating that “a portion of its pages will be devoted to the general advancement of morality and religion, especially to the great cause of Temperance. [42]

Samuel Gilman, the Charleston pastor, was also active in temperance work in both South Carolina and Georgia. The editor of the Unitarian Christian recommended in 1831 that the address delivered by Gilman at the anniversary of the South Carolina Temperance Society be read by “friends of this holy cause in Augusta.

Some considered temperance in manner of its dictionary definition, but many who paraded under that banner considered that kind of “temperance” too weak. The Augusta Unitarian periodical carried a plea for total abstinence and advocated “never tasting” intoxicating liquor. [44] These regional temperance activities were not unique to Southern Unitarianism. There was a national Unitarian Temperance Society, and in 1882 and 1891 temperance resolutions advocating total abstinence were adopted by the National Unitarian Conference. [45] <start page 110>

Practical realization of temperance goals found various advocates among Unitarians. Some were interested in teaching temperance lessons to the older children in the Sunday Schools, while others saw a possible application to the South of the Swedish Gothenburg Plan of liquor regulation by state monopoly. [46] But other Unitarians were involved at various times during the nineteenth century in the sale and distribution of intoxicating beverages. S. Philbrick, Savannah Unitarian layman, while operating an auction sales firm offered wine, whiskey, and gin. [47]

More benevolent was the behavior of Unitarian missionaries, who in aiding Charleston after the Civil War, used part of their money to purchase gin, whiskey, brandy, and wine for the people in need. [48]

The United States Convention of Universalists meeting in Akron, Ohio in September, 1843 passed a resolution advocating temperance. [49] Southern Universalists were also interested in the cause, and they <start page 111> appear to have worked through existing temperance organizations such as the Knights of Jericho and the Sons of Temperance. [50]

A rumor circulated that Daniel Clayton had been expelled from the Baptist denomination due to drunkenness, but since he had never been intoxicated in his life this did not concern him. In a letter to his wife, Clayton spoke of some ministers who had engaged in whiskey blockade running, apparently during the Civil War. He referred to this as that “disreputable and demoralizing traffic. All such men ought to be sent to the penitentiary, and made to work there for their meat and bread, for they are a curse to the communities in which they operate.” [51] But another Universalist preacher showed another side of the temperance issue when he spoke of a drunkard and immortality:

Is not the drunkard to be pitied as well as blamed in his down-trodden condition? Does he not suffer sufficiently here? Is it good logic to say that he will be punished here and hereafter? — What is drunkenness but the effect of excess in drinking; — and suppose a professed Christian was to experience death from indulging in eating to excess, would it not appear a hardship that he should also suffer <start page 112> endless punishment in the future for the same misfortune? [52]

Generally temperance was an issue which united the orthodox denominations and the religious liberals.

Religious liberalism did not necessarily foster political radicalism. When Unitarianism gained ground in New England the adherents of the new theology tended to be political and economic conservatives. [53] Some of the early Charleston Unitarians may well have been Federalists, particularly those coming from the North. Some of them were later to show an affinity for Whiggery. As they sought to water the exotic flower of liberal theology in a southern clime many of these people seem to have steered clear of political controversy. The 1833 Report of the Charleston Unitarian Tract Society noted that “the past year, however, has been a season of extraordinary political excitement throughout the country, and especially in South Carolina. The minds of men have been too much occupied about the things of time and sense.” The nullification crisis would be only one of many political diversions far church congregations. As the sectional issue influenced politics more and more, some religious liberals became more outspoken. [55] <start page 113>

Universalist ministers tended to follow their area in matters of politics. Daniel Clayton was described as a “staunch follower of John C. Calhoun and a firm believer in States’ Rights.” [56] The newspaper published in Troy, Alabama by Elias Arms, another Universalist minister, expressed its dedication to the principles of Jefferson, to States’ Rights, and to a strict construction of the United States Constitution. [57]

The American Party agitation, which grew out of the Know Nothing movement, involved some Universalists. The Herald advertised a Know Nothing publication of Alabama that was to publish pro and con articles. No record of the religious affiliation of the publisher of the Know Nothing journal has been found. His name was James T. Osborn but nothing has been found of his background or the fate of his publication. [58] Daniel Clayton considered the Know Nothing attempt of 1855 to deprive Roman Catholics of political office an attack on religious liberty. This Universalist minister worked energetically for the Democratic Party in order to defeat the Know Nothings. [59] <start page 114>

Georgia gubernatorial elections of 1855 presented another political challenge for Universalism. B. H. Overby, a Methodist, was the temperance candidate for Georgia governor and while speaking in Fayette, Georgia he asked if there were any in the audience who did not believe in God or in future rewards and punishments. When told there were, he replied that “than, such should enlist under the banner of Temperance, for if your hopes are bounded by this world, you should, by all means seek to make it a paradise, and this can never be done as long as there remains a grogship in it.” [60] Overby was criticized for lumping together atheists and Universalists, the Herald advising that “we hope the Universalists of Georgia will remember Mr. O’s unjust classification, and govern themselves accordingly. Bigotry is despicable enough at any time and it is more so, when foisted into the political arena.” [61]

Events in Kansas and the general turbulence of the late l850’s increased southern political temperature on the eve of the presidential election of 1860. [62] A short time after the election Richard Arnold wrote a friend in Philadelphia warning that since the North was ruled by men like William H. Seward, Charles Sumner, Henry Wilson, Horace Greeley, and Henry Ward Beecher the South could not remain a part of the Union. He particularly attacked Seward and Sumner, charging them with pulling down the United States Constitution for personal gain. Referring to the election of 1860, Arnold observed <start page 115> that “the very state which decided the election of the buffoon Lincoln refused to admit the negroes to a political equality and his own State refused the free negro a habitation within its limits. Glorious consistency!” [63] Clayton recorded that he and other southerners believed Lincoln’s election indicated that a majority in the North would use the power of the national government to make war on the social institutions of the South. [64]

The 1860 election had focused national attention on the lingering controversy over slavery. The roles of Unitarians and Universalists in this controversy demonstrates how regional attitudes influence religious institutions. The involvement of northern Unitarians in abolitionism poses the question of the attitude of their southern brethren. Is it true, as some have asserted, that no Unitarians defended slavery in the pulpit? [65] It would appear that while most Unitarian ministers in the Southeast did not commit themselves publicly on this issue, Unitarian laymen behaved otherwise. One such layman was the Savannah physician Richard D. Arnold. Although <start page 116> born in Georgia, Arnold had family roots in the North. [66] He defended slavery, attacked abolitionists, and predicted civil war if they continued their agitation. [67] Arnold reflected the typical southerner’s everyday concerns with slavery. He wrote a woman in Pennsylvania in 1848 about selling slaves for the benefit of an estate and reported that “it is necessary, for humanity’s sake, to sell negroes in families.” [68] When he contemplated taking his ill wife for a visit <start page 117> to their daughter’s home in Philadelphia, he was tormented by both the prospect that abolitionists might seize any slave taken along to care for his wife and the Georgia law that prevented him from returning to the state a Negro he might free. [69] Arnold expressed his satisfaction with slavery when he wrote his daughter in 1854 that “I do not believe anybody North or South has better servants than we have. God knows I should be very unwilling to exchange them for mere hirelings.” [70]

Southern Universalists were also apologists for slavery. A minister in Huntsville, Alabama, J. M. H. Smith, wrote the Universalist Herald in 1855, charging northern Universalist abolitionists with disrupting the unity of the denomination. A northerner had asserted that the Universalist denomination was shamed because of the course of Universalist ministers in the South. Smith denied these charges and called for a southern convention to encourage the southern press and pass resolutions protecting southern property. He expressed the wish that the two branches of the church remain in a unified denomination, but he believed the painful duty called for a split. [71] Smith had lived in the South for ten years. He declared that he did not intend to “defend the evils of slavery. That there are evils-in that and all other institutions, I also contend. Name an evil, or an abuse of society, where slavery exists, and I will direct you to an equivalent where it does not exist.” [72] He considered the abolitionists <start page 118> unfair in criticizing the Universalist Herald because it would not “depart from the laws, institutions, and customer of the country where it is published.” [73] The defense of slavery by Unitarians and Universalists appears to have been grounded in regional loyalty, rather than in seeking to prove the inherent ”rightness of slavery by using scriptural support as did so many of the spokesmen of orthodox groups.

The war caught up ministers and laymen alike, and they expressed their sectional loyalty in both word and deed. James L. C. Griffin, a Universalist minister, was in Williamsburg, Virginia during the hostilities and on August 21, 1863 he noted in his diary that “this day by proclamation of our beloved President, is appointed as a day of Prayer and Fasting among the people of the C. S. I have been using, with some modifications, the Prayer of our country.” [74]

Reference has already been made to Daniel Clayton’s military service.  He proclaimed that he tried to do “his duty as a loyal citizen of the Southern Confederacy.” [75] He once complimented two Union soldiers for their acts of humanity to his family and he looked back on the war latter as a necessity. [76] Clayton summed up the war declaring that:

It was best for the defeated party in the struggle that is should have resulted as it did. Slavery, as an institution, was inherently wrong in principle doubtless, and as such, was bound to perish before the <start page 119> advancing civilization of the world. But it was so completely interwoven in the social fabric of this Southern section of the Union that, the principles of human action being, as has always been too exclusively-the case thus far in the world’s history, based on selfishness it could not have been eliminated excepting by violence. Such being the case, procrastination of the evil day would have tended only to magnify the horrors of the struggle, on the arrival of the ‘impending crisis.’ Viewing the subject from this posterior stand-point, the writer rejoices that the result has occurred, and that the settlement of the question has not been left as a bloody heritage to a coming generation. [77]

Some southern Unitarians and Universalists suggested that slavery was the only method of “correct” race regulation. The degree that the racial inequalities of slavery disturbed the conscience of religious people may never be known. Little evidence has been preserved detailing; relations between religious liberals and the black population. Samuel Gilman, reporting on the black members of Charleston Unitarian Church in 1852, stated that “owning to the absence of efficient leaders, the colored portion of the communicants has generally been in a state of decline, in spite of my constant and earnest efforts to prevent it.” [78] Gilman’s deliberate silence on the issue of slavery appears to explain the lack of more information on the status of blacks in the church.

David Harris was a mulatto slave who served as a plantation foreman and learned to read and write. He attempted to learn Greek to aid his Bible study. Harris sat on doorsteps and listened to singing school and thus learned to read musical notes and later taught music <start page 120> himself. He spoke of religion with his master and came to accept Universalism, the faith of the master’s family. This intelligent slave subscribed to the Universalist Herald and named a son Hosea for the noted Universalist leader Hosea Ballou. This black religious liberal taught school and filled colored pulpits of the orthodox groups. He served two generations of the same family, and the daughter of the second-generation master said that “my father often declared that he had never found David guilty of falsehood or any of the low vices common to his race.” [79] The latter part of this statement reflects the stereotype and would suggest that white religious liberals viewed the black man in much the same way as other whites.

After the Civil War religious liberals still shared many racial attitudes commonly held by southerners. After the hostilities Amory D. Mayo, a northerner who had been both a Universalist and Unitarian minister, wrote somewhat favorably of slavery referring to the Negro as lacking:

the virile experience of centuries of battling for his rights, and has had less of practical slavery and oppression than the masses of any European people. On the other hand, his period of bondage was the mildest and the most instructive and healthful in history. The slave-holders were the superior class of their section; and, with ordinary exceptions, their handling of the slaves was in some ways an uplifting discipline. [80]

The destruction of slavery forced the South into the mainstream of capital-labor relations. Southerners soon faced some of the same <start page 121> social problems as northerners. Illustrative of this was a series of three lectures in January 1893 at the Atlanta Unitarian Church. The first was titled “The Power and Dignity of Labor,” the second “The Present Position of the Working-man in Relation to Capital,” and third “The Future Position of the Workingman in Relation to Capital.” [81] At the Southern Conference of Unitarians in 1895 a speaker posed the question “will the development  of Negro labor to the agitation and troubles which accompany industrial communities in other parts of the world and to socialistic complications?” [82]

The changed situation in the, using hired labor rather than slaves, brought new viewpoints to the surface. The economic goals of the “New South” were shared by many liberals. The views of men like Henry Grady had an appeal. [83] Many felt that, that the South would find prosperity in industrialization. Some pointed to problems that would be faced with the “laboring class,” a class that was not too well understood by southern agrarians.

One aspect of the labor question illustrates the feeling religious liberals had towards the “new immigration,” with its religious and cultural differences. Fear of the laboring class was expressed by some of the religious liberals. Amory Mayo was one of those who <start page 122> saw in the South a possible arena for helping the nation to control what he considered the “lower side of European civilisation” that had swelled the American labor market. He feared danger for the country from immigrants with ideas disliked by conservatives in the United States. He summed up his feeling that the South could help this problem with his conviction that the:

time may not be in the far future when the solid Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, conservative South will be a welcome ally in a dozen great Northern States, now virtually in the hands of “the lower orders” in as many overcrowded cities. South Carolina may yet return to Massachusetts the good office of helping to bring her back to the Union, by coming up in true American style, to “the help of the Lord against the mighty” who are plotting, in our Athens, to establish a rule of priest-craft which is repudiated even under the shadow of the Vatican in Rome. [84]

William Weeden, a writer for the Southern Unitarian, shared this cautious attitude toward immigrant laborers, but he also saw a chance for the South to solve the problem. He thought many of the immigrants were “rude” but that they could be assimilated gradually. He said that even the “polak” has cultivated fields abandoned by the lumbering interests and has thus contributed to the nation. Wooden considered the farm and homestead a conservative answer to urbanization with its importation of political ideas harmful to the United States. In his view the “South has great industrial possibilities but their industry will be combined with agriculture” and thus a conservative social order could be maintained. [85] <start page 123>

Despite the social and economic conservatism displayed by some of the theological liberals, others appreciated socialism and endeavored to explain and espouse its views to their religious compatriots. Mrs. Viola Neblett of Greenville, South Carolina considered the socialistic views of Edward Bellamy a goal for which mankind should strive. She pointed out historical examples of property being held in common by Greeks, Romans, and early Christians. Mrs. Neblett considered capital-labor conflict as witnessed in strikes and arbitration a necessary and healthy transition to the period when the workers would own the corporations in which they labored. She sought to show that “not each for self, but each for all is the higher law.” [86]

The so-called “Social gospel” that would influence Protestant theology in the early twentieth century was previewed by some nineteenth century liberals. In 1895 the concern of the church to develop a social conscience was cited by W. R. Cole, the Atlanta Unitarian pastor. He was critical of the church’s historical stance that poverty was a permanent condition for the world. He considered that the church did not have the power and means to cure the problem, but that society as a whole could accomplish the task of abolishing poverty. Cole applauded the growing secularization of charity since the physical welfare of people should be the concern of the state and society as a whole. He considered that the church had the great <start page 124> obligation of developing a social conscience for society. [87] He summed up his solution of poverty when he declared that:

the specialist is to discover the remedy, society is to apply it, and the church all the while is to be the quickener and the educator of the moral standards and conditions of men, out of which will proceed an atmosphere and life of justice and common sense that shall demand that every man, woman and child’s physical body shall have a chance to grow and be healthy, every mind an opportunity to develop itself, every conscience a vision of justice, and a chance to choose between right and wrong. [88]

The involvement of women like Mrs. Neblett in the economic and social concerns of the time illustrates the fact that some religious liberals were not adverse to an increased role for women in society. Some felt that this should include the political right of suffrage. When the National American Woman’s Suffrage Association met in Atlanta January 31 to February 5, 1895, one of the delegates wrote an account of the meeting which was used in the Southern Unitarian. [89]

Women increasingly involved themselves in the social concerns of their communities. The Unitarian women of Greenville, South Carolina, even without an organized church, were active in many areas. When the Spanish-American War brought an influx of servicemen to their community, these women spearheaded a drive for books and magazines that could be distributed to soldiers stationed in Greenville. [90] <start page 125>

As the nineteenth century closed the Unitarians and Universalists of the Southeast looked back on brief periods of intolerance when some of the orthodox attacked them in word and deed. But examples of friendship from those outside their faith were also recalled. They had shared in reform movements such as temperance and in defense of slavery and loyalty to the Confederate States. Generally, the religious liberals of the New South had been conservative regarding labor-capital relations and other controversial issues, but a few had spoken out for socialism and other social and economic innovations.

The Unitarians and Universalists of the Southeast were a tiny minority that, unlike the Amish and similar small religious groups, did not seek to isolate themselves from the normal historical process. These religious liberals preserved their own denominational existence by a general conformity to the attitudes of their region. Particularly during the heat of the abolition controversy, one can surmise that they would not have survived, as a group, if they had followed northern Unitarian and Universalist attitudes toward slavery. They paid the price of survival by conforming. Their confrontation with their society had preserved a small outpost of liberal theology in a region marked by the strength of orthodox denominations. <start page 126>

Chapter VI. Concluding Observations

The Bible was the constant, companion of nineteenth century religious liberals of the Southeast. Both Samuel Gilman in Charleston and Daniel Clayton in his itinerant preaching relied upon it for their theology. John Burruss, in his long-lived Universalist Herald, quoted and explained Biblical passages. In his debates with representatives of various denominations, Charles Shehane used the Bible to support his arguments. While some religious liberals gained inspiration from rational treatises, they usually found the Bible comforting in times of grief and discouragement.

Much has been written of southern liberalism’s debt to the Deism of men like Thomas Jefferson. Like southern religious liberalism Deism rejected creeds. However, Deism led to a more impersonal Deity than that which sustained southeastern Unitarians and Universalists of the nineteenth century. The often-used illustration of Deism’s God winding the universe as a giant clock and then abandoning it to natural law does not seem to fit the view of southeastern liberals. Their concept of God stressed His loving concern for the plight of men.

Because they sought the religion of Jesus rather than the religion about Jesus, nineteenth century religious liberals were setting the stage for the fundamentalist-modernist controversy that would agitate the larger denominations in the early twentieth century. <start page 127>

The scarcity of full-time ministers hampered the growth of the liberal churches in the Southeast. Churches that depended upon occasional preaching by traveling ministers proved ineffective. Some congregations, the Unitarians of Savannah and Mobile for example, survived after losing their ministers, but generally survival was short-lived.

The southeastern liberal ministry of the nineteenth century presented interesting and varied personalities. Some were informally trained famer-preachers, others were formally educated. In either case, their influence extended well beyond the liberal denominations they served. In a sense they played the role of devil’s advocate for many in the orthodox groups. An outspoken liberal minister often forced the orthodox church member to re-examine his traditional theology. How many liberal converts resulted from this questioning is purely speculative. Equally speculative is the extent to which this questioning strengthened orthodoxy.

The various church activities were not simply channels for liberal theology. They reflected a spirit of belonging. Liberal denominations that did not offer a full program of activities faced the possibility of losing members. It was not doctrinal viewpoints alone that attracted and hold members. A nation of “joiners” needed activities to escape loneliness. In an isolated rural area church activities were thus a particularly effective magnet. Despite such activities and the efforts of their liberal ministers, Unitarians and Universalists of the Southeast found their gains offset by losses. Those religious liberals did not enjoy the luxury of watching a constant <start page 128> and steady expansion of numerical strength. They remained a distinct minority throughout the nineteenth century. These nineteenth century religious liberals wanted to practice the religion that Jesus Himself had practiced, rather than a religion that relegated Jesus to a dogmatic object of worship. They saw Jesus as a source of inspiration, believing He had taught that a loving God was the hope of mankind. This became their guiding principle.

Liberal religion in the Southeast during the nineteenth century was marked by small congregations. While many of them were short-lived, a few tenaciously held their ground. Overall, liberal churches made little impact on nineteenth century religious life in the Southeast.

Because they were rural in both origin and outlook, Universalists were weakened by migrations from the rural areas. While all denominations were influenced by these shifts in population, minority denominations probably faced the greater frustrations from expressions of intolerance. They may therefore have viewed migration as a partial answer to their difficulties. Migration may have helped some individual religious liberals, but the numerical strength of their churches suffered because of the moves to urban areas.

Within their society, Unitarians and Universalists often faced an uphill struggle against a hostile majority. Examples of intolerance ranged from attacks against them by orthodox periodicals to the deprivation of political rights. The latter was well illustrated by the Oglethorpe County, Georgia, oath case when Judge Andrews would not allow the testimony of two witnesses to a murder because they were Universalists. The unpopularity of liberal theology led to the <start page 129> dismissal of Professor Alexander from the faculty of the University of South Carolina. When Unitarians and Universalists were attacked they explained their views. By this exercise they sought to arouse the conscience of the majority and to illustrate what they understood to be the meaning of religious freedom and separation of church and state.

These nineteenth century religious liberals were plagued by the age-old question of Christian interpretation. Was the Kingdom of God to be realized on earth, here and now, or only in some distant “eternity”? Increasingly religious liberals saw hope for man, here and now, by the application of rational solutions to human problems Some nineteenth century liberals placed emphasis on ethical aspects of man’s relations with man. Basically, however, Unitarians and Universalists of the Southeast were concerned with man’s relationship to God. Their roots were in a spiritual realm rather than in a strict pursuit of rational solutions to man’s earthly problems. Beyond man’s reason was a transcending faith that man’s future was not independent of God. The God worshipped by these southeastern liberals had not abandoned man to his own devices. This was particularly evident in the cardinal doctrine of the Universalists that decreed all men would eventually be blessed by a loving and just God.

These religious liberals believed that God would eventually provide the perfection desired, but most of them, faced with the pressures of daily association with members of orthodox groups, were practical minded enough to adjust. Men like Richard Arnold could strongly espouse religious liberalism and just as strongly defend slavery. Conservative reaction in labor relations was as evident among <start page 130> religious liberals as among the orthodox. On most of the controversial political and social issues of the nineteenth century religious liberals of the Southeast either accepted the majority viewpoint or maintained a discreet silence.

The membership of these denominations in the Southeast was marked by numerous doctors, lawyers, journalists, merchants, and others that attest to an upper middle class following. Those with enough social and economic position were better able to preserve an independent religious stance. A for individuals that stood in the esteem of their communities may have had a greater influence than we can document. Reference was made to the liberal Presbyterian who bought Unitarian tracts to present to a southern library. Possibly others in orthodox denominations modified their own theologies as they made contact with respected Unitarians or Universalists. This is mere speculation and the influence in this area was probably very small.

Since both denominations were strictly congregational in church government, the realm of individual difference is apparent. With no binding creed or profession of faith, the wide degree of attitudes held quietly by some of these religious liberals may never be known. How much did the outward conformity mask inner doubts and frustrations? If only more personal journals could be found that might reveal what some of these Unitarians and Universalists really thought about the controversial issues. Yet again the outer conformity might have been in harmony with the inner conviction.

The overall importance of both groups was meager. But their mere survival may have demonstrated limited success. At least they <start page 131> kept alive a minute liberal theology. Even among the more orthodox this might be considered a blessing. The mere presence of Unitarian and Universalists churches in the region might have “saved” some individuals from atheism and agnosticism. Some who might have deserted all religion might have found a home in the more liberal theology.

From this survey of Unitarians and Universalists of the Southeast during the nineteenth century three major generalizations emerge. Unlike their twentieth century heirs, they based their convictions more upon their interpretation of the Bible than upon a strict reliance upon reason. They remained a decided minority throughout the century. In the area of social and political controversy they were strongly influenced by sectional attitudes and generally tended to conform to them. Despite this conformity, these churches and many of the personalities identified with them persisted throughout the nineteenth century as a religious minority holding a liberal theology in the midst of southern orthodoxy.

 Footnotes

Chapter I

[1] Samuel Gilman, The Old and the New: or Discourses and Proceedings at the Dedication of the Re-modelled Unitarian Church in Charleston, S.C. on Sunday April 2, 1854.  Preceded by Farewell Discourse Delivered in the Old Church, on Sunday, April 4, 1852 (Charleston: Samuel G. Courtenay, 1854, p. 17. (Hereinafter referred to Old and the New.)

[2] William N. Dabney and Marion Dargan, William Henry Drayton & the American Revolution (Albuquerque: The University of New Mexico Press, 1962), pp. 94-97, Gilman, Old and the New, p. 18.

[3] Dabney and Dargan, William Henry Drayton b. the American Revolution, p. 142; Gilman, Old and the New, p. 18.

[4] E. L. Browne, “Ecclesiastical Beginnings in Carolina,” Unitarian Review, XXII, No. 4 (Oct., 1884), pp. 322-324; H. A. Whitman, “The Dawn of Unitarianism in the South,” The Southern Unitarian (Atlanta, Ga.), January, 1893, p. 4; George Willis Cooke, Unitarianism in America (Boston: American Unitarian Association, 1910), p. 118; Gilman, Old and the New, p. 19.

[5] Ibid., p. 14.

[6] Browne, “Ecclesiastical Beginnings in Carolina,” p. 324.

[7] Gilman, Old and the New, pp. 20-21.

[8] Whitman, “The Dawn of Unitarianism in the South,” p. 4.

[9] The Southern Unitarian (Atlanta, Ga.), June, 1894, p. 104.

[10] Clarence Gohdes, “Some Notes on the Unitarian Church in the Ante-Bellum South,” American Studies in Honor of William Kenneth Boyd (Durham: Duke University Press, 19140), p. 350. (Hereinafter referred to as “Some Notes on Unitarian Church”); Christian Examiner (Boston), III (July and August, 1826), pp. 352-355;

[11] Ibid., pp. 351-352; Richard H. Shyrock, ed., Letters of Richard D. Arnold, M.D. (Durham: Seaman Press, 1929), p. 27.

[12] The Unitarian Congregational Register, for the Year 1851 (Boston: Wm. Crosby and H.P. Nichols,n. d.), p. 23.

[13] Gohdes, “Some Notes on Unitarian Church,” p. 352.

[14] The Unitarian Christian (Augusta, Ga.), June 1831, p. 94.

[16] Ibid., Feb. 12, 1833; March 20, 1833; March 21, 1833; May 6, 1833; June 3, 1833.

[17] Ibid., Feb. 22, 1833; March 8, 1833; April 5, 1833; April 19, 1833.

[18] Ibid., April 5, 1833.

[19] Ibid.,May 10, 1833.

[15] The Georgian (Savannah), Jan. 12, 1833; Feb. 2, 1833; Feb. 9, 1833: Feb. 16, 1833; Feb. 23, 1833; March 9, 1833; March 16, 1833; March 23, 1833; March 30, 1833; April 13, 1833; April 20, 1833; April 27, 1833; May 4, 1833; May 11, 1833; May 18, 1833: Dec. 14, 1833; Dec. 24, 1833; Dec. 28, 1833; Jan. 11, 1834; Jan. 18, 1834; Jan. 25, 1834; Feb. 8, 1834; Feb. 15, 183b; Feb. 22, 1834; March 1, 1834; March 8, 1834; March 15, 1834; March 22, 1834; March 29, 1834; Nov. 1, 1834; Nov. 3, 1834; Nov. 15, 1834; Nov. 22, 183h; Dec. 6, 1834; Dec. 13, 1834.

[20] The Georgian (Savannah), Dec. 18, 1834, p. 2. Clarence Gohdes has reported that the Library of Congress could find no report in The Daily Georgian or Daily Savannah Republican of a dedication of the completed building. (Gohdes, ”Some Rotes on Unitarian Church,” p. 356.) However, the dedication is mentioned in three separate editions of The Georgian (Savannah).

[21] Ibid., Dec. 24, 1834, p. 2; Oct. 25, 1834, p. 2.

[22] The Unitarian Annual. Register, for the Year 1846 (Boston: WM. Crosby and H. P. Nichols, n. d.), p. 19; The Unitarian Congregational Register for the Year 1850 (Boston: Win Crosby and If. P. Nichols, n. d.), p. 24.

[23] The Year-Book of the Unitarian Congregational Churches for 1868 (Boston: American Unitarian Association, n.d.), p. 25. (Hereafter referred to as Unitarian Year-Book with appropriate year.) Unitarian Year-Book for 1871, p. 26.

[24] George L. Chaney, “Address at 10th Anniversary of Atlanta Church The Southern Unitarian (Atlanta, Ga.), March, 1894, p. 36.

[25] Those attending this meeting were Mr. and Mrs. W. H. Snowden, Mr. and Mrs. J. R. Hodge, J. A. Burns, Frank Lederle, G. L. Norrman, Mrs. W.C. Morrill, Miss E. E. Coolidge, Mrs. J. Seaver, and Reverend and Mrs. George L. Chaney. (Ibid.)

[26] Ibid., p. 37.

[27] Arthur S. Bolster, Jr., Janes Freeman Clarke (Boston: The Beacon Press, 1954), pp. 91-92; Gohdes, “Some Votes on Unitarian Church,” p. 363.

[28] Western Messenger (Cincinnati), III, April, 1837, p. 644.

[29] The Unitarian Congregational Register, for the Year 1851, p. 23.

[30] Gohdes, “Some Notes on Unitarian Church,” p. 364.

[31] Unitarian Year-Book for 1891, p. 49.

[32] In 1869 and 1870 John Savary, who had been ordained in 1861, was living in Port Orange, Florida. (Unitarian Year-Book for 1869, p. 29). Almanza S. Ryder, ordained in 1854, was in Jacksonville in 1869. (Ibid.) From 1870 to 1878 Daniel Bowen, who was ordained in 1859, lived in Jacksonville and from 1879 to 1883 he was in Mandarin, Florida. In 1891 he was back in Jacksonville. (Unitarian Year-Book  for 1870, p. 24; Unitarian Year-Book for 1871, p. 24; Unitarian Year-Book for 1872, p. 2h; Unitarian Year-Book for 1873, p. 24; Unitarian  Year-Book for 1874, p. 24; Unitarian Year-Book for 1876, p. 25; Unitarian Year-Book for 1877, p. 25; Unitarian Year-Book for 1878, p. 2 Unitarian Year-Book for 1879, p. 23; Unitarian Year-Book for  1880, p. 25; Unitarian Year-Took for 1881, p. 25; Unitarian Year-Book  for 1882, p. 25; Unitarian Year-Book for 1883, p. 25; Unitarian Year-Book for 1891, p. 26) James Halkyard Collins, ordained 1870, had been Unitarian minister at Pembroke, Massachusetts from 1877 to 1881 and from 1881 he was located at Crescent City, Florida. (Unitarian Year-Book for 1880, p. 26; Unitarian Year-Book for 1881, p. 26; Unitarian Year-nook for 1882, p. 26; Unitarian Year-Book for 1883, p. 26.)

[33] Unitarian Year-Book for 1891, p. 28.

[34] The Southern Unitarian (Atlanta, Ga.), April, 1e94, p. 65; Ibid., May, 1894, p. 76; Ibid., Sept., 1694.

[35] Ibid.

[36] Ibid., May, 1894, p. 76.

[37] Ibid., Dec., 1895, p. 235.

[38] National Alliance,” The Christian Register (Boston), July 14, 1898, p. 802.

[39] The Constitution of the First Universalist Society of the City of Charleston, South Carolina: Printed at the Office of the Southern Evangelist, 1836).

[40] Diary of James Lewis Corbin Griffin,” (1859-1860), p. 7. (Manuscript at Virginia Historical Society in Richmond. Hereinafter referred to as “Griffin Diary” with date.)

[41] The Universalist Miscellany (Boston), Sept., 1848, p. 112: The Universalist Companion, with an Almanac and Register, containing the Statistics of the Denomination for 1858 (Boston: Abel Tompkins, 1558), p. 50. (Hereinafter referred to as Universalist Companion with appropriate date.)

[42] John Coleman Adams, Universalism and the Universalist Church  (Boston: Universalist Publishing Rouse, 1915), p. 14; Thomas -Whittemore, The Modern History of Universalism (Boston: Published by Author, 1830), p. 421.

[43] Daniel Bragg Clayton, Forty-Seven Years in the Universalist Ministry (Columbia, South Carolina: Published by Author, 1889), p. 271. (Hereinafter referred to as Forty-Seven Years.) Thomas Chapman, “South Carolina,” The Universalist Herald (Canon, Ga.)) July 20, 1937, p. 6.

[44] Clayton, Forty-Sever Years, p. 271; Thomas”0ver tile Southland,” The Universalist Herald (Canon, Ga.), 20, 1933, p. 14.

[45] Clayton, Forty-Seven Years, p. 273.

[46] Ibid., pp. 84, 87, 91.

[47] Ibid., p. 91. The first name of Mr. Partlow has not been located.

[49] The Universalist Miscellany, Feb., 1845, p. 326.

[50] Clayton, Forty-Seven Years, pp. 90-91.

[5l] The Universalist Register and Almanac, Containing the Statistics of the Church for 1875 (Boston: Universalist Publishing p. 77. (Hereafter referred to as Universalist Register appropriate date.)

[51] Universalist Register for 1875, p. 73.

[52] Universalist Register for 1888, p. 52; Universalist Resister for 1E69, p. 52; Universalist Register for 1889, p. 52; Universalist Register for 1890, p. 54;Universalist Register for 1891, p. 54; Universalist Register for 1893, p. 55: Universalist Register for 1896, p. 54; Universalist Register for 1897, p. 56.

[53] Clayton, Forty-Seven Years, p. 338; John Pelton (Mean and John A. Chapman, The Annals of Newberry (2 parts in one volume: Newberry: Aull & Houseal, 1892), p. 70. The mention of services being held at this location twenty-five years before has not been documented.

[54] Clayton, Forty-Seven Years, p. 339.

[55] Universalist Register for 1899, p. 67.

[56] Ibid., p. 76.

[57] Nellie Mann Opdale, “One Hundred Years of Organized Universalism in Georgia,” The Universalist Herald (Canon, Ga.), Oct. 20, 1938, P. 3.

[58] Universalist Register for 1899, p. 37.

[59] Cpdale, “One Hundred Years of Organized Universalism in Georgia,” p. 3. Reverend Opdale gave an 1938 newspaper (unnamed) as her source. This account was disputed by Miss Grace House, Secretary of the Rockwell Church, who said that the church was: organized until 1867. Miss House’s objection is given in the Universalist Herald, Oct. 20, 1938, p. 15.

[60] Universalist Register for 1899, p. 37.

[61] Clayton, Forty-Seven Years, p. 176.

[62] Ibid., pp. 67, 201.

[63] Universalist Register for 1873, p. 32; “Scrapbook of James Lewis Corbin Griffin 1873-1875″ p. 271. (Manuscript at Virginia Historical Society in Richmond, Hereafter referred to as “Griffin Scrapbook.”)

[64 Universalist Register for 1873, p. 32.

[65] Ibid.

66The Universalist Herald (Canon, Ga.), Jan. 20, 1932, p. 9.

[67] Universalist Register for 1873, p. 32.

63Universalist Register for 1898, p. 714.

[69] Universalist Register for 1890, pp. 15-16.

[70] Viola Stanford, “History of the Universalist Church in Atlanta, “The Universalist Herald (Canon, Ga.), Dec. 20, 1934, p. 7; Frederick C. Hoger, “The History of Organized Universalism in Georgia,” The Universalist Herald (Camp Hill, Ala.), Dec., 1956, p. 7; Opdale, “One Hundred Years or Organized Universalism in Georgia,” p. 4.

[71] Hoger, “The History of Organized Universalism in Georgia,” p. 7. The charter members of the Atlanta Universalist Church included Mr. and Mrs. L. C. McCutcheon and their two daughters, Mr. and hrs. P. G. Lynch, a Mrs. Day, a Mrs. Harwood, Miss Bertha Harwood, Mrs. A. L. Blackman, and a Mr. and Mrs. Buchanon. Reverend W. H. McGlauflin held services twice a month in Atlanta while living in Harriman, Tennessee. He moved to Atlanta in 1896. (Ibid.)

[72] Stanford, “History of the Universalist Church in Atlanta,” p. 7. The Atlanta merger with the Unitarians occurred in 1918. (Ibid., p. 8.)

[73] Clayton, Forty-Seven Years, p. 328.

[74] Universalist Register for 1884, p. 14.

[75] Universalist Register for 1899, p. 37.

[76] Universalist Register for 1873, p. 32.

[77] Universalist Register for 1899, p. 37.

[78] Hoger, “The History of Organized Universalism in Georgia,” p. 7.

[79] Opdale, “One Hundred Years of Organized Universalism in Georgia,” p. 5.

[80] Universalist Register for 1875, p. 38.

[81] Universalist Register for 1898, p. 74.

[82] Reverend Clayton wrote that this church was organized in 1858, but the denominational register lists 1855 as the date of its founding-(Clayton, Forty-Seven Years, p. 286; Universalist Register for 1873, p. 32.)

[83] Universalist Register for 1898, p. 74.

[84] Universalist Register for 1873, p. 32.

[85] The Universalist Herald (Canon, Ga.), March 20, 1932, p. 7.  This reference may have been to a church at Chickamauga of which there is a record in the 1890’s. The Chickamauga Universalists dedicated an $800 wooden church December 12, 1897. (Universalist Register for 1899, p. 76.)

[86] Universalist Register for 1878, p. 12: Universalist Register for 1879, p. 13 Universalist Register for 1879, p. 13; Universalist Register for 1880 for 1880, p. 12; Universalist Register for 1882 p. 12; Universalist Register for 1883, p. 13.

[87] Universalist Companion for 1858, p. 50.

[88] Universalist Register for 1873, p. 32.

[89] Universalist Register for 1899, p. 37.

[90] “Cornerstone of First Universalist Church of. Camp Hill. Organized 1846. Erected 1907; Lyman Ward, “Daniel Bragg Clayton,” The Universalist Herald (Canon, Ga.), Aug. 20, 1937, p. 5; Clayton, Forty-Seven Years, p. 177.

[91] “Giffin Diary – 1859,” p. 20; Clayton, Forty-Seven Years, p.153.

[92] Universalist Herald (Notasulga, Alabama), hay 25, 1855, pp. 2-June 1, 1855, p. 3. The denominational register in 1876 spoke of eight preachers in Alabama “Who are welcomed on their missionary journeys in many a city and neighborhood where there are scattered Universalists; but what are these few preachers compared to the broad extent of the State, embracing a territory nearly as large as the six New England States?” (Universalist Register for 1876, pp. 21-22.)

[93] Universalist Register for 1873, p. 28.

[94] Ibid.

[95] Universalist Register for 1875, p. 34.

[96] Universalist Register for 1898, p. 74. A dispute exists regarding the founding of the Universalist Church at Brewton. Twentieth century sources have given 1888 as the date for the establishment of this church. (Directory of Unitarian-Universalist Association 196162 (Boston: Unitarian-Universalist Association, 1962), p. 58.) Reverend Clayton recorded that he preached nineteen sermons at the Brewton Church in 1884. (Clayton, Forty-Seven Years, p. 333.)

[97] Universalist Register for 1899, p. 34.

[98] Universalist Register for 1873, p. 29.

[99] Joseph Hodgson, ed., The Alabama Manual and Statistical Register for 1875 (Mobile: Daily Register Book and Job Office, 1875), p. 109. This was compared to a total of all denominations for the state of 2,095 churches with 1,958 edifices and property valued at $2,414,515. (Ibid.)

[100] Universalist Register for 1899, p. 34.

[101] Universalist Register for 1873, p. 31. In the 1850’s there had been a Universalist minister and a society listed for Alligator (the name for Lake City prior to 1859), but this does not appear to have led to the formal establishment of a church. (Universalist Companion for 1855, p. 54; Universalist Companion for 1858, p. 51; Universalist Companion for 1859, p. 55) As early as 1863 a distinction was noted in denominational records between the church at McDade’s Pond and another Walton County church with no exact location given. (Universalist Almanac for 1863 (Boston: Tompkins & Co., 1863), p. 57.) Commencing in 1868 just a “Walton County” church was listed. (Universalist Register for 1868, p. 42; Universalist Register for 1870, p. 41; Universalist Resister for 1875, p. 38; Universalist Register for 1867, p. 24; Universalist Register for 1877, p. 24.

[102] Universalist Register for 1899, p. 36.

[103] Universalist Register for 1873, p. 31.

[104] Universalist Register for 1888, p. 15.

[105] Universalist Register for 1899, p. 36. The church at Tarpon Springs was called the Church of the Good Shepherd. (Universalist Register for 1887, p. 14; Universalist Register for 1888, p. 15.)

[106] Universalist Register for 1883, p. 13; Universalist Register for 1884, p. 13; Universalist Register for 1885, p. 14;  Universalists Register for 1899, p. 104.

[107] Ibid. p. 36.

Chapter II

[1] Stone tablet on interior wall of Charleston Unitarian Church; William Buell Sprague, Annals of  the American Unitarian ‘pulpit (New York: Robert Carter & Brothers, 1885), pp. 547-460; Martin L.Hurlbut, “Anthony Forster,” American Unitarian Biography (2 vols; Boston: James Munroe and Company, pp. 379-400.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Loose newspaper clippings in Gilman pamphlets at Duke University Library.

[4] Gohdes, “Some Notes on Unitarian Church,” pp. 341-342.

[5] Gilman tombstone in Unitarian Churchyard, Charleston, South Carolina.

[6] Francis Tiffany, Life of Dorthea Lynde Dix (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1918), p. 317.

[7] Stone tablet on interior wall of Charleston Unitarian Church.

[8] Ibid.; McFarland tombstone in Unitarian Churchyard, Charleston, South Carolina.

[9] Browne, “Ecclesiastical Beginnings in Carolina,” pp. 331-332.

[10] Ibid., p. 333; Unitarian Year-Book for 1873, p. 24.

[11] Unitarian Year-Book for 1871, p. 25.

[12] Browne, “Ecclesiastical Beginnings in Carolina,” p. 333.

[13] Unitarian Year-Book for 1874, p. 27

[14] Unitarian Year-Book for 1877, p. 25.

[15]Stone tablet on interior wall of Charleston Unitarian Church.

[16] Unitarian Year-Book for 1891, pp. 20, 32.

[17] Stone tablet on interior wall of Charleston Unitarian Church.

[18] The Southern Unitarian, May, 1893, p. 6.

[19] Unitarian Year-Book for 1891, p. 49.

[20] The Southern Unitarian, May, 1893, p. 4.

[21] Browne, “Ecclesiastical Beginnings in Carolina,” p. 332; Appendix in Charles A. Taggart, The Two Stand-Points, and the Contrast (Charleston: Press of Walker & Evans, 1854).

[22] Shyrock, Letters of Richard D. Arnold, M. D., p. 7.

[23] The Georgian (Savannah), Jan. 31, 1835, p. 2.

[24] Shyrock, Letters of Richard D. Arnold, M. D., p. 7.

[25] Ibid., p. 89.

[26] The Southern Unitarian, June, 1894, p.98.

[27] Ibid., March, 1895, p. 56; Jan., 1895, p.

[28] Ibid., July, 1893, p. 11.

[29] Clayton, Forty–Seven Years, p. 272.

[30] Ibid. pp. 271, 274.

[31] “Griffin Diary 1859-1860,” p. 142. The medical profession was also represented in the Feaster-Coleman family. Robert W. Coleman, M. D., died June 3, 1873. (“Griffin Scrapbook,” p.89.) His cousin, Mrs. F. J. Rawls, was married to a doctor. Her husband was a physician who died in Columbia, South Carolina, February 20, 1876. Mrs. Rawls was a sister of Reverend John Coleman C. Feaster, (Letter from J. L. C. Griffin, Gloucester County, Virginia to Mrs. F. J. Rawls, Columbia, South Carolina, April 13, 1876. (Letter at Virginia Historical Society, Richmond).

[32] Clayton, Forty-Seven Years, p. 276.

[33] Ibid., p. 272.

[34] Ibid., pp. 277-278.

[35] ibid. p. 85.

[36] Thomas Chapman, “Torrid Weather Over Dusty Roads Experienced by a Missionary,” The Universalist Herald (Canon, Ga.), Oct. 20, 1938, p. 9; Clayton, Forty-Seven Years, p. 339; Hoger, “The History of Organized Universalism in Georgia,” p. 7.

[37] Universalist Herald, Oct. 15, 1873 copied into “Griffin Scrapbook,” p. 181.

[38] Clayton, Forty-Seven Years, p. 91.

[39] “Griffin Scrapbook,” p. 181.

[40] Clayton, Forty-Seven Years, p. 85.

[41] “Griffin Scrapbook,” p. 6.

[42] Universalist Register for 1898, p. 29; Universalist Register for 1899, p. 30.

[43] Clayton, Forty-Seven Years, pp. 61, 64-65, 68.

[44] Ibid., p. 10. Clayton was a great-great-grandson of Captain Christopher Newport of the British Navy whose name was given to Newport Mews, Virginia. Captain Newport married a sister of George Washington’s mother. Clayton’s grandfathers, both paternal and maternal, were Baptist ministers during the American Revolution. An uncle of his father was also a Baptist minister. (Ibid., pp. 6-7, 11.)

[45] Ibid., pp. 54, 56, 70-71, 75, 78-79, 82, 87, 91.

[46] Ibid., pp. 65, 200-201, 219, 2211, 227-228, 332.

[47] Ibid., p. 322; Lester Ward, “Daniel Bragg Clayton,” Universalist Herald (Canon, Ga.), Aug. 20, 1937, p. 6.

[48] Ibid., Daniel Clayton kept records during some of the years in his long ministry. In 1878 he traveled 9,686 miles and preached at fifty-five places: twenty-two in North Carolina, eighteen in Georgia, two in Alabama, nine in western Tennessee, and one in Mississippi; nineteen of these were new preaching locations for Clayton. (Clayton, Forty-Seven Years, p. 279.) In 1879 he traveled 6,350 miles and preached at thirty-six places with eighteen of them being new locations for him. (Ibid p. 293.) In 1880 he traveled 10,282 miles and preached at twenty-four different places with eight of these new sites for him and he netted $236.75 above traveling expenses. (Ibid., p. 325.) In 1881 Clayton traveled 9,426 miles, preached at forty-four places with twelve of these new locations and he netted $532.09 above expenses. (Ibid., p. 326.) In 1882 he traveled 8,601 miles, preached at forty-two places with eleven being new sites and netted $498.15. (Ibid., p. 330.) In 1883 the travels were 9,052 miles visiting forty-five places, eleven being new, and netting $449.00. (Ibid., P. 332.) In 1884 he traveled 10,320 miles visiting thirty-six locations and netted $472. 65. (Ibid., p. 333.) From January 1, 1885 to December 31, 1888, Clayton traveled 47,865 miles visiting eighty-one places with thirty-seven new for him. The year of 1886 was the hardest travel year with 13,31h miles covered which was 902 miles greater than any other year. (Ibid., pp. 335, 344.)

[49] Ibid., p. 5.

[50] Ward, “Daniel Bragg Clayton,” p. 7.

[51] Universalist Herald, April 1, 1875. (Clipping in “Griffin Scrapbook,” p. 275.

[52] Clayton, Forty-Seven Years, p. 84.

[53] Universalist Register for 1873, p. 75.

[54] Elmo Arnold Robinson, The Universalist Church in Ohio (Published by Ohio Universalist Convention, 1923), p. 168; “Griffin Scrapbook,” p. 275.

[55] Clayton, Forty-Seven Years, p. 113.

[56] Universalist Register for 1873, p. 83.

[57] Clayton, Forty-Seven Years, p. 113.

[58] Ibid., pp. 312-312, 316; Hoger, “The History of Organized Universalist in Georgia,” p. 7.

[59] Universalist Register for 1873, p. 86.

[60] Clayton, Forty-Seven Years, p. 201.

[61] Ibid., pp. 201-202; “Griffin Scrapbook,” p. 143.

[62] Universalist Register for 1873, p. 81.

[63] Clayton, Forty-Seven Years, p. 242; “Griffin Scrapbook,” p. 180.

[64] Universalist Herald (Canon, Ca.), Dec. 20, 1935, p. 15.

[65] James Rasnake, “Motes on the Georgia Convention,” The Universalist Herald (Canon, Ga.), Feb. 20, 1935, p. 13.

[66] Clayton, Forty-Seven Years, pp. 105, 122, 127-132.

[67] Ibid., pp. 236-237.

[68] Ibid.

[69] Ibid., pp. 108-109, 111, 235.

[70] Universalist Register for 1899, p. 104.

[71] J. Edward Moseley, Disciples of Christ in Georgia (St. Louis: The Bethany Press, 1854), pp. 87, 91.

[72] Clayton, Forty-Seven Years, pp. 30, 351; Universalist Companion for 1658, p. 51.

[73] Universalist Register for 1899, p. 108.

[71] Clinton Lee Scott, The Universalist Church of America: A Short History (Boston: Universal Historical Society, 1957), p. 24.

[75] 0pdale, “One Hundred Years of Organized Universalism in Georgia,” p. 6.

[76] Universalist Register for 1899, p. 108.

[77] Richard C. Ellsworth, “A Tribute to Rev. Lyman ward, D. D.,” The Universalist Herald (Canon, Georgia), June 20, 1935, p. 7.

[78] Southern Unitarian (Atlanta, Ga.), April, 1893, pp. 7-8. 79″Griffin Scrapbook,” p. 245.

[80] Clayton, Forty-Seven Years, pp. 141-142.

[81] Newspaper Clipping reprinted from Christian Leader, Feb. 5, 1876 in miscellaneous unmounted newspaper clippings in Griffin Papers at Virginia Historical Society, Richmond.

[82] “Griffin Scrapbook,” pp. 111, 241.

[83] Universalist Register for 1899, p. 106.

[84] “Griffin Scrapbook,” p. 111.

[85] Universalist Register for 1873, p. 75; Universalist Register for 189, p. 106.

[86] Universalist Register for 1860, p. 85.

[87] Ibid.; “Griffin Diary-1659,” p. 27.

[88] Newspaper Clipping, n. d., in Griffin Papers.

[89] Library card identifying Griffin Papers in the Virginia Historical Society, Richmond. (Hereinafter referred to as “Griffin Library Card.”)

[90] Universalist Register for 1873, p. 31.

[91] “Griffin Scrapbook,” pp. 235-236.

[92] Universalist Register for 1880, p. 85; “Griffin Library Card.”

[93] Gohdes, “Some Notes on Unitarian Church,” p. 334; Cooke, Unitarianism in America, p. 118.

[94] Gohdes, “Some Notes on Unitarian Church,” p. 327.

[95] Ibid., p. 330.

[96] Edward Everrett Hale, What is the Worth of Doctrine (Charleston Unitarian Book and Tract Society, 1848.

[97] Mrs. J. C. Bowers, “History of the Georgia Woman’s Missionary Society,” Universalist Herald (Canon, Ga.), Sept. 20, 1938, p. el.

Chapter III

[1] The Daily Georgian (Savannah), June 3, 1820, p. 2.

[2] The Works of William T. Channing, D. D. (8 vols., Eighth Complete Edition: Boston: James Munroe and Co., 1848) III, pp. 71, 78, 168; V, p. 394.

[3] Ibid., III, p. 65. The denominational register for 1847 stated that Unitarians “Believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah promised of Jehovah to the Jews – the Christ, ‘the Son of the Living God’ – sanctified and sent into the world by his Father, because ‘God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life’ – that he is the only Savior of sinners, the only Mediator between God and man, ‘the way, the truth, and the life, worthy to beloved, honored, trusted and obeyed. They believe that all their prayers should he offered to the Fathers in the name of Christ – that they should possess his mind and spirit, imitate his example, and, through him, look to God for pardon and external life.” (Unitarian. Register for 180, p. 55.)

[4] Works of Charming, V, p. 395; Samuel Gilman, A Sermon on the Introduction to the of St. John (Charleston, S. C.: Charleston Unitarian Tract Society, 1825), p. 16; S. G. Bulfinch, Jesus Christ Dependent on the Father (Augusta, Ga.; printed by W. Lawson, 1e30), p. 8.

[5] Earl Morse, A History of Unitarianism (2 vols.; Boston: Beacon Press, 1952) II, p. 431.

[6] In 1827 a Charleston Unitarian observed that Unitarians believed “that there was a mysterious and intimate connexion” between the Father and Jesus. (A Unitarian Charles Wentworth Upharm), A Letter to the Editor of the Charleston Observer, Concerning his Treatment Unitarians Charleston: James S. Burges, 1827, p. vi.) An Augusta Unitarian Journal in 1831 described Jesus as God’s “last and greatest messenger- ‘his only-begotten Son’ who came without sin.” (The Unitarian Christian Augusta, Ga. March, 1831, p. 3.) A Unitarian sermon preached in Richmond, Virginia was reprinted by Charleston Unitarians in 1843. In this sermon Jesus was described: “It is true we call him a man – for so Isaiah called him – so Peter and Paul called him – and so he called himself. But, my hearers, our blessed Lord is neither to be elevated nor degraded by a mere title. And a man endued by the Creator with intellectual and moral powers beyond those of even the highest of other created intelligences, is, surely, no contemptible, no degraded object!” (J. B. Pitkin, A Discourse, Embracing Several Important Objections to the Doctrine, ‘That Jesus Christ, as Mediator, possesses Two Natures, the Divine and Human, in Mysterious, yet all harmonious union.’ In Reply to a Recently Published Sermon, Delivered by the Rev. Daniel Baker, in the First and Second Presbyterian Church, Richmond, Va. (Richmond: Printed by Samuel Shepherd Company, 1834; Charleston: Reprinted by B. B. Hussey, 1843 p. 109. (Hereinafter referred to as Discourse Embracing Objections.

[7] Works of Channing, III, p. 65.

[8] Samuel Gilman, A Sermon on the Introduction to the Gospel of St. John (Charleston: Printed by C. C. Sebring, 1825, p. 6.

[9] Pitkin, Discourse Embracing Objections, p. 106.

[10] Upham, A Letter to the Editor of the Charleston Observer, Concerning  his Treatment of Unitarians, p. 16; Unitarian Register for 1847, p. 55: Service Book for Worship in the Congregation and the Home (Charleston, S. C.: Samuel G. Courtenay, 1854), p. vii.  (Hereinafter referred to as Service Book of 1854.)

[11] Samuel Gilman, Unitarian Christianity Free from Objectionable  Extremes (Charleston: Printed by James S. Burges, 1828), p. 18.

[12] Timothy L. Smith, Revivalism and Social Reform (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1958), p. 41.

[13] Works of Channing, III, p. 184.

[14] George L. Chaney, “The New Protestantism,” The Southern Unitarian (Atlanta), Jan., 1893, p. 3.

[15] Works of Charming, III, p. 62.

[16] The Unitarian Christian, March, 1831, p. 7.

[17] Chaney, ‘The New Protestantism,” p. 3.

[18] Works of Channing, III, p. 185; V, pp. 396-397.

[19] Unitarian Register for 1847, p. 56.

[20]Service Book of 1854, pp. vi-vii.

[21] Smith, Revivalism and Social Reform, p. 95.

[22] Ibid., p. 99.

[23] In his Baltimore Sermon Channing spoke of the atonement; “Whilst, however, we differ in explaining the connexion between Christ’s death and human forgiveness, a connexion which we all gratefully acknowledge, we agree in rejecting many sentiments which prevail in regard to his mediation. The idea, which, is conveyed to common minds by the popular system, that Christ’s death has an influence in making God placable, or merciful, in awakening his kindness towards men, we reject with strong disapprobation.” (Works of Charming, III, p. 89).

[24] H. A. Whitman, “New and Old Views of Salvation and Vicarious Atonement,” The Southern Unitarian (Atlanta), June, 1895, p. 118.

[25] The Unitarian Christian (Augusta, Ga.), March, 1831, p. 1.

[26] Ibid., p. 6.

[27] Unitarian Register for 1847, p. 57.

[28] Asa N. Bradley, “Unitarianism,” The Universalist Herald (Canon, Ga.), Oct. 20, 1933, p. 3; Chaney, “The New Protestantism,” p. 3.

[29] Works of Channing V, p. 399.

[30] Unitarian Register for 180, pp. 56-57.

[31] Chaney, “The New Protestantism,” p. 3.

[32] The Unitarian Christian (Augusta, Ga.), March, 1831, p. 6.

[33] S. G. Bulfinch, The Unitarian’s Appeal. Three Sermons Illustrative of the Claim of Unitarian to the Character of Evangelical Christians, Independent of the Truth of Their Peculiar Opinions ( Boston: Munroe & Co. for the Unitarian Association,  1842), p. 9.

[34] Works of Chinning, V, p. 394

[35] Cooke, Unitarianism in America, pp. 156, 439; Whitman, “new and Old Views of Salvation and Vicarious Atonement,” p. 118.

[36] Unitarian Defendant (Charleston, S. C.), July 20, 1822; August 3. 1822.

[37] Uphan, A Letter to the Editor of the Charleston Observer Concerning his Treatment of Unitarians pp. 16-17.

[38] The Universalist Herald (Notasulga, Ala.), May 25, 1855, p. 3.

[39] Nicholas U. Hodges, Letters on Universalism (Charleston: James S. Barges, 1835), p. 18.

[40] “Universalism Summary of Opinion” The Constitution of the First Universalist Society of the City of Charleston (Charleston, S. C.: Universalist Evangelist, 1836), pp. 10-11.

[41] Clayton, Forty-Seven Years, p. 302.

[42] Shehane, Key to Universalism, 143. Shehane, in his denial of eternal punishment, quoted Christ ‘a words that God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world hut to save it. Shehane asked the question: “Do you believe that the all-glorious Creator, who is infinite love, can place a child in such a world, and under such circumstances, as could even expose him to the perils of endless pain?” (Ibid., pp. 89, 96.)

[43] Shehane stated: “We find upon examination that the word everlasting is used in the Scriptures frequently in a limited sense. The hills were said to be everlasting, the priesthood was said to be everlasting, and a number of other things which we know have already had, or are to have a termination. And to this day, we use the word in the same sense. We say of one man that he is an everlasting talker, and of another that he is everlastingly idling away his time, yet no one misunderstands us in these things; then why is the word misunderstood and so strangely applied when found within the lids of the bible?” (Discussion Between Rev. James L. Chapman and Rev. C. F. R. Shehane, on the Important Query in Relation to the Final Destiny of Man, Whether it is the Purpose of God to Bless All, or a Part of His Children with immortal Bliss Second Edition; Notasulga, Alabama: Printed at Universalist Herald Office, 1850, pp. 123-1240 Shehane did not think that the Old Testament applied the term everlasting to the word “Sheol” or that everlasting punishment is to be found in the Old Testament. (Shehane, Key to Universalism, pp. 77-78, 80.)

[44] Chapman and Shehane Discussion, p. 34.

[45] John C. Burruss, “Theological Discussion between Rev. John Robbins and Rev. J. C. Burruss,” Universalist Herald (Notasulga, Ala.), June 15, 1855, p. 2.

[46] “Universalism Summary of Opinion,” pp. 5-6, 8-10.

[47] Ibid., p. 6.

[48] Ibid.

[49] The Universalist Herald (Canon, Ga.), Oct. 20, 1938, p. 2.

[50] Ibid.

[51] The Constitution of the First Universalist Society of the City of Charleston, p. 13.

[52] Universalism Summary of Opinion,” p. 4.

[53] Chapman and Shehane Discussion, p. 11. Shehane was a very talented Biblical scholar and used rational methods of interpreting scripture. (Ibid., p. 110.) He studied the Hebrew and Greek scriptures carefully in his arriving at Universalist doctrine. (Shehane, Key to Universalism, p. 74.) Shehane expressed his view on the Bible when he said: -“I have laid an emphasis on the phrase scriptural facts; because the religion which I profess to teach, is, as it seems to me, that of the Bible – the whole Bible – and nothing but the Bible. With me, an assertion of this sacred volume is as immeasurably above that of any uninspired man as the throne of the Creator is above this humble pulpit. One is the decision of unerring wisdom – the other is a conjecture, or opinion, or, at best, an argument of some mind, perhaps as weak, frail and fallible as my own.” (Ibid., p. 72.)

[54] Ward, “Daniel Bragg Clayton,” p. 5.

[55] Ibid., p. 6.

[56] Clayton, Forty-Seven Years, p. 46.

57A. D. Mayo stated in 1847 in his presentation of the moral arguments for Universalism: have not declined to offer the usual scriptural arguments from any want of confidence in their strength, but rather from a conviction that this portion of the subject has been adequately treated by those more skilled in biblical criticism than ourselves.” (A. D. Mayo, The Balance: or Moral Arguments for Universalism Boston: B. B. Mussey and A. Tompkins, 1847, preface p. 3.)

[58] The Winchester Profession of Faith stated: “We believe that the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments contain a revelation of the character of God and of the duty, interest and final destination of mankind.” (Universalist Herald, Oct. 20, 1938, p. 2.) The Boston Statement of Belief affirmed: “The trustworthiness of the Bible as containing a revelation from God.” (Ibid.)

[59] “Universalism Summary of Opinion,” p. 11.

Chapter IV

[1] Service Book of 1854, p. 22.

[2] Services and Hymns for the Use  of the  Unitarian Church of Charleston, S. C. (Enlarged ed.; Charleston: Joseph Walker, 1867, pp. 11, 19, 34,68, 129.

[3] The Unitarian Christian (Augusta), March, 1831, p. 35; The Constitution of the Charleston Universalist Society provided that “the Celebration of the ordinances of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and the ceremony of dedication of children are neither enjoined or prohibited by the Constitution, but are left to be regulated by future by-law-enactments, if it should be deemed necessary or expedient.” (Constitution of the First Universalist Society of. Charleston, S.C., p. 15.); South Carolina Universalist is Convention meeting in Lexington District (County) in November, 1832 passed a resolution that “this Convention recommends to the societies in Connection with this body, that the ordinance of the Communion, or Lord’s Supper, be administered in the several societies, as often as they shall respectively determine, as we recognize it as an express command of our Savior.” (Asa N. Bradley, “Universalism in South 100 Years Ago,” The Universalist Herald (Canon, Ga.), Dec. 20, 1934, p. 12.)

[4] Old and the Arm., p. 24.

[5] The Universalist Herald (Canon, Ga.), Sept. 20, 1936), p• 22.

[6] Universalist Miscellany (Boston), Sept., 1845,             p. 124; Service Book of 1854, p.117; Samuel Gilman, pastor of the Charleston Unitarian Church, estimated in 1852 that he had baptized 521 people, thirty-seven of these being adults. (Old and the New, p. 29)

[7] Shehane Key to Universalism, p. 39.

[8] Ward, “Daniel Bragg Clayton,” p. 5; Clayton, Forty-Seven Years, pp. 261, 289.

[9] The minister wrote that “there is a power for good in these impromptu bursts of emotion during public service. It stirs one like an electric shock to hear the hearty ‘amen’ from the lips of the devout worshiping assembly. It shows that some, at least, who hear are receiving a full measure, running over, of the divine unction of the Holy Spirit, and for one I love to preach and I can preach better, to a people who hear, both with their ears and eyes.” (Griffin Scrapbook,” p. 142.)

[10] The Constitution of the First Universalist Society of the City of Charleston, p. 14.

[11] The Georgian (Savannah), May 20, 1835, p. 2.

[12] The Constitution of the First Universalist Society of the City of Charleston, p.15.

[13] The Georgian, Dec. 22, 1835, p. 2; Dec 26, 1835, p. 3

[14] Unitarian Christian, March, 1831, p. 41.

[15] Ibid., pp. 42, 44-45.

[16] Old and the New, p. 24.

[17] Southern Unitarian (Atlanta), May 1893, P. 5; March, 1983, p. 7. A. L. Jones of Charleston advocated the establishment and improvement of Sunday Schools. He urged well graded classes and interesting, entertaining, and instructive lessons. (A. L. Jones, “Sunday-School Work,” Southern Unitarian, March, 1893, pp. 5-6.); Theodor Schumann, an active Atlanta layman, advocated that Sunday Schools in the liberal church should provide instruction in ethics for children to the age of twelve or thirteen, in the history of the Christian religion for those thirteen to fifteen, and in the Bible along with science and comparative religion for those sixteen and up including adults. Schumann strongly endorsed a graded curriculum. (Theodore Schumann, “Suggestions About Sunday Schools in the Liberal Church,” Southern Unitarian, January, 1895, pp. 5-7.)

[18] The Sunday School in Volusia, Florida was mentioned in the first chapter. Alabama Universalist organized Sunday Schools at Camp Hill Guntersville in 1870, at Barren Ridge in 1871, and at Brewton in 1874. (Universalist Register for 1875, p. 34.) Universalists in Georgia started Sunday Schools at Alford Chapel and Salem Church (Cherokee County) in 1870, at Harmony (Coweta County) and Centre Hill (Jackson County) in 1871, and at Rockbridge in 1875. (Universalist Register for 1875, p. 38; Universalist Register for 1876, p. 25.) Feasterville Universalist Church in South Carolina organized a Sunday School in 1877. (Universalist Register of 1896. P. 54) In 1938, referring to Georgia, it was stated that “the earliest record of local Sunday Schools we have succeeded in obtaining was in 1898.  We have secured some personal and newspaper mention before that time but nothing positive, but since 1898, the Sunday Schools, as to their numbers, but not their location appear with regularity in the Register,” (Opdale, “One Hundred Years of Organized Universalism in Georgia,” pp. 6-7.)

[19] Old and New, p. 26.

[20] Southern Unitarian, Feb., 1893, p. 11; March, 1893, p.12; May, 1893, p.5; Feb., 1894 (archivist: Unsure of year, asumed 1894 based on dates of other references), p. 24.

[21] Sanford, “History of the Universalist Church in Atlanta,” p. 7; Mrs. J.C, Bowers, “History of the Ga. Women’s Missionary Association,” The Universalist Herald (Canon, Ga.), Sept. 20, 1938, p. 6.

[22] Southern Unitarian, May 1893, p.5

[23] 0pdale, “One Hundred Years of Organized Universalism in Georgia,” p. 6.

[24] Southern Unitarian, May, 1893, p. 5.

[25] Ibid., April, 1893, p. 10; March, 1994, p.38.

[26] Old and the New, p. 25.

[27] Southern Unitarian, Sept., 1893, p. 12; July, 1895, p. 137.

[28] The Georgia State Universalist Convention was reorganized in 1869. (Universalist Register for 1873, p. 32.) The Alabama Universalist State Conference was organized in March, 1895. (Universalist Register for 1898, p. 10.) The South Carolina State Conference was established September, 1895, (Universalist Register for 1899, p. 30.) The Florida State Conference was organized in 1897. (Universalist Register for 1898, p. 12.)

[29] Universalist Register for 1899, p. 7.

[30] The Southern Conference met at Atlanta again in 1887, 1888, and 1894. The meetings were held in Charleston in 1885 and 1892: in Chattanooga in 1889 and 1891; and in New Orleans in 1893. (Southern Unitarian, May, 1893, p. 4; May, 1894 p. 74.)

[31] Hoger, “The History of Organized Universalism in Georgia,” p. 7.

[32] Southern Unitarian, May, 1894, p. 78.

[33] The Georgia; April 20, 1835, p. 3; April 21, 1835, p. 2; April 22, 1835, p. 3; April 23, 1835, p. 2.

[34] Cooke, Unitarianism in America, pp. 338-339.

[35] Unitarian Review and Religious Magazine (Boston), Nay, 1874, pp. 272-273.

[36] Ibid., March, 1884, p. 275.

[37] Chaney, “History of Atlanta Church,” p. 36; “A Word from the South,” Unitarian Review and Religious Magazine, June, 1891, p. 481.

[38] Southern Universalist, March 31, 1841, pp. 2-3.

[39] Universalist Companion for 1855, p. 53.

[40] Clayton, Forty-Seven Years, pp. 203, 212.

[41] Universalist Register for 1899, p. 90. Reverend A.R. Smith, who held a Ph.D., was Professor of Languages and History, and Miss Annie Slaughter was preceptress.

[42] Cooke, Unitarianism in America, p. 295; Unitarian Review and Religious Magazine, Dec.; 1875, pp. 611-617.

{43] A. C. Patterson, A View of American Unitarian Missions: with Thoughts on the Missionary Cause, and the Interest, of Unitarians in It (Boston: James Munroe and Company, 1838), pp. 14, 17.

[44] The Atlanta Exhibit, “Southern Unitarian, August, 1895, p. 146.

[45] A Theological Discussion, held in Americus, Georgia on the 14th, 15th and 16th of March 1850, Between Rev. Lovick Pierce, D.D., Methodist, and Rev. C.F.R. Shehane, Universalist (Notasugla, Ala.: Printed at the Investigator & Herald Office, 1850), first three pages unnumbered.

[46] Claytons, Forty-Seven Years, pp. 178-181, 212, 317-318.

[47] Ibid., pp. 309-311.

[48] The Unitarian Miscellany and Christian Monitor (Baltimore), July, 1822, pp. 123-124.

[49] The Unitarian Defendant, June 22, 1822, p. 2.

[50] Ibid., Nov. 16, 1822, p. 44.

[51] H. A. Whitman, “An Old Time Southern Unitarian Paper,” The Southern Unitarian, Feb., 1893, p. 3.

[52] Unitarian Christian, June, 1831, pp. 58-60, 94; Sept., 1831, p. (Archivist: page number not visible in original document)

[53] Charles M. Taggart, The Two Stand-Points, and the Contrast (Charleston: Power Press of Walker & Evans, 1854), appendix, pp.22-23.

[54] John Y. Dixon, “Business Announcement,” Southern Unitarian, January, 1893, p. 2.

[55] Cooke, Unitarianism in America, p. 451.

[56] Ibid., pp. 330-331; Covers of 1821 Unitarian Miscellany; Charleston Inquirer (New. York), April 27, 1826, p. 272.

[57] The Unitarian Miscellany and Christian Monitor, July, 1825, pp. 109-110.

[58] Georgian, May, 28, 1835, p. 2.

[59] Report and Addresses Delivered at the Twelfth Anniversary Meeting of the Charleston Unitarian Book and Tract Society (Charleston: James S. Burges, 1833,), p. 4. (Hereafter referred. to as 1833 Tract Society Report.)

[60] “Charleston Unitarian Book Society – Articles of Association,” The Unitarian Miscellany and Christian Monitor, Dec., 1821, pp. 166-167. Charleston Unitarian Book Society printed and reprinted sermons from various sources. When Daniel K. Whitaker was requested to deliver a Unitarian sermon before the South Carolina House of Representatives the Book Society published the discourse. (Daniel K. Whitaker, The Unity and Supremacy of God the Father (Charleston: Printed by Riley for Charleston Unitarian Book Society, 1826), p. 5. A sermon by a Richmond Unitarian minister, J. D. Pitkin, was published in Virginia in 1832 and reprinted by the Charleston Society in 1843. (J. B. Pitkin, A Discourse Embracing Several Objections in the Doctrine, ‘That Jesus Christ as Mediator, possesses Two Natures, the Divine and Human. Yet all Mysterious yet all harmonious Union’ (Printed by Samuel Shepard & Company, 1832; Reprinted by B.B Hussey, 1834)

[61] 1833 Tract Society Report, pp. 6-9.

[62] Samuel Gilman, Unitarian Christianity Free from Objectionable Extremes.

[63] Samuel Gilman, Unitarian Christianity. Free from Objectionable Extremes (Boston: Gray and Bowen, 1829)

[64] Rules of the Charleston Unitarian Book Society (Charleston: William Gray’s Press, 1826), p. 7.

[65] Southern Unitarian, Feb. 169L, p. 23.

[66] Taggart, The Two Stand-Points, and the Contrast, appendix, p. 25. The report of the first twelve years listed eighty-two tracts from the American Unitarian Association numbering about 7,349 copies (210,561 pages); fifteen original tracts published 4,150 copies (101,300 pages); five reprinted making 1,600 copies (16,000 pages); seventy-four books and tracts from other sources (4,777 copies  (621,382 pages) for a total of 17,860 books and tracts (621,382 pages). There had been 155 members in the twelve years with receipts of $1,600.44 and expenditures of $1,564.07. (1833 Tract Society Report, p. 8.). On the anniversary of the founding of the Charleston Tract Society special addresses were delivered and these were published by the group. They sometimes added the year’s record of the society to the printed sermon. (Taggart, The Two Stand-Points, and the Contrast, appendix, p. 25.) Edward Everret Hale gave the anniversary sermon by the Charleston Tract Society in 1848 and this was published by the group. (Hale, What is the Worth of Doctrine.)

[67] Gohdes, Notes on Unitarian Church,” p. 330.

[69] Rules of the Charleston Unitarian Book Society, p. 8.

[69] Tract Society Report, p. 18.

[70] Bulfinch, Jesus Christ Dependent on the Father.

[71] Old and the New, p. 26.

[72] Southern Unitarian, May, 1893, p. 5; May, 1894, p.

[71] Opdale, “One Hundred Years of Organized Universalism in Georgia,” p. 3.

[74] Southern Universalist, March, 31, 1841, pp. 2-3.

[75] Griffin Scrapbook,” p. 264. Newspaper article was not dated but was entered in the scrapbook near articles dated November, which would place The Christian Crucible in the last years of Andrew’s life. This is the only reference to this publication that has been found.

[76] Universalist Companion for 1858, p. 51; Universalist Companion for 1859, p. 54.

[77] Gertrude Earle, “Beginning of the Universalist Church,” Universalist Herald (Canon, Ga.), Feb. 20, 1933, p. 13; Sanford, “History of the Universalist Church in Atlanta,” p, 7.

[78] Clayton, Forty-Seven, Forty-Seven Years, pp. 325-326, 332,

[79] 0pdale, “One Hundred Years of Organized Universalism in Georgia,” p. 6.

[80] Universalist Herald (Canon, Ja.), March 20, 1941, p. 7. This 1941 source lists Wetumpka, Alabama, rather than Montgomery as the foundation site for the Religious Investigator.

[81] A Theological Discussion, held in Americus., Georgia on the 14th, 15th and 16th of March, 1850, Between Rev. Lovick Pierce, D.D., Methodist, and Rev. C. F.R. Shehane, Universalist, last page not numbered.

[82] Universalist Herald (Notasoulga, Ala.), May 25, 1855, p. 3; June 1, 1855, pp. 3-4; June 15, 1855, pp. 2, 4.

[83] Ibid., June 15, 1855, p. 2. In 1872 special contributors were listed: S.J. McMorris from Alabama, J.L.C. Griffin from Florida, M. Gardner from Texas, E. Darnielle from Kansas, D. B. Clayton from South Carolina, B. F. Strain from Georgia, and W.H. Grigsby from Tennessee.

[84] 0pdale, “One Hundred Years of Organized Universalism in Georgia” p. 6; Universalist Register for 1899, p. 90.

[85] Universalist Herald, June 15, 1855, p. 4.

[86] Ibid.

[87] Ibid., May 25, 1855, p. 3; June 1, 1855, p. 3; June 15, 1855, p. 3

Chapter V

[1] Thomas Belsham, American Unitarianism (2nd edition: Boston: Printed by Nathaniel Willis, 1815), p .18.

[2] On October29, 1825 the Wesleyan Journal published an article entitled “Unitarian Antidote.” A member of the Charleston Unitarian Tract Society protested this article and its implication that Unitarianism was poisonous. This answer to the Methodist journal was published by the Charleston Tract Society. (Remarks on a Late Article in the Wesleyan Journal by a Member of the Charleston Unitarian Tract (Charleston: Printed by C.C. Sebring, 1825). This published controversy continued and in early 1826 the Charlestonians published a continuation, citing letters that had been exchanged by the disputants. (Reply to a Third Article in the Wesleyan Journal of Jan.  21, 1826, Respecting Unitarians (Charleston: Unitarian Tract Society, 1826). Another controversy involved Unitarians and the Charleston Observer, a Presbyterian periodical. The Tract Society issued a forty page pamphlet in answer. (Charles Wentworth Uphar), A Letter to the Editor of the Charleston Observer, Concerning his Treatment of Unitarians (Charleston: Printed for the Unitarian Book Society by James B. Burges, 1827). In 1837 a Baptist publication, the Southern Watchman criticized Unitarians and once again the Tract. Society published a reply. (“Calling Things by Their Right Names”: A Brief Reply to an Article Under that in the Southern Watchman of May 19th, 1837 (Charleston: Charleston Unitarian Book and Tract Society printed by Walker & James, 1837).

[3] N.W. Hodges, a Baptist minister of Newberry, South Carolina became upset because Universalism was extensively believed in the area where he lived. He attacked Universalism in a book published in 1835. (N. W. Hodges, Letters on Universalism (Charleston: n. p., 1835], preface.).             Spencer J. McMorris answered Hodge’s booklet the following year with a defence. (Spencer J. McMorris, A Defence of. Universalism, Being a Reply to Nicholas W. Hodges (Charleston: Universalist Hearld sought to answer attacks upon their group that originated in other publications. In 1855 John Burruss asked the editors of the Russell, Alabama Recorder to publish his letter of reply to the charges against Universalism made in this paper but the newspaper refused to publish the letter. (Universalist Herald, June 1, 1855, p. 2).

[4] Arthur W. Brown, Always Young for Liberty (Syracuse, Now York: Syracuse University Press, 1956), p. 177.

[5] Clayton, Forty-Seven Years, p. 332. A Methodist sinister listened to Clayton when he preached in Arkansas and Clayton reported that the Methodist’s expression was “given to the writer by one who heard him utter it: ‘If I could just know that the doctrine preached by Mr. Clayton here last night is the truth, I would have high old time here in Arkansas. I tell you, there would not be many a little chap round here, by and by who would not be able to tell who his father was.’ The last expression is given in language not quite so inelegant as the worlds through which he conveyed the idea.” (Ibid., p. 248).

[6] Pierce and Shehane Discussion, pp. 20, 70.

[7] Clayton, Forty-Seven Years, pp. 111, 327. Two attempts were made in March, 1830 to burn the Savannah Unitarian Church. (George H. Gibson “Unitarian Congregations in Ante-Bellum Georgia,” The Georgia Historical Quarterly, Summer, 1970, p. 159.)

[8] Ibid., pp. 175, 329.

[9] 1833 Tract Society Report, p. 14.

[10] Taggart, The Two Stand-Points, and the Contrast, appendix, p. 24.

[11] Southern Unitarian, April, 1893, p. 11.

[12] Ibid., Sept., 1894, p. 167.

[13] Clayton, Forty-Seven Years, p. 107.

[14] Ibid., p. 294.

[15] Ibid., p. 340.

[16] Ibid., pp. 260-263.

[17] Hoger, “The History of Organized Universalism in Georgia,” p. 7; Clayton, Forty-Seven Years, p. 356; Clement Eaton reported Judge Garnett Andrews viewed the case and that “he ruled that the testimony of certain Universalists, who refused to take an oath that they believed in a future state of rewards and punishments, was invalid. This decision was based on the ground that no testimony was entitled to credit unless the witness believed that the violation of an oath would expose him to punishment in the life beyond the grave.” (Clement Eaton, The Freedom-of-Thought Struggle in the Old South / Revised and enlarged edition; New York: Harper Torchbooks, Harper & Row, Publishers, 1964/ p. 310.) Clayton referred to a similar case in South Carolina about 1826 but little details are given, (Clayton, Forty-Seven Years, p. 355.)

[18] Journal of the Senate of the State of Georgia 1841 (Milledgeville: n.p., 1842), pp. 84-86, 103, 136, 138-139, 146. The original bill submitted November 13, 1841 was “to remove all disability whatever from persons in this. State, from testifying in any of the Courts thereof, or having their oath touching any matter of thing, when an oath or affidavit is necessary to secure any right or interest, by reason of any religious opinion they may entertain or express.” (Ibid., p. 84). The select committee that had been appointed reported a substitute bill On No. 17, 1841 that was “a bill to be entitled an act to remove all disabilities whatsoever, from persons in this State from testifying in any of the Courts thereof, or having their oath or affirmation when the same is necessary to secure any right or interest whatever, by reason of any religious opinion he, she or they may entertain or express.  Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Georgia, in General Assembly me, and it is hereby enacted by the authority of the same.  That from and immediately after the passage of this act, no person shall be excluded from testifying as a witness in any of the Courts of law or equity in this State, or deprived of his, her or their oath or affidavit, touching any matter or thing where an oath or affirmation is necessary to secure any right or interest whatsoever, by reason of any religious opinion such act shall prohibit such disabilities going in evidence to the Jury to affect the credit of such witness or witnesses.” (Ibid., p 139).

[19] Clayton, Forty-Seven Years, pp. 358-359.

[20] Eaton, The Freedom-of-Thought Struggle in the Old South, p.226; John Samuel Ezell, The South Since 1865 (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1963, p. 341.

[21] Francis Sutler Simins, The Tillman Movement in South Carolina (Reprint edition; Gloucester, Massachusetts: Peter Smith, 1964), pp. 142-144; Francis Butler Simkins, Pitchfork Ben Tillman (Reprint edition; Gloucester, Massachusetts: Peter Smith, 1964), pp. 177-178.

[22] H. A. Whitman, editor, “Alexander Case Scrapbook,” p. 3. (Manuscript at South Carolinian Library, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina.)

[23] Ibid., p. 10.

[24] Ibid., pp. 10-11.

[25] Ibid., pp. 15-16.

[26] Ibid., pp. 7-8, 11-12.

[27] ibid., p. 14.

[28] Ibid., p. 20.

[29] Ibid pp. 20-21.

[30] Ibid., p. 21.

[31] Tillman reported that “at the first meeting, the whole faculty, one by one, were invited before us and asked to give their views on the proposed reorganization. During the hearing your religious views became a matter of discussion. The question of Mr. Sloan as to Bain’s scepticism (SIC) causing you very frankly and boldly to avow your own scepticism (SIC). After it had lasted a long while, to bring matters to an end, I asked as to your belief in Christ; as you declined to answer the board was left in ignorance as to what you did believe. Nothing was said by you at that meeting about your being a Unitarian.”

The governor continued with an account of the college reorganization and said that Alexander’s chair was abolished and “this would have happened if you had never given any information as to religious views, because it was one which could be naturally and easily divided. You again appeared before the board and read your protest, which has been published, claiming to be a Unitarian Christian…These are the facts, and I will only add that I cannot see any ground for the cry of religious intolerance which has been raised. You and your co-religionists have no cause for complaint that I can see. There is a vast difference between allowing a man perfect religious freedom and putting him in a position to teach his dogmas. Speaking for myself, I can say that fitness and high moral character will govern my vote in choosing a faculty for the college, as I believe it will the other trustees, and no Unitarian will be ostracised for conscience sake.” (Ibid., p. 21.)

[32] Ibid. pp. 21-22.

[33] Ibid., pp. 23-24. The State made the further observation that “a chaplain is attached to the institution, and that he offers the precepts of Christianity, broadly, and without seeking to advance any particular sect. But this is because the Christian religion is practically the only one in South Carolina. Technically, –constitutionally indeed, — the Israelites would have the right to object to this, and to say that their money should not be paid to swerve their sons from their ancient faith.” (Ibid., p. 24.)

[34] Ibid., p 25,

[35] Ibid., pp 25-26.

[36] Georgian, January 29, 1822, p. 3.

[37] Ibid., Dec. 28, 1833, p. 2.

[38] Southern Universalist, March 31, 1841, p. 2.

[39] Southern Unitarian, March, 1893, p. 7.

[40] Universalist Herald, May 25, 1855, p. 4.

[41] Tiffany, Life of Dorthea Lynde Dix, pp. 23, 136-137, 148, 320, 329, 350-351.

[42] Unitarian Christian, Sept., 1831, pp. 135-141, back cover.

[43] bid., p. 144.

[44] Ibid., March 1831, p. 29.

[45] Cooke, Unitarianism in America, pp. 352-353.

[46] A. L. Jones, “Sunday School Work,” Southern Unitarian, March, 1893, p. 6; George B. Penney, “The Gothenburg Plan,” Southern Unitarian, August, 1893, p. 6. This latter article told how the Swedish plan utilized the profits to reduce taxes while a similar state monopoly of liquor sales in Norway used the revenue to found schools, libraries, and parks. Under this plan consumption had dropped, crime fallen, and pauperism decreased. It was also noted that there were no attractive saloons, no treating, no loafing, no selling to minors or drunkards, and strictly cash sales under the Gothenburg Plan.

[47] Georgian, March 8, 1833, p. 3.

[48] Calvin Stebbins, “Report of Rev. Calvin Stebbins, Missionary of the A. U. A. in Charleston, S. C.,” The Monthly Journal of the American Unitarian Association (Boston), October, 1865, p.

[49] Universalist Miscellany (Boston), November, 1843, pp. 172, 175.

[50] Universalists announced the third anniversary of the Notasulga, Alabama Lodge No. 2 of the Knights of Jericho which was to be held at the Baptist Church. (Universalist Herald, May 25, 1855, p. 3.) James L. C. Griffin’s initiation as a member of the Sons of Temperance took place at a Universalist meeting house. He copied extracts from the minutes of this temperance lodge into his diary. (“Griffin Diary-1859,” pp. 2, 23, 62.) In the Griffin Papers at the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond there are several newspaper clippings with no date or name of paper given. These state that 3riffin and J. C. C. Feaster gave temperance sermons, were active in the Sons of Temperance in the Feasterville community, and traced the progress of total abstinence in that neighborhood. (Miscellaneous Griffin newspaper clippings.)

[51] Clayton, Forty-Seven Years, pp. 104, 287.

[52] Chapman and Shehane Discussion, p. 38.

[53] W.W. Sweet, The Story of Religion in America (Rev. ed.; New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950), p. 242.

[54] 1833 Tract Society Report, p. 9. (Archivist: This footnote is not referenced in the original document)

[55] Richard Arnold expressed his Unionist sentiments in 1850, and although a Democrat he supported the Union Party in 3eorgia that year. He spoke out in behalf of the Clay Compromise of 1850. (Shyrock, Letters of Richard D. Arnold, M.D., pp. 39-40, 88.)

[56] Ward, “Daniel Bragg Clayton,” p. 6.

[57] Universalist Herald, May 25, 1855, p. 3.

[58] The prospectus for the publication, Know Nothing, stated that “the menacing and usurping aspects of political and Papal, Ecclesiastical comninglement (SIC), require to be promptly, and boldly confronted. To this end, it will be the aim of the Know Nothing, to warn all lovers of American principles, of the foreign and seductive influences which are knawing (SIC) at the vitals of our government. When the authority of a foreign Pope, is held by thousands above all American law, it is time for us to awake to our danger, and sound the alarm! In short our sheet will oppose all encroachments of the Church and State policy, either Papal or Protestant.” (Universalist Herald, June, 1855, p.4.)

[59] Clayton, Forty-Seven Years, p. 194.

[60] Universalist Herald, June 15, 1855, p. 2.

[61] Ibid.

[62] Shyrock, Letters of Richard D. Arnold, M.D., p. 58.

[63] Ibid., pp. 98-99.

[64] Clayton, Forty-Seven Years, pp. 214-215.

[65] George Willis Cooke stated that “no Unitarian defended slavery from the pulpit or by means of the press, and no one was its apologist. Many, however, did not approve of the methods of the abolitionists, and some strongly opposed the extreme measures of a part of the body of reformers.” He listed a possible exception to this in the person of Theodore Clapp of New Orleans who was generally listed as Universalist rather than as Unitarian. (Cooke, Unitarianism in America, p, 353,) Clarence Gohdes reported that “at times the Southern-born pastors were more radical on the subject of slavery than their Yankee fellows.” (Gohdes, “Some Notes on Unitarian Church,” p. 332.)

[66] Amory D. Mayor, A Unitarian minister, writing after the Civil War observed that “the thousands of New England and Middle States young mon who went South before 1850 were as essentially Southern in the war was those ‘to the manner born.'” (Amory D. Mayo, “Northern Estimates of Southern Life and Affairs,” Unitarian Review and Religious Magazine (Boston), January, 1889, p. 39.)

[67] Shyrock, Letters of Richard                  D. Arnold, M.D., pp, 17-18 183? Arnold wrote Chandler Robbins, pastor of the Second Unitarian Church in Boston, asserting that “the abolitionists, of whom I am most happy to hear you disclaim being one, have by their intemperance, united the whole South against them as one man. To carry their plans into effect they would have to wade knee in blood. I speak the language of truth and not of hyperbole.  The two races are so separated, that the one now the lower, will never be allowed to mount to perfect equality, except over the prostrate bodies of the upper. But I will not be away into any discussion. I will not be led away into any discussion. I will only observe that with you Slavery is an abstract question, — with right I do not argue for, but it is not always mere abstract ideas to all the relations of social life; and the institution of Slavery, although indefensible on the ground of abstract rights, can be defended and well defended upon this, that so intimately is it mingled with our social conditions, so deeply has it taken root, that is would be impossible to eradicate it without upturning the foundations of that condition. On the ground of expediency we are still stronger, for without a population of Blacks the whole Southern Country would become a desert.” (Ibid. p14) In 1845 Arnold wrote a former Savannah pastor, Dexter Clapp, then living in Northampton, Massachusetts, observing that he was happy “to hear that there is some prospect of Abolition becoming less rabid than formerly.” (Ibid., p 27)

[68] Ibid., p. 33.

[69] Ibid., p. 39.

[70] Ibid., p. 67.

[71] Universalist Herald, June 1, 1855, pp. 1-2.

[72] Ibid., May 25, 1855, p. 2.

[73] Ibid.

[74] Griffin Diary 1863, p. 102

[75] Clayton, Forty-Seven Years, p, 2200

[76] Ibid., pp. 210-221.

[77] Ibid., p. 225.

[78] Gilman, Old and the New, p. 29.

[79] Mrs. F. C. Swift, “A Colored Liberal,” Southern Unitarian, August, 1893, p. 5.

[80] Mayo, “Northern Estimates of Southern Life arid Affairs,” p. 39.

[81] Southern Unitarian, March, 1893, p.7.

[82] Carroll D. Wright, “Labor and Industry at the South,” Southern Unitarian, May, 1895, p. 92

[83] The last time that Henry Grady attended a public worship service was when he attended a Sunday evening service of the Atlanta Unitarian Church.  The next week he journeyed to Boston to deliver his final address. (Southern Unitarian, March 1895, p. 38) Grady’s Boston speech was delivered December 17, 1889 and he arrived back in Atlanta on December 17th and died December 23, 1889. (Raymond B. Nixon, Henry W. Grady, Spokesman of the New South. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1943.)

[84] Mayo, “Northern Estimates of Southern Life and Affairs,” p. 48.

[85] William B. Weeden, “How the South May Help in the Impending Social Trouble,” Southern Unitarian, April, 1893, p. 6. Background material on Weeden has not been found.

[86] Mrs. Viola Neblett, “Social Equity,” Southern Unitarian, April, 1895, pp. 64-67.

[87] W. R. Cole, “How Can the Church Help Solve the Problem of Poverty,” Southern Unitarian, July, 1895, pp. 123-125.

[88] Ibid., p. 124.

[89] Southern Unitarian, March, 1895, pp. 47-49.

[90] “Report–The National Alliance,” The Christian Register, November 17, 1898, p. 304.

 

Bibliography

Published Books and Pamphlets

Bulfinch, Stephen G. Jesus Christ Dependent on the Factor. Augusta: Printed by W. Lawson, 1830. Located at the University of Georgia Library, Athens, Georgia.

The Unitarians Appeal, Three Sermons Illustrative of the Claim of Unitarians to the Character of Evangelical Christians, Independent of the Truth of Their Peculiar Opinions, Boston: James Munroe & Co., for the American Unitarian Association, 1842.

Located at Columbia Theological Seminary Library, Decatur, Georgia.

“Calling Things by their Right Names”: A Brief Reply to an Article Under that Title in the Southern Watchman of May, 19th 1837. Charleston:-Charleston Unitarian Book and Tract Society printed by Walker & James, 1837.

Located at Duke University Library, Durham, North Carolina.

Channing, William Ellery. The Works of  E. Channing, D. D., 8 vols. Eighth complete edition. Boston: James Munroe and Co., 1848.

Clayton, Daniel Bragg. Forty-Seven Years in the Universalist Ministry,

Columbia, South Carolina: By the Author, 1889. Located at University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

The Constitution of the First Universalist Society of the City of Charleston. Charleston, South Carolina: Printed at the Office of the Southern Evangelist, 1836. Located at Duke University Library.

Discussion Between Rev. James L. Chapman and Rev. C. F. R. Shehane, on the important Query in Relation to the Final Destiny of Man, Whether it_ is the Purpose of God to Bless All or a Part of His Children, with Immortal Bliss. 2nd ed. Notasulga, Alabama: Printed Universalist Herald Office, 1850. Located at Duke University Library.

Pitkin, J. B. A Discourse, Embracing Several Important Objections to the Doctrine, “That Jesus Christ, as Mediator Possesses Two Natures, the Divine and Hunan, in Mysterious, yet all Harmonious Union,” Richmond: Printed by Samuel Shepherd & Company, 1834; Charleston: Reprinted by B. B. Hussey, 1843.

Located at South Carolinian Library, University of South Carolina, Columbia, S. C., also at New York Public Library, New York City, New York.

Remarks on a Late Article in the Wesleyan Journal, Charleston: Unitarian Tract Society. Printed by C. C. Sebring, 1825. Located at the South Carolinian Library of the University of South Carolina.

Reply to a Third Article in the Wesleyan Journal of Jan. 21, 1826, Respecting, Unitarians. Charleston: Charleston Unitarian Tract Society, 1825. Located at the South Carolinian Library of the University of South Carolina.

Report and Addresses Delivered at the Twelfth Anniversary Meeting of the Charleston Unitarian Book and Tract Society, Charleston: James S. Burges, 1833. Located at the Boston Public Library.

Rules of the Charleston Unitarian Bock Society, Instituted A. D.; 1821. Charleston: William Gray’s Press, 1826. Located at Duke University Library.

Service Book for Worship in the Congregation and the Home. Arranged for the Use of the Unitarian Church in Charleston, S.  C. Charleston: Samuel G. Courtneye, 1854. Located at Duke University Library.

Services and Hymns for the Use of the Unitarian Church of Charleston, S. C. Enlarged ed. Charleston: Joseph Walker, 1867. Located at Columbia Theological Seminary Library, Decatur, Georgia.

Shahan, Charles F. R. A, Key to Universalism. Griffin, Georgia: By the Author, 1854. Located at Duke University Library. Tufts University Library, Medford, Massachusetts also has a copy.

Shyrock, Richard H., ed. Letters of Richard D. Arnold, M. D., Durham: Seaman Press, 1929. A copy of this is available at the University of Georgia Library but use was also made of the editor’s personal copy at the American Philosophical Society Library and he was also consulted on the subject of this dissertation.

Upham, Charles Wentworth. A Letter to the Editor of the Charleston Observer, Concerning his Treatment of Unitarians. Charleston: James S. Burges, 1827. Located at Boston Public Library.

Whitaker, Daniel K. The Unity and Supremacy of God the Father. A Sermon Delivered in the Second Independent Church, in Charleston, 22, 1826. Charleston: Printed by 4. Riley, 1826. Located at University of South Carolina Library.

Articles

“The Atlanta Exhibit,” Southern Unitarian (August, 1895), pp. 145-146.

All issues of this periodical cited are located at Tulane University Library, New Orleans, Louisiana.

Burruss, J. C. “Theological Discussion between Rev. John Robbins and Rev. J. C. Burruss,”Universalist Herald (June 15, 1855), p. 2. Located on microfilm at University of Alabama Library, Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Chaney, George L. “Address at 10th Anniversary of Atlanta Church,” Southern Unitarian (March, 1894), pp. 35-39. “The New Protestantism,” Southern Unitarian (January, 1893), P. 3.

“Charleston Unitarian Book Society – Articles of Association,” The Unitarian Miscellany and Christian Monitor (Dec., 1821), pp. 164-167.

All issues of this periodical cited are located at the University of Iowa Library, Iowa City, Iowa.

Cole, W.R. “How Can the Church Help Solve the Problem of Poverty?” Southern Unitarian (July, 1895), pp. 123-125.

Dixon, John Y. ‘Business Announcement,’ Southern Unitarian (January, 1893), p. 2.

Gibson, George H. “Unitarian Congregations in Ante-Bellum Georgia,” The Georgia Historical Quarterly (Summer, 1970), pp. 147-168.

Jones, A. L. “Sunday-School Work,” Southern Unitarian (March, 1893) pp. 5-6.

Mayo, Amory D. ‘A Ministry of Education in the South,” Unitarian Review and Religious Magazine (Sept., 1832), pp. 193-207.

All issues of this periodical cited are located at University of Iowa Library.  “Northern Estimates of Southern Life.” Unitarian Review and Religious Magazine (January, 1889), pp. 33-48.

National Alliance,” The Christian Register (July 14, 1898, p. 802. All issues of this periodical cited are located at Starr King School of Theology.

Neblett, Mrs. Viola. “Social “Equity,” Southern Unitarian (April, 1895), pp. 64-67.

Penney, George B. “The Gothenburg Plan,” Southern Unitarian (August, 1393), pp. 6-7.

Schumann, Theodor. “Suggestions About Sunday schools in the Liberal Church,” Southern Unitarian (January, 1895), pp. 5-7.

Stebbins, Calvin. “Report of Rev. Calvin Stebbins, Missionary of the A. U. A. in Charleston, S. C.” The Monthly Journal of the American Unitarian Association (October, 1865), pp. 454-459.

Swift, Mrs. F. C. “A Colored Liberal,” Southern Unitarian (August, 1893), pp. 5-6.

“Universalism Summary of Opinion,” Constitution of the First Universalist Society of the City of Charleston, Charleston: Printed at the Office of the Southern Evangelist, 1336.  Located at Duke University Library.

Weeden, William. “How the South May Help in the Impending Social Trouble, “Southern Unitarian (April, 193), DD. 5-6.

Whitman, H. A. “The Dawn of Unitarianism in the South,” Southern Unitarian (January, 1393), pp. 3-4.

“New and Old Views of Salvation and Vicarious Atonement,” Southern Unitarian (June, 1895), pp. 117-120.  “An Old Time Southern Unitarian Paper,” Southern Unitarian (February, 1893), p. 3.

“A Word from the South,” Unitarian Review and Religious Magazine. (June, 1891), pp. 480-484.

Wright, Carroll D. “Labor and Industry at the South.” Southern Unitarian (May, 1895), pp. 92-93.

Unpublished Material

Gilman, Samuel. Loose newspaper clippings in Gilman pamphlets. Duke University Library.

Griffin, James Lewis Corbin. Papers, 1839-1875. Virginia Historical Society, Richmond, Virginia.

Cornerstone of First Universalist Church of Camp Rill, Alabama.

Tablets

Stone, Tablets on interior walls of Charleston Unitarian Church. Charleston, South Carolina.

Tombstones in Charleston Unitarian Churchyard.

Whitman, H. A. Compiler. “Scrapbook Alexander Case.” South Carolinian Library of the University of South Carolina.

Periodicals and Newspapers

Christian Examiner (Boston), July and August, 1826.

On microfilm at University of Georgia Library from original at Yale University.

Christian Inquirer (New York), April 27. 1826. Located at University of South Carolina Library.

The Daily Georgian (Savannah), June 3, 1820. Located at University of Georgia Library.

The Georgian (Savannah), January 1, 1833 – December 28, 1835. Located at the University of Georgia Library.

The Southern Unitarian (Atlanta), January, 1393 – December. 1495. Located at Tulane University Library, New Orleans, Louisiana.

Southern Universalist (Macon, Georgia), March 31. 1841. Located at University of Georgia Library.

The Unitarian Christian (Augusta, Georgia), March, June, September. 1831. Located at Meadville Seminary of the University of Chicago. University of North Carolina on microfilm.

The Unitarian Defendant (Charleston, South Carolina), June 22, 1822 – November 16, 1822. Located at Meadville Seminary Library of the University of Chico and the University of Iowa Library.

The Unitarian Miscellany and Christian Monitor (Baltimore, July, 1821 – July, 1824. Located at University of Iowa Library.

Unitarian Review and Religious Magazine (Boston), May, 1874, December 1875; March, 1884. Located at University of Iowa Library.

Universalist Herald (Nostasulga, Alabama), May 25, 1355 – June 15, 1855. Located on microfilm at the University of Alabama.

Universalist Herald (Canon, Georgia), Jan. 20, 1932 – March 20, 1941. Originals were consulted that are in the possession of Mrs. J. C. Bowers of Canon Georgia.

The Universalist Miscellany (Boston), November, 1843; February, 1845; September, 1845. Located at Duke University Library.

Western Messenger (Cincinnati), April, 1337. Located on microfilm at University of 3eorgia Library from original at Yale University.

Secondary Sources

Published Books and Pamphlets

Adams, John Coleman. Universalism and the Universalist Church. Boston: Universalist Publishing House, 1915.

Belsham, Thomas. American Unitarianism. 2nd ed. Boston: Printed by Nathaniel Willis, 1815. Located at University of Iowa Library.

Bolster, Arthur S., Jr. James Freeman Clarke. Boston: The Beacon Press, 1954.

Brown, Arthur W. Always Young for Liberty. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 1956.

Cooke, George Willis. Unitarianism in America. Boston: American Unitarian Association, 1902.

Dabney, William M. and Dargan, Marion. William Henry Drayton the American Revolution. Albuquerque: The University of New Press, 1932.

Directory Unitarian Universalist Association 1961-62. Boston: Unitarian-Universalist Association, 162.

Eaton, Clement. The Freedom-of-Thought Struggle in the Old South. Revised and enlarged ed. Harper Torchbooks. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1954.

Ezell, John Samuel. The South Since 1865. :New York: The Macmillan Co., 1963.

Moseley, J. Edward. Disciples of Christ in Georgia. St. Louis: The Bethany Press, 1954.

Nixon, Raymond B. Henry W. Grady, Spokesman of the New South. New. York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1943.

Neall, John Belton, and Chapman. John A. The Annals of Newberry. Two parts in one volune. Newberry, South Carolina: Aull & Houseal, 1892.

Robinson, Elmo Arnold. The Universalist Church in Ohio. n. p. Published by Ohio Universalist Convention, 1923.

Scott, Clinton Lee. The Universalist Church of America:  A Short History. Boston: Universalist Historical Society, 1957.

Simkins, Francis Butler. Pitchfork Ben Tillman. Reprinted ed. Gloucester, Massachusetts: Peter Smith, 1964. The Tillman Movement in South Carolina. Reprinted ed. Gloucester, Massachusetts: Peter Smith, 1964.

Smith, Timothy L. Revivalism and Social Reform: In Mid-Nineteenth Century America. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1957.

Sprague, William Buell. Annals of the American Unitarian Pulpit. New York: Robert Carter & Brothers, 1865. Located at Starr King School of Theology.

Sweet, William W. The Story of Religion in America. Rev. ed. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950.

Tiffany, Francis. Life of Dorthea Lynde Dix. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1918.

Whittemore, Thomas. The Modern History of Universalism Boston: By Author, 1830.

Wilbur, Earl Morse. A History of Unitarianism. Vol. II. Boston: Beacon Press, 1952.

Articles

Bowers, Mrs. J. C. “History of the Georgia Women’s Missionary Association, Universalist Herald (September 20, 1938), pp. 8-.9.

Bradley, Asa M. “Unitarianism,” Universalist Herald (October 20, 1933), pp. 8-9. Universalism in South 100 Years Ago, Universalist Herald, December 20, 1934, p. 12.

Browne, E. C. L. ‘Ecclesiastical Beginnings in Carolina,” Unitarian Review and Religious Magazine (October, 1884, pp. 317-335.

Chapman, Thomas. “Over the Southland,” Universalist Herald (Nay 20, 1933), p. 14.

“Torrid Weather Over Dusty goads Experienced by a Missionary,” Universalist Herald (October 20, 1938), P. 9.

Earle, Gertrude. “Beginning of the Universalist Church,” Universalist Herald (February 20, 1933), p. 13.

Ellsworth, Richard C. “A Tribute to Rev. Lyman Ward, DID.” Universalist Herald (June 20, 1935), pp. 7-8, 15.

Gohdes, Clarence. “Some Notes on the Unitarian Church in the Ante-bellum South,” American Studies in Honor of W. K. Boyd. Durham: Duke University Press, 1940.

Roger, Frederick C. “The History of Organized Universalism in Georgia,” Universalist Herald (December, 1956), pp. 7-8.

Hurlbut, Martin L. “Anthony Forster,” American Unitarian Biography. Edited by William Ware. Vol. II. Boston: James Munroe and Company, 1851_.

Opdale, Nellie Mann. “One Hundred Years of Organized Universalism in Georgia,” Universalist Herald (October 20, 1938), pp. 3-7.

Rasnake, James. “Notes on the Georgia Convention,” Universalist Herald (February 20, 1935), p. 13.

Stanford, Airs. Viola. “History of the Universalist Church in Atlanta,” Universalist Herald (December 20, 1934), pp. 7-8.

Ward, Lyman. “Daniel. Bragg Clayton,” Universalist Herald (August 20, 1937), pp. 5-7.

 

 

UUCA - Report, Report of Treasurer Dec 11, 1967

1 January 2014 at 00:00
Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta
1991 Cliff Valley Way N.E., Atlanta, GA. 30329 / 404 634-5134
December 11, 1967

REPORT OF THE TREASURER

The expected financial storm, successfully fended off during the summer months, struck suddenly and unexpectedly during the month of November. At November 30, a deficit of $226.14 is reported in the operating fund; during the month, the operating fund decreased $2,337.62.

This sudden and serious decline during the month of November was brought about by a drop of nearly $2,000.00 in pledge payments and plate collections with an increase of nearly $1,000.00 in expenses. An even more serious situation would have arisen had not miscellaneous income for the month approximated $500.00.

Changes for the month in other funds were insignificant.

It is quite clear that a financial crisis is now upon us. It is of particular concern to me that such a situation should prevail in spite of all of the following:

  1. The Congregation now numbers more than 800 members and present facili­ties are clearly strained to or perhaps beyond capacity; therefore we should expect no further revenue through increased membership;
  2. To replace the present physical plant would cost at least an additional $100,000; the Congregation should now be benefiting from the lower con­struction prices which prevailed when the present facilities were built;
  3. The present long-term debt of the Congregation, which totals some $350,000, is being amortized at the rate of approximately 9% per year; were such financing to be renegotiated today, debt service expenses would rise at least 10%;
  4. The Congregation is operating against a budget of $115,000, which repre­sents a curtailment from the original proposal and which contains few items which might be significantly reduced without seriously dislocating the church program or reneging on important commitments made to employees of the church.

In summary, I find it very disquieting that we should be facing a deficit condition during a period of high membership and attendance, located in a building constructed at perhaps 80% of today’s construction prices, enjoying long-term financing arrangements which could not be reproduced today, and with a program which is not, in my opinion, extravagant.

Though it is not precisely within my province as Treasurer to extrapolate from these facts, I cannot fail as a member of the Board of Trustees to add the following observations:

  1. Unless there is a rapid and radical improvement in our financial position, the recent discussions of the Long Range Planning Committee appear quite academic. If 100 present members of the Congregation were to withdraw and organize a separate association, this Congregation would face a serious financial predicament and would certainly not be able to offer any financial support to the withdrawing members.
  2. I would suggest that our financial results cast serious doubt upon the practicality of the low-key, once-a-year solicitation of funds which is fundamental to the E. M.C.
  3. I suggest that serious consideration be given to an emergency solicita­tion of funds. I further suggest that such a supplemental appeal be based upon the notion of a per capita assessment, including each member sepa­rately and not pledging units, and that a lower per capita assessment be proposed for children in the Sunday School.
  4. As a further measure to meet the current deficit, I would suggest that a statement be made during the course of Sunday services, that a nominal contribution from visitors was inadequate; and I might even go so far as to suggest what an equitable contribution might be.
  5. As a further emergency measure I would suggest that particular efforts be directed towards those persons who are behind on pledge payments; in this connection, I think it would be useful to advise all members of the Congregation that the approximate cost of running this church is $125 per member (not per family) plus $25 for each child in the Sunday School — thus, the equitable share of a family with two children would be $300 per year; I doubt that the majority of members understand the financial realities which we are now compelled to face.

With considerable trepidation I offer one further suggestion for the consideration of the Board: to what extent is our financial position influenced by our pro gram content? Though it could hardly be proven I think I detect a correlation between avant garde programs and low collections. If this is true, and I cannot prove it, the Board of Trustees might well consider the extent to which our program content should be influenced by our financial needs.

James C. H. Anderson Treasurer

Archivisit click here to see financial statements.

Physical Archive: Northwest   Box: 01   Folder: 01
Collection Citation

UUCA - Report, Long Range Planning Feb 07, 1967 (Central City Project)

1 January 2014 at 00:00

CENTRAL CITY PROJECT SUBCOMMITTEE

Report of February 7, 1967

In accordance with the instructions of the Long-range Planning Committee, the Central City Project Committee of the Growth Committee has investigated facilities for Sunday-only operations as well as for weekdays-only services. It was felt in this way that total rental costs could be reduced over those required to provide both functions under one roof.

A search of the area agreed upon (bound by Spring Street, 14th St, Charles Allen Drive, and Ponce de Leon Avenue) revealed two possible facilities. These were:

Spring Street School. Located at 1404 Spring St, NW at 17th Street, the school is just beyond the northern boundary of the area selected. The school is well-suited to our needs. According to Dr Cook, regional superintendent, it is definitely available. The cost would be comparable to Clark Howell School. To determine the exact cost, we should secure an estimate form from the school and state our exact requirements. It, is estimated the rent would not be in excess of $500 per year.

Biltmore Hotel. Located at 817 West Peachtree, N. the Biltmore is well within the area selected A large meeting room is available at $50 per Sunday. Small, rooms on the mezzanine and on the 10th floor would be available at $10 to $20) per room. It is believed that if we made a package offer. the cost. per Sunday would be in the neighborhood of 4101.

Of the above two facilities, the Spring Street School is clearly to be preferred. Although the Biltmore was willing to guarantee space every Sunday, they would not guarantee the same space.

Facilities for weekdays only would range in cost from $75 per month for 300 sq ft on a second floor to $250 per month for 800 Sq ft in a high-quality commercial building. Both figures include all utilities and cleaning.

In general, if we were to insist on ground-floor space, we would probably have to rent 800 to 1000 sq ft or more on a 3-year lease.

The amount of space required would, of course, be a function of the services the church intended to provide.   Reading room and a service or information desk could probably be provided with 300 sq ft. If the church were to participate in Project Head Start or other similar programs, on the order of 300 sq ft would be required.

An excellent possibility would be property at 1036 Peachtree St, NE. Rent would be $75 to $99 per month. This would be a second-floor location in very good condition. Other tenants of the building include Atlanta Arts Council, Atlanta Council of Churches, and League of Woman Voters. Space would be in the vicinity of 300 sq. ft.

When our requirements are clearly defined, suitable quarter should readily

Respectfully

R F Tuve

Physical Archive: Northwest   Box: 01   Folder: 01
Collection Citation

UUCA - Report, Long Range Planning Committee Report (Feb 1967)

1 January 2014 at 00:00
LONG RANGE PLANNING COMMITTEE REPORT TO THE CONGREGATION
Feb 1967

Committee Purpose

A. General

The Long Range Planning Committee was organized as a committee of the Board with the general charge of forecasting the needs of the congregation, in terms or programs, staff, facilities, and finances beyond the current year, and to develop plans toward meeting the defined needs.

P. Specific

The immediate charge of this committee as based on the apparent continuing growth trend of this congregation and the obvious need to provide different and additional means of accommodating future growth by the beginning of our next program year.

The committee has undertaken to develop possible alternatives to a degree that they might be here considered by the congregation for a decision as to the proper direction the church will take as we meet these requirements. It has been the effort to include the implications of these alternatives, in terms of program, staff, facility, and finance.

C. Membership

This committee is composed of the 1st Vice President (Chairman), the minister, the President, 2nd Vice President, the R.E. Director, Finance Director, and the Chairmen of the ad hoc committees– Growth, Program Study, and Priorities.

II. Possible Alternative Methods for Handling the Growth of This Congregation and Extending Unitarian-Universalism in Atlanta

A. General

The following alternatives are developed considering:

  1. The effective use of staff and facility, including maximum utilization of our existing facility.
  2. Financial implications during this period when a high percentage of our operating budget is allocated to fixed expenses.’
  3. Providing opportunity for all possible extension of Unitarian-Universalism in Atlanta.
  4. The means for meeting the needs outlined in a way that would provide opportunity for meaningful Unitarian-Universalist program in Atlanta.
  5. Financial implications or any autonomous group being established at various points in time.

B. Description of Alternatives

1. The Establishment of Fellowships (Decision point #3)

a. Assumptions

(1)  Fellowships would most likely be comprised of a small group during its early period.

(2)  The location of such fellowships would most likely occur in areas surrounding the city of Atlanta itself on the north side.  This is consistent with the knowledge that potential Unitarian-Universalist are most likely in population areas of above average income and education level.
b. Possible Course of Action
The establishment of fellowships can be encouraged at all times and receive the support of the Board of this congregation and its standing committees.
c. Implications
The establishment of fellowships experienced in other cities implies that this could not meet the need of handling the immediate population and continuing growth rate of the church.

2. Creation of a New Congregation in Central Atlanta (Decision point #3)

a. Assumptions

(1)  The assumptions including location, accessibility etc. could be the same as in the off-campus third service alternative.

(2)  The number of people attracted to a new society and program is undetermined at this point.
(3)  The establishment of a new society might most expediently serve the extension of Unitarian-Universalism in Atlanta.
(4) The professional staff and volunteer committees could be made available to a new society establishing itself on a consulting and/or participating basis.
b. Possible Course of Action
A meeting could be called of those interested in a new society from which a steering committee of those participating could be established. This committee would determine direction, program, location etc.
c. Implications
(1) Although no direct cost in the sense of expenditure would necessarily be incurred by this congregation, the cost would be in terms of pledge loss. If, for example, fifty average pledges comprised the new society and were replaced in this congregation through growth with thirty-five new pledges, the receipts from pledges would be reduced by a net of $12,000
(2) As can be seen from the attached chart of population growth (annex 1), this would be an absolute net loss if the new society was established in September 1967. Although it would not appreciably effect the population of this congregation and its concomitant needs, the later this society would be established, the less the financial implication because of the number of new pledges which represented by growth which would be off-setting. Thus, this is certainly not the same cost picture if it were accomplished in September 1968.

3. Expanding Existing Physical Facilities to Accommodate Growth (Decision point #5)

a. Assumptions

(1) The adult capacity is limited by our existing sanctuary which does not lend itself to economically feasible expansion. This sanctuary will house a mean attendance of 400 per session, considering our experienced deviation from the mean.

(2) Mean attendance is 90% of membership.
(3) Church school attendance averages 90% of adult attendance. The church school facility will accommodate a mean attendance of 290, based on a 15 per cent average. Thus, the church school can accommodate a mean attendance which would be expected with a mean adult attendance of 320 per session.
(4) The existing facility will accommodate a membership of 1000 with three sessions.
b. Possible Course of Action
(1) A balance could be provided by either adding to the existing facility, building a youth building at the end of the parking lot, or by some other means providing eight additional class rooms and one additional assembly room.
(2) Class room space could be leased in a neighboring building.
c. Implications
(1)  The cost of implementing form of expansion of existing facility would mean a capital outlay in excess of $100,000. This would be an addition to the operating budget of approximately $12,000 per year.
(2)  Expanding the facility would mean that the church school could handle the children that would attend a session with an average adult attendance of 400.
(3)  The balanced facility would comfortably accommodate a membership of 1200 with three sessions.

4. A Mid-Week Service in Our Existing Facility (Decision point #8)

a. Assumptions
Based on the experience of the Seattle and Pittsburg congregation, it was determined that the most successful type of mid-week program would:
(1)  Be family oriented haying adult and R.E. programs
(2)  Have general program appeal
(3)  Include supper for participants
(4) Begin as early as possible (6:30) and end promptly at 8 P.M.b.
b. Possible Course of Action
(1)  An adult program that could range from a service essentially identical to that held each Sunday to an informal and less structured type of program with lay speakers. This could be set-up by existing church committees.
(2)  A mid-week assembly steering committee could be appointed from members who would attend this service. This committee would determine type of program, direction, etc. Additional committees pertinent to conduct of the service could be appointed. However, members attending this assembly would participate in regular standing committees of this church and their functions.
(3)  The A. E. Program could be:
(a) A program similar to that on Sunday
(b) An experimental program tailored to mid-week
(c) A totally different program directed by a sub-committee composed of members attending this service.

c. Implications and Advantages

(1) Some of the advantages to members attending such a program would be:(a) Time of service, leaving weekends free

(b) Closer family experience
(c) Possibly greater participation in group programs

(2)  The cost implications  this type of program would be no more than that necessary to support this many additional members under any set of circumstances.

(3)  This program would require the attention of the minister and/or the ass start.

5. Sunday A.M. Third Service (Decision point #8)

a. Assumptions
(1) This would be a structured service with both adult and youth program.
(2) The service would be essentially the same as the other two provided on Sunday morning.b.
b. Possible Course of Action
An early service could be scheduled for 9 A.M. followed by services at 10:30 and 12:00 for example.
c. Implications
(1)  A third service in the morning which would probably require rescheduling the times of all three services.
(2)  The cost would be simple that involved in a Sunday morning program, ie, music, etc.

6. Sunday Evening Third Service (Decision point # 8)

a. Assumptions
The assumptions would be the same as for a Sunday morning service.
b. Possible Course of Action
The two Sunday morning services could remain as they are and a Sunday evening service scheduled at 7:30 P.M.
c. Implications
(1)  Cost would be the same as for a third Sunday morning service.
(2)  Other Sunday evening activities would have to be rescheduled to other evenings during the week.

7. An Off-Campus Third .service (Decision point 19)

a. Assumptions
(1) A facility in an area centrally located in the city and accessible to potential Unitarian-Universalist, the extension of Unitarian-Universalism might be best served while the immediate growth problem is met.
(2) An off-campus group might most expediently become autonomous and establish a new society. The mission of extending Unitarian-Universalism would mean that we would provide every opportunity for this to happen at the earliest time deemed advantageous by the group itself.
(3) An area meeting the above requirements of location might also simultaneously provide the means for performingmworthwhile public service activities. Such programs might include:
(a)  The establishment of an information center
(b)  Reading room and agency referral center

(4) The area considered most likely to meet the above requirements is the general 10th Street area. Location defined as being bounded by 14th Street, Charles Allen Drive, Ponce de Leon, and Spring Street.

b. Possible Courses of Action

(1) Leasing a seven day a week facility which would accommodate an adult assembly of approximately 100. Eight church school rooms and space for an information center, reading room, or other public service program.

(2) Leasing a one day a week facility such as that at Clark Howell School.
(3) Leasing a one day a week facility such as that at Clark Howell School in combination with approximately 500 square feet of permanently leased space in which to conduct one of the public service programs outlined.
c. Implications
(1) The cost of a seven day a week facility would be approximately $7,000 to $10,000 per year in addition to whatever cost would be incurred for the service of additional members.
(2) The cost of a one day a week facility would be approximately $1,500 per year.
(3) The cost of the possible combination of facilities would be approximately $4,000 per year.
d. Advantages
(1) Providing this course of action might best serve to extend Unitarian-Universalism in Atlanta and provide the basis for productive Unitarian program in the community.
(2) This area might serve Ansley Park residents, minority group residents south of North Avenue, as well as being centrally accessible to the city in general.
(3) it is this alternative that might most easily give rise to a second society of meaningful size.

The program provided and its requirements would be as in the case of a mid-week service above. Again an off-campus assembly steering committee could be established at the appropriate time, comprised of members who would participate. The direction and content of the program could be determined by this committee.

III. Basic Assumptions and Recommendations

A. Assumptions

It seems to the committee apparent that we:

  1. Recognize that any alternative that might be accepted by the congregation would not serve to decrease the ministerial work­load nor reverse the membership trend and thus would make explicit the need for additional professional staff.
  2. Recognize the inevitability of the growth of this congregation to a membership in excess of 800.
  3. Recognize that an active summer program will be desirable and therefore probably instituted.
  4. Recognize that the establishment of fellowships would appear to be concomitant of any other course of action selected rather than an alternative.
  5. Recognize that the establishment of a new society would be most economically feasible to this congregation and the society if effected by September 1968.

B. Recommendations

Based on the above assumptions, the committee recommends to the congregation that:

  1. A committee be established for the selection of an assistant minister with consideration toward employment or this person for the next program year.
  2. The installation of central air-conditioning for part or all of the building should be considered if financed by a type of bonding program recommended by the Special Gifts Committee which would not encumber the operating budget of the current or immediately succeeding fiscal years.
  3. All possible alternatives developed by each of the Study Committees be presented to the congregation for consideration and decision.
  4. Our goal is to stimulate the creation of a new congregation in the fall of 1968.
  5. The growth requirements be met in the Fall of 1967 by adding to the number of services.
  6. With respect to the type of service, the decision be remanded to the congregation without recommendation. This excepting a recommendation against planning for more than one additional service.
  7. The, board on recommendation of the R.E. director and committee regulate RE enrollment for each service.
  8. In the event an additional “on campus” service is selected, that the money which would have been incurred off campus be used to enrich the program of this congregation.
  9. In the event an “off campus” is selected that it be with a one day a week facility.

Archivist: Click to display the Decision Schematic Diagram and other report attachment.

Physical Archive: Northwest   Box: 01   Folder: 01
Collection Citation

UUCA - Report, Directory Selected Zone 1967

1 January 2014 at 00:00

Directory of members of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta (UUCA) in 1967.

This directory may have been used in long range planning activities.

Click here to see the directory.

Physical Archive: Northwest   Box: 01   Folder: 01
Collection Citation

UUCA - Report, Priorities Committee Report Jan 31, 1967

1 January 2014 at 00:00

PRIORITIES COMMITTEE DEPORT January 31st, 1967

The Priorities Committee was asked to consider priorities concerned with varying methods of expansion of the Unitarian Universalist congregation to include a “central city” meeting on a weekly basis. The meeting to consider these facts was held on January 31st, 1967 at the church and was attended by Roy Forehand, Gerald Reed, Ed Mangiafico, Roger Comstock and Robert Wells (who served as Chairman in absence of Ray Young).

The material available for our consideration included:

  1. An estimate of $6,000 to $12,000 for rental of sufficient space to include a meeting room, several rooms for church – school activities, and some office space. This rental would be on a full-time basis and would, therefore, allow use of facilities during the week for other activities including: a) possible subleasing of part of the facility during the week, b) office use during the week end c) an open reading room or other community development activities. It was indicated that perhaps a figure of $6,500 to $7,500 was a realistic one to deal with for this alternative,
  2. A rental figure of approximately $2,000 to involve use on Sunday only of sufficient space to involve a meeting room and several church – school rooms, but with no other use during the week. This estimate was based on a forty-week year.
  3. A third alternative would be the rental of two areas, one on a full-time basis to provide function “c” listed under paragraph (1) above and the other in a different location to provide the type of function listed under paragraph (2) above. Potential rental figures for such a solution were not available for our consideration.
  4. An estimated income and expenditure sheet for the coming fiscal year which had been prepared by the church Finance Director was available also for our use. It was decided by the Committee that we would be unable to fit priorities concerning a “central city” project into this estimated income and expenditure structure since this type of priority listing can only be accomplished in terms of budget preparation (after all program proposals are in and the Every-Member Canvas is completed)

The Priorities Committee feels at the type of proposal listed under paragraph (1) above is very desirable and that efforts should be made to move towards this type of activity as rapidly as the church budget will allow. It was further felt, however, that the church budget during the coming fiscal year will not allow full-time rental as outlined in paragraph (1) above and that, therefore, we recommend that high priority be placed in the 1967-1968 church budget for a central city project as outlined under paragraph (2) above.

It was further recognized that the solution suggested in paragraph (3) above may represent a compromise solution for the coming year. Estimated rental figures on this basis were not available for our consideration, however. It was the opinion of the Priorities Committee that it would be very doubtful that the church budget for 1967-1968 would be able to accommodate more expense than that outlined under paragraph (2), however.

Respectfully submitted,

Robert E. Wells, M. D.

Temporary Chairman

Physical Archive: Northwest   Box: 01   Folder: 01
Collection Citation

UUCA - Report, Long Range Planning Jan 30, 1967 (Central City Project)

1 January 2014 at 00:00

Unitarian Universalist Congregation
To: Long Range Planning Committee
From: Program Study Committee
Subject: Central City Project

The Program Study Committee met on January 30, 1967 to consider possible program for the proposed Central City Project. The objective of the project was to serve the central city area and to reduce growth pressure by drawing some members from the present church. Several locations for the project had been previously investigated by the Growth Committee.

Two possible projects were considered:

  1. A 7-day a week operation Which would serve the church members as well as provide a base for such social service activities as day care, information center, reading room, anti-poverty programs, etc.
  2. A 1-day a week site for church service and a 7-day a week site for all social service activities.

The Program Study Committee strongly urged that the social service :activities not be tied into the problem of providing a solution to the growth of the congregation. While the committee felt such service activities had merit and should be encouraged, this was thought to be the responsibility of the entire congregation and not to be assigned to a particular group.

7-day a week operation: Assuming that monies were available, it was the opinion of the committee that if such an undertaking were to be sucessful it should offer the same type of program which has proven so successful here, such as Sunday service, evening adult programs, mother’s day out, etc.

Staff: Some professional service would be required if the project was to truly be a 7-day a week operation, a permanent staff assistant or perhaps a resident couple.
Committees: Recommend the formation of a steering committee composed of members attending the off-campus project.
Present standing committees of the church would serve the off-campus project as well at the start.

Sunday Service: The same types of full adult and RE services as proposed for the mid-week meeting (minus supper) would also apply here. At the outset the adult and RE programs should be much like that being held at present but should represent the wishes of the attendees.

1-day a week operation:
Staff: Other than an increased demand on present ministerial services and staff, no specific staff assignment.

REPORT OF CENTRAL CITY PROJECT SUBCOMMITTEE

January 22,1967

Functions and objectives

A To serve central-city area and to reduce growth pressure by drawing some members from present church by providing a full Sunday program of religious education for children and a Sunday-morning service for adults.

B To serve the central-city residents by providing a variety of activities and services on week days such as the following:

  • Day care
  • Information center–government and agency services available Reading room, bookshop, music room
  • Head Start or other similar anti-poverty programs

C Possible long-term objective: Sponsorship of racially integrated low-and/or middle-income housing.

General Location 

A “10th Street Area” — to serve Georgia Tech, art & drama groups, Ansley Park residents, minority group residents south of North Avene

B “Downtown” — to serve same group as above plus Atlanta University complex plus southside suburbs

Specific Location of Concentrated Attention

The area bounded by 14th Street on the North, Charles Allen Drive on the east, Ponce de Leon Avenue on the South, and Spring Street as the west.

Specific Possibilities 

A For 7-day a week operation

1 Address: 65 11th Street, NE

Description: Completely redecorated (including carpets and drapes) residence between the Peachtrees ideally suited to variety of activities; has approximately 12 rooms of varying sizes plus meeting room with small kitchen (720 sq ft); 1st & 2nd floors sole tenant); limited parking

Size: 4500 sq ft

Cost: $983 per month – $11,600 per year including utilities and cleaning

2 Address: 685 N Peachtree, NE

Description: Ground floor on commercial property (about 10 years o1d) with excellent “church” floor plan — 1200 sq ft meeting room plus 7-8 classrooms or offices with good “store-front” possibilities; parking on weekdays but unlimited. parking on Sundays

Site: 3800 sq ft

Cost: $950 per month – $11,400 per year w/ utilities and cleaning

3 Address: 700 block, N Peachtree

Description: 2nd floor of commercial property used as private school; would require some redecorating; “cold” appearance: limited parking Size: 4500 sq ft

Cost: $650 per month – $7800

Report of Central City Project Subcommittee, Sheet 2

Specific Possibilities (cont)

A For 7-day a week operation (cunt)

4 5th Street, NE

Description: Older house remodeled into small offices; poor meeting room facilities; limited parking

Size: 3000 sq ft

Cost: $300 per month – $3600 per year

5 Address: Piedmont & Ponce de Leon

Description: Congregational Church and other deteriorated property Size: Undetermined

Cost: For sale or lease; sale price $200,000

B    For 1-day a week operation

1 Address: 17th & Peachtree, NE

Description: High Museum; 350-seat auditorium plus temporary

classroom facilities

Size: Undetermined

Cost: $75 per day max

2 Address: 18th & Spring St, NW

Description: Spring Street School; public school facilities Size: Undetermined

Cost: $50 per month (estimated)

3 Address: 659 Peachtree, NE

Description: Georgian Terrace Hotel: meeting room and classrooms

Size: Undetermined

Cost: Undetermined

4 Address: 573 W Peachtree, NE

Description: Life Insurance Co of Georgia; auditorium

Size: Undetermined Cost: Undetermined

Financing

A Exclusively from church budget

B    By subleasing office space. Note: Southeast Region of UUA currently rents approximately 250 sq ft for $135 per month: with approval of UUA board it would be willing to lease office space from the Church.

Decisions We Must Make

A Specific objectives – 1-day vs 7-day a week services

B    Financial limits

C Area we intend to serve

RFT

1/22/67

Physical Archive: Northwest   Box: 01   Folder: 01
Collection Citation

UUCA - Report, Priorities Committee Report Jan 22, 1967

1 January 2014 at 00:00

PRIORITIES COMMITTEE REPORT TO LRP COMMITTEE  January 22, 1967

The Priorities Committee has been charged with investigating costs and related factors that would be involved in expanding our present facilities to accommodate a membership of 1200 persons. The committee believes that it has come to a temporary stopping point in these investigations. It therefore submits this summary report with no immediate plans to expand upon it unless so directed or until it becomes clear that some parameter of the problem has changed or was improperly evaluated in the development of this report. The committee recognizes that, in order to follow any definite path to a conclusion, a number of implicit assumptions (biases) were unavoidably introduced.

It was assumed at the outset that the present sanctuary could not be enlarged in any acceptable way. Within that limitation (perhaps false) the committee considered four different paths:

  1. Sell the present church and start over.
  2. Build a new larger sanctuary next door, using present sanctuary for other purposes.
  3. Accept the limitation of the present sanctuary size and try to optimize the use of it.
  4. As the space situation becomes tight in either the sanctuary or the church school area, go to ever more services.

Briefly, the committee considered the first two alternatives to be both financially and, probably, psychologically unacceptable for the next few years and hence dismissed them. The fourth alternative need not require any significant capital investment, though it might require conversion of a classroom into office space then unusable for classes, thus making the “pinch” in the R.E. area come that much sooner. The committee feels, however, that it may be effectively impossible to schedule multiple services at such times that more than two or three of them would attract near-capacity attendance.

The third alternative, that of optimizing the use of the sanctuary, required more detailed examination. To optimize the use seems to require two things: the number of services consistent with capacity attendance in the sanctuary and the provision of other facilities to accommodate the activities and attendance in other areas associated with capacity attendance in sanctuary for that number of services. That is, the task is to provide a physical facility that is well balanced.

Two numbers now become very important: the average capacity of the sanctuary and the ratio of church-school attendance to sanctuary attendance. We have taken the desirable average capacity of the sanctuary to be 400 with a standard devia­tion of 90. (Actual experience in the 2nd service so far this year is 443 with a standard deviation of 90.) The ratio of R.E. attendance to “sanctuary” attendance held nearly steady at about 1 to 1 during the four years just prior to our coming into the new building, where it dropped to about 0.8 to 1. The change is probably due to an increase in the number of visitors, a phenomenon which we estimate is only partly temporary. Thus we are taking 0.9 to 1 as our best estimate for the next few years.

With these assumptions we see the following needs, the fulfillment of which would accommodate an average sanctuary attendance of 1200 persons in 3 services:

  1. Office space increased by 80 to 100%
  2. Assistant minister or professional office staff, plus pro rata increase in clerical and secretarial staff
  3. Additional Church School space to balance sanctuary capacity.

The office space can be provided in suitably blocked locations by, for example, converting the present board room to office use and providing a board room and an R.E. office in another location instead of their present locations. The additional professional and secretarial staff would be housed in this expanded office space. Their salaries represent no significant pertur­bation to our financial structure, as the need for and hiring of them would be geared to membership and thus to operating budget.

The additional R.E. and office space could be supplied in any of several ways:

  1. Rental of adjacent building space
  2. Provision of additional housing on our present property by means of
    1. “Portable” classrooms
    2. building of cottages
    3. additions to present building
    4. construction of a “Youth” building, probably at lower end of the parking lot.

At present, no adjacent building space is available. Portable classrooms seem unacceptable on both esthetic and fiscal grounds. Cottages would be esthetically acceptable but somewhat impractical because of the dispersion of usable space. Additions to the present building would raise objections on esthetic grounds, but might in fact be accomplished in an esthetically acceptable way. The same applies to a separate youth building.

In consideration of the “important numbers” mentioned above, and with the further “educated guess” that 15 pupils per classroom is a good working figure as an average over various classroom sizes and attendance figures, and recognizing that a Youth building needs its own assembly hall which could double as a worship room, gymnasium, etc., the following requirements were agreed on for either a Youth building or additions to the present building:

R. E. Office
Board room
6 classrooms
Assembly-worship-gym room (large, e.g. 40 x 80 ft)
Storeroom
Additional parking (9)
Full air-conditioning

All of this would run to a building floor area of from 8 to 1,000 sq ft (vs 22,000 now!). On the basis of estimated dollars/ft as lightly researched” by several of us, plus an allowance for special foundation and drainage problems, we think that the figures specially worked up by Roy Forehand are reasonable though perhaps a bit conservatively high which, in view of steadily rising costs, is quite proper. With our own extrapolation to the larger size Youth building and for air-conditioning these are:

For 6,400 sq ft in a Youth building…………………………………..$125,000
For 9,400 sq ftin additions to the present building ……………..190,000
For 9,600 sq ftYouth building…………………………………………….170,000

Evaluation of Youth building or additions idea:

For this $170,000 spent on the primary purpose of achieving a better balance, we gain only “nice-to-have-things” plus these basic expansions:

(1) 50 to 100 members more per service in sanctuary
(2) the additional office space

Thus, it appears to the committee that, at this moment, we have no really acceptable solution to the problem of accommodating 1200 in present location, though 900 to 1,000 could be comfortably accommodated in the present facility in three services carefully scheduled and programmed

In SUMMARY the main points reduce to the following: The sanctuary capacity cannot be expanded in any reasonable way. It could be used to maximum capacity by adding to the R.E. facilities (primarily), either by construction of a Youth building or by additions to the present building, at a cost well in excess of $100,000 and probably nearer $170,000. This large expenditure is considered ill-advised because it would only increase the use of the of sanctuary by 50 to 100 members per service. Thus it appears that expanding the R.E. facilities to achieve a balance which would permit accommodation of an average sanctuary attendance of 1200 in three services, is not desirable for reasons of accommodating growth alone. One reason is that if the present R.E. plant be taken as the limiting factor, an average attendance of 900 to 1,000 in the sanctuary can be accommodated in three services within the present facility at the probable cost, only, of converting the board room to office space. (A method of achieving balance which the committee has not considered is a reduction of the R.E. program, such as elimination of the upper three grade levels – a system presently used in the Plandome church, I am told.

Respectfully submitted,

R. A. Young, Chairman

Physical Archive: Northwest   Box: 01   Folder: 01
Collection Citation

Unitarian Church in Atlanta, 1882-1908

1 January 2014 at 00:00

Unitarian Church in Atlanta, 1882-1908
For Dr. Richard Wade
History 300b
April 18, 1966
Submitted By L. Becker

Early in 1882, George Leonard Chaney, late of a Boston pastorate, arrived in Atlanta to test the possibility of resuscitating Southern Unitarianism. Following the Civil War, only the churches at Charleston, South Carolina and New Orleans survived, but by 1884 even these had disappeared; elsewhere, slavery, before the outbreak of hostilities, had tended to discourage substantial activity by liberal religionists.1

During the post-war period, the American Unitarian Association (AUA) was vitally concerned with expansion and missionary work. Noting the zeal of the Methodists, Presbyterians and Baptists in proselytizing, Unitarian leaders pushed for expansion. By 1884, the AUA could say, “Wherever the word of Unitarianism has been clearly spoken, there the creeds have faded; there the chains of old superstitions have been broken; and there the cruel and irrational dogmas have retired from the forefront of the battle.”2 Yet, lest arrogance deter the brethren from their toil, words of caution were introduced: “We are too cold,” was a self-characterization. “The present need of our body is more interest, more life, more fervor.”3

Eminently practical, the AUA conceded that next to warmth the greatest need was for money. Indeed, the need for money proved ultimately to be the great problem of the Atlanta church, the problem which, finally, necessitated its merger with the Universalist congregation in 1908, following the suggestion by AUA’s Dr. Samuel Eliot that the Atlanta Unitarians were in a “weak and unprogressive condition,” and that “further expenditure of money does not appear to be justified [by the AUA] . . .” Laying his Association’s cards on the table, Dr. Eliot said, “Shall we go forward into efficiency, influence, and self-support, or shall we got out of existence?,” commending to the congregation a text from Deuteronomy as his final word on the subject: “Behold: I have set before you life and death; therefore choose life! “4

Yet, in the ‘8o’s, a general optimism was more characteristic of Unitarian missionary thought. Churches had been formed throughout the northern half of the country, extending even to the far Northwest, to Portland, Olympia and Walla-Walla. It was time to reconstruct the South.

Religious reconstruction, however, was an ambiguous notion for Unitarians. On the one hand, it seems to have meant “a Liberal but Christian faith”; on the other hand, it meant revolution: “We have torn down the old altars. . . . We have done our part to undermine the old faith.”5 Was Unitarianism to be the true, conservative Christianity, or was it to depart radically from orthodox tradition? The titles of Chaney’s sermons in April and May, 1882, when he preached in temporary quarters at Concordia Hall in Atlanta, are enigmatic: “Man’s Love and God’s Love;” “The Bible: what it is and what it is not”; “What Unitarians believe”; and “Salvation: now and here.” Yet an examination of extant sermons preached the same year, in February, provide insight into Chaney’s approach. On February 26th, in the Senate Chamber, Rev. Chaney chose as his text (with what may be presumed an unintended pun on Southern diction) “One God, and Father of all, above all—through all—and in you all.” The faith of “Unitarian Christianity” is in X’ty—washed of the admixture of heathen philosophy which early became associated with it, and freed from the limitations which literalism and Ecclesiasticism have put upon it, during the post-apostolic ages.” Newcomers to Unitarianism should not be surprised, Chaney pointed out, to hear the language of the New Testament gospels used to describe Unitarian faith. “That language,” he said, “in its original simplicity and purity as it came from the lips of Jesus, is the language which best describes the Faith we profess.” Attempting to allay natural fears and suspicions, Chaney pointed out that there are some who call themselves Unitarians who are in error concerning some theological matters. They spread doubts and denials which pain many “excellent and devout Unitarian Christians.”

Denying the tenets of what he considered the three great religious thrusts of the day—agnosticism, naturalism, and humanism—Chaney suggested that Unitarian Christianity goes to the scriptures—to Paul—for its central doctrine of the Fatherhood of God. Dismissing along the way Spencer, Darwin, Huxley, Tyndal, Alexander Pope, and even Emerson, Chaney asked, “If God is not Father—then how shall we bear the orphanage in which, despite the tenderest and best of human parents, our souls feel themselves lost?” Yet, he conceded, men misunderstand Unitarianism; charges are made “that it is a cold Religion, a dead Religion at all—” These are misconceptions, he claimed, and the rest of the sermon was an attempt to dispel them. Interestingly enough, the one reference to trinitarianism in the original sermon was deleted; one can only speculate as to whether the reference was heard by Chaney’s listeners, or whether he sensed some reason for not mentioning the dominant faith at all.7

Hardly radical, this sermon is characteristic of those Chaney preached in his early days in Atlanta. His text on March 5th was “Bear ye one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ . . . for every man must bear his own burden (Gal. 6:2 and 5).” The point of the sermon is a reinterpretation of the scriptural admonition so that it reads, in Chaney’s words, “Bear ye one another’s burdens, for every man must have his burden to bear and therefore will need his brother’s support.” There is no worse delusion for man, Chaney claimed, “than the belief that he is independent.” Rather than suggesting specific burden-bearing, however, the sermon concludes “that we are all of one family in trial and sorrow and all need and long to be, of one family in charitable patience and love.”8

Again, on March 12th, Chaney hewed close to an orthodox line in preaching on “the X’n Graces, each bearing its natural fruit—Faith at work—Love laboring—Hope keeping patient.”9

If one discounts the personal theology of Rev. Chaney, there appear to be two plausible answers to the question of the apparent near-orthodoxy of the Atlanta church. Both are historical, yet premised on totally divergent facts: the Unitarian schism, lasting from the 1850’s to at least 1894, and the “fact” of the South, its history, its religious predilections, its institutions.

Chaney’s role in the schismatic infighting among Unitarians is part fact, part speculation. When, in 1852, the Western Unitarian Conference (WUC) was organized in Cincinnati, it was on a broad, nonsectarian Christian basis. Conservative at its inception, as was the national Unitarian body, by 1875 it was able to state that it conditioned its fellowship “on no dogmatic tests.” In 1886, the WUC convention restated this principle, and invited all to join who wished “to help establish Truth and Righteousness and Love in the world.” Within a few weeks conservatives had resigned, organizing the Western Unitarian Association in Chicago. Ten years later, in 1896, these dissident wings were united; meanwhile, the National Conference of Unitarians had liberalized its constitution, and in 1894 reworded it as follows: “These churches accept the religion of Jesus, holding, in accordance with his teaching, that practical religion is summed up in love to God and love to man . . . and we cordially invite to our working fellowship any who, while differing from us in belief, are in general sympathy with our spirit and our practical aims.” This revision, formulated by J. T. Sunderland, was amended by Chaney before adoption by the convention.10

Yet “liberal” and “conservative” in this so-called Western Schism were relative terms. Indeed, both wings were reactionary by comparison with the splinter-group of Unitarians who had left the fold in 1865-66 because of an affront to their sense of liberty of conscience. The inclusion at the Unitarian national convention of those years of a clause committing Unitarians to the principle of the discipleship of Jesus encouraged the radicals to leave. By the following year they had formed the Free Religious Association (FRA), comprised of about five-hundred members, nearly one-half of whom had been ministers. Although the group did not organize churches, it did publish two organs, the Index, from 1870 to 1876, and the Radical, from 1886 to 1892. By 1876, however, a number of the FRA members had been absorbed into the Society for Ethical Culture: “Through a radical reconstruction of religion, they hoped to check the evil tendencies in American Life.”11

As far as it is possible to determine, Chaney was not affiliated with the FRA. He was not likely involved personally with the Western Schism, simply because his early pastorate was in Boston. One may speculate that, because Chaney was assigned the task of creating a church in Atlanta, and, following his tenure as pastor there, became Southern Superintendent of the AUA, publishing from 1893 to 1895 the Southern Unitarian, he represented a dominant strain of Unitarian thought.12 Because this dominant strain tended toward theological conservatism — at least by later standards, and by the standards of the dissident ministers who joined FRA — it is likely that Chaney was not himself a flaming liberal in religious matters.

The very nature of the South in the period, too, posed certain problems that the spokesman for a “liberal” religion would have had to consider. In 1884 a Unitarian editor commented that “What was done for Northern Orthodoxy by the Unitarian Church needs doing for the yet more Calvinistic Orthodoxy of the South. . . . It has a new calling in the present need of the South. If any man doubts it, let him go South; he will find it there. For in the popular preaching of that section there are still such ‘blasts from hell’ as need the cooling and disinfecting touch of ‘airs from heaven.’ “13

One of the original parishioners, looking back over twenty-eight years, characterized the soil in which Chaney had planted his seed in the following way: “Southern churches were still fettered by the Seventeenth Century orthodoxy of the deepest dye.”14 These contemporary views seem to support the findings of a number of historians who have chronicled the South during the period, including such writers as C. Vann Woodward, Kenneth K. Bailey, and Edwin McPoteat, Jr.15 Two more bits of evidence are suggestive of the nature of the Unitarian theology in Atlanta. The 1883 Covenant stated: “We whose names are written below hereby unite to form the Church of Our Father

in Atlanta, Georgia. We agree to maintain the worship of God, to cultivate in ourselves and in one another virtuous affections and habits, and to endeavor to pass our lives in harmony with the Spirit and Life of Jesus Christ.”16 Later, in 1901, as the church reorganized and moved to new quarters, the Covenant had been altered only slightly: “We accept the religion of Jesus believing with him that practical religion is exspessed [sic] in love to God and love to Man, and in the spirit of Jesus we unite for the Worship of God and the Service of Man.”17 In addition, the second pastor of the church, Rev. William Roswell Cole, stated, in a letter to the congregation in 1891 accepting their call to the church, that “As a follower of Christ I shall endeavor to declare those truths which he has made known to me, restricted by no denominational feeling or by any form or belief. Free and independent I feel I must be.”18

One is struck in these excerpts and declarations by their wavering quality. Is one to accept Jesus as the Christ or not? Is “the Spirit of Jesus” a mystical utterance, or merely the statement of an attitude? These are unanswered—perhaps unanswerable questions. They do, however, help one to focus on the nature of Atlanta’s Unitarianism.

Far more important than Chaney’s personal theology, however, is the effect his ministry had on the new congregation. What might one expect from a congregation led by such a man, in such a place, under such conditions? What one finds, in fact, is that the Atlanta Unitarians in these early years fought so continually to keep their financial heads above water that they seldom if ever discussed questions of either theology or social concern.

There is never more than a passing comment on conditions in the community, and evidence of personal involvement by parishioners in the affairs of the community seems nonexistent. This is all the more curious when one reviews the social commitments of Chaney himself.

In Boston he had served on the School Committee of that city, and was credited with introducing manual training into the public schools, having first created such classes in the Hollis Street Chapel.19

He is known to have been a member of the Board of Trustees of Atlanta University, and, in December, 1885, he delivered in the Chapel of Stone Hall a eulogy, “Personal Characteristics,” commemorating the recent death of AU’s president, Edmund A. Ware.” In addition, Chaney was a Trustee of Tuskegee as early as 1883, when he dedicated a new building, Porter Hall, and was listed in 1899 as Vice-President of the Board 21

By 1887 Chaney’s stature in Atlanta was such that he was chosen to give the Memorial Day oration at the national cemetery in Marietta, an event attended by some two-thousand people, and said to be the largest affair of its kind in Atlanta history.22

Chaney’s interest in education is obvious from the record. In addition to his documented educational activities, rumor has it that he played a part in organizing Georgia Tech in 1885-1886, but extant records and histories of the school fail to substantiate the claim. Also, Rev. Chaney was instrumental in the formation of the first free lending library in Atlanta, begun under the auspices of the church early in his ministry. Although the Young Men’s Library Association (YMLA) of Atlanta had existed since 1867, it was not free, and it was not until the Carnegie grant of 1899 that a municipal free library was created. In the meantime, from at least 1887 on, the Church of Our Father supported a library whose holdings at one time included fifteen-hundred books and a broad selection of magazines. The 1887 catalogue of the library indicates a wide selection of reading matter, including works by Louisa Mae Alcott, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Hans Christian Andersen, T. S. Arthur, Charlotte Bronte, Carlyle, Channing, Dickens, Irving, Sir Walter Scott, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Jules Verne. Periodicals included Appleton’s Journal, Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, St. Nicholas, Scribner’s and others.23 Although small in size, compared with the YMLA holdings of twelve-thousand volumes, the Unitarian library provided free access to books and magazines that Atlanta citizens could not find elsewhere.

Yet despite these involvements by Chaney himself, his sense of social concern and action was not noticeably translated into congregational action. For example, no mention of race, prohibition, or housing appears in the church deliberations, or to any noticeable degree in his sermons. Extant church records suggest that the most distressing problems encountered by the congregation between its inception and the early twentieth century —other than constant financial crises—were those occasioned by outsiders asking to use the church for meetings. A brief, selective—although not atypical—chronology exemplifies the concern:

January 2, 1885: Mr. Gude brought before the Board the question whether they would grant the privilege to a musical gentleman of delivering musical lectures in our Church. The question was discussed as to its propriety both as a precedent and as to a proper use of the Church.

“After full discussion, it was moved and adopted that the application be considered and the question held open for future discussion.”24  (Presumably Mr. Gude gave up, as no further mention of the “musical gentleman” appears in the record).

November 28, 1890: The Christian Science Society requested permission to use the church on the following Sunday evening. Permission was granted.25

March 21, 1892: Again the Christian Science Society requested the use of the church for meetings on Wednesday and Sunday evenings. The Board approved the request for Wednesday, but not for Sunday.26

April 23, 1894: The minister, Rev. Cole, presented the following resolution to the Board: “Resolved that the church be loaned only for lectures (when lecturers come well recommended) the meetings of societies for social reform, and to any club which has for its aim literary, musical, and moral advancement.” The resolution was passed. 27

April 5, 1908: “The Clerk read a request from Mrs. Daniels, asking for the use of the Church building for the conference of the Woman’s Suffrage Society. This Board at a previous date having voted against allowing the use of the building for other meetings of this Society, again voted that the Clerk advise her that they were not prepared to reconsider their previous action.”28

One might speculate that, although no record appears to exist to prove it, the Atlanta Unitarians did not encourage outsiders, and that this was known to be so in the community. It is well to note that the Unitarian church was not seriously challenged or condemned during its early tenure in Atlanta. Indeed, quite the opposite appears to be true, as Mr. Chaney was allowed to preach freely in the Senate Chamber, the Turn Verein Hall, the U. S. District Court Room, the Hilliard Building, and Kimball House.29 If the power and monolithism of Southern Protestantism was as great as Woodward and others have testified, it seems unquestionable that a Yankee anti-Christ would have been dealt with in short order, even in the enlightened 1880’s. One might conclude, then, that Chaney’s Atlanta posture, and that of the congregation as a whole, was not one of radical dissent from traditional Christianity, at least as far as the churched of Atlanta were concerned. A search of over eighty existing sermons written, and presumably preached, by Chaney between 1862, when he was called to the Hollis Street Church in Boston, until the termination of his pastorate in Atlanta in 1891, does not disclose a social or theological precept that would likely have been considered peculiar in any but the most ravingly fundamentalist churches. The reasons for this have been explored above. But whatever the reasons may have been, it seems clear that the Atlanta congregation was not essentially community-oriented. A letter from the Atlanta Church Board of Trustees to the AUA in September, 1884, sheds some light on this question. Praising Rev. Chaney to the AUA, and seeking assurance that he would be allowed to remain in Atlanta, the Board described Chaney’s activities as being in the face of “powerful orthodox organizations and influences, strong by age and the natural tendencies of the people of this section.” Chaney, they explained, “with rare tact and discrimination,” began by “interesting the few Unitarians in his project, and other residents of the city in general matters of public educational and charitable importance, forcing them to admit the desirability of his influence in affairs entirely disconnected from the Church, and to regard him mainly in the light of a most valued citizen [emphasis added].”30

It is entirely possible, then, that Chaney’s strategy was to create a charisma and thus an acceptance of himself as a worthy addition to Atlanta society, well before broaching the new Christianity. If so, it appears that the congregation did not, during its first years, ever progress beyond its own doorsill.

Nonetheless, it would be misleading to create a picture of total encapsulation. There were outsiders who visited the church, liberal religionists and social thinkers of prominence. James Freeman Clarke, Edward Everett Hale, Julia Ward Howe, Dr. Samuel Eliot, and Jenkins Lloyd Jones, Pastor of that seedbed of radical Western Unitarianism in Chicago, All Soul’s, all spoke at the church.31 Likewise, local visitors took the pulpit on occasion, as did Rabbi David Marx of the Atlanta Jewish community, a Dr. W. A. Glover, who spoke on the “labor question” in January, 1893, and a Mr. G. W. Stone who spoke under church auspices at the Opera House in May, 1893, on “Natural Religion.”32 Things went so far as to provide the basis for genuine ecumenism in 1893, when Bishop Haygood of Emory College in Oxford was invited to preach in August of that year, during Rev. Cole’s vacation. Unfortunately, the Bishop replied, owing to other engagements he was obliged to decline. In lieu of Bishop Haygood’s appearance, the church was closed for the month of August.33

Despite all this, there is evidence to support the thesis that this early congregation did not project itself into the community at large. A look at the congregation itself may shed some light on their apparent reluctance to publicly take up the banner of liberal reform in the city which one editor chose to call the coming “Manchester of the South.”34

The Atlanta congregation was not large, its membership list between 1883 and 1900 never numbering more than 133 persons; in fact, of this number, some forty belonged to the family of someone also listed in the records.35 The membership list did not reflect actual attendance, however. Reports suggest that attendance seldom exceeded sixty, and often fell far short of that number. The average attendance in 1897, for example, was fifty-three;36 in 1903 it was forty-nine, but from June on the figure was closer to thirty-three.37

Financially, also, the church was limited. Beginning with a $7,000 loan from the AUA for purchase of the original building site at the corner of Forsyth and Church streets, Atlanta Unitarians were never debt-free. The best they could manage on the indebtedness to AUA was an attempt to keep up with interest payments. In 1899, when the Church and Forsyth site was purchased by the Carnegie library for $25,000, the Unitarians felt compelled to sign over to AUA all but $5oo of that amount. The AUA was always the “angel” for the congregation. Year after year it contributed money to sustain the church, until Dr. Eliot’s 1908 ultimatum to choose between life and death. By January, 1884, the church had already accumulated a deficit of $304.38. By the annual report for 1893 the balance to go forward to 1894 amounted to only $1.78;38 by 1900 things had improved to the point that the January balance was $147.74.39 But nearly always it was financial transfusions from the AUA which allowed even such modest accumulations. In 1897, for example, the Treasurer projected expenses and income for 1898 and found that it was only the $5oo from the AUA which permitted the yearly income to come to $2,040, while expenditures were expected to reach $2,033.40 It is clear that with margins like these, the congregation was seldom in a position to be daring or munificent. For them, a contribution of $10 for the “Suffering Poor” in 1884 was significant, as was an 1894 appropriation of $3.00 per month to Chaney’s monthly organ, the Southern Unitarian.41

Pastors’ salaries proved troublesome. Time and time again the record shows the congregation wishing to pay more than it could, in fact, pay. Ministers, in their annual reports, suggested raises, but seldom was the church in a position to implement these suggestions. Chaney, who contributed substantially to the church from his personal resources during his tenure as pastor, and for years afterward, still holds the record for years of service, retaining his position for eight years. It was not until the early 1930’s that another minister remained with the congregation for as many as five years.42

That the parishioners were sometimes disheartened can be assumed. Membership and income dropped slowly until the merger with the Universalists in 1908, and there is little question but that had the Carnegie money not been available in 1899 the church would not have been able to leave its original quarters and move a few blocks away, to Spring and Cain streets. In 1892 one brave parishioner even posed the question of the need for the church’s existence: “Is there need for the Unitarian church in an enlightened and Christian community? What work is there for it to do that cannot be done as well outside the church? What is the special work in this community that our church should do?”43 The Board chose not to debate these searching questions, but referred them to Rev. Cole to deal with from the pulpit.

Even in some of the basic activities engaged in by the church—baptisms, marriages, and funerals—business was slow. Although there were thirty-two baptisms from 1883-190o, the figure is misleading because some families—the Grigsbys, Van Pelts, and Kirkes, for example—brought three and four children to the front at one time. Christmas, 1883, was a big day for Unitarian baptisms, six being performed; the record is somewhat tarnished, however, when one realizes that two of the Grigsby youngsters included in the ceremony were eleven and thirteen years old by this time. The Van Pelts accounted for all four baptisms in 1885, and there were seven years between 1883 and 1900 when there were no baptisms at all.44

In the eleven years in which marriages were recorded — 1884 to 1895 — a total of thirteen were performed, with two the greatest number in any one year.45 Deaths, too, were not excessive, nine being recorded between 1886 and 1900.46

But a more individual look at a random sample of the Church of Our Father parishioners provides some further insight into the nature of the congregation.

Of forty-one members examined, the majority appear to have been middle- or upper-middle class socially and economically. No unskilled or semi-skilled trades were represented, although a small number of skilled manual trades appear. There were, however, no more professional occupations represented than skilled trades. The two largest groups were those representing white-collar jobs, not managerial in nature, and those self-employed. Interestingly there were a substantial number of widows, most of whose husbands had never been listed as members of the congregation. It is significant to note that these women were not merely lonely ladies living near the church; indeed, they came from all over the city, some traveling as much as three miles.

The occupational distribution of the surveyed members was as follows:

  • Clerical, 9;
  • Self-employed, 7;
  • Managerial, 4;
  • Agents and Mfgrs. Reps., 2;
  • Attorneys, 3;
  • Life Insurance agent, 1;
  • Teachers, 2;
  • Printer, 1;
  • Musician, 1;
  • Carpenter, 1;
  • Engineer,1;
  • Furniture finisher,1;
  • Widows, 5;
  • and unknown, 3.

The category “Clerical” included the following specific occupations: Chief Records Clerk, W & A Railroad, Bookkeeper (2), Clerk (2), Collector, Stenographer (2), and Assistant bookkeeper.

Managers were of the following: Southern Printing Company, Singer Manufacturing Company, Atlanta Gas Light Company, and Woodmen of the World.

Those self-employed were found in the following: Gude and Walker, Engineers and Contractors; American Notion Company; Drugs and Photographic Supplies; Crafts and Company, Bridge Builders; Lumber Yard, and Kellam and Moore, Opticians.

Although figures are meager and inconclusive, it is possible to suggest the sorts of financial support provided by some of these members. Records of individual contributions apparently were not kept prior to 1901; some of the persons appearing in the sample above had left the church or died by that time. But of those who were members prior to 1901 and whose contributions appear with relative consistency for the years immediately following, this picture emerges:

Occupation 1901 1902 1903 1904
Manufacturer’s Agent 42.00 No record $29.99 $50.00
Bridge Builder 85.00 $70.00 75.00 75.00
Optician 87.38 75.00 75.00 75.00
Clerk 10.00 no record no record 10.00
Bookkeeper 85.00 75.00 75.00 75.00
Music Teacher 1 0.00 no record 10.00 no record

Although some eight to ten of the sample group lived in the central city, close enough to the church to walk to services, most lived far enough away so that some sort of vehicular travel would have been necessary. Using 1891 as a convenient mid-point in the time covered by this study, one finds that the sample was about evenly divided in residence between the North and South sides of Atlanta (using Wheat Street as a dividing line), with the Northsiders having a slight edge. None lived on the East side, a phenomenon possibly explained by the fact that there were at that time no streetcar lines running East from downtown where the church was located. Four lived on the West—more accurately Northwest and Southwest—side, from which direction streetcar lines did enter the central city. It seems significant that no one in the sample who was not within walking distance of the church lived more than two blocks from a trolley line. Southsiders were served by the Whitehall, Pryor, Washington, Capitol, Georgia and Park street lines, while those north of the church found the Peachtree, Marietta and Jackson street lines convenient. One member lived in Bellwood, a sizable distance, but lived near the Marietta Street trolley. One came from College Park, and very likely used the Atlanta and West Point Railroad for commuting. Of the traveling parishioners, Southsiders tended to live farther from the church—three to six miles—than Northsiders, who lived from one-and-one-half to two miles away at most.

Considering available socio-economic data, it is possibly not mere coincidence that we find these members clustered along the street railways. Private vehicles may have been used; the evidence is inconclusive. Yet proximity to public transportation is characteristic of members of the sample.

The Church of Our Father in Atlanta during this period is enigmatic in a number of ways. In a time of growing consciousness of the Social Gospel in all denominations, but perhaps especially among those tending toward liberality, there is only minimal evidence to suggest that these concerns touched the congregation. Likewise, individual members, excluding Chaney himself, made little newsworthy impact on their community.

The theology of these Unitarians seems to have been more traditional than otherwise. More often than not they stressed their similarity to other denominations, rather than their fundamental differences. They seemed anxious to demonstrate that Unitarians could be as orthodox as anyone. Indeed, the word Unitarian does not appear in the formal name of the church until 1904.47

The congregation seems to have been generally middle-class, and although not poverty-stricken, was never prosperous; it faced continual problems in maintaining financial solvency. Other than Chaney, its ministers came and went with rapidity. It was never self-sufficient, relying on the AUA for contributions to meet simple operating expenses.

It was a Southern congregation, fearful of the attitudes it might find in its religious neighbors, although these fears seem not to have been realized.

As a liberal church, conceived in as passionate a vein as Unitarians were likely to generate, convinced of the missionary task necessary to bring reason to the stronghold of Calvinist unreason, it seems to have been a relatively tame venture.

Some of the possible causes for these characteristics have been explored above. Yet finally one is forced to accept the enigma. Whatever the cause, and regardless of good intentions, the Unitarian congregation appears to have done little to change the face or nature of Atlanta in the 188o’s and 1890’s.

 

Notes

  1. Earl Morse Wilbur, A History of Unitarianism (Cambridge, 1952), 465. See also Word and Work of the American Unitarian Association (March, 1884), 7.
  2. Word and Work, 1.
  3. Ibid. 2.
  4. Letter from Dr. Samuel A. Eliot, President, American Unitarian Association, 25 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass., to Rev. A. T. Bowser, Church of Our Father, Atlanta, Georgia, April 23, 1908.
  5.  Word and Work, 2.
  6. “Unitarian Services at Concordia Hall, 40 Marietta St., opposite De Give’s Opera House, on Sundays at 4 and 8 o’clock p.m.,” April 26, 1882.
  7. Untitled sermon in papers of Rev. George Leonard Chaney, inscribed “Atlanta, Ga., February 26-1882.”
  8. Untitled sermon in papers of Rev. George Leonard Chaney, inscribed “Atlanta, Ga., March 6, 1882.”
  9. Untitled sermon in papers of Rev. George Leonard Chaney, inscribed “Atlanta, Ga., March 12-1882.”
  10. Wilbur, A History of Unitarianism, 481-84.
  11. Aaron I. Abell, The Urban Impact on American Protestantism, 1865-1900 (Cambridge, 1943), 12-19.
  12. Unitarian Year Book, 1922-23 (Boston, n.d.), 118.
  13. Word and Work, 8.
  14. Frank Lederle, “The Unitarian Church of Atlanta, Ga.,” in The Unitarian Advance (n.d.), 296-99.
  15. C. Vann Woodward, Origin., of the New South, 1877-1913 (Baton Rouge, 1951) ; Kenneth K. Bailey, Southern White Protestantism in the Twentieth Century (New York, 1964); Edwin McPoteat, Jr., “Religion in the South,” in W. T. Couch, ed., Culture in the South (Chapel Hill, 1934), 262.
  16. Records of the Church of Our Father in Atlanta Georgia, Book I, 1 (This manuscript record book covers the period Dec. 1883-April 1908).
  17. Records of the Church, Book I, 216.
  18. Letter from Rev. William Roswell Cole, Mt. Washington, Md., to Board of Trustees, Church of Our Father, Atlanta, Georgia, August 17, 1891.
  19. Unitarian Year Book, 118.
  20. George Willis Cooke, Unitarianism in America (Boston, 1902), 339. See also Atlanta University Bulletin 3 (December, 1886).
  21. Max B. Thrasher, Tuskegee (Boston, 1901), Appendix. See also Helen W. Ludlow, ed., Tuskegee Normal and Industrial School, Its Story and Its Songs (Hampton, 1884).
  22. Atlanta Journal, May 31, 1887, p. 1.
  23. Catalogue of Parish Library of Church of Our Father, Atlanta, Georgia (Atlanta, 1887).
  24. Records of the Church of Our Father in Atlanta, Georgia, Book II, 12. (This manuscript record book covers the period March, 1884-January, 1909).
  25. Ibid. 65.
  26. Ibid. 82.
  27. Ibid. 112.
  28. Ibid. 267.
  29. Lederle, Unitarian Advance, 297.
  30. Letter from Board of Trustees, Church of Our Father, Atlanta, Georgia, to American Unitarian Association, 25 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass., September 5, 1884.
  31. Lederle, Unitarian Advance, 297.
  32. Records of the Church, Book II, 92.
  33. Ibid. 100, 101.
  34. Word and Work, 7. 
  35. Records of the Church, Book I, 7-15.
  36. Ibid. 196.
  37. Records of the Church, Book II, 179.
  38. Records of the Church, Book I, 180.
  39. Ibid. 209.
  40. Ibid. 198.
  41. Ibid. 135.
  42. Ibid. 225, 231, 247, 270.
  43. Records of the Church, Book II, 87.
  44. Ibid. Book I, 34-39.
  45. Ibid. 66.
  46. Ibid. 86.
  47. 47. Ibid. 254.

Copy of this paper found in onsite archives at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta, 1911 Cliff Valley Way, NE, Atlanta.  This paper also appeared in The Georgia Quarterly, Vol 56, No 3 (Fall 1972) pp. 349-364.

Rev. George Leonard Chaney (1836 - 1922) Obituary

1 January 2014 at 00:00

GEORGE LEONARD CHANEY
1836-1922

George Leonard Chaney, son of James and Harriet (Webb) Chaney, was born in Salem, Massachusetts, on December 24, 1836, the descendant of family stocks long settled in Essex County. He was educated at the Salem High and Latin Schools and at Harvard College, from which he received his bachelor’s degree in 1859. He belonged to a number of college societies, including the Phi Beta Kappa Fraternity. After graduation he went to Meadville, Pennsylvania, as a tutor in the family of Mr.

Edward Huidekoper and, a little later, he entered Meadville Theological School, from which he graduated in 1862. On October 5 of the same year he was settled as minister of the Hollis Street Church in Boston, the successor in that pulpit of Starr King, who had resigned nearly two years before to go to San Francisco.

The position was a difficult one for a young and inexperienced minister. Starr King had been a notable preacher and man of letters, and it was no easy task to stand in his place. The church had an honorable history covering nearly a century and a half, but it was in a part of Boston where the population was changing rapidly and from which a large proportion of the parishioners had already removed. While the Civil War lasted, Mr. Chaney preached frequently upon national and political issues, and after the Battle of Fredericksburg he served for a while in the army hospitals there. After the War he took a keen interest in the Freedman’s Aid Society; was one of the earliest supporters of Hampton Institute; and visited and spoke on behalf of other educational enterprises in the South. Under his leadership his own church was active in various social service activities in Boston. He helped to establish the Associated Charities. He was for twelve years a member of the Boston School Committee, and was instrumental in introducing manual training into the public schools, for that sort of training in Boston was the outgrowth of work started by Mr. Chaney in the “Hollis Street Whittling School” connected with his church.

In 1877 he resigned the Hollis Street pastorate, spent a year in Hawaii and California, traveled widely, and wrote two popular books for boys. In 1884 he went to Atlanta, Georgia, where, in the face of great discouragements, he succeeded in establishing a Unitarian congregation in a church built and paid for in two years’ time. He there applied the same educational methods which he had used in Boston and began an “Artisans’ Institute” in connection with his church. This was the seed from which sprung the Georgia School of Technology in Atlanta. He was also a director and, for a time, president of the Young Men’s Library, which was later merged in the Carnegie Library. He was a trustee of Atlanta University, and for about twenty years a trustee of Tuskegee Institute, serving for some time as president of the board. He dedicated the first building of the Institute, and was a wise adviser in the development of Booker Washington’s plans for that great school.

In 1890 he became Southern Superintendent for the American Unitarian Association, residing in Richmond, Virginia, from 1893 to 1896. He traveled widely in the southern states, gathering societies at Chattanooga, Richmond, Memphis, and other centers, and inaugurating circuit preaching in northern Florida and eastern North Carolina. Two books containing his sermon-essays were published, and from 1893 to 1895 he edited the Southern Unitarian. He resigned from active service in 1896 on reaching the age of sixty. His work, and that of his wife, is commemorated in the Founders Window in the present building of the Unitarian Church in Atlanta.

After his retirement from active service he lived for the most part in Salem, although he commonly spent a part of each winter in Florida or Jamaica, and his summers at Leominster, Massachusetts, on the farm which belonged to his wife, the former Caroline Carter. He died in Salem in his eighty-sixth year, on April 19, 1922, in the house in which he had been brought up.

His career as a minister was marked by self-sacrificing devotion to professional tasks of an exceptionally difficult character, and by a keen sense of the obligations of the church to serve the community in the development of a better social order. But he never forgot his primary duty as preacher and leader in worship. His literary gift was considerable, showing itself not only in his sermons and books but, most of all, in the exceptional charm of his letters. That charm was but the expression of his whole personality, compounded of warm affections, humane interests, self-effacing devotion and farsighted wisdom, making him a delightful companion and a beloved minister.

Associated with Mr. Chaney in educational work in the South was Amory D, Mayo, son of Amory and Sophronia (Cobb) Mayo, who was born January 31, 1823, in Warwick, Mass., and at the age of eighty-four died suddenly April 8, 1907, in Washington, D. C.

Source: Heralds of a Liberal Faith – Beacon Press found in archive.org – May 10, 1954 – Pages 88 – 90

Letter - Liberal Christian Church to Mr. Singleton (Emory University Student)

1 January 2014 at 00:00

Archivist Note:  Hand written at the top of this letter is “Letter written to an Emory student who wanted to find out something about the Unitarian church (required research).”

Nov 16, 1949

Dear Mr. Singleton

Reviewing in my mind our talk of last night, I’m afraid I did not give you a very good idea of what our church in doing at the present time.  Of course our church is congregational in organization. There is a Board of Trustees whose President in elected by the congregation. The Board of Trustees elects its own officers. The Board is responsible for the property of the Church, the management of its affairs, and the proper conduct of its spiritual functions between its general business meetings.

There in a Standing Committee known as the Pulpit Committee which is responsible for the investigation and calling of ministerial candidates. In considering a candidate open discussion is mandatory. To elect a candidate 51% of the membership must cast votes, of which a three-fourths majority shall be required.

“In 1825, by unintentional coincidence, both in England and America, national Unitarian organizations were formed. In both countries these organizations are democratic societies representing — the churches and supported by them.”

“The American Unitarian Association has its headquarters in Boston. Its elected president, its officers and committees respond to the will of the churches, and care for those matters that are of common concern. They assist young churches, plan for the education of the ministers, guide the educational work of the churches, and prepare literature of many kinds.”

The Women’s Union meets second Tuesday each month at 10:30 in the morning. It has 18 active members. Besides the local work of the church, such a preparing church suppers, visiting those who are 111 or in distress, furnishing flowers each Sunday for the church service, the members work faithfully for the Needlework Guild which furnishes new garments for the needy of our city. The Union has membership in the Travelers’ Aid, Hillside Cottages, Egleston Hospital, and the Council of Church Women. They have done a great deal of work for the American Red Cross, Have sent clothing and food boxes to needy families in Europe, helped with the expense of keeping a cripple in a nursing home here in Atlanta, sent writing materials, etc. to country schools, and are continually sending clothing, old furniture, etc. to the Goodwill Industries of Atlanta where handicapped workers put them in good condition and sell them at low prices.   The meetings open with a devotional period, after which business is attended to and a literary program given. Lunch with a social hour usually ends the meeting at about 2 P.M.

The Youth Fellowship Forum meets twice a month, the first and third Sunday, at 6:30 P.M. A prominent speaker in secured for each meeting and a discussion period follows. After thin light refreshments are served. The public is invited.

The Sunday-school is in need of trained teachers. We have a devoted leader, but she needs more assistance.

In July and August our church sponsored two outdoor concerts which were very successful. Our members are interested in all cultural undertakings.

Am enclosing a pamphlet sent out from Universalist headquarters to show you how the beliefs of the Unitarians and Universalist harmonize. Hope this letter will be of some help to you. Have located my copy of “The Church Across the Street” and will be glad to lend it to you.

Sincerely, Alice Dixon Draper

Physical Archive: UUCA Box: 26   Folder: 10
Citation: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Records, RG 026, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta GA

Letter - Liberal Christian Church to Rev. Eugene Adams (Offer to Serve)

1 January 2014 at 00:00

182 Peachtree Way
Atlanta, Georgia

June 18, 1947

Rev. Eugene H. Adams
826 South Douglas Avenue
Springfield, Illinois

Dear Mr. Adams:

Thank you for your letter of June 16 in regard to the vacancy now existing in the pulpit of our church – or I should say “about to exist”, as our present minister, Mr. Palmer, does not leave until the end of the month.

A few years ago, while you were still a student at Tufts, our then pastor, Dr. Roger Bosworth, mentioned you as a young man interested in preaching in the South after finishing school. As you probably know, there are also vacancies at the present time at Chattanooga and Camp Hill, Alabama.  There may have been on the list which Dr. Cummins sent you.

For the past two months I have been off the board of trustees, but I am passing your letter on to them and fell sure they will communicate with you very soon.

Cordially yours,

Rufus B. McCall

Physical Archive: UUCA Box: 26   Folder: 10
Citation: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Records, RG 026, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta GA

 

Letter - Department of Ministry to Liberal Christian Church (Candidate Rev. Sheffer)

1 January 2014 at 00:00

Department of the Ministry: Director, Dan Huntington Fenn – Assistant, Orlo McCormack

AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION
25 Beacon Street,
Boston 8, Massachusetts

Jane 25, 1947

Dear Mr. Bromley:

I appreciate very much your sending me a copy of your letter to Mr. Matson. At the same time I want to include now the suggestion of the other individual with of’ whom I have already spoken. I refer to Homer Sheffer of 113 Cottage Place, Ridgewood, New Jersey. I am enclosing a copy of his biography. In correspondence with Reverend Dale DeWitt, Regional Director of the Middle Atlantic States Council, I have his endorsement of the suggestion. Both of us felt that the point of view which Mr. Sheffer holds, and his general temperament and attitude would be one which would follow naturally and successfully after Mr. Palmer.

He is, as you note, somewhat older than the other men we have mentioned, but with that age has come experience. The fact that he is somewhat hard of hearing, has been successfully compensated for by the use of an excellent hearing aid which makes him entirely capable of functioning with effectiveness. You may wish to follow up this suggestion.

Cordially,

<signed>

Dan Huntington Fenn

DHF:AM Enc.
Mr. Harry A. Bromley, Chairman
Board of Trustees Unitarian – Universalist Church
669 West Peachtree Street, N.E.
Atlanta 3, Georgia

Department of the Ministry
25 Beacon St.
Boston, 8, Mass.

JUNE 1947

HOMER LEWIS SHEFFER

Homer Lewis Sheffer was born in Linlithgo, New York, April 23, 1890 and received his education in the public schools later receiving his A.B. from Rutgers with high honors, and received his Phi Beta Kappa key in 1913. He grew up in the Dutch Reformed Church, and graduated from the New Brunswick Theological Seminary, New Brunswick, New Jersey in 1916. Later, he received his Master’s degree from New York University, majoring in Sociology and Social Psychology.

He was ordained in the Dutch Reformed Church in 1916, and served in churches of that denomination until 1925 when he was deposed from their ministry after a heresy trial which was held at his own request. He has served since 1926 as the minister of Unitarian Churches in Athol, Massachusetts; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Spokane, Washington; and since 1939, at Ridgewood, New Jersey.

He married in 1917, Miss Edith L. Gibney, who graduated from Wellesley College the previous year. They have one son.

In Addition to many articles of theological and sociological subjects, Mr. Sheffer has had a number of poems printed in “Unity” and other magazines. Mr. Sheffer’s special interests are, and always have been, in the field of sociology and in the social application of religion.

Mr. Sheffer has been for a number of years afflicted with deafness, but the use of a hearing aid has enabled him to overcome practically all of this handicap. In spirit and attitude, Mr. Sheffer has kept himself abreast of the times. His approach to all problems and his profession, betrays the vigor of his personality. His alert temperament gives him an immediate appeal to which people respond readily.

Physical Archive: UUCA Box: 26   Folder: 10
Citation: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Records, RG 026, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta GA

Letter - Rev. Howard Matson to Liberal Christian Church to Rev. Howard Matson (Potential to Serve)

1 January 2014 at 00:00

3025 Jefferson Drive,
Albuquerque, N. M.

June 24, 1947

Mr. Harry A. Bromley,
1017 Highland View, N. E.,
Atlanta, Ga.

Dear Mr. Bromley:

I want to thank you for your letter of June 21st and your invitation to come to Atlanta to candidate for the pulpit vacancy. I am very much interested in Atlanta and found your letter a spur to further interest.

However, I am to be in Santa Monica, Cal. for the month of July. I do not feel I can ask them to change their plans to allow for a visit in that month to Atlanta. Santa Monica will call a minister in the fall, combining a parish ministry with an AUA student work arrangement on the Los Angeles campuses.

I can come to Atlanta any time in August – excluding the first Sunday. In short, should you find after your July preaching that you still have a vacancy and want me to come August 10th, or any Sunday or combination of Sundays thereafter, just write me care of Mrs. Fred W. Jackson, 1655 1/4 S. Bundy Drive, West Los Angeles, 25, Cal.

I will hold August open pending any further arrangement.

You have my best wishes for a successful settlement at Atlanta this summer, and a pleasant summer in your own plans.

Very sincerely yours,

<signed>

Howard G. Matson

cc. Mr. Dan H. Fenn

Physical Archive: UUCA Box: 26   Folder: 10
Citation: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Records, RG 026, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta GA

Letter - Liberal Christian Church to Rev. Howard Matson (Offer to Serve)

1 January 2014 at 00:00

June 21, 1947

Rev. Howard G. Matson
Jefferson Drive
3025 Albuquerque, New Mexico

Dear Mr. Matson:

Our pulpit will be vacated by Rev. Raymond T. Palmer as of August 31, 1947. Rev. Palmer has been our minister for one and a half years since his return as chaplain in military service and is resigning to take a professorship in a Chicago University. Our church customarily vacations during July and August but our concern is to have a minister to replace Rev. Palmer beginning September 1st.

Mr. Dan P. Fenn has given us your name and biographical sketch as a possibility for a minister. We want very much to have you candidate for us here in Atlanta at your earliest opportunity. We will of course pay all your travelling expenses for doing so.

We have a church and parsonage centrally located. The membership is small but devoted. However, judging from Rev. Palmer’s success, there is a real opportunity for a liberal church in Atlanta. Further, our chief objective at the present time is to sell our property and build a new church.

Our present budget provides $2,980 per annum with a furnished parsonage provided. One member states he will pay $100 if others will pay $400 to raise the annual salary to $3,480. One individual stated he would pay to keep Dr. Palmer here and possibly he can be persuaded to contribute to another minister. We are working on this.

I wish I could tell you more but I suppose it will have to wait till I see you provided you can come. Really the fire of our church is the desire of the church to aggressively promote and aid the cause of liberal religion throughout the community. I sincerely trust you are the you to lead us.

We want you to candidate at the earliest possible opportunity. We are very anxious indeed to have a minister by September 1. The congregation can be assembled at any time. In the interest of saving time which seems to pass so rapidly in a matter of this kind, please help us all you can by writing us your state of affairs by return air mail, or telegraph collect to my business address below. My heart is with you in your great work wherever it may be . . . I trust it is with us.

Fraternally yours,

Harry A. Bromley, Chairman

Board of Trustees
1017 Highland View, N.E.
Atlanta, Ga.

Cc: Mr. Fenn

Physical Archive: UUCA Box: 26   Folder: 10
Citation: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Records, RG 026, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta GA

Letter - Rev. Eugene Adams to Liberal Christian Church (Offer to Serve)

1 January 2014 at 00:00

825 South Douglas Avenue
Springfield, Illinois

June 16, 1947

Dear Mr. McCall,

I have been corresponding with Mr. Robert Cummins, our General Superintendent, regarding pulpit openings. He forwarded a list of pulpit openings among which the mention of the Atlanta Church was made. In reply to my inquiry about application, he suggested that I write to you. Therefore, I want to state my interest in serving you and your church. Should you be interested in me kindly forward information about the opening.

Probably the best source from which to get details as to my abilities, interests, and general personality would be from Dr. Cummins. Briefly, I am thirty years old and have a wife and a son nearly two years old. I am a Universalist and graduated from the Tufts School of Religion in March, 1945. During my period of graduate study, I served several years as church school teacher, junior minister, and as student pastor. Also, during my last years in the School of Religion I took several courses in the Simmons School of Social work and was employed by a children’s agency as a group worker with behavior problems children.

For the last two years I have been out of the active ministry, although I have served some of the small churches in the vicinity of Springfield, Illinois.  I have been employed as a caseworker by a nationally recognized child welfare agency whose primary function is that of foster home placement. However, there are many other functions which has necessitated much community contact. My educational background, my church experience, and the rich experience gained in the field of social welfare cause me to feel that I have much to contribute to a pastorate such as the Atlanta Church.

Should you be interested in considering me, please let me know as soon as possible since I must make definite plans in the near future. I must be settled in a pastorate by Fall. The month of August is my vacation period and perhaps I could visit with you during this time. Excuse my frankness in respect to the time element.

Sincerely yours,

<signed>

Rev. Eugene H. Adams

Physical Archive: UUCA Box: 26   Folder: 10
Citation: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Records, RG 026, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta GA

Letter - Department of Ministry to Liberal Christian Church (Gill Declined - Contact Matson)

1 January 2014 at 00:00

Department of the Ministry: Director, Dan Huntington Fenn – Assistant, Orlo McCormack

AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION
25 Beacon Street,
Boston 8, Massachusetts

June 13, 1947

Dear Bromley:

I have just had word that Mr. Gill (now Dr. Gill for he was granted his PhD degree at Harvard this spring), has expressed himself as not interested in the other church which was considering him. By the nature of his refusal to consider this opportunity, I suspect that his determination is to remain in Alton under any conditions. Possibly by this time you have also had some direct word from Dr. Gill in response to the letter which I wrote him.

I would suggest at any rate that you now get in touch immediately with Mr. Matson whose address is 3025 Jefferson Drive, Albuquerque, New Mexico.

I am sorry that I cannot yet give you any further information about the other man whom I mentioned in my last letter for we have not yet had direct word from him. As soon as that comes, I can tell you whether or not he would be interested and available.

Cordially,

<signed>

Dan Huntington Fenn

DHF:OM
Mr. Harry A. Bromley
1017 Highland View, N.E.
Atlanta, Georgia

Physical Archive: UUCA Box: 26   Folder: 10
Citation: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Records, RG 026, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta GA

Letter - Rev. Gill to Liberal Christian Church (Decline Candidate Offer)

1 January 2014 at 00:00

John Glanville Gill, Minister
Telephone 2-2462

Founded 1837
First Unitarian Church
Third and Alby Streets
Alton, Illinois                     June 12, 1947

Mr. Harry A Bromley

Dear Mr. Bromley,

I am writing to decline your kind offer to candidate in Atlanta, though I confess that it appeals to me very much, the more so since I am a southerner in exile, so to speak; while many of my ideals and ideas have changed, my affections have not. A live Unitarian church such as yours, in the South, would be a very exciting prospect.

I have so many irons in the fire here – with plans made ahead for the year to come, and having been here just long enough to have a core of new people of particular friends in, or just barely outside the church, that I am like the person three quarters through the detective story — I want to see how the whole thing turns out.

It would be fun, I know, to go to Atlanta to meet you and the members of your parish. The nearness of the colleges too, all these things have made me pause before writing, but finding the right man for your church is too important to delay. I hope we will meet at some not too distant future and I can think you personally for thinking of me.

Sincerely yours,

<signed>

John G. Gill

Physical Archive: UUCA Box: 26   Folder: 10
Citation: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Records, RG 026, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta GA

Letter - Department of Ministry to Liberal Christian Church (Pulpit Candidates)

1 January 2014 at 00:00

Department of the Ministry: Director, Dan Huntington Fenn – Assistant, Orlo McCormack

AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION
25 Beacon Street, Boston 8, Massachusetts

June 9, 1947

Dear Bromley:

I appreciate very much the spirit of your letter of June 7, and I understand also the urgency with which you are eager to complete the arrangements for a successor to Dr. Palmer. Even though it might not be possible to have a man actually in Atlanta by September first, which would not give him time enough to be released from his present church, nevertheless, if the church had settled upon a man, it would prevent a slump between ministers. It might also be that the man whom you selected and who agreed to come would be one who was not in a church at the moment and could, therefore, actually arrive in Atlanta by September.

In talking with Mrs. Rogers, we mentioned both Rev. Howard G. Martin and Rev. John Gill. As I told her at the time, both men were under consideration by another church. It now looks as if Mr. Gill were the first choice of that other opportunity. He may not accept it and so I would suggest that you communicate directly with him on behalf of the Atlanta Church. I think this direct communication between your church and Mr. Gill would save time from my making the arrangements on your behalf. In this instance, however, I am sending a copy of the fifth paragraph of your letter to Mr. Gill and am asking him to communicate with you. If Mr. Gill does decide in favor of the other opportunity, then my suggestion would be that you immediately get in touch with Mr. Matson and see what arrangements can be worked out there.

There is the possibility of another man whom I have in mind, and I will be able to write you the end of this week whether or not he might conceivably be available for your pulpit. If he is available, then I feel certain that he could come to you on September 1, if you decided that you wanted him. I shall write you the latter part of this week about him.

I am very grateful to you for your consideration about keeping us informed of your negotiations with the men. I do think, however, that everything would move along more easily and more rapidly if you carry on the communications directly with them and send me a carbon of your letters which would keep me informed.

It must be a difficult strain upon you to have not only your own work but, now this added responsibility of the church coming at just the time when you are under the emotional tension of your mother’s illness.

Do feel perfectly free to call upon me for any help that I can give you in relation to the church.

Cordially yours,

<signed>

Dan Huntington Fenn

Physical Archive: UUCA Box: 26   Folder: 10
Citation: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Records, RG 026, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta GA

Letter - Liberal Christian Church to Department of Ministry (Pulpit Candidates)

1 January 2014 at 00:00

Air Mail – Special Delivery   June 7, 1947

Rev. Dan Huntington Fenn, Director
Department of the Ministry
American Unitarian Association
Boston 8, Massachusetts

Dear Mr. Fenn:

The Board of Trustees wish to thank you for the courtesy and recommendations you gave Mrs. J. V. Rogers while in Boston at the Convention. Mrs. Rogers is representative of the spirit of our membership as a result of Dr. Palmer’s ministry.

Last Tuesday I was elected by the Board of Trustees to succeed Mr. Orren Vogle whose work has called him to St. Petersburg, Florida.  You will no doubt hear of him there because of his aggressive interest in our denomination.

It is the wish of our church to get a minister to succeed Mr. Palmer who will carry on his dynamic promotion of liberal religion.  Above all at this critical time, we do not want a break to occur wherein our church will fail to have a minister for September 1 to take up where Dr. Palmer will leave off.

I do not have the time to spare to the responsibility as chairmanship of our Board but my keen interest in what is being done in the church will not let me rest until I do all in my power to see the church go forward without a break in ministers.

I and my wife joined the church at the beginning of Palmer’s ministry here because Dr. Palmer made clear the opportunity and responsibility of liberal religion under the banner of Unitarianism. You, Mr. Fenn, are doubtless in a position to keep the fire burning until we get results at the earliest possible opportunity. You are doing all in your power, I am sure. Please let me, as spokesman for the Board, encourage you to continue to do this.

July and August are vacation months with us. We want Mr. John Gill to candidate for us during this month or June. You are in contact with him, please communicate this to him. If he cannot come in June, when can he come? The congregation can be assembled at any time. We will pay any expense of his candidacy here. Could you give me his address and let me pursue personally any possible obstructions that might prevent him from giving us an early answer? By this I do not want to go over your office, I only wish to work with you and the forward movement of our church in order to effect something definite without delay.

Dr. Palmer announced he was leaving about three months ago and the progress the Board has made to date appears very disappointing and hard to explain to the membership. Can you give me a picture of the present state of affairs – what is being done and what can be done?

If Mr. Gill declines, we want Mr. Howard Watson to candidate. If he declines, what else can be done?

We are paying $2,500, you are paying $480, we are supplying parsonage. This appears to amount to about $3,500. We are trying to raise more. One man will pay $100 if others will pay $400 to make it $500. We are working on this. One individual states he will give $500 to keep Dr. Palmer here. It is our deepest regret that Dr. Palmer cannot stay but we are so grateful and happy over what he has initiated we want it continued. Possibly the individual can be persuaded to give to another minister.

Please help vigorously all you can. I know you are doing this. I am writing this from the hospital where the doctor tells me my mother is on her deathbed, but between times I am restless to aid the church because we know there is a real opportunity for a strong liberal church in Atlanta. We all feel that further delay in this matter might seriously cripple the future of our church. Please let me have at least a short note about the present state of affairs by return air mail previous to any developments that might be pending.

Fraternally yours,

 

Harry A. Bromley, Chairman
Board of Trustees
1017 Highland View, N.E.
Atlanta, Georgia

Physical Archive: UUCA Box: 26   Folder: 10
Citation: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Records, RG 026, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta GA

Letter - Department of Ministry to Liberal Christian Church (Gill)

1 January 2014 at 00:00

May 1947

Department of the Ministry
25 Beacon Street
Boston 8, Mass.

JOHN G. GILL

JOHN G. GILL was born in Louisville, Ky., November 22, 1909. His religious background was Southern Presbyterian until he attended the seminary where he became convinced of Unitarianism. He attended Harvard University from 1928 – 30, studying chiefly science and mathematics; has a B.A. (cum laude) from the University of Wisconsin, writing his honors thesis on Thomas Jefferson, in 1936. His theological work was done at Union Theological Seminary, from which he graduated in 1939 with a B.D. degree.

Mr. Gill, while at Union, assisted at the Park Avenue Presbyterian Church, the first year; led discussion adult and children’s projects at Union Settlement his second year. During his third year he directed boy’s club work at Bronx Union Y.M.C.A. assisted the Rev. Ralph Read in the Wyoming Community Church at Milbourne, New Jersey; directed the Children’s Project Hour at the Presbyterian Church in Yonkers, and was student worker for the Youth Commission at the Unitarian Headquarters at Ten Park Avenue.

In the fall of 1940, Mr. Gill was called to the Unitarian Church in Grafton, Mass., where he resigned a year later to do graduate work for his Ph.D. at Harvard, writing a thesis on the History and Philosophy of Religion. He was called to the church in south Hingham, Massachusetts in March of 1943, and remained there until 1944. Since 1944, Mr. Gill has been serving the Unitarian Church in Alton, Illinois.

Mr. Gill lived in Kentucky and Virginia until he entered college. Before and since that he has lived in Panama and spent one summer in France. He is a scholar – can read and to some extent speak four languages beside English, and is highly trained in Philosophy, science and the social application of Christianity. He has done a good deal of writing and speaking.

Mr. Gill is married.

Physical Archive: UUCA Box: 26   Folder: 10
Citation: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Records, RG 026, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta GA

Letter - Department of Ministry to Liberal Christian Church (Matson)

1 January 2014 at 00:00

Department of the Ministry
25 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass.                                                   April 1946

Howard George Matson

Howard George Mason was born in New York City, January 31, 1907. He received his Bachelor of Science degree from New York University in 1929, and his S.T.B. from the Harvard Divinity School in 1932.

His first pastorate as at Houlton Maine from 1933-36.  He then went to the combined pastorate at South Natick and Sherborn, Mass., where he remained two years, resigning in 1938 in order to continue his studies. In 1938 and 1939 he did graduate work in Sociology at Ohio State University.

From 1939 – 41 Mr. Matson was Executive Director of the Community Chest at Newark, New Jersey and from 1941 to 1942 he was with the National Federation for Constitutional Rights in New York City.

Mr. Matson enlisted in the Air Corps in 1942 and became a Captain in charge of traffic at the airport in New Mexico. He has now been released from service and is considering returning to the parish ministry.

Mr. Matson has a good mind and is a better than average preacher. He has a keen social sense, as is indicated by the work in which he has been engaged during the past few years. He has an attractive personality and is socially acceptable in any circle. .

Mrs. Matson obtained a divorce in 1940 under conditions which were not detrimental to him or his personality. He has since remarried.

Physical Archive: UUCA Box: 26   Folder: 10
Citation: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Records, RG 026, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta GA

History of Universalism in Atlanta 1879 to 1934

1 January 2014 at 00:00

HISTORY OF UNIVERSALISM

IN ATLANTA, GA

1879 to 1934

The Universalist Church organization took place in 1879 under the leadership of Rev. W. C Bowman., who also started a church paper called The Universalist.

In 1880, Rev. D. B. Clayton, from South Carolina, came to Atlanta to assist Rev. Bowman, both as minister and editor. This arrangement lasted less than a year.

Dr. Bowman was called to other fields, and Dr. Clayton returned to South Carolina, but still kept in touch with friends in Atlanta. Among the few who remained true to the faith were the McCutcheon and the Hardin families.

Others drifted elsewhere, many of them becoming interested in a spiritualistic movement which started about that time.

Following the pastorate of the Rev. Bowman, in 1880, there was no church organization until 1895, though there were many of the liberal faith in the city.

In the Spring of 1895, the Universalist Church was started with 12 members, meetings taking place in the basement of the Fulton County Court House.

A Ladies Aid Society was started with 4 members. Dr. C.H. Shinn, of Boston, gave the ladies 100 years in which to raise one thousand dollars. The full amount was raised in a little more than three years.

Charter members of the church were: Mr. and Mrs. L. C. McCutcheon and their two daughters; Mr. and Mrs. P. C. Lynch; Mrs. Day; Mr. and Mrs. Buchanan; Mrs. Harwood; Miss. Bertha Harwood (Mrs. Arrowood) and Mrs. A. L. Blackman.

Mrs. McCutcheon was called the Mother of the Church. Mrs. Day, a dear old lady, was called Grandma Day, by all who knew her. It was she who made the first contribution to the building of the new church.

In the Summer of 1895, Rev. W. H. McGlauflin was called to the Atlanta church from Harriman, Tenn. Dr. McGlauflin held services twice monthly and in 1896 moved to Atlanta, taking a full pastorate.

On December 1st, 1895, Dr. McGlauflin received 14 members into the fellowship.

At this time services were held in the Freyer & Bradley Hall, which was later called Cable Hall. The next move was to 72 1/2 North Broad street, where the organization grew and prospered.

A few of the families who were members at this time were, Mr. and Mrs. L. C. McCutcheon; the Hardin family; L.M.Gill; Miss. Grace Gill (Mrs. N. V. Perry); Mrs. Alexander Beck; Mrs. A. L. Blackman; Mrs. W.C. Cottingham; Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin Bradford and family; Miss. Florence Cottingham (Mrs.W.P. Felker); Miss. Mary Cottingham (Mrs.W.L. Kemp); Miss. Sally Clayton (Mrs. H.C. Blake); Mr. and Mrs. B. Graham West; Miss. Frances West (Mrs. Audley McGalley).

On March 7th, 1897, Mrs. McGlauflin organized a Mission Circle. As this was a mission church, the previously organized Ladies Aid joined, as the church was not large enough for two societies.

The Circle’s first President was Mrs. W.C. Cottingham.

Mrs. W.C. McGlauflin (Lucy Sibley McGlauflin) ever the leading spirit in all church activities, passed from this life September 19th, 1891.

Plans were now going forward for the building of a church. The National Y. P. C. U. agreed to give four dollars for every one raised by the Atlanta church. Y.P.C.U. expected the sum. to be about fifteen hundred dollars. As nearly four thousand dollars was raised they had to call Dr. McGlauflin to the North to lecture and help raise their share.

In December 1898, the women of the church held a Bazaar on Peachtree and cleared over Six Hundred Dollars for the building fund.

A beautiful church was erected at 16 East Harris St, near Peachtree. In July, 1900, the church was formally dedicated. The National Y.P.C.U met in Atlanta at the time and was present at the dedication ceremony.

The beautiful and impressive art glass windows of the church were donated; one by Dr. McGlauflin, in memory of his wife, Lucy Sibley McGlauflin; one by the Junior Y. P. C. U., in honor of its organizer and faithful worker, Mary Grace Canfield; one by the Good Templars; one by the Federation of Trades; one in memory of Mr. Powell, given by his daughter; one in memory of Mamie Joe Jones, sister of Mrs. B.G West.

The first christening that took place in the new church was that of Shirley Hiatt, son of Mr, and Mrs. William Hiatt.

The first funeral was that of Spencer Blackman, son of Mrs. A. L. Blackman.

The first wedding united. Dorothy Crane and J. Clarence Bond.

At this time the church had for its board of Directors the following: R. M. Crone, President; J. C.Bond, Secretary; F. M. Marsh, Treasurer; C.W. Hubner; W.C. Gill ; Harry C. Blake; James Harvey.

Dr. McGlauflin’s pastorate covered a period of eight years, during which tine 155 members were received into the church.

In 1904, Dr. McGlauflin was called to other fields, and in February, 1904, Rev. Clarence J. Harris came to take his place, being pastor until March 1905.

Rev. Paul Tyner served as pastor from March 1905 to July 1st of the same year.

Rev. E. Dean Ellenwood was a much beloved and successful minister from December 3rd, 1905 to November 30th, 1913. He was then called to a larger field at Elgin, Il

Rev. Fred A. Line served the Atlanta church from December, 1913 to October, 1915.

Dr. T. B. Fisher from September 1916 to 1918.

Merger of Universalist and Unitarian

A merger of the First Universalist and First Unitarian churches took place November 14th, 1918 ending the struggles of two small groups that were ready to come together.

A new Constitution and By-laws were framed, making all members of both churches members of the new LIBERAL CHRISTIAN CHURCH. The name was later changed to

THE UNITED LIBERAL CHURCH

It was almost a year following the merger before the congregation obtained an active minister. Meanwhile our much beloved Dr. John W. Rowlett carried on the work.

Dr. G. I. Keirn, who had spent a number of years in Japan, as a missionary from the Universalist Church, was the first settled minister. Under his wise leadership the church had about three years of happy progress. His death came as a blow to the movement, but the congregation carried on until a successor was chosen.

Rev. Ernest J. Bowden was the next minister and served the church for three years. The death of Mrs. Bowden occurred during his ministry. She was a dear little Englishwoman whose life and character were an inspiration to those who knew her. Dr. Bowden resigned in November, 1925.

For a year the church was without an active minister, but services were maintained and the auxiliary organizations kept going.

In November, 1926, Rev. Clinton Lee Scott, who had for some years been associate minister of the Universalist Church of Los Angeles, Gal, became minister of the church.

Dr. Scott, still a young man, brought new life and a new vision of things that might be done. He worked untiringly and accomplished much for the upbuilding of the church. In 1929 Dr. Scott accepted a call to a larger field at Joliet, Ill.

From 1929 to September, 1930, the pulpit was supplied, irregularly, by various ministers, during which time many members and friends strayed to other churches, leaving the organization very much depleted.

After several months of careful search and consideration of various candidates, Dr. Aubrey

F. Hess was chosen on September 1st, 1930, coming to Atlanta from Beaumont, Tex.

Shortly after Dr. Hess assumed leadership no break could be detected in the work of the organization as a whole.

From that tine until the present (1934) the work has gone forward notwithstanding the fact of a serious economic depression. The membership at present numbering 130.

Dr. Hess is regarded as a scholarly man and one of the most able ministers the Atlanta church ever had.

Much of the success of Dr. Hess’s ministry is no doubt due to the unfailing interest and help of Mrs. Hess, who has contributed much to the growth and progress of all auxiliaries of the church.

Compiled by Mrs. Viola Stanford, February, 1934.

Physical Archive: UUCA   Box: 60   Folder: 08
Citation: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Records, RG 026, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta GA

Rev. W.H. McGlauflin (1856 - 1925) Obituary

1 January 2014 at 00:00

FORMER HEAD UNIVERSALIST CHURCH IN U. S. PASSES AWAY
John Raymond Memorial Pastor Is Stricken With Heart Attack While at His Desk

NEVER FULLY RECOVERED FROM BREAKDOWN IN 1925
Nationally Known Churchman Services to Be Held in This City on Friday

Rev. William Henry McGlauflin, D. D., pastor of the John Raymond Memorial Universalist Church, and among the most prominent clergymen of that denomination, died suddenly at 7:45 o’clock last night at his home, 825 Sunset avenue. Death was attributed to a cardiac attack. Dr. McGlauflin was in his seventieth year.

Rev. W. H. McGlauflin

Rev. W. H. McGlauflin

A nationally known church leader, Dr. McGlauflin served for nine years as general superintendent of the Universalist churches of America. He had filled the pulpit at the Raymond church for ten years.

About a year and a half ago, Dr. McGlauflin suffered a serious nervous breakdown, the result of a poisoning due to a throat abscess. He was away from his pulpit for about a month. A year ago he and Mrs. McGlauflin went on a cruise of the Mediterranean and also visited the Holy Land. From the breakdown 18 months ago, Dr. McGlauflin never entirely recovered. Last October he returned to his pulpit after an absence of ten weeks which was spent in a sanitarium at Clifton Springs, N. Y. Upon his return he celebrated his tenth anniversary of pastor of the Raymond Memorial church.

Rev. McGlauflin was one of the most learned of Scranton clergymen and his sudden death will be received with sincere regret by people of all creeds. He was apparently in the best of health yesterday, having spent some time with Mrs. McGlauflin in the central city yesterday afternoon. They returned home shortly before 5 o’clock. He partook of his usual evening meal and then retired to his study. At 7:45 o’clock he was stricken with a heart attack while at his desk.  Dr. Lucius C. Kennedy, who was summoned, stated that death was instantaneous.

Surviving Dr. McGlauflin, besides his widow, Mrs. Alice Coe McGlauflin, formerly of Boston, Mass., is a brother, Lorimer. of West Pembroke, Maine and a nephew, Lewis F. Brown, of Winston Salem, N.C.

 

Burial in Boston

The funeral will take place Friday afternoon at a time to be announced later. Services will be conducted at the John Raymond Memorial church, and Rev. Dr. John S. Lowe, of Boston, Mass., who succeeded Dr. McGlauflin in 1916 as superintendent of Universalists churches in America, will be in charge. The body will be taken to Boston for burial.

Born in Charlotte, Maine, October 2, 1856, the son of Thomas and Alice McGlauflin, Dr. McGlauflin was educated in the divinity school of Lawrence University, Canton, N. Y., where he took courses in Biblical languages under Professor William R. Harper. He took special studies at the American University, Harriman, Tenn., and in 1895 received the degree of Master of Arts. A year later he received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from that institution. St. Lawrence conferred the name degree upon him in 1907.

In 1882 he was ordained to the Universalist ministry and held pastorates at Friendship, N. Y., from 1882 to 1887; at Rochester, Minn., 1887 to 1897; Harriman, Tenn., 1891-1896, and Atlanta, Georgia, 1896-1904. In 1912, he married Alice Gertrude Coe, of Boston, Mass.

On January 20, 1907, Dr. McGlauflin assumed the general superintendency of the Universalist churches of America. In December 1916, he resigned .from that post and was succeeded by Dr. Lowe, of Boston, who now holds that office. Dr. McGlauflin had also ‘been superintendent of Universalist churches in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa.

Nationally Known

His affiliations with organizations included the Knights of Pythias of Minnesota of which he was past chancellor. From 1898 to 1900 he was chaplain of the Good Templars of Georgia. In 1898 he was selected as delegate to the convention of the International Order of Gran Templars held at Toronto, Canada. He was fraternal visitor to the same in Belfast, Ireland, in 1905.

Dr. McGlauflin was also junior vice commander of the Sons of Veterans of the Alabama and Tennessee Division from 1901 to 1904.  From 1920 to 1922 he was commander of Pennsylvania Camp, No. 500, Sons of Veterans, and in 1922 was honorary chaplain of  the 143d Pennsylvania Regiment, G. A. R. From 1902 to 1910 he was an occasional lyceum platform lecturer ,and for about ten years he also delivered lectures in colleges and high schools throughout the country.

Other gleanings from his life history follows: In 1913 he was a delegate to the Congress of Free Christianity and Religious Liberals, held at Paris, France; member of the permanent committee on temperance, Universalist general convention, 1900-1908; member of American Council. World Alliance for International Friendship Through Churches; member of Pennsylvania, commission on penal affairs; member of the National Child Labor Committee; member of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation committee; editor of the Tri-State Messenger, 1904-07; contributor to Universal Leader, Boston, Mass., and other papers; trustee of the Murray Grove Association of the Universalist Church, and trustee of the State Universalist convention.

Dr. McGlauflin was the author of “What the Universalist Church is Doing,” which he wrote in 1909; also “Faith with Power,” in 1912, as well as many pamphlets on religious and patriotic subjects.

As a resident of Scranton for the past ten years, Dr. McGlauflin was very prominent in civic affairs. At the laying of the cornerstone of the Chamber of Commerce Building last year he delivered the address. Since 1924 he has been chaplain of the New England Society of Northeastern Pennsylvania. He was past president, vice-president and secretary of the Scranton Ministerial Association; past president of the Scranton Public Forum. and president of the Unity Club of Scranton Ministers. He was actively identified with the Chamber of Commerce and was a member of the Young Men’s Christian Association. For several years he conducted community services using the stereopticon. He was a pioneer in this work and was among the first to conduct such services in the city.

Source: The Scranton Republican (Scranton, Pennsylvania)  Wed, Mar 9, 1927  Page 1, Page 4
Copyright © 2014 Newspapers.com. All Rights Reserved.

Liberal Christian Church - Meeting Minutes, Nov 14 1926 (Rev. Scott Installation)

1 January 2014 at 00:00

11/14/26.

Special Meeting of Board of Trustees.

November 14, 1926.

The Board of Trustees of the Liberal Christian Church met at 3 p.m., November 14, 1926, at the residence of Mr. Harry C. Blake in special meeting to consult with Rev. Dr. George F. Patterson, Field Secretary of the American Unitarian Association, and with Rev. Roger F. Etz, Secretary of the Universalist General Convention, who had been with us to take part in the installation ceremonies that morning for Rev. Clinton Lee Scott, our new minister. The members of the board present at this meeting were Messrs. Harding, Blake, Knox, Rogers, and Scott, while in addition to the distinguished visitors, Messrs. J. P. Faulkner and William Wroth were also present. Rev. Clinton L. Scott also was present, together with Mr. T. C. Perkins, chairman of the Finance Committee.

President Harding called the meeting to order and explained that the purpose of the meeting was talk over with the representatives of the parent bodies our plans and purposes in meeting the increase in our expenses that was necessary. He then called upon Mr. Perkins for a detailed report of our plans and resources. In giving this report, Mr. Perkins told of the present worth of our property, the encumbrance on the property of $3750, a loan on the parish house which would mature in January, 1927, and mentioned the fund of $21,000 that was held for us by the Universalist General Convention. He told of the approximate expected revenue of the perish for the ensuing year and of the authorization at the church meeting in September permitting the Board of Trustees of the church to borrow $3,000 per annum, or as much thereof as may be necessary to meet expenses for the next, five years. Mr. Perkins said that it was rather expensive to borrow money here locally, end he hoped that the parent bodies could arrange to let this church borrow money at more advantageous rates. He suggested that we possibly could use some of the fund held for us by the Universalist General Convention. At any rate, he felt that the organization here was a going concern and that it was good business for us to borrow the money.

Dr. Patterson at this time spoke and told us that the American Unitarian Association would be glad to help us in any way that it could. He mentioned a loan fund that was held in Boston to loan out without interest and to be repaid in ten annual installments, and he said that perhaps our loan of $3750 that matured in January could be taken care of from this fund. He said that the Association appreciated what had been done here and realized the opportunity that awaited us here. He was sure that the Association would do what it could to help us.

Rev. Mr. Etz then spoke in behalf of the Universalist General Convention, He said that the General Convention appreciated, too, what we had been doing in Atlanta, and because they knew we were a live organization, the Board of the Convention had already made an appropriation for this church. He felt sure that the Convention would do all that it could to help us in our work here.

There was some general-discussion of the matter, and it was voted that the Treasurer send a monthly financial statement, a duplicate of that presented to the local Board, beginning with January 1, 1927. The clerk was instructed to send to Dr. Patterson and Mr. Etz a complete statement of our resources and plans, so that they could better present our desires before their respective Boards.

Mr. Rogers reported upon the repairs being made upon the Parish house and said that the contractor, he thought, would paint the out—side of the house for about $100. A resolution was then passed authorizing the spending of $100 for painting the outside of the Parish House.

Rev. Mr. Scott then announced that his furniture had arrived, and he hoped shortly to move into his new quarters in the parish house. He said that he would be glad to move in, but it would mean that he would have to begin to buy groceries.

After a little informal talk, the meeting was then adjourned.

A. H. Scott,

Clerk.

Financial statement Liberal Christian Church, 301 West Peachtree Street, Atlanta, covering period January 1, 1926 to and including October 31, 1926.

Comments Sub Total Total
Receipts
Balance on Hand, Jan. 1st, 1926 $211.06
1925 Pledges paid in 1926 $125.00
Interest from U.G.C. Fund $1,060.30
2/3rds Rev. Lewis’ Dunham’s and Scott’s expenses returned $236.44
Returned from Christmas Tree Fund $2.65
Rent from Parish House $600.00
Against 1926 Pledges $1,182.71
From other regular contributions $60.60
Plate Collections $332.05 $3,599.75
Total $3,810.81
Disbursments
Note, Fourth National Bank  $400.00
Church Suppers, Entertainment $30.60
Heating $40.25
Interest on Parish House Loan $262.50
1925 City Taxes $58.57
Rev. L.L. Lewis’ Expenses $144.93
Rev. S.G. Dunham’s Expenses  $124.01
Rev. C. Scott’s Expenses $87.00
Repairs to Organ $80.00
Repairs to the Parish House $296.90
Commission Paid to Renting Agent $30.00
Fire Insurance $27.30
Universalist General Convention $25.00
American Unitarian Association $25.00
Water, Lights and Gas $82.15
Advertising $159.91
Postage, Stationary, Wires, etc. $51.66
Janitor and Supplies $160.68
Delegate to Orlando Convention $40.00
Choir and Music $502.50
Pulpit Supply $556.00
Jewish Relief $25.00
Miscellaneous $36.12
Pastor Salary $111.11
Pastor’s Salary Advanced $200.00
Miscellaneous $3,557.69
Cash on Hand September 13, 1926 $253.12
Total $3,810.81

Respectfully submitted,
Treasurer

Physical Archive: UUCA Box: 26   Folder: 03
Citation: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Records, RG 026, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta GA

Liberal Christian Church - Meeting Minutes, Nov 2, 1926 (Rev. Scott Start Paper)

1 January 2014 at 00:00

11/2/26.

Regular Meeting of Board of Trustees.

November 2, 1926.

The regular monthly meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Liberal Christian Church was held at the Kimball House restaurant at 6 p.m., Tuesday, November 2, 1926, and Messrs. Harding, Blake, Rogers, and Scott and Mrs. Stanford were in attendance, the absentees being Mr. Knox and Mrs. Perry. The Rev. Clinton Lee Scott, our new pastor, also was present.

After all had enjoyed a social period together while eating supper, President Harding called the meeting to order, and the clerk read the minutes of the regular meeting of October 5th, which were approved as read. The Treasure, Mr. Rogers, according to his usual custom, handed to those present a financial statement up to and including November 1, 1926, showing a balance on hand of $253.12. (The statement follows this report.) (Archivist Note: No report was found in the physical archive)

The matter of the loan of $3,750 on the parish house expiring in January, 1927, was brought up and the matter of refinancing the loan was left for later action.

Mr. Blake was called upon to report on the taxes for the current year, and he reported that he was to see the proper authorities shortly.

Mr. Rogers brought up the matter of the increased cost of the music, especially the increase in salary of the organist, Mr. Hubbard. He reported that the Finance committee had authorized his paying a larger amount to Mr. Hubbard. After some discussion, it was brought out that it was the intention of the Board to increase the amount paid Mr. Hubbard. The Rev. Mr. Scott stated that he hoped to develop a chorus choir from among the young people.

Action was taken authorizing Mr. Rogers as chairman of the “house committee” to spend on the repairs necessary on the parish house the amount of $200.

The program for the morning services for Sunday, November 14, was next brought up. It had been originally intended to have Young Peoples’ Sunday on that date, but as Dr. Patterson and Rev. Mr. Etz could be here on the 14th to attend the installation of the Rev. Mr. Scott, it was voted that installation services be held at 11 a.m. on the 14th. It was also voted to have special music for that occasion, and a committee of which Mr. Scott was appointed chairman was to arrange for the program of the installation services. Young Peoples’ Sunday was to postponed to a date satisfactory to the Y.P.C.U.

Rev. Mr. Scott was called on for remarks, and he said that he was much interested in getting a parish paper started. He wondered if the old printing press could be used and, if not, what the cost of having the printing done outside would be. At any rate, he wanted to get out a weekly message to the members and friends. Another matter that he thought ought to be done was to fix up the stage for the use of the young people. It was voted that his suggestions as to the stage be carried out.

The meeting was then adjourned.

Clerk.

Physical Archive: UUCA Box: 26   Folder: 03
Citation: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Records, RG 026, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta GA

Liberal Christian Church - Meeting Minutes, Oct 5 1926 (Financial Need)

1 January 2014 at 00:00

10/5/26.

Regular Meeting of Board of Trustees.

October 5, 1926.

The regular monthly meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Liberal Christian Church was held at the Kimball House Restaurant at 6 p.m., Tuesday, October 5, 1926, and Messrs. Harding, Blake, Rogers, and Scott, and Mrs. Perry were in attendance, the absentees being Mr. Knox and Mrs. Stanford. Mr. T. C. Perkins, chairman of the Finance Committee, was also in attendance.

After all had eaten supper together, President Harding called the meeting to order and the minutes of the regular meeting of September 7th and the special meetings of September 12th and October 3d were read and approved. The Treasurer, Mr. Rogers, as usual, handed to those present a financial statement up to and including October 5th, showing a balance on hand of $584.64. (The statement follows this report.)

President Harding at this time read a communication from Dr. Samuel Eliot thanking the Board for the telegram sent at the time of his father’s death. Upon motion of Mr. Blake, this letter was made a part of the official records. (See attached sheet.)

The question of taxes on the property of the church for the current year was then brought up, and Mr. Blake was instructed to interview the city officials and report to the Board.

Mr. Perkins was then called upon to report on the finances of the church. He showed that with the present balance and the expected payments on pledges, etc., we should have sufficient funds to carry on into the new year. To care for the needed revenue for next year, it was first planned to make an every member canvass and then to take up with headquarters and arrange to borrow such amount, under $3000.00, as may be necessary. Mr. Perkins gave a very encouraging report.

Mrs. Perry then asked the permission of the Board for the use of the church for the League of Women Voters. A motion was then carried granting Mrs. Perry the use of the church at a cost not to exceed $10.00, with the understanding that this action must not be considered a precedent.

The matter of the Parish House was next taken up, and it was reported that the tenant had already vacated the house. The “house committee” was requested to see that the lower floor was made ready for the use of the Sunday school. After some discussion, it was thought best to await the arrival of Rev. Clinton Scott before doing anything with upper apartment or fixing the steam plant.

The meeting was then adjourned.

Clerk.

Financial statement Liberal Christian Church, 301 West Peachtree Street, Atlanta, covering period January 1st to and including October 5, 1926.

Comments Sub Total Total
Receipts
Balance on Hand, Jan. 1st, 1926 $211.06
1925 Pledges paid in 1926 $125.00
Interest from U.G.C. Fund $1,060.30
2/3rds Rev. Lewis’ Dunham’s and Scott
s expenses returned
$236.44
Returned from Christmas Tree Fund $2.65
Rent from Parish House $600.00
Against 1926 Pledges $1.046.46
From other regular contributions $49.95
Plate Collections $294.93 $3,415.63
Total $3,626.69
Disbursments
1925 Expenses paid out of 1926 receipts:
Choir and Music $40.00
Coal $16.50
Repairs to Furnace $7.50
Note, Fourth National Bank $400.00
Pulpit Supply $82.00 $546.00
1926 Expenses:
Church Supper, January Meeting $16.20
Refreshments and Entertainment $14.40
Coal $23.75
Interest on Parish House Loan $262.50
1925 City Taxes $58.57
Rev. L.L. Lewis’ Expenses $144.93
Rev. S.D. Butler’s Expenses $40.00
Rev. S.G. Dunham’s Expenses $124.01
Rev. C. Scott’s Expenses $87.00
Repairs to Organ $80.50
Repairs to the Parish House $278.86
Commission Paid to Renting Agent $30.00
Fire Insurance $27.30
Universalist General Convention $25.00
American Unitarian Association $25.00
Water, Lights and Gas $76.90
Advertising, Postage, Stationary, Etc. $181.33
Janitor and Supplies $144.68
Pulpit Supply $384.00
Choir and Music $370.00
Delegate to Orlando Convention $40.00
Jewish Relief $25.00
Miscellaneous $36.12 $2,496.05
Cash on Hand September 13, 1926 $584.64
Total $3,626.69

Respectfully submitted,
Treasurer

Physical Archive: UUCA Box: 26   Folder: 03
Citation: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Records, RG 026, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta GA

Liberal Christian Church - Meeting Minutes, Sep 16, 1926 (Vote to Rev. Scott)

1 January 2014 at 00:00

REGULAR SEPTEMBER MEETING OF THE LIBERAL CHRISTIAN CHURCH

September 16, 1926

The regular September Meeting of the Liberal Christian Church was held in the Sunday School Room of the church Thursday evening, September 16, 1926. The business session was preceded by a luncheon given by the Women’s Union as usual.

The business session was convened shortly before 8 o’clock with President Harding in the chair. In the absence of the clerk, Mr. A. H. Scott, Mr. J. P. Faulkner was asked to act as secretary. Following a few introductory remarks by the President the minutes of the last or May meeting were read and unanimously approved. The call for reports followed and the Treasurer distributed a sheet giving a comprehensive statement of Receipts and Disbursements from January 1st, 1926 to date, September 12th. The statement, with all bills paid to date, showed a balance on hand of $435.46. The report was considered very satisfactory and the Treasurer thanked for his splendid work. (See report attached.)

The Pulpit Supply Committee was then called upon and Dr. Rowlett, the chairman, made a very comprehensive and interesting verbal report of the committee’s activities, resulting in the unanimous recommendation of Rev. Clinton Scott for pastor, which recommendation had also been endorsed unanimously by the Board of Trustees. Dr. Rowlett recalled the action of the Church at the May meeting promising the ratification of the committee’s report if it should prove unanimous, and, after recounting the special qualifications of Rev. Mr. Scott, and the reasons why the committee believes he is the man we are looking for, asked that the action of the committee and the board be ratified. Upon motion of Mr. Hamilton Douglas, which called for a standing vote, the action of the committee was approved, Mr. Scott receiving a unanimous call to the church. Upon motion of Mr. Wroth a vote of thanks was extended to the committee. It was suggested that the correspondence with Mr. Scott be made a part of these minutes.

Mr. T. C. Perkins, chairman of the Finance Committee, was called upon to report, and also to give the details of the way it is proposed to meet the budget of the coming year.

Referring to the Treasurer’s report, Mr. Perkins showed that, if Mr. Scott takes up his duties on November 1st, the church will be able to pay him and all of its obligations up to the first of January without help from either of the parent bodies. For 1927 the Finance Committee and the Pulpit Supply Committee had estimated that a budget of $7,000.00 would be required, and the plan worked out contemplated the raising of $4,000.00, as a maximum, through the church by subscriptions and from other present sources and the borrowing of $3,000.00, if necessary, from the parent bodies for 1927, and such amounts as should be found necessary for the four succeeding years. The plan contemplated at least a reduction of $500.00 each year on the amount borrowed.

It was understood by all, and particularly stressed by Dr. Rowlett, that it is not the purpose to run the church on borrowed money but this scheme is only an effort to get the church in condition to do the work it is hoped to do in the expectation of becoming self-supporting at an early date. At the conclusion of Mr. Perkins’ statement and the emphasis by Dr. Rowlett, the following motion was offered by Mr. Hamilton Douglas –

“RESOLVED, that the Board of Trustees be authorized and directed to borrow such sums of money as they shall deem necessary for the payment of minister’s salary and other church expenses for the ensuing five years, in amounts not to exceed $3,000.00 per year and to secure the sum by encumbrance or pledge of any or all of the real or personal property and assets belonging to the church.”

The resolution was unanimously adopted.

The action of the Board of Trustees at the special meeting, at the request of the Pulpit Supply Committee, August 29th, in deciding to discontinue renting the parsonage with the purpose of taking it over for Sunday School and Church purposes, was then reported and, following an explanation of the conditions of the heating plant of the parsonage and the need of more space for church and Sunday School purposes by Mr. Faulkner, the action was approved and on motion of Mr. Douglas the Board of Trustees was authorized to appoint a committee to look into the condition of the building and make such plans as necessary for the uses contemplated and also to spend such amounts as it was found necessary to put it into condition for use.

Dr. Rowlett called attention to the failure of the Atlanta papers to publish the resolutions offered Sunday, August 29th, respecting the Life, Character, and Services of Dr. Charles W. Elliott, and, upon motion of Mr. Perkins, it was ordered that the resolutions referred to be made a part of these minutes.

Dr. Rowlett then announced the services for next Sunday and the plans of the committee for supplying the pulpit until the arrival of the pastor, following which Mr. Blake offered a motion thanking the ladies of the Union for the splendid dinner and their cooperation in all the church work.

Upon motion the meeting was adjourned.

Financial statement Liberal Christian Church, 301 West Peachtree Street, Atlanta, covering period January 1st to and including September 12, 1926

Comments Sub Total Total
Receipts
Balance on Hand, Jan. 1st, 1926 $211.06
1925 Pledges paid in 1926 $125.00
Interest from U.G.C. Fund $1,060.30
2/3rds Rev. Lewis’ Dunham’s and Scott
s expenses returned
$236.44
Returned from Christmas Tree Fund $2.65
Rent from Parish House $525.00
Against 1926 Pledges $921.76
From other regular contributions $29.10
Plate Collections $270.95 $3,171,20
Total $3,382.26
Disbursments
1925 Expenses paid out of 1926 receipts:
Choir and Music $40.00
Coal $16.50
Repairs to Furnace $7.50
Note, Fourth National Bank $400.00
Pulpit Supply $82.00 $546.00
1926 Expenses:
Church Supper, January Meeting $16.20
Refreshments and Entertainment $14.40
Coal $23.75
Interest on Parish House Loan $262.50
1925 City Taxes $58.57
Rev. L.L. Lewis’ Expenses $144.93
Rev. S.D. Butler’s Expenses $40.00
Rev. S.G. Dunham’s Expenses $124.01
Rev. C. Scott’s Expenses $87.00
Repairs to Organ $76.00
Repairs to the Parish House $278.86
Commission Paid to Renting Agent $26.50
Fire Insurance $27.30
Universalist General Convention $25.00
American Unitarian Association $25.00
Water, Lights and Gas $77.90
Advertising, Postage, Stationary, Etc. $181.33
Janitor and Supplies $131.68
Pulpit Supply $359.00
Choir and Music $320.00
Delegate to Orlando Convention $40.00
Jewish Relief $25.00
Miscellaneous $36.12 $2,400.80
Cash on Hand September 13, 1926 $435.46
Total $3,382.26

Respectfully submitted,
Treasurer

Current bills for September not included.

Financial statement Liberal Christian Church, 301 West Peachtree Street, Atlanta, covering period January 1st to and including September 5, 1926

Comments Sub Total Total
Receipts
Balance on Hand, Jan. 1st, 1926 $211.06
1925 Pledges paid in 1926 $125.00
Interest from U.G.C. Fund $1,060.30
2/3rds Rev. Lewis’ Dunham’s and Scott
s expenses returned
$179.30
Returned from Christmas Tree Fund $2.65
Rent from Parish House $525.00
Against 1926 Pledges $886.26
From other regular contributions $29.10
Plate Collections $263.50 $3,071.11
Total $3,282.17
Disbursments
1925 Expenses paid out of 1926 receipts:
Choir and Music $40.00
Coal $16.50
Repairs to Furnace $7.50
Note, Fourth National Bank $400.00
Pulpit Supply $82.00 $546.00
1926 Expenses:
Church Supper, January Meeting $16.20
Refreshments and Entertainment $5.90
Coal $23.75
Interest on Parish House Loan $262.50
1925 City Taxes $58.57
Rev. L.L. Lewis’ Expenses $144.93
Rev. S.D. Butler’s Expenses $40.00
Rev. S.G. Dunham’s Expenses $124.01
Repairs to Organ $55.00
Repairs to the Parish House $278.86
Commission Paid to Renting Agent $26.50
Fire Insurance $27.30
Universalist General Convention $25.00
American Unitarian Association $25.00
Water, Lights and Gas $57.29
Advertising, Postage, Stationary, Etc. $160.03
Janitor and Supplies $127.68
Pulpit Supply $309.00
Choir and Music $295.00
Delegate to Orlando Convention $40.00
Jewish Relief $25.00
Miscellaneous $36.12 $2,163.39
Cash on Hand September 6, 1926 $572.78
Total $3,282.17

Respectfully submitted,
Treasurer

 

Physical Archive: UUCA Box: 26   Folder: 03
Citation: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Records, RG 026, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta GA

Liberal Christian Church - Meeting Minutes, Aug 29, 1926 (Calling Rev. Scott)

1 January 2014 at 00:00

8/29/26.

SPECIAL MEETING OF TRUSTEES.

August 29, 1926.

A special meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Liberal Christian Church was held at the home of Mr. T.C. Perkins at 8 p.m., August 29, 1926. This meeting was called at the request of the Pulpit Supply Committee so that this committee could report its action and recommendation in calling Rev. Clinton Scott of Los Angeles, Cal., to be pastor of this church. Messrs. Harding, Knox, and Scott were present, and they were notified that Mr. Harry Blake who had been informed of the matters to be brought up at the meeting and who could not attend was heartily in favor of the contemplated action and wanted somebody to act as proxy for hi;. Mr. Hamilton Douglas was thereupon appointed as proxy for Mr. Blake. Dr. Rowlett, Mr. Faulkner, and Mr. T. C. Perkins were also in attendance.

The first matter brought up was in regard to the parish house. It was reported that extensive repairs to the steam plant in the house were necessary, and that in view of the continued expense that was required to keep the house rented, it was suggested that the house no longer be rented, but used for church and Sunday school purposes. In this way it was thought that a considerable reduction in taxes could be brought about. A motion was carried that the parish house be no longer rented, so that it could be available for church uses, and the Clerk, Mr. Scott, was requested to write a letter advising the tenant of the desires of the Board.

Dr. Rowlett, Chairman of the Pulpit Supply Committee, then advised to Board of the action of his committee. He reported that this committee was unanimously and heartily in favor of extending a call to Rev. Clinton Scott 01 Los Angeles to become the pastor of this church. He said that Rev. Mr. Scott had made a very favorable impression on everybody and in his sermon that morning had shown that he was the man that was needed here. He reported that the Pulpit Supply Committee had recommended that Mr. Scott be paid a salary of $4000 per annum. Mr. Douglas, acting as proxy for Mr. Blake, then made a motion that inasmuch as the Pulpit Supply Committee had been authorized to find a pastor and as the matter was urgent, that the Board support the action of the Pulpit Supply Committee in extending a call to Mr. Scott, and that a committee of three be appointed by the chair to take up with Mr. Scott the details in connection with the call and authorizing this committee to offer Mr. Scott a salary of $4000 per annum. This motion was seconded and carried.

Rev. Mr. Scott was then invited to meet with the Board, and Dr. Rowlett then informed Mr. Scott of the action taken. The latter replied that he appreciated very much the call extended to him, but that he was not in a position to give immediate answer. He promised, however, to give an early answer.

The meeting was then adjourned.

(signed)

Arthur H. Scott, Clerk.

Physical Archive: UUCA Box: 26   Folder: 03
Citation: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Records, RG 026, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta GA

Liberal Christian Church - Meeting Minutes, Jul 6, 1926 (Rev. Rowlett Acting Pastor)

1 January 2014 at 00:00

MEETING OF TRUSTEES.

July 6, 1926.

The regular meeting of the Board of Trustees of the

Liberal Christian Church was held at the Kimball House restaurant at 6 p.m., Tuesday, July 6, 1926, and Messrs. Harding, Blake, Rogers, and Scott were present, the absentees being Mrs. Perry, Mrs. Stanford, and Mr. Knox. Mr. T. C. Perkins of the Finance Committee was also in attendance.

After all had been served supper, President Harding called the meeting to order, the minutes of the last two regular meetings were read and approved.

The Treasurer, Mr. Rogers, had passed around complete financial statements to July 6, which showed that a balance of was on hand. It was noted that no refund on the expenses of Rev. S. G. Dunham had been made by the Unitarian and Universalist general bodies, and it was voted that the Clerk, Mr. Scott, write to Dr. Lowe at Universalist headquarters in regard to the matter.

Mr. Rogers reported that the janitor, Sherman McAfee, had been the guest of the city authorities for some time, and it was suggested that someone else be secured for the duties of janitor.

The meeting of the Georgia Universalist Convention to be held at Winder, Ga., on July 29 – August 1 was next brought to the attention of the Board, and Mr. Harry Blake, who said that he was to attend the convention meetings was authorized to issue certificates as delegates to all who attended from this church.

The Board then ratified the action of the Pulpit Supply Committee in having Dr. Rowlett act as acting pastor so that anything that needed attention could be done by Dr. Rowlett. The Board expressed their appreciation of Dr. Rowlett’s kind offer to attend to these matters.

The meeting then adjourned until the September meeting, unless sooner called to act upon matters with reference to the calling of a pastor, at the suggestion of the Pulpit Supply Committee.

(signed) Arthur H. Scott, Clerk.

Physical Archive: UUCA Box: 26   Folder: 03
Citation: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Records, RG 026, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta GA

Liberal Christian Church - Meeting Minutes, Jun 1, 1926 (Monthly Trustee Meeting)

1 January 2014 at 00:00

MEETING OF TRUSTEES.

June 1, 1926.

The regular meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Liberal Christian Church was held at the Kimball House restaurant at 6 p.m., Tuesday, June 1, 1926, all members being present except Mrs. Stanford. Mr. T. C. Perkins, chairman of the Finance Committee, and Dr. Rowlett, Chairman of the Pulpit Supply Committee, were also present. While supper was being served, President Harding called the meeting to order, and a motion was made and carried that to save time the reading of the minutes of the May meeting was postponed until the next regular meeting.

There was some discussion of the fact that an announcement had been made from the pulpit on the last Sunday in May that there would be no further Sunday morning services for the summer. Rowlett of the Pulpit Supply Committee explained that this was a misunderstanding of the action taken by that committee and that the announcement had been made by mistake. The Board then voted that Sunday morning services be held through June.

Mr. H. C. Blake brought to the attention of the Board the canvass being made for the Jewish Relief Fund, and he made a motion that in view of Dr. Marx’s kind help to us in filling our pulpit on two recent Sundays, the Board authorize the giving to Dr. Marx by this church of $25.00 for the Jewish Relief Fund. This motion was carried, and Mr. Scott, the Clerk of the Board, was asked to write Dr. Marx a cordial letter inclosing the check.

The action of the Pulpit Supply Committee in cancelling the engagement of Dr. Henry B. Taylor for the first two Sundays in June had brought from Mr. Taylor that he felt impelled to see that Mr. Lewis who had agreed to fill his pulpit in Meriden, Ct. was paid $20.00, and that he had incurred himself some incidental expenses for his proposed trip to Atlanta. The Board then voted that a Check for $25.00 be sent to Dr. Taylor to reimburse him for the amount that he would have to give Mr. Lewis and for his own preliminary expenses.

Through the courtesy of Dr. Lowe of the Universalist General Convention, it was announced that Rev. Roger F. Etz, General Secretary, could be in Atlanta on July 4 and deliver the sermon if the church desired. It was thereupon voted to hold services in the church on that date.

Mr. Rogers, the Treasurer, handed around financial statements showing that the cash on hand amounted to $59.54. He stated that the matter of protecting the church carpet from moths had been attended to.

The meeting then adjourned,

(signed)

Arthur H. Scott, Clerk.

Physical Archive: UUCA Box: 26   Folder: 03
Citation: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Records, RG 026, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta GA

Liberal Christian Church - Meeting Minutes, May 25, 1926 (Church Meeting)

1 January 2014 at 00:00

5/25/26.

May Church Meeting

The regular May church meeting was held on Tuesday, May 25, 1926, having been changed from Friday, May 28th.

The ladies of the Women’s Union served a bountiful supper in the Sunday School room at 6.30 p.m., and after all had partaken of this wonderful spread-and had enjoyed a pleasant social period, President Harding called the meeting to order at about 8 p.m. and called upon the clerk to read the minutes of the church meeting held January 28, 1926, and of the special church meeting held on March 7, 1926. These minutes were approved as read.

The treasurer, Mr. J. V. Rogers, then presented his report by distributing copies to all those present. This report showed that a balance of $59.54 was on hand.

The report of the Pulpit Supply Committee was then called for, and Mr. A. H. Scott, the secretary of this committee, thereupon made a complete report of the activities of this committee from the time of its appointment in March to the present time. This report showed that the committee had been able to fill the pulpit very acceptably and especially by means of the special series of sermons and addresses upon the general topic of the ethical and religious significance of science had been able to arouse considerable interest with the result that the church attendance had increased to a marked extent. This report also covered what had been done from the time that Mr. Bowden, our former pastor, had given up his work up to the time this committee had been appointed.

Mrs. W. J. Draper was then called upon to give the history of the Unitarian Church here up to the time of the Union, and she gave a very interesting report in a very delightful manner. Likewise, Mrs. N. V. Perry was called upon to give the account of the local Universalist church prior to the union, and she gave a fine history of that church. These accounts by these two ladies were much appreciated.

The matter of electing a Historian – Librarian was next brought up and when the clerk had read from the constitution just what the duties of the position were, it was voted that Mrs. Draper be appointed Historian-Librarian, with Mrs. Perry as assistant Historian-Librarian.

The matter of changing the name of the church was postponed to some other time.

At this time Mr. T. C. Perkins, chairman of the Finance Committee, made his report. He related what had been done toward getting pledges for the support of the church, and he said that everyone had been given opportunity to subscribe and that the results were fairly satisfactory.

The next matter to come up was regarding action on Rev. Mr. S.G. Dunham of Providence, R. I., who had recently filled our pulpit. After some discussion among the members it was moved that action on him be postponed or deferred, the motion was seconded.

After considerable further discussion, the motion was amended to the effect that it was the unwritten part of the motion that Mr. Dunham not be called at all. This amendment was seconded, and the motion as amended was carried.

After this action had been taken, a feeling of discouragement pervaded the meeting. Dr. Rowlett then arose and said that we must not be discouraged, for we would yet find the man who would come and lead us on to higher achievement. But the discouragement continued. Finally someone was heard to say, “Oh, if we could only Mr. Patterson.” This was the spark that kindled a spontaneous enthusiasm for Rev. Mr. Patterson, the Field Secretary of the American Unitarian Association. There was immediate, unanimous demand that we call Mr. Patterson to become our pastor. A vote was carried that the Pulpit Supply Committee give immediate report on the matter of calling Mr. Patterson, and this committee, consisting of Dr. Rowlett, Mr. Faulkner, Mr. T. C. Perkins, and Mr. A. H. Scott, withdrew and shortly returned with the unanimous recommendation that Rev. Mr. Patterson be called as our pastor. It was then voted unanimously that this church extend him a call. It was further voted that the Pulpit Supply Committee, in the event that Mr. Patterson did not accept this call, take steps to find a man for pastor of this church; the members of this committee were authorized, if need be, to visit a prospective candidate in his own field. This committee was to find a man upon whom the members could unanimously agree and whom they could recommend, with the assurance that the recommendations of this committee would command unanimous support by the church.

There being no further business, the meeting was then adjourned.

(signed) Arthur H. Scott, Clerk.

Physical Archive: UUCA Box: 26   Folder: 03
Citation: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Records, RG 026, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta GA

 

Liberal Christian Church - Meeting Minutes, May 4, 1926 (Monthly Meeting of Trustees)

1 January 2014 at 00:00

5/4/26.

MEETING OF TRUSTEES.

May 4, 1926.

The regular meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Liberal Christian Church was held at the Kimball House restaurant at 6 p.m., Tuesday, May 4, 1926, all members being present, and with Mr. T. C. Perkins, Chairman of the Finance Committee, and Mr. P. M. Greene, also of the Finance Committee, in attendance.

After all had enjoyed supper together, President Harding called the meeting to order, and the clerk read the minutes of the last meeting. These were approved as read. The treasurer, Mr. Rogers, again passed to each person present a financial statement brought up to date, and this showed a balance on hand of $201.96.

It was reported that Mrs. J. W. Rowlett, our delegate to the Southern Unitarian Conference, had been compelled while in Orlando to incur some extra expense for taxi hire and for meals, and the Board voted that Mr. Rogers, our treasurer, see that Mrs. Rowlett was reimbursed for this extra expenditure.

Mr. Perkins reported that the organ key-board had been changed from its old position on the right hand side to the back center, with the organist now facing the singer in the choir. Mr. Perkins stated that Mr. Hubbard, the organist, was much pleased with the new arrangement and that better results were now possible.

Mr. Perkins also gave the report of the Pulpit Supply Committee showed that the series of special addresses was going over in fine style, and that much interest was being shown by the public in these addresses, as was evidenced by the large attendance. He stated that Mr. S. G. Dunham would be in Atlanta on May 16th and 23d to preach for us as a candidate, and that Dr. H. B. Taylor, of Meriden, Conn., would fill the pulpit on the first two Sundays in June.

The date of the May church meeting was then discussed, and it was voted that Friday, May 28th, be set as the date, so that action on Rev. Mr. Dunham might be taken, and the Women’s Union was asked to serve the supper for that occasion. It was voted that the price for the supper be placed at 50 cents for adults and 25 cents for children. This was done that the Women’s Union might be enabled to make a little profit.

Matters were talked over informally, it being brought to the attention of the Board that moths were getting into the church carpet; some dissatisfaction was reported with the quality of the singing, but no action was taken.

The meeting was then adjourned.

(signed)

Arthur H. Scott, Clerk.

Citation: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Records, RG 026, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta GA

Liberal Christian Church - Meeting Minutes, Apr 6, 1926 (Monthly Meeting of Trustees)

1 January 2014 at 00:00

4/6/26.

MEETING OF TRUSTEES

April 6, 1926.

The regular meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Liberal Christian Church was held at the Kimball House restaurant at 6 p.m., Tuesday, April 6, 1926, all members being present, and with Mr. T. C. Perkins, Chairman of the Finance Committee in attendance. After all had enjoyed supper together, President Harding called the meeting to order, and the minutes of the last regular meeting were read and approved. A financial statement was presented by Mr. Rogers, the Treasurer, to each one present, and this showed a balance of $174.60 on hand.

A motion was made and carried that the organist, Mr. Paul Hubbard, and the minister have charge of the music.

Mr. Perkins at this time brought to the attention of the Trustees the matter of changing the arrangement of the organ, as requested and suggested by Mr. Hubbard. He stated that Mr. Hubbard wanted to have key-board of the organ changed from its present position, so that he could observe the soloist to better advantage; and that Mr. Hubbard felt that better results could be obtained by making this change. Upon motion by Mrs. Stanford which was seconded, it was voted to change the arrangement of the, organ, as suggested.

The approaching convention of the Southern Unitarian Conference at Orlando, Fla., was next discussed, and it was voted that Mrs. John W. Rowlett be sent as a delegate from this parish, her travelling expenses for the trip to be paid by this church.

Mr. Perkins gave a report of what had been done by the Pulpit Supply Committee in arranging a fine series of addresses on the general subject of the Ethical and Religious Significance of Science, beginning April 11th and continuing through May 9th. He told the Trustees that the committee had secured the cooperation of the following men to give addresses on succeeding Sundays during the series: Rev. Mr. J. B. Tegarden, of New Orleans; Rev. Mr. Frederick R. Griffin, D. D., of Philadelphia; Rev. Mr. Lon R. Call, of Louisville, Ky.; Dr. Robert C. Rhodes, of Emory University; Rabbi David Marx, D. D., of this city; and Rev. Stannard D. Butler, D. D., of St. Petersburg, Fla. Mr. Perkins stated that folders announcing the series would be ready for distribution in a few days. It was suggested that wide distribution of these folders be made. He also stated that this series would be advertised in the press.

At this time, it was voted that the Pulpit Supply Committee and the Finance Committee be invited to meet with the Board of Trustees at their regular meetings.

There being no other business, the meeting was then adjourned.

Arthur H. Scott, Clerk.

Physical Archive: UUCA Box: 26   Folder: 03
Citation: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Records, RG 026, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta GA

Liberal Christian Church - Meeting Minutes, Mar 2, 1926 (Defer Action on Calling Rev. Lewis)

1 January 2014 at 00:00

3/2/26.

MEETING OF TRUSTEES

March 2, 1926.

The regular monthly meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Liberal Christian Church was held at the Kimball House restaurant at 6 p.m., Tuesday, March 2, 1926, all members being in attendance. There met with the Board the members of the Finance Committee, Messrs. Perkins, Draper, and Greene, and Rev. Mr. Rowlett was also present. After a pleasant supper together President Harding called the meeting to order, and the minutes of the last Board Meeting were read and approved. The monthly financial statement was read by the Treasurer, and this showed a balance of $67.57 on hand.

A letter was read from Dr. Horner of the Nashville Unitarian Church offering to preach for us on his trip to the Unitarian Conference at Orlando, Fla., in April. Mr. Rowlett at this juncture stated that he thought it would be a good thing for the church to arrange a series of addresses on the topic of science and its ethical and religious significance. Mr. Rowlett was thereupon appointed chairman of the pulpit supply committee to arrange such a series of addresses and also to arrange for sermons by ministers who might be going to the Unitarian Conference at Orlando, Fla. President Harding also appointed Mr. T. C. Perkins and Dr. Faulkner to serve on this committee. Mr. Rowlett asked the Clerk, Mr. A. H. Scott, to serve as secretary of this committee. The sum of $20.00 was authorized for the expenses of the committee.

A letter was read from Mr. Herman who is now living in Miami, Fla., requesting that he be given a church letter, and the Clerk was instructed to send him such a letter.

Some damage was reported done to the organ, and the Board was informed that the organist had requested that some lattice work be built to protect the organ from further damage. Mr. W. J. Draper was asked to look after this matter.

Mr. Rogers, the Treasurer, was appointed chairman of a committee to have, charge of the church property, a sort of “house committee”, to work with a committee from the Women’s Union, consisting of Mrs. Perry and Mrs. Hiatt.

After considerable discussion it was adopted as the sense of the Board of Trustees that action be deferred on the matter of calling Rev. Mr. Lester L. Lewis to act as minister of this church, and that such recommendation be made to the Church meeting to be held on March 7th.

The meeting was then adjourned.

(signed) Arthur H. Scott, Clerk.

Financial Statement of the Liberal Christian Church from February 2, 1926 to March 2, 1926

Comments Sub Total Total
Balance on Hand, February 2, 1926 $112.50
Receipts
Plate collections $29.68
Pledges $35.10
Rents $50.52
Miscellaneous $3.80
Total Receipts $119.10
Grand Total $231.60
Disbursements
New Record Book and Supplies for Clerk $7.10
Janitor $20.00
Oil for Janitor $1.00
Water Bills $1.00
Expenses for Rev. Lewis $144.93
Total Disbursements $174.03
Balance on hand, March 2, 1926 $67.57

Bills Unpaid

Comments Sub Total Total
Music $40.00
Pulpit Supply (Feb 28, 1926) $25.00
Repairs to Organ $50.00
Total Unpaid $115.00

There remains, besides, light bill not rendered in January and Febraury and the city taxes for 1925.

Respectfully submitted,
A.H. Scott, Treasurer

Physical Archive: UUCA Box: 26   Folder: 03
Citation: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Records, RG 026, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta GA

Liberal Christian Church - Meeting Minutes, Feb 2, 1926 (Monthly Trustee Meeting)

1 January 2014 at 00:00

2/2/26

MEETING OF TRUSTEES

February 2nd, 1926.

The regular monthly meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Liberal Christian Church was held at the Kimball House restaurant at 6 p.m., Tuesday, February 2nd, 1926, those present being Mr. Harding, Mr. Blake, Mr. Scott and Mrs. Perry. Mr. Knox, Mrs. Stanford and Mr. Rogers were absent. Mr. Faulkner, Chairman of the Special Committee that reported at the meeting of the church on January 28th, 1926, was present. After a supper together President Harding called the meeting to order and the minutes of the last Board Meeting were read and approved. The monthly financial statement of the Treasurer, Mr. Scott showed a balance of $112.50 on hand.

Mr. Scott, elected clerk at the recent church meeting, was authorized to purchase a loose-leaf book for his records, after Mr. Faulkner had explained just what he thought was needed.

It was also voted that all bills should be passed upon by the Finance Committee before being paid by the Treasurer. After a little informal talk, the meeting adjourned.

A. H. Scott, Clerk.

Note: The Treasurer’s monthly statement follows as a part of these Minutes:

Financial Statement of the Liberal Christian Church from January 5th, 1926 to February 2nd, 1926.

Comments Sub Total Total
Balance on Hand, January 5, 1926 $213.04
Receipts
Plate collections $32.96
Pledges $195.15
Miscellaneous $2.65
Universalist G.C. $499.25
Total Receipts $730.01
Grand Total $943.05
Disbursements
Music, etc. $90.00
Janitor $17.00
Coal $33.00
Pulpit Supply $100.00
Miscellaneous $52.00
Sanitary Supplies $.80
Water Bill $4.00
Interest $131.25
Note (4th National Bank) $400.00
C.C. Downs (keys) $2.50
Total Disbursements $830.55
Balance on hand, February 2, 1926 $112.50

 

Respectfully submitted,
A.H. Scott, Treasurer

Physical Archive: UUCA Box: 26   Folder: 03
Citation: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Records, RG 026, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta GA

Liberal Christian Church - Meeting Minutes, Jan 28, 1926 (Special Meeting)

1 January 2014 at 00:00

1/28/26

SPECIAL MEETING OF LIBERAL CHRISTIAN CHURCH January 28th, 1926.

A special meeting of the Liberal Christian Church, called to hear the report and recommendations of the special or “Steering Committee”, appointed at the Annual Meeting of the Church on November 13th, 1925, was held in the Sunday School Room on January ”8th, 1926, beginning at 6:00 p.m. About 50 members were in attendance.

Following a delightful supper, prepared by the ladies of the church, the meeting was culled to order by the president, Wade P. Harding. Mr. A. H. Scott was appointed secretary pro tem. The minutes of the Annual meeting on November 13th, 1925, were read and approved. The Treasurer, Mr. A. H. Scott, then read a financial statement for the year, ending December 31st, 1925. This was done to show conditions for the year which later, upon recommendation of the “Steering Committee’, was adopted as the fiscal year of the church. A supplementary financial statement showing conditions from January 1st, 1926 to January 28th, 1926, was also read, and this showed that either all bills had been paid or money was on hand to pay all bills still due and unpaid, with the exception of the taxes for 1925, the amount of which was not definitely known. It also showed that there was still a small balance or surplus on hand, a condition far different from that reported at the annual meeting. The Treasurer’s statement-is appended as a part of this record, See Exhibit “A”.

The report of the Steering Committee was then called for and the Chairman, Mr. Jas. P. Faulkner, read a full and complete report which showed that a careful survey of conditions of the parish had been made and steps had been taken to put the church on a firm and substantial basis. The financial condition of the church was gone into thoroughly, arrangements having been made to pay off outstanding bills amounting to about 8600.00; the parish records were carefully lo0ked over and collected, though there were some records still missing; arrangements for pulpit supply were adequately made, Mr. Faulkner, expanding his teaching of the adult class into more formal remarks and changing the hour of the class to that of the morning service, conducted the services admirably during December, and Dr. J. W. Rowlett gave his usual pleasing sermons during January.

The study of the committee led them to recommend several changes in the constitution of the church. Among these was the proposal to change the name of the church from “Liberal Christian Church” to “The Church of the Liberals”. It was suggested that the fiscal year be made to coincide with the calendar year and that the annual meeting be held in January, with two other church meetings during the year, one in May and the other in September or October; that the number of trustees be reduced from 9 to 7, consisting of the President, Clerk, and Treasurer, with 4 other members, and that the terms of the officers (president, clerk and treasurer) be for three years, while two of the other trustees should be elected for two years, and the other two for one year, it being recommended, however, that for the current year all trustees should be elected for a term of one year. Other recommendations were that the date of children’s Sunday be changed from June to May; that the annual contribution to the Universalist General Convention and to the American Unitarian Association to put at $25.00 each; that a budget of $6,000.00 be authorized, of which $3,600 was to be for the pastor’s salary; that the records of the clerk and the treasurer be modernized; that the history of both the Unitarian and the Universalist churches up to the time of the union as the Liberal Christian Church be written up, and that a Historian-Librarian be appointed.

All recommendations and amendments to the Constitution were unanimously adopted, except that concerning the change of the name of the church.  After considerable discussion this matter was carried over for consideration at the next regular meeting of the church. For Revised Constitution, see Exhibit “B”.

The Committee then recommended that the following be elected Trustees for one year: Wade P. Harding, President; Arthur H. Scott, Clerk; J. V. Rogers, Treasurer; Mrs. N. V. Perry, Harry C. Blake, R. C. Knox and Mrs. Calvin Stanford. This slate or list was elected. Mrs. J. P. Faulkner was elected Superintendent of the Sunday School in place of Mr. R. C. Knox, who was made a member of the Board of Trustees. Mrs. Draper and Mrs. N. V. Perry were selected respectively to write the history of the Unitarian and Universalist Churches prior to the union. For report of Steering Committee, see Exhibit “C”.

Dr. Rowlett and H. C. Blake were elected Deacons for the year, and the President appointed the following Finance Committee: T. C. Perkins, W. J. Draper and P. M. Greene. He announced that other committees would be appointed later.

After some remarks by Mr. Perkins relative to the condition and prospects of the church the meeting was adjourned.

(Signed) A. H. Scott, Sec’y. Pro tem.
Financial Statement for the Period from January 1, 1925 to January 1, 1926

Comments Sub Total Total
Balance on Hand, January 1, 1925 $72.13
Receipts
Plate collections $293.80
Pledges $1,791.76
Rents $423.75
Universalist G.C. $1,130.26
Miscellaneous Sources $82.53
Note to 4th National Bank $395.25
Total Receipts $4,027.35
Disbursements
Dues
Unitarian $15.00
Universalist $15.00
Total Dues $30.00
Incidentals, Interest, Insurance, Taxes
Incidentals $163.16
Interest $263.15
Insurance $336.75
Taxes $85.15
Total Incidentals, Interest, Insurance, Taxes $848.47
Printing $113.95
Advertising $65.62
Fuel, Gas, Light, Water
Fuel $87.50
Gas & Electricity $111.41
Water $13.50
Total Fuel, Gas, Light, Water $212.41
Janitor $184.50
Supplies $12.50
Total Janitor & Supplies $197.00
Repairs $53.60
Music $530.00
Pastor’s Salary ($1,822.32 on 1925) $1,933.32
Total Expenditures $3,984.32
Balance on hand, January 1, 1926 $115.11

Respectfully submitted,

Treasurer

Physical Archive: UUCA Box: 26   Folder: 03
Citation: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Records, RG 026, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta GA

Liberal Christian Church - Meeting Minutes, Jan 28, 1926 (Special Report)

1 January 2014 at 00:00

Exhibit “C”         1/28/26

REPORT OF THE STEERING COMMITTEE
Appointed at the Annual Meeting of the Liberal Christian Church November 13, 1925.

The motion authorizing the Steering Committee specified that its purpose was “To look into the Church records, reorganize the finances, and in general take charge of the affairs of the church, reporting at a call meeting at as early a date as possible.”

Considering the emergencies confronting the church at the time of the Annual Meeting the Committee could not do otherwise than take their appointment seriously and they have labored constantly to accomplish the things for which they were appointed and in a way that will prove, they hope, of the greatest advantage to the church and meet, as nearly as possible, the approval of all.

The first meeting of the committee was held Sunday afternoon November 15th, in the office of the Chairman. The pastor, Dr. Bowden, had resigned previous to the annual meeting and his resignation had been accepted by the Board. Since he was still in the city he was asked to preach on the 15th. Inasmuch as he had no definite plans for the future the chairman of the committee off erred him work in the state in the interest of the tuberculosis movement for several weeks. He was glad to accept the offer since it gave him time to formulate his plans.

At the first meeting of the committee, therefore, two emergencies were faced. It was necessary at once to provide for the regular Sunday Services and measures had to be taken to meet the rather serious financial situation disclosed at the annual meeting. A suggestion from outside of the committee proved a solution to the question of the Sunday services. It was that the Adult Class instead of meeting at ten o’clock as usual, take the eleven o’clock period and the entire church be invited to attend, thus letting the class address take the place of the Sunday morning sermon. The Chairman of the Committee, being also the class leader, hesitated quite awhile before accepting the suggestion, and did not accept it as a regular procedure until it was voted upon following a tryout of the plan on the following Sunday. The approval of the Church, however, was so emphatic that the order was agreed upon until the first of the year and so the committee was relieved to take up the consideration of the financial situation.

This plan seemed the only solution since Dr. Rowlett, who might have been called upon, was at that time sick. Beginning with the first Sunday in January, however, he was sufficiently well to be drafted into service and has filled the pulpit very acceptably for the past four Sundays.

Since the Treasurer, Mr. Scott, was also sick and could not be with the committee at the first meeting it was impossible to determine just what the indebtedness of the church was. It was apparent, however, that there were a number of pledges that had not been entirely paid, and so the committee sent out a letter to the membership announcing the plan for the Sunday morning services, urging everyone to contribute as liberally as possible, and those who knew they were in arrears to endeavor to make full payment. A letter was also dispatched to the Universalist General Convention making inquiry as to the amount that might be expected as income on the fund held by them in the interest of the Atlanta Church. The membership list of the church was also canvassed at this first meeting and it was discovered that the list published about a year previously was slightly depleted by removals and other causes, the total roll being, as nearly as could be determined, 130, of whom thirteen are non-residents.

The committee held another meeting Sunday the 22nd of November, and, the Treasurer and president of the Board being present, and additional records being discovered, it was determined that the immediate indebtedness was a little more than $600.00. of which about $240.00 was due the retiring pastor. Although the response of the membership to the appeal for funds was proving encouraging and the prospects for the attendance at the services good, the committee felt that the best way to handle the situation was to borrow $400.00 and clear up all the outstanding indebtedness. The Board concurred in this suggestion and by the next meeting the committee was in position to take up the other problems before it.

It is hardly necessary to go into the details of all of the meetings of the committee. Six regular Sunday afternoon meetings were held, three call meetings after church and one joint meeting with the Board to discuss the church’s problems with Dr. Lowe of the Universalist General Convention, who came from Boston for the purpose, and Dr. Wilson, coming up from Jacksonville, to represent the American Unitarian Association. This meeting was held in the Director’s Room of the Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday afternoon December 16th, and it proved to be a very inspiring occasion, both Dr. Lowe and Dr. Wilson pledging the support of the two parent bodies to the Atlanta Church in its efforts to fulfill its mission. The matter of securing a pastor was discussed at length and, since it was thought best to look to the Universalist for the next minister, Dr. Lowe was authorized to endeavor to find a suitable man for the place. It was understood, however, that a minister would not be called until the committee had made its report and the affairs of the church were placed upon a better footing.

Mention has already been made of the membership roll. The slight decrease in membership did not seem to be a serious matter and it was concluded that, under favorable conditions, there is no reason why the Cause of Liberal Christianity should not draw to itself valuable recruits constantly. Every member of the committee was encouraged by the fact that the membership was rallying and giving its support to the new order, the Sunday School was doing well, the Woman’s Union as prosperous, devoted and helpful as ever, the Men’s Club, faithful and determined to do more to boost the services, increase the finances, and in general to advertise the church program than ever before, and the Young people’s Christian Union, loyal, enthusiastic and interested in advancing the Liberal Faith among the young. On the material side the fact that the church building is unencumbered, in splendid condition, beautiful in design and appointment, adequate for the present needs, and that the property has increased tremendously in value since its purchase, being valued at certainly not less than $75,000.00 justifies a very wholesome optimism. The parsonage property is not in good condition, though it was assessed in 1925 at $15,217.00. All in all the church plant, if it should be decided within the next few years to dispose of it, would probably bring something like $100,000.

The committee found that there is a mortgage on the parsonage property of $3,750.00. This mortgage was originally $4,500.00 but it was reduced in 1923 by subscriptions of the membership totaling $750.00. The interest on this mortgage is 7% or $262.50 per year. It is payable in semi-annual installments of $131.25 each. The next payment is due February 1st, next Monday. The committee is glad to announce that the Treasurer has funds on hand sufficient to pay off this interest and also the note due the Fourth National Bank.

The committee also made a thorough study of the insurance on the church property and found that there is a three year policy of $20,000 which expires April 1st, 1928 on the church building and a policy of equal date on the organ for $1,250.00; another of equal date on church furniture of $1,250.00 or a total of $22,500.00 on the church proper. There is also a policy on the parsonage, bearing the same date, for $8,500.00. The grand total on the church and parsonage is $31,000.00.  The premiums on all these policies are paid up until April 1st, 1928.

A careful study was also made of the matter of taxation of the church property. As is generally known church buildings are not taxed but any buildings or apartments rented or otherwise used to produce income are, according to Georgia laws, taxable. It was found that $69.23 was paid in taxes on the parsonage for the year 1924. Upon inquiry at the City hall we learned that the assessment had been reduced from $18,061.00 in 1924 to $15,217.00 in 1925, and that the total tax with interest, etc. for the year would be $240.14. We were advised to have a representative go before the proper authorities and ask that this amount be reduced as in previous years. The committee asked Mr. Blake to perform this service and we learned, through him, that one fourth of the entire amount, or $60.04 will be expected, as this is the basis of settlement for all church property similarly used in the city. The committee has been advised, however, that, in the future if the entire parsonage is rented, the full amount of the listed tax will have to be paid.

Upon inquiry at the County Tax collector’s Office, the chairman learned that the parsonage property had never been listed and he was told that probably no payment will be expected for 1925. It was made clear, however, that if the property should be sold, in order to get clear title, back taxes would have to be paid. It should be mentioned here that at its first meeting the committee recommended to the Board of Trustees that the entire parsonage be placed in the hands of the Adair Realty Company for rental at $75.00 per month less their commission. The Trustees approved the suggestion and the property was rented early in December.

Mention has been made of the letter of inquiry addressed to the Universalist General Convention immediately following the first meeting of the committee concerning the fund held in trust for the church. The response came in due time and made it possible for the committee to take up the matter of the Church Budget for 1926.

The Treasurer of the Convention, Mr. A. I. Bicknell, wrote under date of November 23rd, that the fund at present amounts to $20,470.67 The investments on this fund ware tabulated showing that the income for the year will total about $1,130.00 and that payments will be made in January, February, April, July and August.

The impression had grown in church circles and among the committee that this fund might be expected to decrease, but Mr. Bicknell’s letter indicates that it is permanent and that the payments will be made yearly as long as the present arrangement continues, unless, of course, some of the investments should prove worthless, which is not likely.

Following a very thorough study of the Constitution of the church, the committee came to the conclusion that its revision is necessary if it is to be brought into accord with the progressive spirit of the organization. Going into the matter in detail the following are the changes that by a unanimous vote they submit for your consideration:

Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution reads as follows:

“This Organization shall be known as the LIBERAL CHRISTIAN CHURCH OF ATLANTA.”

It is suggested that the name be changed to -THE CHURCH OF THE LIBERALS, ATLANTA, GA. If you approve, the Article will read as follows:

“Article ‘, Section 1 – This organization shall be known as THE CHURCH OF THE LIBERALS, ATLANTA, GA.

Article II, Section 2 reads:

“A regular missionary offering shall be taken each year for the Universalist General Convention and the American Unitarian Association and the amount received at this offering shall be divided equally between these two bodies. An annual offering shall also be taken for the Georgia State Conventions of these two bodies and shall be equally divided between them.”

The following is offered as a substitute:

A regular contribution of $50.00 shall be made each year, one half of which shall be for the Universalist General Convention and one half for the American Unitarian Association.

Article VI Section 1 in its present form, is as follows:

“The Officers of this church shall be a Pastor, a Chairman, Secretary-Treasurer, two Deacons and Board of nine Trustees, of which the Sunday School Superintendent shall be ex-officio member.”

The Committee recommends instead the following:

The officers of this church shall consist of seven trustees, a pastor, two Deacons, and a Historian-Librarian.

It is further suggested that Section 2, referring to Deacons shall be numbered Section 3 and left unchanged and that Section 3 shall be numbered Section 2. This section reads:

“At the first annual meeting two Trustees shall be elected to serve one year, two for two years, two for three years, and two for four years, after that two shall be elected each year to serve for a period of four years.”

The committee offers as a substitute, which will be Section 2 of Article VI, the following:

Article VI, Section 2 – In electing the trustees one shall be designated, President, one, Clerk, and one, Treasurer, and these officers shall be president, clerk and treasurer of the church as well as of the Board. At the church meeting, at which this amendment to the Constitution is ratified, all the trustees shall be elected for a term ending with the next annual meeting at which time the president, clerk and treasurer shall be elected for 3 years, two trustees for two years and two for one year. At the expiration of their respective terms their successors shall be elected for the full term of three years.

In order to make this Article consistent, if the above amendments are agreed to the Committee voted to recommend the dropping of Section 4 which is as follows:

“Article VI, Section 4 – At its first meeting after the Annual Meeting, the Board of Trustees shall elect from its number a Chairman, Vice-chairman, Clerk and Treasurer, who shall also be respectively, Chairman, Vice-chairman, Clerk and Treasurer of the Church.”

If Section 4 is dropped then Section 5 should be numbered 4, leaving the section to read as at present:

“Article VI, Section 4 – The pastor shall be elected by the Church at a regular meeting or at a special meeting called for that purpose, of which due notice has been given.”

Article VII, Section 3 reads:

“In the absence of the Chairman, the Vice-chairman shall act in his place.”

To bring this section into accord with the amendments in Article VI, the word, “Chairman” should be changed to “President” and the title “Vice-president dropped, so that the Section, if amended will be:

Article VII, Section 3 – In the absence of the president those present shall choose one of their number to preside.

Article VII, Section 6, the next to the last sentence in the section, speaking of the Trustees, reads as follows:

“They shall meet on the second Tuesday in each month.” ‘The committee offers this substitute:

They shall meet monthly at a time and place arranged by themselves.

Article VIII, Section 1 is as follows:

“The annual meeting for the hearing of reports, election of Trustees and other officers, and for the transaction of any business which may properly come before it, shall be held on the second Friday in November each year, due notice of which shall be given from the pulpit.”

It is recommended that the Church Year hereafter correspond with the calendar year, and that the Annual Meeting be held on the second Friday in January, of each year, instead of in November. The committee also recommends that two other meetings be held during the year, as nearly as possible, four months apart, and they suggest that the Article be amended to read:

Article VIII, Section 1 – The annual meeting for the hearing of reports, the election of Trustees and other officers, and for the transaction of any business which may properly come before it, shall be held on the second Friday in January of each year. Due notice of this meeting shall be given from the pulpit. Two other meetings of the membership shall be held during the year, one before the summer vacation in May and one following the vacation in September. The exact date shall be fixed by the Trustees, the purpose being to select the most suitable date and at the same time let four months intervene between the meetings.

Article VIII, Section 2:

“Special Meetings may be called by the pastor, Board of Trustees, or on written request of ten members, but in order that any business may be legally transacted two weeks notice of said special meeting shall be given.”

It is suggested that the word, “pastor” be dropped from this Section making it read:

Article VIII, Section 2, Special meetings may be called by the Board of Trustees, or on written request of ten members, but, in order that any business may be legally transacted, two weeks notice of said special meeting shall be given.

Article VIII, Section 3:

“Ten members shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of business at any church meeting.”

The committee recommends that twenty-five be substituted for ten making the section read:

Article VIII, Section 3, Twenty-five members shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of business at any Church meeting.

Article IX, Section 2 reads:

“The second Sunday in June shall be designated Children’s Sunday unless some more convenient day shall be chosen”.

The Committee proposes the substitution of, “The last Sunday in May”, making the section read:

“Article IX, Section 2 – The last Sunday in May shall be observed as Children’s Sunday unless some more convenient day shall be chosen.”

The committee has been impressed with the need not only of carefully and correctly kept church records, but the importance of such a presentation of church life as will convey a picture of the church’s activities at any particular time and they suggest that a Historian should be appointed whose business it will be to collect the data covering the entire period of the history of the church in both of its branches and that installments of this history be read at the Church Meetings in May and September. To give this matter the importance they deem advisable it is suggested that the historian be considered an officer of the church and to provide for his or her election they offer the following-

Article VI, Section 5 – The Historian of the Church, who may also act as Librarian, shall be elected by the church at either of the regular meetings provided by the Constitution.

To explain the duties of this officer the committee suggests the addition of a section to be known as Section 8 of Article VII, as follows:

Article VII, Section 8, The Historian shall collect all possible data concerning the past history of the church      compile the same in a readable, historical form.  Attention shall also be given to the collection of photographs and pictures, relating to the church, its pastors, officers and members, and its activities. It shall also be the duty of the Historian to take note f the current history of the church, collecting and preserving such matters as may be of future interest. All historical data should be kept in a suitable case or cases, under lock and key, at a place provided in the church, and the Historian, as Librarian, should have the care of all books and pamphlets belonging to the church and Sunday School that may be on hand or later acquired.    It shall also be the duty of the Historian-Librarian to foster and preserve a definite church library.

Under article VII, Section 2, provision is made for the President to appoint all committees unless otherwise ordered, though no mention is made of any standing committees. The Steering Committee recommends that Article XI – Amendments- be numbered Article XII and that the following be inserted as Article XI.

Article XI – Standing Committees – The following Standing Committees are hereby provided for: FINANCE, consisting of three or five members; CHURCH COOPERATION, consisting of the pastor and a member of the Men’s Club, the Woman’s Union, the Sunday School and the young people’s Christian Union, and a member of each such organization as may be hereafter formed; and the HOUSE COMMITTEE, consisting of three women or two women and one man. The duty of this latter committee is to see that the church from balcony thru the basement and out to the street is kept clean and orderly. The president shall be ex-officio member of all Standing Committees.

The Constitution has no provision for the election of the Superintendent of the Sunday School. The committee, therefore recommends that Article IX, Section 2 and 3 be numbered Section 4 and 5 respectively and that the following be inserted as Section 2 –

Article IX, Section 2 – The Superintendent of the Sunday School shall be elected by the Church at the Annual Meeting or at either of the regular church or call meetings. In case of a vacancy between these meetings the office may be filled by appointment of the Trustees, and the appointee confirmed at the next church meeting.

Article IX, Section 3 – For the better promotion and advancement of the School a Sunday School Council shall be formed to consist of the Pastor, the Superintendent and other officers and teachers of the school. A regular and set time may be fixed by the Council for its meetings, or the members may be called together by the pastor or the Superintendent.

It is very gratifying to the committee at the conclusion of its work to be able to report the Church finances in excellent condition. The committee and the Treasurer have been cooperating from the first and while Mr. Scott will be called upon to make a detailed report a little later, I believe you will permit us to summarize his report here. We asked that the Treasurer’s statement be given us in two sections, complete for 1925 and an additional report covering the month of January 1926 to date, so that a definite and accurate balance could be shown at this time. The summary is as follows:

Comments Sub Total Total
Balance on Hand, Jan. 1st, 1925 $72.13
Receipts during the year $4,027.35
Total receipts for the calendar year, 1925 $4,099.48
Total expenditures – 1925 $3,984.37
Balance on hand, January 1, 1926 $115.11
The Summary for January, 1926 to date is as follows:
Balance on hand, January 1, 1926 $115.11
Receipts to date $633.54
Total receipts 1926 to date $748.65
Total expenditures, 1926 to date $104.30
Balance on Hand, January 28th, 1926 $644.35
Due to be paid on Feb. 1st, 1926 $603.75
Credit balance after allowing for payment of outstanding bills on Feb. 1st $40.60

Taking up the matter of the budget, the committee realized that it would have to be tentative and dependent upon the pledges of the church membership as well as upon rather definite promises, though indefinite as to amount of financial assistance from the two parent bodies. With this understanding a study was begun of the church expenditures for certain specific purposes during several preceding years. Fortunately through the kindness of Mr. and Mrs. Green the committee came into possession of the budget of the Central Congregational Church which served as a rather valuable guide. It was realized at first that some difficulty might be experienced in providing adequate salary for the pastor. The committee was unanimous in the opinion that the church could never expect to secure a pastor of the type and attainments desired until a much better salary is offered and it was decided to suggest as a minimum $3,600.00. That point being settled other matters were taken up and the following complete, though tentative, budget agreed upon:

TENTATIVE BUDGET FOR 1926

Description Amount
Dues to the two Parent Bodies $50.00
Interest $262.50
Printing & advertising $300.00
Fuel, Gas, Light, Water and phone $250.00
Janitor $200.00
Repairs on building including incidentals and labor $477.50
Taxes $60.00
Pulpit Supply $100.00
Music, choir and organ $700.00
Minister’s salary $3,600.00
Total $6,000.00

For meeting this budget in the light of past receipts, the following is submitted:

Description Amount
Plate Collections $315.00
Membership Pledges $2,000.00
Rents $855.00
Universalist General Convention $1,130.00
Prospective support from parent Bodies $1,700.00
Total $6,000.00

The item for plate collections above provides for only a slight increase over the actual receipts from that source in 1925, while the amount for membership pledges is nearly $300.00 more than the actual receipts for the past year. The amount for rents is the actual income, provided the rent continues during the year, which it is expected to do and the income from the fund in the hands of the Universalist General Convention is the same as the amount received last year. From this tabulation it ;rill be seen that it will be necessary to increase the membership pledges approximately $300.00 and the committee hopes they can be still further increased so as to reduce the amount that will have to be asked from the two parent bodies. It should be realized that the more the church itself can raise the more inclined will those in authority in Boston be to help. It may be that if the sum raised here is sufficiently large Boston will contribute a sum sufficient to pay the pastor even more and thereby secure a higher type man.

The committee made a careful study of the various church records and regret to report that none were found that are really adequate or satisfactory. It will be recalled that there would have been no occasion for postponing the election of officers and the appointment of this committee if the Secretary’s minutes had shown what officers were to be elected. These minutes are further at fault in that the records of two or three recent annual meetings are not recorded, and notes found that seem to be reports of annual meetings are neither dated nor signed and are therefore useless. It is hoped to avoid such carelessness by the suggestion already made relative to the appointment and duties of a clerk. Here we recommend that a loose-leaf record book be provided for the minutes of all meetings – loose-leaf because all minutes, records and reports should be typewritten.

If this suggestion is approved the committee offers its services to start the matter off by copying first in this book the Minutes of the Annual Meeting on November 13th which authorized the study, these to be followed by the Minutes of the present meeting, this report, and the Amended Constitution. After this it would be the duty of the clerk to correctly copy all proceedings and reports therein.

The Pastors’ records are also inadequate, if not poorly kept, and the Treasurer’s books are cumbersome and such as to make it difficult on short notice to furnish information often wanted. We recommend a Kardex visible membership file for the pastor. These cards have ample space for all necessary data concerning the member and in fact, when properly filled out, give a picture of the individual’s church life. At first all these cards are current but when members move away or die, the cards are placed in alphabetical order in a closed or historical file. The membership is the significant thing about a church and as much care ought to be given to keeping and preserving the records as is given to the building.

A Kardex visible file is suggested for the Treasurer also. These cards are double with carbon between and arranged so that when the quarter record of payments is complete this quarter section may be torn off and sent to the subscriber while the permanent record beneath remains in the file. This system will reduce the Treasurer’s work to a minimum, but possibly its greatest virtue is that it will make errors almost impossible.

The Committee wishes to thank you for your confidence and assure you that we shall be glad to be called upon at any time we can be of any assistance.

Respectfully submitted,

J. P. Faulkner, Chairman
T. C. Perkins
W. J. Draper
Mrs. U. L. McCall
Mrs. Hanson Jones.

1/28/26

Physical Archive: UUCA Box: 26   Folder: 03
Citation: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Records, RG 026, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta GA

Liberal Christian Church - Meeting Minutes, Nov 13, 1925 (Annual Meeting)

1 January 2014 at 00:00

11/13/25

MINUTES OF THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE LIBERAL CHRISTIAN CHURCH
Atlanta, Ga., 6:30 P. M. November 13th, 1925.

Following a delightful church supper served, as usual, by the Woman’s Union, the President, Mr. Harding, culled the assembly to order for the transaction of business. Before asking for reports Mr. Harding spoke at length of the work of the church for the year making some comparisons between the present financial status and that of the preceding year. He showed the situation was such as to challenge the interest and loyalty of every member.

At the conclusion of the President’s address Mr. R. C. Knox Superintendent of the Sunday School, was introduced. He spoke briefly of the equipment and personnel of the school recounting the fact that the school room had been greatly beautified during the year and lauding very highly his corps of teachers and officers. He pled earnestly for a census of the potential membership of the school and the support of every one in securing the maximum attendance.

Mr. Knox was followed by Mrs. H. C. Blake, President of the Business Woman’s Club. Mrs. Blake spoke very interestingly of the Club’s activities as related to the work of the church.

Mrs. Calvin Stanford, president of the Woman’s Union, then introduced Mrs. McCall, the Secretary of the Union, who gave a very interesting report of the activities of that organization. The Woman’s Union is one of the strongest and most helpful organizations in the church and the year’s report of progress was received with enthusiasm.

The Men’s Club was next called upon and the President, Mr. Wroth, responded and showed how the club had, aside from its monthly programs, which had been very instructive and helpful to the members, taken an interest in the Sunday School, swelling particularly the numbers of the Adult class and rallying to the support of the church and school in the several appeals for funds to improve the school room, provide for the entertainment of the Southern Unitarian Conference and all other interests of the church.

In introducing Miss Marian Fisher, president of the Young People’s Union Mr. Harding called attention to the important work being done by that organization and Miss Fisher, in her report, showed conclusively that the president’s praise of the organization was not misplaced. The young people meet each Sunday evening for supper and a half hour of recreation followed by religious service. They also have charge of the church service one Sunday during the year and send delegates to the state and tri-state meetings and are taking an important part in the work of the young people of the two National bodies.

The retiring pastor, Rev. E. J. Bowden, then submitted his report. He reviewed the leading events of the year, commenting upon the matters of chief interest. In closing he feelingly thanked the various organizations for their support during his pastorate and earnestly urged continued loyalty to the church on the part of all.

The President called attention to the illness of Dr. Rowlett and upon motion the Secretary was directed to write a letter of sympathy and express the hope of the church that he would be quickly restored to health.

The matter of the election of Trustees and other officers came up for discussion and some difficulty being found in the effort to determine whose terms had expired, and the suggestion being made that the entire Board resign, Mr. Faulkner moved that the election be postponed and that a Steering Committee be appointed to look into the church records, reorganize the finances and in general take charge of the affairs of the church, reporting at a call meeting at as early a date as possible. The motion was unanimously carried and the President appointed the committee as follows – Jas. P. Faulkner, Chairman, W. J. Draper, T. C. Perkins, Mrs. H. W. Jones and Mrs. U. L. McCall.

Adjournment was then taken to meet again on call of the committee.

R. C. Knox, Clerk pro tem.

Physical Archive: UUCA Box: 26   Folder: 03
Citation: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Records, RG 026, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta GA

 

Listing of Church Services Conducted in Atlanta 1879 to 1923

1 January 2014 at 00:00

The table below contains an inventory of Universalists and Unitarian services conducted in Atlanta from 1879 to 1923.  The information was obtained by reviewing newspapers covered in this time span and extract church service information.  This inventory many not be complete.   For church service notices found in the the newspaper, effort was extended to extract:

  • The minister conducting the service
  • The sermon or lecture topic
  • The location of the church service
  • The times of the sermon / lecture

This information provides documentation on the activity of Universalists and Unitarians in Atlanta, the buildings/locations used for church services, the ministers involved and topics covered in sermons.

If access to original newspaper clippings are required, please use the Contact form and request that information.

DateDescription
1879.07.20Notice - Rev. Bowman NC Universalist to Preach in Hall of Representatives in Capitol Building
1879.10.26Notice - Rev. W.C. Bowman to Provide Discourse at No. 9 Mitchell Street. Morning: "What is Truth" ; Evening: "The Truth Tested" No. ( Mitchell is noted as the Georgia Academy of Science building
1880.03.21Notice - Rev. Bowman Pastor No. 9 Mitchell Street. Morning: "What the Universalist Believe"; Evening: "Bible Proofs of Universal Salvation"; Sunday School 9:30am
1880.10.01Notice - Rev Bowman Re-elected Pastor of Universalist Church. Found in Gossip column
1880.11.02Notice - Rev. Burrus of Alabama Preached at Universalist Church. Rev. Burrus of Notasulga, AL is the editor of the Universalist Herald. Found in Personal Mention column.
1881.09.02Notice - Means's High School Begins Fourth Scholastic Year. Advertisement includes, "give our pupils the advantages of all improved modes of discipline", "when not in study, we have made arrangements to exercise them in military tactics"
1881.10.09Notice - Rev. Bowman at Liberal and Spiritual Church Walton and Forsyth streets. In Church Notices column. Also reference to Young's Men's Library at bottom of column.
1881.10.23Notice - Rev. Bowman Services at Liberal and Spiritual Church. Corner of Walton and Forsyth streets. In Church Notices column
1882.02.26Article - Rev. Chaney to speak in Senate Chambers
1882.03.04Notice - Rev. Chaney to Preach in Concordia Hall. Sermon: "Interdependence not Independence the Law of Christ". Concordia Hall is located on 40 Marietta Street
1882.03.19Notice - Rev. Chaney to Preach in Concordia Hall. Sermon: "Many Sects but One Church". Notice found in the "Church Notices" column. Also mention of the Liberal and Spiritual church at the corner of Walton and ForsythÉ.this may be the Universalist gathering
1882.03.26Notice - Chaney to Preach in Concordia Hall. Sermon: "Being and Owning". Universalist services listed to take place corner of Walton and Forsyth Street. Found in "Church Notices" column.
1882.04.02Notice - Chaney to preach in Concordia Hall. Also mention of "Liberal and Spiritual church" at "their hall, corner of Whitehall and Peters street. Notice in the "Churches Services" column. Note: Universalists had been meeting corner of Walton and Forsyth. Need to investigate.
1882.04.23Notice - Rev. Chaney to Preach in Concordia Hall Sermon. Sermon: (none listed). Services for Liberal and Spiritual church listed at corner of Whitehall and Peters street. Notices in the "Church Services" column
1882.04.30Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach in Concordia Hall. Sermon: "James Russell Lowell". Services for Liberal and Spiritual church listed at corner of Whitehall and Peters street. Notices in the "Church Services" column
1882.05.08Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach in Concordia Hall. Sermon: "Ralph Waldo Emerson" Services for Liberal and Spiritual church listed at corner of Whitehall and Peters street. Notices in the "Church Services" column
1882.05.14Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach in Concordia Hall. Sermon: "Wm Ellery Channing" Services for Liberal and Spiritual church listed at corner of Whitehall and Peters street. Notices in the "Church Services" column
1882.05.28Notice - Unitarian services to be held in Concordia Hall. Rev. Chaney is not named. Services for Liberal and Spiritual church listed at corner of Whitehall and Peters street. Notices in the "Church Services" column
1882.06.04Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach in Concordia Hall. Sermon (non listed). Services for Liberal and Spiritual church listed at corner of Whitehall and Peters street. Notices in the "Church Services" column
1882.11.19Notice - Unitarian Services in Concordia Hall in "Religious Services" column. Also notice that Rev. Chaney of Boston returns to Atlanta for the winter in the "Personal" column
1882.11.26Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach in US District court room post-office building. Sermon: none listed. Liberal and Spiritual church to meet in hall at 142 Whitehall Street. Notices in the "Religious Services" column
1882.12.10Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach in US District court room in the post-office building. Sermon: "Local Salvation". Notice in the "Religious Services" column
1882.12.17Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach in US District court room. Sermon: "Preparation of the Heart" Notice in the "Church Services" column
1882.12.24Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach in US District court room in the post-office building. Sermon: none listed. Notice in the "Church Services" column.
1883.01.14Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach in US District court room in the post-office building entrance on Forsyth Street. Sermon: none listed. Also notice for Liberal and Spiritual church at corner of Whitehall and Peters streets with lecture by S.T Marchant recently from South Africa. Notices in the "Church Services" column.
1883.02.11Notice - Unitarian services to be held in US District court entrance on Forsyth Street. Bible Study at 12:15. Sermon: None listed. Notice in the "Church Services" column.
1883.03.04Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach in US District court room in the post-office building service at 11:00am. Sermon: "Uncommon Honesty". Bible Study at 12:24 an 7:30 pm. Notice in the "Church Services" column.
1883.03.11Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach in US District court room in the post-office building service at 11:00am. Sermon at 11:00am: "Peacemakers". Sermon at 7:30 pm: "The Nation: Its Corner Stone". Notice in the "Church Services" column.
1883.03.18Notice - Rev. Chaney to hold service in US District court room. Sermon: "Education its physical basis". Notice in the "Church Services" column
1883.04.01Notice - Rev. Chaney discourse in US District court room. Evening topic: "Education in the Second Score of Man' Years" . Notice in the "Personal" column.
1883.04.15Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach in US District court room at 11am and 7:30pm. Universalists services by Rev. James Billings of Texas at the Knights of Temperance Hall 9 1/2 Mitchell Street. Notices in the "Church Services" column.
1883.05.06Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Prof. Means school house. Sermon: "The Fatherless". Church of our Father is now mentioned following establishment of church in March 1883. Property on Church and Forsyth Street has been purchased to build a chapel. Prof's Mean's school house was an existing building on the property.
1883.05.13Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Prof. Means school house at 11:00am. Sermon: None listed. Bible study at 12:15. Notice in the "Church Services" column.
1883.05.27Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Prof. Means school house at 11:00am. Sermon: None listed. Bible study at 12:15. Notice in the "Church Services" column.
1883.06.24Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Prof. Means school house. Sermon: "Tearing Down and Building Up". Bible study at 12:15. Notice in the "Church Services" column. Church services are listed by denomination in this column. In order with number of churches noted: Methodist (8), Episcopalian (2), Baptist (6), Presbyterian (2), Unitarian (1), Christian (1), Miscellaneous (1), Colored (2)
1883.07.01Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Prof. Means school house. Sermon: None listed. Notice in the "Church Services" column.
1883.07.08Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Prof. Means school house at 11:00am. Sermon: None listed. Also notice for Spiritualism Society held at Liberal Hall corner of Whitehall and Peters street. Farewell to Rev. Bowman on his "removal to Cincinnati." Notices in the "Church Services" column.
1883.07.15Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Prof. Means school house. Sermon: None listed. Also notice for Spiritualism at the Light for Thinkers Hall corner of Whitehall and Peters street with lecture on Organization" by G.W. Kates. Notices in the "Church Services" column.
1883.10.21Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Prof. Means school house. Sermon: None listed. Notes that Rev. Chaney has returned to the city. Services to held at 10:30am. Notice in the "Church Services" column.
1883.10.28Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Prof. Means school house. Sermon: None listed. Notes that Rev. Chaney has returned to the city. Services to held at 11:00am. Notice in the "Church Services" column.
1883.11.04Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Prof. Means school house. Sermon: None listed. Services to held at 11:00am. Notice in the "Church Services" column.
1883.11.11Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Prof. Means school house. Sermon: "Martin Luther". Services to held at 11:00am. Notice in the "Church Services" column.
1883.12.02Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Prof. Means school house. Sermon: None listed. Services to held at 11:00am. Notice in the "Church Services" column.
1883.12.09Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Prof. Means school house. Sermon: None listed. Services to held at 11:00am. Notice in the "Church Services" column.
1884.05.03Notice - Rev James Freeman Clarke of Boston to preach at Church of our Father. Article in the "City News" column. Article noted that Rev. Clarke came south to visit his brothers in Marietta.
1884.07.27Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Church of our Father. Sermon "Jesus the Fulfiller". Closing service for the summer. Notice in the "Church Services" column. Some story of the times in this article include: Charlie Campbell who was bitten by a highland moccasin snake...but "after giving him large quantities of whisky, he got better", a personal letter from Mrs. M.S. Judkins of Cedartown indicating that her daughter the after suffering from eczema for two years and having tried everything was cured by giving her "one and half bottles" of Swift's Specific "cured her sound and well" (who knew)
1884.11.16Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Church of our Father. Sermon: None listed for 11:00am. Evening: "The Bible How to Read it" at 7:30pm. Notice in the "Church Services" column.
1884.12.28Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Church of our Father. Christmas Service at 11:00 am and a sermon (topic not listed) at 7:30pm. Notice in the "Church Services" column.
1885.01.25Notice - Rev. Reynolds Secty of AUA to preach at Church of our Father. Rev. Reynolds is coming from recent conference in Charleston, SC
1885.02.01Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Church of our Father. Sermon: None listed for 11:00am. Evening: "Methodism and Unitarianism" at 7:30pm. Sunday School at 12:15. Notice in the "Church Services" column.
1885.03.08Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Church of our Father. Sermon: "the Bible as Jesus Viewed it" for 11:00am. Evening: "On What Terms May Men of Today be Christians" at 7:30pm. Sunday School at 12:15. Notice for Spiritualists meeting at the Good Templars Hall corner of Whitehall and Hunter streets. Notices in the "Church Services" column.
1885.03.15Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Church of our Father. Sermon: None listed for 11:00am. Evening: "On What Terms May Christianity Accept a Man" at 7:30pm. Sunday School Bible class at 12:15. Notice for Spiritualists meeting at the Good Templars Hall corner of Whitehall and Hunter streets. Subject: "Creation". Notices in the "Church Services" column.
1885.09.06Notice - Artesian School advertisement. "Iron and Wood working, mechanical drawing and machine construction" "Terms: $1.00 per Month" Frank Lederle Sec'y, 239 Marietta Street
1886.01.03Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Church of our Father. Sermon: "Fulfilling all Righteousness" at 11:00am. Evening: "Atlanta's One Fault" at 7:30pm. Sunday School at 12:15. Notice for Spiritualists meeting at the Good Templars Hall corner of Whitehall and Hunter streets. Prof. G.H. Brooks will lecture and give psychometric readings. Notices in the "Church Services" column.
1886.01.31Notice - Rev. Horace Brumsted to preach at Church of our Father. Notice in the "Church Services" column. Inventory of churches includes: Methodist (11), Episcopalian (6), Baptist (9), Presbyterian (6), German Lutheran (1), Church of Christ (2), Unitarian (1), Congregational (2), Miscellaneous (2), Spiritualists (1) Note: Appears the spiritualists are, at this time, unrelated to the Universalists. G.H. Brooks is schedule to lecture and medium. Hmmmm....
1886.03.21Notice - Rev. Wm. P Tilden of Boston to preach at Church of our Father at 11:am. Sunday school immediately after morning sermon. Spiritualists have A.G. Ladd speak on the "Light of the New Testament" at the Good Templar's Hall. Notices in the "Church Services" column.
1886.05.23Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Church of our Father at 11:00 am Sermon: None listed. Notice in the "Church Services" column.
1886.05.24Notice - Rev. Chaney returned from North to preach. "Rev. George Leonard Chaney, who has been away for several months at the north, has returned to Atlanta." Article notes that Chaney sermon on Sunday, May 23, 1886 was on thankfulness. His text was Psalm 126:6 "He that look forth and weepiest, bearing precious seed shall doubtless come again and with rejoicing, bring his sheaves with him." Article in the "Atlanta Pulpit News" column.
1886.06.06Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Church of our Father. Sermon: None listed for 11:00am. Evening: "Science and Religion: A Review of the action of Presbyterian general assembly in Dr. Woodrow's case" at 7:30pm. Sunday School at 12:15. Spiritualists have Miss Zaida Brown "under spirit control, will give tests". Suspending reporting on Atlanta spiritualist until there are signs of more Universalist tendencies. Notices in the "Church Services" column.
1886.06.13Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Church of our Father. Sermon: None listed for 11:00am. Evening: "Religion and Education or Godless Schools" at 8:00pm. Sunday School at 12:15. Notice in the "Church Services" column.
1886.10.31Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Church of our Father. Sermon: "Inequities Among Men a Divine Ordering" at 11:00am and 7:30. Sunday School at 12:15. Notice in the "Church Services" column.
1886.11.28Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Church of our Father. Sermon: "Tribulation Kingdom and Patience" at 11:00am. Evening: "Evening Man's Origin and Destiny on the Earth" at 7:30pm. Sunday School at 12:15. Notice in the "Church Services" column.
1887.02.27Notice - Free literature to be sent to those requesting. Advertisement under heading "Unitarian Christianity" that "Unitarian literature will be sent free of charge to all persons applying to Rev. George Leonard Chaney" Additionally "Works of Channing, Dewey, Martineau, E.E. Hale, James Freeman Clarke and others, also loaned to persons willing to pay postage upon them."
1887.05.01Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Church of our Father. Sermon (paper torn) at 11:00. Evening service subject:" How to Kindle a Fire, Sermon (paper torn) Children. Notice in "Church Services" column.
1887.06.19Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Church of our Father. Sermon: "Every Man Under His Own Vine and Fig Tree" at 11:00. Notice in "Church Services" column. Also a listing of services in the Christian Church section. Notice in the "Church Services" column
1888.04.22Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Church of our Father. Sermon: "The Lessons of the Recent Church Conference" at 11:00am. Evening: "Peace Jubilee" at 7:30pm. Sunday School at 12:15. Notice in the "Church Services" column. Also ad for Lemon Elixir for a story of the times...
1888.06.03Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Church of our Father. Sermon: "Crucified with Christ" at 11:00am. No evening service. Sunday School at 12:15. Notice in the "Church Chimes column.
1888.07.01Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Church of our Father. Sermon: "Repose" at 11:00am. No listing of an evening service. It is also noted that "this will be the last service before the summer recess." Sunday School at 12:15. Notice in the "Church Chimes column. Note: There is no mention in other church notices of this being their last service before a summer recess.
1888.09.09Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Church of our Father at 11:00am. Sermon: none listed. Pastor's bible class: 12:15. "Seats are free". Notice in "Church Chimes" column.
1888.10.28Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Church of our Father. Sermon: "The Lepers are Cleansed" both for 11:00 and 7:30pm. The sermon is the third in a course on "The Credentials of Christ". Sunday school and pastor's bible class at 12:15. Notice is in the "Church Chimes" column.
1888.11.11Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Church of our Father. Sermon: "The Dead are Raised Up" both for 11:00 and 7:30pm. The sermon is the fifth in a course on "The Credentials of Christ". Sunday school and pastor's bible class at 12:15. Notice is in the "Church Chimes" column.
1888.11.25Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Church of our Father. Sermon "Pestilential Literature" full page clipping
1888.12.09Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Church of our Father. Sermon: "The Conservative Influence of Racial Christianity" at 11:00 am and 7:30pm. Full page clipping
1888.12.16Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Church of our Father. Sermon: "A Nail in God's Temple" at 11:00am. Evening: "The Conservative Purpose of Radical Christianity" at 7:30pm. Sunday School at 12:15. Notice in the "Church Chimes" column.
1889.01.20Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Church of our Father. Sermon: The Cross of Christ" at 11:00am. Evening at 7:30pm there will be a service of song with a brief address. Sunday School at 12:15. Notice in the "Church Chimes" column.
1889.04.21Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Church of our Father. Easter Sermon: "Eternal Life" at 11:00am. Evening service of song at 7:30pm. Sunday School at 12:15. Notice in the "Church Chimes" column.
1889.06.16Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Church of our Father. Sermon: "Time of Refreshing" at 11:00am. No mention of evening service. Sunday School at 12:15. Notice in the "Church Chimes" column.
1889.06.23Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Church of our Father. Sermon: "Religious Education of Children" at 11:00am. No mention of evening service. Sunday School at 12:15. Notice in the "Church Chimes" column.
1889.09.22Notice - Rev. E.D. Towle of Boston to preach at Church of our Father. Sermon: "Revised Version of Adam's Fall " at 11:00am. No mention of evening service or Sunday school at 12:15. Notice in the "Church Chimes" column. Unitarian services are listed under "Christian" and "Unitarian" in the Church Chimes column. Also see Story of the Times about race relations in the South at the end of the `18th century. "These negroes knew when they entered the coach set aside for the whites that they not only violated the rules of the railroad, but were endeavoring to force a step toward social equality with whites, something that would never be tolerated in the south."
1889.10.06Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Church of our Father. Sermon: "Short Cut " at 11:00am. No evening service. Sunday School at 12:15. Notice in the "Church Chimes" column.
1889.10.13Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Church of our Father. Sermon: "The Influence of Jesus" at 11:00am. No mention of evening service. Sunday School at 12:15. Notice in the "Church Chimes" column.
1889.11.24Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Church of our Father. Sermon: "Gin Lane A Temperance Lesson" at 11:00am and 7:30pm. Sunday School at 12:15. Notice in the "Church Chimes" column.
1889.12.01Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Church of our Father. Sermon: none listed at 11:00. Evening service subject: "Snow Court or Life Among the Lowly" at 7:30pm. Notice in "Church Chimes column.
1890.01.19Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Church of our Father. Sermon: "Is Evolution Irreligious?" at 11:00am and 7:30pm. Sunday School and minister's Bible class at 12:15. Notice in the "Church Services" column.
1890.02.02Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Church of our Father. Sermon: "How Evolution Helps Religion" at 11:00am and 7:30pm. Sunday School and minister's Bible class at 12:15. Notice in the "Church Services" column.
1890.03.02Notice - Rev. Goodridge (NC) to preach at Church of our Father. Sermon: none listed for 11:00am. No evening service. Sunday School at 12:15pm. Notice in the "Church Services" column.
1890.04.06Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Church of our Father. Sermon: "Resurrection" at 11:00am and 7:30pm. Communion service at 12:15. Notice in the "Church Services" column.
1890.04.27Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Church of our Father. Sermon: "Visitings of Gods" at 11:00am. Evening: "Christianity and Agnosticism" at 7:30pm. Notice in the "Church Services" column.
1890.05.11Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Church of our Father. Sermon: "Self Sacrifice" at 11:00am. Evening: "Christianity vs. Agnosticism" at 7:30pm. Sunday school at 12:15pm. Notice in the "Church Services" column.
1890.07.06Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Church of our Father. Sermon: "Peace and Love" at 11:00am. Last service before his summer vacation. Sunday school at 9:30am; Communion service 10:30am. Notice in the "Church Services" column. .
1890.07.20Notice - Rev. P. Galvin of New Orleans to preach at Church of our Father. Sermon: none listed to be delivered at 11:00am and 8:pm. Sunday school at 9:30am. E.P Burnes superintendent. Notice in the "Church Services" column.
1890.08.10Notice - Services at Church of our Father. Sermon: None listed for 11:00am and 8:00pm. Sunday school 9:30am. Notice in the "Church Services" column.
1890.08.17Notice - Services at Church of our Father. Sermon: None listed for 11:00am and 8:00pm. Sunday school 9:30am. E.P Burnes superintendent. Notice in the "Church Services" column.
1890.08.24Notice - Services at Church of our Father. Sermon: None listed for 11:00am and 8:00pm. Sunday school 9:30am. Notice in the "Church Services" column.
1891.03.01Notice - Rev. Chaney (Southern Secty of the AUA) to preach at Church of Messiah, New Orleans. Rev. Chaney is now the Southern Superintendent of the American Unitarian Association. His sermon: "Every Man's Kingdom" Article in a column marked "Religious".
1892.02.07Notice - Rev. Chaney to preach at Church of our Father. Sermon: "The Unspoken Gospel of Jesus." at 11:00am Sunday school meets at (:45am. Pastor Rev. William Rosweil Cole. Superintendent H.M. Currier. Notice in "Church Services" column (only the last section of that column clipped)
1894.01.14Notice - Rev. Cole to preach at Church of our Father. Sermon: "Evolution of Religion" at 11:00am. Sunday school at 9:30am. "All persons interested are invited to join the pastor's adult class for the study of the Bible in the light of modern research." Fortnightly club will hold its regular meeting at 8:00pm "at which an attractive literacy and musical programme will be presented." "On church street near the junction of Forsyth and Peachtree street." From "Church Services" column only the Unitarian services clipped.
1894.02.11Notice - Rev. Cole to preach at Church of our Father. Sermon: "The Women's Uprising" at 11:00am. Sunday school at 9:30am. H.M. Currier, superintendent. Article for "Churches Services" column on the Unitarian service clipped.
1894.12.16Notice - Rev. Cole to preach at Church of our Father. Sermon: "The Parable of the Talents" at 11:00am. Article from "Church Services" column only the Unitarian services clipped.
1895.09.29Notice - Unitarian and Universalists services noted. Rev. Chaney to preach at Church of our Father (Unitarian). Sermon: "Beginnings" at 9:30am. Rev. W.H. McGlaughlin to preach at Pythias Hall (Universalist) on Alabama street corner of Forsyth. Sermon: "The Faith of the Universalist Church" at 11:00am. Evening: "The Work of the Universalist Church." Notices in the "Other Churches' column.
1895.10.27Notice - W.H. McGlauhlin to preach at Knights of Pythias Hall. Sermon: "A Constructive Faith" at 11:00am. Evening: "Broad Foundations" at 7:30mp. Hall is located at the corner of Forsyth and Alabama streets. The Young People's Union will meet at 6:30pm topic for consideration "How can I Help my Church". Also notice that Rev. Chaney has returned from the Washington conference and will preach on that subject on Sunday. Notice in the "Church Services" column
1895.12.08Notice - Unitarian and Universalists services noted. Rev. Chaney (Unitarian) to preach at Unitarian Church of our Father. Sermon: "Each after its Kind" at 11:00am Evening: "Heart Hunger" Rev. McGlaughlin (Universalist) to preach at Universalist church corner of Alabama and Forsyth streets. Sermon: "Better than Liberty" at 11:00am. Evening: Religion at the Exposition"
1900.07.15Notice - Information on temporary location of Unitarian services (before second building is ready) and Universalist dedication . Rev. F. A. Bisbee, editor of Universalist Leader, will preach. Rev. Bisbee is visiting Atlanta to attend the convention of the Young People's Christian Union of the Universalist church. Additional notice about the convention of Universalists meeting in Atlanta. "This will be a memorable day with the Atlanta Universalist." "The greatest interest of the day will center in the dedication exercises of the church edifice."
1901.06.16Notice - Rev. Cole former pastor of Church of our Father now Cohasset, MA to preach (assuming at Church of our Father in Atlanta)
1917.03.03Notice - Services at Universalist church (16 Harris) and Unitarian church (301 W. Ptree). Service at Universalist church "Forgiveness". Pastor of Unitarian church, Rev. Conkling. Note: the name of the Unitarian church is now listed as "The Unitarian Church of Atlanta" and not the "Church of our Father"
1917.12.01Notice - Rousing war services to be conducted at the Unitarian Church of Atlanta. Sermon by Rev. Ralph E. Conner "The Cost of our Country", "To Think is the Divine Right of Brains"
1918.06.01Notice - United Unitarian Universalist services offered at 301 West Peachtree Street. Rev. Henry B. Taylor will fill the pulpit.
1920.05.08Notice - Services at Liberal Christian noted as Unitarian Universalist at 301 W Ptree St. Sunday School 9:45,Morning service Rev. R.B. Fisher at 11:00, Kindergarten Sunday School at 11:00am, Young People's Christian Union at 5:00pm, Get Acquainted Club at 6:00pm
1923.06.23Notice - Ernest J. Bowden at Liberal Church 301 W. P'tree St. Service a 11:00am; school at 9:45, PCU (young People's Christian Union) at 6:00pm. Clipped from "Church Services" column

Woman's Union - Meeting Minutes Dec 12, 1922 (Inter Racial Committee Program)

1 January 2014 at 00:00

December 12th the Union met with Mrs. Greene 88 Lucile Ave.

After our usual opening prayer, the minutes were read and accepted.

The treasurer’s report showing a balance Dec 1st of $53.07 was approved after which the treasurer gave a tentative report from the Bazaar which apparently would net $35.00 and the same in regard to Xmas cards showed a probable $42.00.

Voted that the treasurer be empowered to pay the Union dues to the Travellers’ Aid, Crippled Children’s Home and the Home for the Friendless also that $90.00 for the remainder of our pledge to the church.

The president appointed a nominating committee consisting of Mrs. Keirn, Mrs. Gaylord and Mrs. Stanford and a program committee consisting of Mrs. Edwards, Mrs. Jones, and Mrs. May.

Voted that the corresponding secretary be instructed to write to Mrs. Hamilton Douglas expressing the sympathy of the Union. (Archivist Note: Mrs. Douglas’s husband, Dean of the Atlanta Law School died at his home on December 18, 1922. Per the account in the Atlanta paper The Constitution dated December 19, 1922 funeral services were held at the Liberal Christian Church. Rev. John W. Rowland officiated and interment was made in West View Cemetery.)

Voted that the president appoint a committee to consider further what the Union may do in regard to the Girls Detention House with special recommendation that something be done for the girls at Xmas. Committee as appointed Mrs. Greene and Mrs. Jones.

After lunch, Mr. Elnager, Field Secretary of the Georgia Inter-racial Committee gave an address of great interest explaining the aims of his committee.

Elizabeth B. Greene, Rec. Sec.

Physical Archive: UUCA Box: 60 Folder: 04
Citation: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Records, RG 026, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta GA

Woman's Union - Meeting Minutes Nov 14, 1922 (Update on Oct Sewing Meeting)

1 January 2014 at 00:00

The Union met on November 14th with Mrs. H.W. Jones, 240 St. Charles Ave.

As we were to have a talk form Miss Susan M. Andrews, representing the Universalist Missionary Society headquarters in addition to our regular speaker the business meeting was cut as short as possible.

It was reported from the special sewing meeting held in October that five bolts of cloth was made up at that meeting at Mrs. Jones by our members at their houses, making eight in all. In addition garments for the Needle Work Guild were cut out and distributed among the members, this list standing as follows: Mrs. Draper -2; Mrs. Edwards – 2; Mrs. Faulkner – 5; Mrs. Gaylord – 2; Mrs. Greene – 4; Mrs. Jones -2; Mrs. Perry – 2; Mrs. Rhyne -3.

The treasurer’s report showing a balance of $13.82 was read and accepted.

The minutes of the previous meeting were cut short and approved as read.

After adjournment for lunch, Mrs. Houston Johnson talked most stirringly about the detention home for girls on Cooper St. Discussion followed but time was too limited to take action.

Elizabeth B. Greene, Rec. Sec.

Physical Archive: UUCA Box: 60 Folder: 04
Citation: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Records, RG 026, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta GA

Archivist Note: There is no mention in this November 1922 meeting minutes of the sudden death of Rev. Keirn, pastor of the Liberal Christian Church on October 25, 1922.

Funeral Services for Rev. G.I. Keirn

1 January 2014 at 00:00

SERVICES FOR THE LATE DR. KEIRN

Funeral services for the late Dr. G. I. Keirn were held in Cincinnati, Ohio, Friday, Oct. 27, conducted by the Rev. Harry Adams Hersey, assisted by the Rev. John E. Price. Mr. Price read the Scriptures; Mr. Hersey delivered an address, read Dr. Hodge’s “How Will It Be?” and offered prayer. A delegation from the Muncie church, which Dr. Keirn served, headed by Dr. Ball, went to Cincinnati for the funeral and were joined there by former parishioners of Dr. Keirn whom Mr. Hersey had notified. Mrs. Keirn was unable to be present, but Dr. Toepel, the good Universalist physician of Atlanta, accompanied the body, which was cremated after the services.

Mr. Hersey arranged memorial services in the Muncie church for Sunday morning. Oct. 29, preaching the sermon. With his usual thoughtfulness he cabled the sad news to the Universalist Mission in Japan.

Beautiful floral pieces sent from Atlanta and Muncie were taken to Muncie for the memorial services and were then distributed to fourteen homes of the sick or shut in.

Dr. Keirn last officiated at the church in Atlanta on Oct.8. when he received into the membership of the church a Methodist, a Baptist minister and a Jew. He collapsed toward the close of the service from angina pectoris and died on Oct. 25.

Though Mrs. Keirn was exhausted from two weeks of incessant nursing, her general health is good.

Source: The Universalist Leader found in Google Books, Nov. 11, 1922, page 20

Rev. G. I. Keirn (1854 - 1922) Obituary

1 January 2014 at 00:00

Gideon Isaac Keirn, D.D.

On October 25, 1922, G. I. Keirn, D.D., minister of the Independent Liberal Church, Unitarian-Universalist, of Atlanta, Ga., died of angina pectoris. He had been seriously ill during the summer, but had sufficiently recovered to return and open his work for the fall and winter. Funeral services were held in the church at Atlanta on October 26, conducted by T. D. Fisher, D.D., Rev. B. H. Clark, and Dr. John Rowlett. The remains were taken to Cincinnati, Ohio, for cremation. A brief service was conducted by Rev. Harry A. Hersey of Muncie, Ind., an old friend of Dr. Keirn. A memorial service was hold in the Universalist church at Muncie, on Sunday, October 29. A widow survives him.

Dr. Keirn was born in Columbus City, Ind., on September 24, 1854. He was educated at St. Lawrence University and Canton Theological School. Upon his graduation from the latter in 1879, he was ordained to the Universalist ministry at Mount Vernon, N.Y. He held successful pastorates at Norwood, Mass., Portland, Me., and Charlestown, Mass. In the spring of 1899 he was commissioned by the Universalists to proceed to Japan as the superintendent of the mission work of that organization. Here he remained for nine years, filling the office of teacher, preacher, and organizer. Upon his return to the States he assumed the pastorate of the Universalist church at Muncie, Ind.

In 1915, upon the urgent request of his denomination, he returned to his old post in Tokyo, where he remained until 1917. Returning to the States he accepted a double commission from the Unitarian and Universalist bodies, to take charge of the joint work of the denominations in Atlanta, Ga., where he remained until his death.

Dr. Keirn was a vigorous and plain speaking preacher, whose obvious sincerity and open-mindedness to new truth won for him a large and devoted following in his many parishes. Churches grew under him. Despite a rather uncompromising temperament where moral issues were involved, his manliness and sympathy drew to him the men of the community irrespective of their church relations. Men in general liked him and they waited upon his leadership. Dr. Keirn was essentially a scholar and devoted his gifts to the congregations to whom he ministered, believing that thereby the larger community was the hotter served.

For eleven years he served the Universalist denomination as its superintendent in Japan. Here he showed himself an indefatigable worker, preaching, teaching, writing, in season and out. Believing that the situation called for a vigorous presentation of “a theology,”‘ he writes, ”which is reasonable and which readily converts itself into life,” he devoted himself, not as many would have had him, to social work in the Empire, but to the spreading of his message through the printing-press. He published seventy-five pamphlets, and wrote a book, “The Essential Elements of a Living Religion,” in which he successfully set forth the liberal and progressive interpretation of Christianity. This book was much commended in Japan and was translated into Japanese, in which language it has had a wide circulation. It is one of the most valuable contributions that liberal Christianity has made to the life and thought of Japan.

After his second return from the Orient, Dr. Keirn joined the Unitarian fellowship without, however, relinquishing his membership with the Universalists. Upon being asked to take charge of the situation arising out of the union of the Unitarian and Universalist churches at Atlanta, Gn., he accepted what was a difficult post. Busy and successful as his life had hitherto been, his labors at Atlanta were to prove the busiest and most distinguished of them all. Coming to a field discouraging by reason of the existence of divergent points of view and temperaments. Dr. Keirn, by his persistence, patience, and tact, successfully welded together the varying elements. The Atlanta church, now a real and working institution, is his monument. Forceful, kindly, lovable, Dr. Keirn won for himself a dignified position in the city’s life.

Source:  The Christian Register found in Google Books November 9, 1922 Volume 101, Page 1076 – 1077

Rev. G. I. Keirn (1854 - 1922) Obituary

1 January 2014 at 00:00

Gideon Isaac Keirn

The Universalist Leader Nov 1922

The Universalist Leader Nov 1922

The news of the death of the Rev. G. I. Keirn, D. D., Oct. 25, came as a shock, for we had supposed that Dr. Keirn was in his usual excellent health. A host of friends in all parts of the world will mourn the sudden passing of one so beloved in our fellowship.

Gideon Isaac Keirn was born in Columbus City, Indiana, in 1854, He was early drawn to the ministerial profession and graduated from Canton Theological School and Tufts College, receiving the degree of D. D. from Buchtel College in 1904, He served as pastor in Mt, Vernon, NY, Norwood,  Mass, Portland, Me.,  Charlestown,  Mass.,  Muncie, Ind., and Atlanta, Ga. But his greatest work was achieved as Superintendent of our Mission in Japan.

Dr. Keirn was first called to the Japan Mission in 1898, when he was pastor of our historic church in Charlestown, Mass. He was succeeding admirably and was happy in his work, He did not want to leave, much less to go to the other side of the world far away from his many friends, But the officials of our church convinced him that it was his duty to respond to their call, and he rose to their demand with customary courage and cheerfulness.

He made a notable contribution to our cause in Japan, and we owe him much for his devotion and unflagging energy, He accomplished his work principally through the printing press. He not only preached much, he wrote more, He published tracts and articles upon all phases of the liberal theology, and these were scattered broadcast through the empire. His words found their way into many Japanese publications, aroused wide interest and stimulated genuine sympathy, He was a sower of seed. No one can estimate how far these seeds were scattered, but of this we may feel sure: in the reconstruction of religion which is taking place in Japan, the words of Dr. Keirn will bear abundant and excellent fruit.

His missionary work was interrupted by his return to America in 1901 on account of the health of Mrs. Keirn. For seven years he was the pastor of our church in Muncie, Indiana, returning finally to Japan for another period of devoted service, Four years ago he returned to America, and after a prolonged and much-needed rest he accepted the pastorate of the Union Liberal Church of Atlanta, Ga. Here again, in a new field, he achieved success and won the affection and respect of the people of the city.

Perhaps the strongest characteristic of Dr. Keirn was tenacity of purpose. When he felt that he was right nothing could swerve him, This quality was so marked that sometimes associates became impatient with his intensity of conviction, But where he felt a certain course to be his duty, not even friendship must stand in the way of his pursuit, Quietly, without noise or bluster, he kept his way. And this must be said, that in the end his way generally proved the right way.

He took his share of hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ and never turned his back to a foe, but moved straight on to what he felt to be the triumph of the true and good, So, he has fought a good fight, he has kept the faith, he has finished his course. We shall miss the influence of his fine personality, and the wisdom of his counsels.

Dr. Keirn was married in 1881 to Miss Anna M. Kimmell, who has shared the success which she helped him to achieve, and who will receive the sympathy of the entire Church in her bereavement.

Crematory services were held in Cincinnati on Friday, Oct. 27, the Rev. Harry Adams Hersey of Muncie Ind., officiating.

Source: Google Books The Universalist Leader November 4, 1922

Woman's Union - Meeting Minutes Oct 10, 1922 (Annual Supper and Other Topics)

1 January 2014 at 00:00

The October meeting of the Union was held with Mrs. Hiatt at Woodlawn on the 10th of this month.

After reciting the Lord’s Prayer, the secretary’s report was read and approved with the exception of including Mrs. Birdsall’s name among those who have left the Union. Mrs. Birdsall herself being present to regret the change!

The corresponding secretary reported a request for handkerchiefs for the bazaar of the Hyde Park Church. On motion of Mrs. Draper that two that she had already brought for our bazaar be sent in reply; it was so voted.

The treasurer report showing a balance of $4.42 was read and accepted.

The bazaar committee reported progress being made on collecting material and that that there would be a meeting of ladies every Wednesday morning at 11 o’clock at Mrs. Toepel’s house to sew for the bazaar.

The program committee arranged for the November meeting to be held with Mrs. Jones, the subject “Pictures” being the one on the regular program. Arrangement also was made for an extra sewing meeting to be held at Mrs. Faulkner house on the 17th of October to sew for the Red Cross on emergency call.

On motion of Mrs. Perry the society resolved itself into a committee of the whole to discuss the Annual Supper. The committee accepted the menu of the executive committee’s planning viz: meat loaf, candied yams, rice, perfection salad, cake, rolls and coffee.

The following ladies were requested to furnish cakes: Mrs. Faulkner, Toepel, Perry, Gaylord and Rhyne.

Committee on Decoration: Mrs. Keirn and Mrs. White.

To prepare salad and arrange dishes on Thursday afternoon: Mrs. Gaylord, Mrs. Birdsall, Mrs. Draper, May and Greene.

To work on Friday afternoon: Mrs. Faulkner, Freeman, Jones, Draper and Edwards.

The Junior Men’s Club and the Y.P.C.U. (Archivist Note: Young People Christian Union.) to furnish waiters.

Mrs. Faulkner and Mrs. Draper and others volunteered to ask contributions in money and work from the ladies not present.

After adjournment for lunch, the Union listened to a talk on work for deficient children in the Atlanta schools by Miss Molsley who is engaged in this work

E.B. Greene, Rec. Sec.

Physical Archive: UUCA Box: 60 Folder: 04
Citation: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Records, RG 026, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta GA

Woman's Union - Meeting Minutes Sep 19, 1922 (Dr. Keirn Urges Fund Raising)

1 January 2014 at 00:00

The September meeting of the Union deferred until the nineteenth of the month was held at the home of Mrs. Draper on Habersham Road.

Dr. Keirn being present opened the meeting with prayer. The president made an address welcoming us back to work.

The recording secretary report was accepted.

On account of illness in her family, the corresponding secretary was absent and sent word that she had nothing to report.

The treasurer’s report for two months showing a balance July 31st of $6.67 and August 31st of $2.17 was read and accepted. In reply to questions, the treasurer stated that besides a deficit from last year of $25.00 more than half of this year’s pledges to the church had been paid.

The program committee reported that Mrs. Jones because of illness of her sister Mrs. Jones would not be able to have the Union at her house next meeting but wished to have them later and asked that the sewing meeting be postponed until that time.

Mrs. Hiatt invited us to meet with her in October, the subject of children’s education in Atlanta to be taken up outlined from our program in February.

Mrs. Perry reported for the Bazaar committee that several persons were working already also that on paying to Mrs. Lauders the $25 for the coupon book for the Perfume Shop, Mrs. Lauders returned $5.00 as her personal contribution to our work.

Mrs. Perry asked that the $5.00 be left in her hands to be used to buy materials to be worked up for the Bazaar. It was so voted.

Voted that the corresponding secretary be requested to write thanking Mrs. Lauders.

The committee on Calls reported to us the loss of four members of the Union. The following having left Atlanta:

Mrs. Aitchison
Mrs. Birdsall
Mrs. Harper
Mrs. Smith

A beautiful fern left by Mrs. Smith for decorating the church was shown us by Mrs. Draper. Voted that the secretary be instructed to write a note of thanks to Mrs. Smith.

The music committee reported that they felt that a better musical effect might be gained by moving the organ and choir seats forward about three feet. Voted that Dr. Keirn be requested to lay this matter before the trustees.

Mrs. Draper reported for the committee on Xmas cards that two books had been furnished by Mrs. Gutgesell and that in order to make it worth while at least $100 worth of cards should be sold. She requested that all those who wanted to use the books should arrange dates for having them as soon as possible.

After a short address by Dr. Keirn urging us to further efforts in raising funds for the church and requesting particularly that the members should endeavor to make the parish calls that he himself is unable to make at present.

The meeting adjourned for lunch after which Mrs. Douglas gave a talk on her trip by automobile through the west.

Elizabeth B. Greene, Rec. Secy

Physical Archive: UUCA Box: 60 Folder: 04
Citation: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Records, RG 026, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta GA

Woman's Union - Meeting Minutes Jul 10, 1922 (Buy Blocki Coupon Books)

1 January 2014 at 00:00

The July (Archivist Note: Estimated date of July 10) meeting of the Union was held at the house of Mrs. Fisher at Stone Mountain.

As has become customary, this meeting was entirely social in character. The only business was the authorization of the treasurer to by the $25.00 book of coupons of the Blocki Perfume Co.

Elizabeth B. Greene, Rec. Sec.

Physical Archive: UUCA Box: 60 Folder: 04
Citation: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Records, RG 026, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta GA

Woman's Union - Meeting Minutes Jun 12, 1922 (Purchase / Sell Coupon Books)

1 January 2014 at 00:00

The June meeting of the Woman’s Union was held on the twelfth of this month at Mrs. Edwards’ house 271 East 10th Street.

An unusually small number being present. After reciting the Lord’s Prayer, the minutes of the last meeting were read and approved.

Mrs. Draper being out of town, a letter from her and her report as treasurer showing a balance of $9.71 were read by Mrs. Edwards.

In her letter, she urged the collection of as much money as possible. Mrs. Faulkner also spoke stressing the immediate necessities of the church.

Voted to instruct the treasurer to send to Mrs. Loyson the usual amount sent by the alliance.

Mrs. Faulkner reported for the Executive Committee a meeting at which they investigate further the proposition of the Blocki Perfume Co. The committee recommended the plan.

Voted that the Union buy and resell a coupon book.

The music committee reported collecting $5.00 for new music.

Because of the failure of the expected speaker, Dr. Faulkner most kindly spoke on the Public Health Campaign, his subject being, “Shine Your Heels.”

Elizabeth B. Greene, Rec. Sec.
Physical Archive: UUCA Box: 60 Folder: 04
Citation: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Records, RG 026, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta GA

Rev. George Leonard Chaney (1836-1922) Obituary - Jun 8, 1922

1 January 2014 at 00:00

He Helped to Found Tuskegee

George L. Chaney also was he prime factor in the birth of Georgia Institute of Technology

At the annual meeting of the Laymen’s League of the Unitarian church in Jacksonville, Fla., attention was called to the recent death of Rev. George L. Chaney, for many years the efficient and well-remembered Secretary for the South of the American Unitarian Association.  There was general expression of high regard and admiration for his character and his faithful and still fruitful service for the Unitarian churches of the section of the country.  Mr. Lawrence S. Brigham, who had know Mr. Chaney both in Boston and in the South, spoke warmly of his arduous work, and the beauty of his genial and self-sacrificing character, calling attention especially to his agency in founding the Georgia Institute of Technology, and his self-sacrificing work in establishing the Unitarian church in Atlanta.  “His vigorous work for the churches of the South,” said Mr. Brigham, “at a time when that work was heroic and almost lonely, has borne fruit throughout the whole section.  In this local chapter we can still feel the influence of his <mastly (cannot read text)> efforts.

“Mr. Chaney’s work in the South was no less strenuous and fruitful for education.  In industrial education, especially, he was a pioneer.  He helped to found the Tuskegee Institute, and labored long for its endowment.  He became president of it board of trustees, and dedicated its first completed building.  He also helped to establish schools at several other points, for both black and white pupils.  His name will be in perpetual remembrance throughout the South, as an honored exponent and servant of liberal and practical Christianity.”

Source:  The Christian Register found in Google Books June 8, 1922 – Page 551

Woman's Union - Meeting Minutes May 9, 1922 (Fund Raising Ideas)

1 January 2014 at 00:00

The May meeting of the Union was held on this 9th of this month at the house of Mrs. J.P. Faulkner 1176 Piedmont Ave.

The usual recitation of the Lord’s Prayer followed the call to order.

The minutes and the treasurer’s report showing a balance of $13.34 on April 30th having been accepted.

Mrs. Draper reported for the Sunday School committee begging for help in the music. Several of the ladies volunteered to play and sing at the school sessions.

A tentative discussion of the budget followed.

Voted that the money be raised by the sale of card and a bazaar each member undertaking to raise about fifteen dollars. Members were urged by Mrs. Faulkner to ally themselves particularly with either the committee on the Bazaar, chairman, Mrs. Perry or with the committee on Xmas cards, chairman Mrs. Draper, and to work especially for the one selected doing however what was possible to aid the other.

Voted that Mrs. Faulkner’s suggestion be adopted.

Miss Angie Harding presented a plan by which the Union might raise money by selling toilet articles. On account of lack of time no action was taken on the matter.

Mr. Dugger of the State Board of Education talked on Rural Schools of Georgia setting forth their needs and progress most impressively.

Elisabeth B. Greene, Sec.
Physical Archive: UUCA Box: 60 Folder: 04
Citation: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Records, RG 026, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta GA

Rev. George Leonard Chaney (1836-1922) Obituary - May 4, 1922

1 January 2014 at 00:00

Rev. George Leonard Chaney, widely known and well-beloved minister of the Unitarian demonization, died at his home in Salem, Mass., on Wednesday, April 19, 1922 in the house in which he was born. December 24, 1836.  He was descended from pioneer families of Essex County, the Gerrishes, Silsbees, Burrills and Webbs, and counted as one of the most valued treasures the Burrill family Bible of 1707, which he inherited.  He was the last survivor of his class at the Salem High School. Of 1852, and was graduted from Harvard in the class of 1859 and received his theological training at Meadville, where he had been for a year after college as a tutor in the Huldekoper family.  As a young graduate of the theological school he was called to the Hollis Street Church, Boston, as successor to Thomas Starr King.  In the difficult task as successor to the popular and gifted young preacher he served the Hollis Street Church from 1862 to 1877.  Through his honorable and successful pastorate he was concerned, in addition to his painstaking care of his church, with the problems of public welfare of his time.  Serving as member of the Boston School Committee he introduced manual training into the public schools of the city, having first established such work in the classes in the Hollis Street Chapel.  He was a friend and co-worker of all the men who were the gaints so those days, ad constantly through long life attracted new friendship, even as old friendships deepened.

After this first pastorate, her travelled widely, and was acquainted with most of the large cities of the United States and Canada and had spent many seasons in Hawaii and Jamaica.  He wrote of his travels in Hawaii in his book “Aloha.”  He had written also books for boys about his early Salem life – “F. Grant & co.” and “Tom” and as the fruit of his experience had published “Belief” and “Every-day Life and Every-day Morals.”  For years 1893-95 he published the Southern Unitarian, a monthly magazine.

For the work of the Boston parish he went while the effect of the Civil War was still fresh, particularly in Southern minds, to Atlanta, Ga., to undertake pioneer and missionary work in that field which as a director of the American Unitarian Association he had ardently encouraged.  He succeeded in the face of great discouragements in establishing the church of Atlanta.  His work and that of Mrs. Chaney as founders of the church is commemorated in the memorial window dedicated to the new church building in 1915.  As Southern Superintendent of the American Unitarian Association, he established churches and carried on mission work at Richmond, Va., Chattanooga and Memphis, Tenn.,  Fort Worth and San Antonio, Tex., and other places in the South where before he went there were but two Unitarian churches, one in New Orleans, La., and one at Charleston, S.C.  He had been a trustee of Atlanta University for colored people, and president of the board of trustees of Tuskegee, the first building of which he dedicated for Booker T. Washington.

In recent years, except for his travels, he had lived in Leominster and Salem, and for half dozen years had lived quietly in Salem chiefly interested in the garden of his old home, in writing and in his friendship with his family.

In these years he was a constant and devoted attendant of the First Church.  He keep always young in heart – not despairing in the day of war or of personal grief, nor in the day of the church’s lessened influence.  He looked forward always to the good that was to be.  In the later years, as in his youthful college days, he made and kept close, lasting and enduring friendships.  There was both charm and power in his personality in his writing and preaching.  Often a flash of wit burned bright in his talk and on the written page.  Truly he was a good and faithful servant of the denomination, of religion and of God.  He was the faithful and beloved comrade and friend of many who mourn his loss and cherish deeply the beauty of his memory.

Prayers were held at his lifelong home in Salem on Friday, April 21 ad funeral services were conducted at Harmony Grove Chapel in Salem by Rev. Edward D. Johnson, former pastor of the First Church of Salem.  While pastor of the Hollis Street Church, Mr. Chaney married Miss Caroline L Carter of Leominster, who survives him.  He also leaves a son George Carter Chaney, attorney-at-law, and a granddaughter, Constance Jewett Chaney.

Source:  The Christian Register found in Google Books, Vol. 101,  May 4, 1922,  Page 429

Woman's Union - Meeting Minutes Apr 11, 1922 (Mothers Day Service)

1 January 2014 at 00:00

The April meeting of the Union was held on the 11th of this month at the house of Mrs. Felker 119 Sinclair Circle.

Mrs. Faulkner being absent the vice-president, Mrs. Gaylord, took the chair. The minutes of the last meeting was read and accepted.

The report of the treasurer showing a balance of $53.09 was read and accepted.

Dr. Keirn presented a suggestion that the Union should take over the Mother’s Day Service of the church. After discussion a motion to accept this proposal was defeated. The sense of the meeting being that the small number of members present did not feel themselves competent to commit the Union to so radical a step.

Action on the budget was postponed.

After adjournment for lunch, Mrs. F.R. Shipman of the Atlanta Theological Seminary gave an illuminating talk on the work of that institution.

Elizabeth B. Greene Secy

Physical Archive: UUCA   Box: 60   Folder: 04
Citation: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Records, RG 026, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta GA

Rev. Ralph E. Conner (1869 - 1922) Obituary

1 January 2014 at 00:00

Rev. Ralph E. Conner

At the age of nearly fifty-three years, Rev. Ralph E. Conner, minister of the Second Parish in Marlboro, Mass, died at the Deaconess Hospital in Boston, March 1. He was born in Newfields, N.H., July 4, 1869. In 1888 he was graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy and was orator of his class. In 1892 he was graduated from the Tufts Divinity School. For twenty years he was a Universalist minister, serving the churches of that denomination in Gardner, Mass, Waltham, Mass, Pasadena, Calif. and North Attleboro, Mass. When in Gardner he married on October 16, 1895, Miss Blanche Peabody of that town. During the years 1911 and 1912 Mr. and Mrs. Conner traveled in Europe.

Mr. Conner on his return became interested in Unitarianism and was invited to supply the Unitarian church in Gardner, which he did for three years. He was received into the Unitarian fellowship. During the next two years Mr. Conner was sent by the American Unitarian Association on missionary tours through the South, Southwest, and California. In 1918 he was invited by the Second Parish in Marlboro, Mass, to supply its pulpit. He remained almost four years. In January, 1922, he resigned, intending on May 1 to retire from active service. Severe illness obliged him to undergo a surgical operation, from which he seemed to be making a good recovery.

While Mr. Conner was never physically strong, he had a wonderfully fertile brain. His memory was marvelous, and, having a love for great and beautiful thoughts, his mind was richly stored with the finest things in literature. Mr. Conner was a ready speaker. He was always willing to serve. He was by nature democratic. He was everybody’s friend. He possessed a rich vein of humor and’ loved to tell a good story. He had a sunny, cheerful nature. He made people feel good.

Being both a Universalist and a Unitarian, it was fitting that a representative of both denominations should officiate at the funeral service. It was held in the Marlboro church and was conducted by Dr. Minot Simons and Dr. Vincent E. Tmnlinson of the First Universalist Church in Worcester. The body was taken to the Forest Hills crematory and the ashes are to be deposited in the family lot in Gardner.

Source The Christian Register found in Google Books, Vol. 101, Mar 16, 1922, page 262 (22)

Woman's Alliance - Meeting Minutes Mar 14, 1922 (Aid to Atlanta Red Cross)

1 January 2014 at 00:00

The March meeting of the Union was held at the house of Mrs. Hamilton Douglas, 2525 Peachtree Road on the 14th of this month.

Minutes of the past meeting were read and accepted. The report of the treasurer showing a balance of $50.35 was read and accepted.

The corresponding secretary read a letter from the Red Cross of Atlanta pleading for clothing for sick and for baby outfits. After discussion it was voted to send some of the unused flour bags which the Union has on hand to this purpose of making infants slips if that would be acceptable to the Red Cross authorities.

Volunteers were called for to cut and make the garments; almost all present responding.

Mrs. May was requested to undertake the sending of flowers on behalf of the Union to Mrs. Keirn.

The recording secretary was instructed to report for the Union to the Annual meeting of the Southern Unitarian Association at Memphis.

The corresponding secretary was instructed to write to Mrs. Lucy Lowell (Archivist Note: Lucy Lowell is the president of the National Alliance and to Mrs. Lewis (Archivist Note: Mrs. Lewis is the vice-president of the Woman’s Alliance in the Southern States east) inviting them to visit Atlanta after the Memphis meeting.

After protracted discussion on finances it was voted to have the matter in the hands of the Executive Committee.

After a talk by Mr. Nicholson on rehabilitation work in the course of which he answered many questions.

The meeting adjourned.

Elizabeth B. Green, Recording Secy

Physical Archive: UUCA   Box: 60   Folder: 04
Citation: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Records, RG 026, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta GA

Woman's Union - Meeting Minutes Feb 14, 1922 (Sunday School Renovation and Other Matters)

1 January 2014 at 00:00

The February meeting of the Woman’s Union occurred on February 14th at the house of Mrs. P.W. Greene. After the meeting was called to order and the Lord’s Prayer recited, the secretary’s report was read and corrected. The report of the Treasurer showing a balance of $38.35 was accepted.

The music committee reported the holding of an organ recital the previous month netting for the Anti-Tuberculosis Association $19.00.

The president appointed the committee on calls:

  • Mrs. Keirn, chairman
  • Mrs. Stanford
  • Mrs. Felker
  • Mrs. Draper
  • Mrs. Aitchison
  • Mrs. Greene

Also a committee on Sunday School work:

  • Mrs. Draper
  • Mrs. Douglas
  • Mrs. Jones

Mrs. Douglas reported on the bad condition of the Sunday School room and the need of draining and renovation. She reported that the trustees were considering this mater of draining and that he had $45.00 in pledges for the renovation and urged that an effort be made to secure further funds. Voted that the Young Men’s Club be asked to get up an entertainment to raise money for this.

Mrs. Keirn called on all women to get their husbands to attend at the City Hall where this matter of widening of West Peachtree Street came before the committee of council.

Mrs. Draper presented the subject of holding a bazaar for discussion. Voted that ours be held next fall. All the members present pledged themselves to work for it.

A slight change of program was announced that the subject of the April meeting would be the Atlanta Theological School and Rural Schools would go over till the May meeting.

Mrs. Gaylord explained the proposed book reviews to be undertaken by the Union.

Mrs. Toepel as chairman for the program of the present meeting announced that the speaker had failed at the last moment but would be glad to speak at some other time.

A vote of welcome was given to our two new members Mrs. Aitchison and Mrs. Birdsall.

Elizabeth B. Greene, Rec. Secy

Physical Archive: UUCA   Box: 60   Folder: 04
Citation: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Records, RG 026, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta GA

โŒ