Charles Babbidge was born into a prosperous maritime family in Salem, Massachusetts, on October 28, 1806. His father, shipbuilder John Babbidge, served aboard the Massachusetts sloop Race Horse during the Revolution, contributing to the fight for independence.[1]  In 1769, John Babbidge married Sarah Beckett.…

Battlefield Ministry: Charles Alfred Humphreys’ Mission of Faith, Patriotism, and Peace Among the Soldiers of the Union Army

by John McConnell

“I feel so strongly that when war is seen in its true colors, it will not only lose all its allurements but excite a keener appreciation of the blessings of peace.”…

by John McConnell

Augustus Woodbury, born on December 4, 1825, in Beverly, Massachusetts, graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy and Harvard Divinity School before his 1849 ordination at Concord’s Second Congregational (Unitarian) Church.  Fourteen months later, at age twenty-five, he married twenty-four-year-old Rebecca Bryant English.…

William Austin was born on March 2,1778, in Lunenburg, Massachusetts, where his family fled after their house in Charlestown was burned down during the Battle of Bunker Hill. Austin was educated at Harvard College in a class of forty-nine students that included William Ellery Channing, and he studied law at Lincoln’s Inn, London, thanks to assistance from Alexander Hamilton.  …

Ann Radcliffe was born Ann Ward in London on July 9, 1764. During her childhood, Radcliffe was immersed in the culture of Unitarian Dissent.  She sometimes lived with her maternal uncle, Thomas Bentley, who was partners with his fellow Unitarian, Josiah Wedgwood, in producing English fine china, porcelain and related luxury accessories.…

By Patrick Murfin

No mid-twentieth-century Unitarian minister, save perhaps A. Powell Davies, reached more hearts and minds than did Preston Bradley (1888-1983). Yet outside of Chicago, Bradley has been largely forgotten when he is not scorned.

Years ago, when the list was being compiled for eventual inclusion in the Dictionary of Unitarian Universalist Biography, I noted his name was omitted.…