Mountain peaks were named for this minister whose eloquent speech and action saved California for the Union during the Civil War.

In the United States Capitol building stands a statue of Starr King as a citizen symbolizing the people of California. A similar statue stands in the Golden Gate Park.

This son of a Universalist minister (who died when Starr was fifteen) had to work to support his family. Intense self-education, united with the encouragement and social support of Theodore Parker and Henry Whitney Bellows, preceded his call to the pulpit of the Hollis Street Unitarian Church in Boston. Following his service in Boston, from 1848 to 1860, Starr King became minister of the Unitarian Church of San Francisco. His sermons and lectures attracted huge audiences and gained him the award of an honorary degree from Harvard University.

One cryptic sentence attributed to Starr King is: “The Universalists think God is too good to damn them forever; the Unitarians think they are too good to be damned forever.”