Clara Barton

Clara Barton (December 25, 1821-April 12, 1912) was both famous and honored in her lifetime—and has a well-earned place in American history—as the angel of Civil War battlefields and founder of the American Red Cross.

Clarissa Harlowe Barton, the fifth and youngest child of Sarah Stone and Stephen Barton, was born on Christmas Day, 1821, in Oxford, Massachusetts, a small farming community. Her father was prominent in the local Universalist church. She remembered the church as austere, with tall box pews and high narrow seats, where the faith was "hammered out" in "an incongruous winter atmosphere." She loved to hear her father reminisce about his Revolutionary War experience in the army of General "Mad" Anthony Wayne.

The Barton household was a stressful place for the timid and sensitive child. Because she was small and had a lisp she was teased by members of her family. Her emotionally unbalanced mother was given to sudden fits of rage. Her older sister Dolly mothered her, but had a mental breakdown when Clara was six. Thereafter, sister Sally looked out for Clara while Dolly remained locked in an upstairs room. Clara learned early to make the best of a difficult family situation, a skill she put to considerable use in her pioneering career as an army nurse.

Clara was taught to read by Dolly and Sally at such an early age that she had "no knowledge of ever learning to read." Her brother Stephen taught her mathematics. Brother David began teaching her to ride bareback when she was only five. She attended a district school during three-month winter and summer sessions. Academically advanced but emotionally immature, she was first sent away to school at age eight, but was unable to stay and soon returned home.

Her days of childhood play ended abruptly when a fall at a construction site rendered her brother David an invalid. Eleven-year-old Clara nursed him night and day throughout his two year convalescence. Afterwards she was anxious. She needed to be needed. Throughout her life, inactivity brought depression. After a short period as a weaver in brother Stephen's mill, she was at loose ends.

A phrenologist visiting the Barton house advised her parents to put Clara, in her late teens, to teaching school to overcome her shyness. Although the idea terrified her, she took on forty boys and girls at a district school. Some of the boys near her own age might have proved unmanageable, but she joined their games and impressed them with her skills. "When they found that I was as agile and as strong as themselves, that my throw was as sure and as straight as theirs, their respect knew no bounds."

Surprised when her school won a prize for discipline, Barton said no discipline had been needed. Many job offers followed, even after she demanded and received the same pay as male teachers. She taught school for ten years.

At age 30 Barton enrolled as a student at the Clinton Liberal Institute in New York State. When the term ended, schoolmates Charles and Mary Norton invited her for an extended visit with their family in Hightstown, New Jersey. Soon she was teaching in the Cedarville school and later in Bordentown. There she started a free public school like those in Massachusetts, previously unknown in New Jersey. The school was so successful that a new building was constructed and additional teachers hired. A man was brought in to head the school at a salary of $600, greater by $350 than Barton's. Resentful of his dictatorial manner and his unfair salary, she left for Washington, DC.

Barton worked in Washington as the first woman clerk in the Patent Office, for a salary equal to the men's. At first she found the situation "delightfully pleasant" with "no one to complain of me." After a time, however, men in the office began to harass her. Hounded by rumors of sexual misconduct, the more she tried to rise above the situation, the worse it became. She struggled with an overwhelming work load and then fell ill with malaria. James Buchanan's presidential victory put an end to her job.

She stayed at home and in Worcester for a while, studied French and art, and looked unsuccessfully for employment. Lincoln's election brought an offer to return to the patent office as a temporary copyist earning eight cents per 100 words, less than her earlier pay. Senator Henry Wilson of Massachusetts agreed to help her. Barton hoped she might make way for more women in government service. "I had just as lief they made an experiment of me as not," she wrote. "It does not hurt me to pioneer." Able again to see herself as helping others, she was lively and cheerful and enjoyed her work and Washington society.

On April 19, 1861, a week after Fort Sumter was fired upon, the Sixth Massachusetts troops arrived in Washington in disarray, having been attacked by secessionists in Baltimore. Barton and her sister, Sally Vassall, went to the station to meet the men, some of whom Barton had taught when they were schoolboys. The city had no facilities for the soldiers. Most were housed in the Capitol building. Barton took the most seriously wounded to her sister's house and nursed them. Finding that the men's baggage had been lost in the Baltimore fracas, she rounded up clothing, food and supplies from local merchants. "The patriot blood of my fathers was warm in my veins," she wrote of those hectic days.

Troops soon arrived from upstate New York and New Jersey. Not a few recognized their former teacher. She visited the men camped in and around the city. "I don't know how long it has been since my ear has been free from the roll of a drum," she wrote her father. "It is the music I sleep by, and I love it."

Barton became the recipient of supplies sent to Washington in response to letters the men wrote home. When floods of the wounded filled the city after the first battle of Manassas, she began soliciting supplies from such groups as the Worcester Ladies' Relief Committee, instructing women what to send and how best to pack it. "I will remain here while anyone remains," she wrote. "I may be compelled to face danger, but never fear it, and while our soldiers can stand and fight, I can stand and feed and nurse them."

She returned home during her father's last illness, but was back in Washington the following summer, determined to get to the battlefield where she was most needed. She obtained a quartermaster's pass and six wagons with teamsters to carry her supplies through the lines. Arriving with two helpers a few days after the battle at Culpepper, Virginia, she unloaded her wagons at the ill-equipped field hospital and worked among the wounded for two days and nights without food or sleep. She did what she could for wounded Confederate prisoners. Her first experience at the front strengthened her determination to keep on with the work.

Barton arrived with her supplies and skills on battlefields from Manassas (Bull Run) to Antietam and Fredericksburg, considering herself part of the Army of the Potomac. The Twenty-first Massachusetts held a dress parade in her honor and made her a daughter of the regiment. She shared the lot of common soldiers, refusing to eat other than the same grub they were given. Time after time a wounded man recognized her as she worked to ease his suffering. "Oh what a place to meet an old-time friend!" she wrote. Returning to Washington, she collapsed with typhoid fever but rejoined the troops as soon as she felt able.

Barton was not the only woman serving as a volunteer. She later praised the work of Mary Bickerdyke, Mary Livermore, Frances Dana Gage and Dorothea Dix, although she herself preferred to work alone or with a single helper. Moreover, she felt her place was on the battlefield, not in Washington hospitals or supply depots. She lobbied Senator Wilson repeatedly for better supplies and improved conditions in field hospitals. But after the Sanitary Commission under Henry Whitney Bellows was officially recognized, efforts of women volunteers were discouraged.

The War Department permitted Barton, however, to accompany her brother David, quartermaster to the Eighteenth Army Corps, which was sent to bombard Charleston, South Carolina. She arrived in Hilton Head in April, 1862, to find an entirely different face of the war. Housed and fed with the officers, she attended parties and dances and went horseback riding. She met there friends from earlier years and, also, Col. John H. Elwell, chief quartermaster for the region. Fellow Universalist Frances Dana Gage and her daughter Mary were at Hilton Head working with the slaves left behind when owners abandoned their plantations. Elwell and Gage became lifelong friends of great importance to her.

From their first meeting Elwell and Barton learned that they had much in common. Gradually, chatty notes they exchanged turned into love letters. Elwell had a wife and family in Cincinnati, but he found Barton's verve and wit irresistible. She complained of feeling out of place, so far removed from the war's battles, and talked of leaving. He pressed her to stay. She stayed.

But the war soon caught up with them. With one saddle horse and one well-supplied ambulance for their use, Barton and Mary Gage accompanied the troops assigned to the siege of Fort Wagner. Barton saw Elwell go down under fire, rushed to help him to safety and then returned to tend other wounded. As the siege continued and supplies ran short, battlefield conditions were as bad as any she had seen. Military officials resented her presence. Under such pressure she fell ill, physically and emotionally, and returned to Hilton Head. Elwell tended her. Recovered and ready to go back to the front, she was informed that Dorothea Dix's nurses were in charge.

Influenced at this critical time by woman suffrage advocate Frances Dana Gage, Barton's disappointment expanded into a view of the broad injustice done to women. Soon Barton would write, "I think 'taxation and representation are and of right ought to be inseparable.' I most devoutly wish that intellect, education and moral worth decided a voter's privileges and not sex, or money or land or any other unintelligent principle."

Barton helped Gage with her work among the former slaves and Gage helped Barton out of her self-pity. Over the next two decades Barton needed and appreciated "letters of faith and trust" from this "capable, faithful, grand strong loving Mother." Gage's death in 1884 was a severe blow to her.

In December, 1863, restless and anxious over her cooling relationship with Elwell, Barton sailed for Washington. She sank into deep depression to the point of considering suicide. Then General Grant's spring 1864 campaign began to flood the field hospitals with wounded. Supplies ran short despite the planning of the Sanitary Commission. Barton again received a pass to go to the front. Fredericksburg was full of wounded Union soldiers, suffering from want of food. She worked in hospitals there, but still longed for the battlefield. Granted a place under Gen. Benjamin Butler in a Virginia mobile field hospital, she was again in her element.

After the war President Lincoln put Barton in charge of locating missing prisoners of war, a daunting task amid the bureaucratic confusion that followed war's end. She answered hundreds of the letters which poured in, giving or requesting information about the dead and missing.

Frances Gage suggested that Barton tell her story to the people, and so in November, 1866, she set off on a speaking tour. Her lecture, "Work and Incidents of Army Life," was warmly received wherever she delivered it for the next two years. Dressed in black silk, her small figure commanded respect, and her musical voice stirred feelings. Her performance on the lecture circuit made her name a household word, and brought her first steady income since leaving the patent office.

In November, 1867, Barton met Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton at the Cleveland railroad station. Barton had never spoken publicly on woman suffrage, but she was in complete sympathy with the cause. Stanton and Anthony were eager to enlist her participation. Anthony began including notices of Barton's lectures in her suffrage publication, The Revolution, and women's groups invited her to speak at their gatherings. She was especially effective before veterans' groups. "Soldiers!" she would cry. "I have worked for you and I ask you, now, one and all, that you consider the wants of my people. . . . God only knows women were your friends in time of peril and you should be [theirs] now."

Barton continued to support woman's suffrage, but it was never her main priority. She advocated passage of the Fifteenth Amendment which gave the vote to Negro men, not to women. She wrote articles for Lucy Stone's Woman's Journal and occasionally appeared on the platform with Stanton, Anthony, Stone, and Julia Ward Howe at woman's suffrage conventions over the years. But from 1870, her heart was in the Red Cross movement.

Barton was vacationing in Europe when the Franco-Prussian war broke out. Having just heard of the Geneva Convention which established the International Red Cross, she offered her services to the organization. She set up aid centers in several war-torn cities. The Grand Duchess Louise of Baden and other influential leaders welcomed the famous American. She was awarded the Iron Cross and urged to found an American Red Cross.

Returning to America in 1873 with broken health, Barton spent the next three years as an invalid in Worcester, Massachusetts, and Dansville, New York. Finally, in 1877 she was able to make two trips to Washington. She urged the government's signature of the Geneva Convention, thus far ignored in the United States, and establishment of an American Red Cross. On May 12, 1881, the American Red Cross was organized, but for years the organization required a continuous battle to keep it alive and functioning.

Over the next two decades Barton made the presence of the American Red Cross felt in such emergencies as the Johnstown flood, the Sea Island and Galveston hurricanes, and the outbreaks of typhoid in Butte, Pennsylvania, and yellow fever in Jacksonville, Florida. In these crises the Red Cross provided nurses, basic supplies and aid centers to help victims.

The results were mixed. Press reports exaggerated mistakes and lack of organization as often as they praised good work. Local Red Cross affiliates sprang up, but with uneven standards. Barton personally funded many of the organization's operations when she couldn't get government support. She did not keep good records. Financial transactions were noted on scraps of paper. There was no clarity regarding either income or expenditures. Barton was accused of pocketing contributions. The needed tasks were more than she could do, but she held onto the reins.

In the midst of her struggles, Barton traveled intermittently to appear at international events such as the 1882 ratification of the Geneva Convention, where she received the highest decoration given by the International Red Cross. In 1884 she was the first woman appointed as a diplomatic representative to the Third International Conference of the Red Cross, where she moved an American amendment regarding peacetime functions of the organization and was given the Augusta medal for humanitarian service.

Hailed and decorated as a heroine abroad, Barton was often snubbed and misunderstood at home. She usually managed, eventually, to get her way. But, as throughout her life, she would work on any project with only one or two others of her own choosing. Close relationships, which began in mutual admiration, often broke down, endangering the enterprise. Barton was not an able administrator.

Meanwhile, influential citizens who questioned Barton's management established a rival to the officially recognized American Red Cross in New York City. Upset by this and by unwarranted commercial use of the Red Cross name and symbol, Barton implored the government to support the organization's charter as outlined in the international treaty. In 1891 two bills were before Congress to answer these concerns. But not until 1900 was the appropriate legislation passed and signed by President McKinley.

In 1893 Barton called a national meeting of the American Red Cross. A new constitution was adopted. It eliminated the independence of local affiliates and shifted the organization's emphasis from domestic disasters to wartime assistance. Efforts were made to increase and regularize fund-raising. The name of the organization was changed to American National Red Cross.

By 1900 Barton had moved the Red Cross headquarters from downtown Washington to Glen Echo, Maryland. There she built a large structure on her own property for offices, storage facilities and her personal living space. Though the building lacked many comforts, she made it her home even after giving up the Red Cross presidency in 1904. In 1905 she was named honorary president of the National First Aid Association of America, a rival organization later absorbed by the Red Cross.

Late in life Barton became keenly interested in spiritualism and Christian Science, though she never joined a Christian Science church. She claimed she was not "what the world denominated a church woman." In 1905 she affirmed her Universalist faith in a letter to an Ohio inquirer. "Your belief that I am a Universalist is as correct as your belief in being one yourself, a belief in which all who are privileged to possess it rejoice."

During her last years she summered in a house she bought in North Oxford and continued to attend suffrage conventions and veterans' encampments. Her celebrity status brought with it much correspondence, some from children asking about her childhood. In response she wrote The Story of My Childhood, published in 1907. She died of pneumonia at Glen Echo.

Clara Barton's papers are located at the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester Massachusetts; Duke University Library, Durham North Carolina; the Library of Congress, Washington D.C.; the Huntington Library, San Marino California; and the Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton Massachusetts. Related materials can be found at the headquarters of the American National Red Cross, Washington D.C.; the Clara Barton National Historic Site, Glen Echo Maryland; the National Archives and Records Service, Washington D.C.; and in various collections of papers related to family members, friends, and work associates. Barton wrote The Red Cross in Peace and War (1899) and many magazine articles.

There have been quite a few biographies of Barton. Among these are Percy Epler, The Life of Clara Barton (1915); William E. Barton, The Life of Clara Barton (1922); Blanche Colton Williams, Clara Barton, Daughter of Destiny (1941); and Ishbel Ross, Angel of the Battlefield: The Life of Clara Barton (1956). The most valuable recent biographies are Elizabeth Brown Pryor, Clara Barton, Professional Angel (1987) and Stephen B. Oates, A Woman of Valor: Clara Barton and the Civil War(1994). 

Article by Joan Goodwin - November 5, 2003

All material copyright Unitarian Universalist History & Heritage Society (UUHHS) 1999-2016

The Ballou Family

The Ballou family of New England produced some of the most well-known and distinguished American Universalists, including Hosea Ballou, the leading theologian and evangelist of early 19th-century Universalism; Hosea Ballou 2d, Universalist historian and first president of Tufts University; and Adin Ballou, a significant theorist of pacifism and the founder of the Hopedale utopian community. Many other Ballous served in the Universalist ministry or, as laypersons, played significant roles in Universalist history.

The first member of this Huguenot family to come to New England was Maturin Ballou (d.1662). Some Ballous had fled from France to England, probably late in the 16th century. Maturin, who may have been born in England, emigrated to Massachusetts around 1640, at the end of the great wave of Puritan migration. By 1646 he had moved to Providence, Rhode Island, a "shelter for persons distressed of conscience," founded by Roger Williams. Like Williams, the early American Ballous were Baptists. Some were Calvinist Baptists, others were Six-Principle Baptists, a kind of General Baptists which originated in Rhode Island.

Maturin Ballou had three sons, two of whom, John Ballou (c.1650-1714) and James Ballou (c.1652-c.1741), each had numerous Universalist descendents. John's family settled just north of Providence. James's family clustered in the northeast corner of Rhode Island in Cumberland, near what would later become the city of Woonsocket, Rhode Island. Hosea Ballou was descended from John Ballou, while Adin Ballou was in the line of James. Hosea and Adin were third cousins, once-removed.

I Descendents of Elder Maturin Ballou

Elder Maturin Ballou (1720-1804), a Calvinist Baptist minister, was a grandson of John Ballou. He moved his family from Scituate, Rhode Island to Richmond, New Hampshire in 1767. This was part of a substantial migration of members of both main branches the Ballou family to Richmond. Four of Maturin's sons became Universalists: Benjamin, David, Nathan, and the celebrated Hosea. IA Hosea Ballou's Siblings and Their Descendents

1) Benjamin Ballou (1747-1834), a farmer-preacher, was at first an occasional preacher for the Baptists and was converted to Universalism in middle age by his youngest brother, Hosea. He wrote a Universalist poem, "Thoughts on the Sun," sometimes attributed to Hosea. Ballou biographer Thomas Whittemore recorded that Benjamin was "a man of good sense, but not of great activity." He followed his brother David from Richmond to Monroe, Massachusetts in 1802.

Benjamin Ballou's son Asahel (1771-1851), the same age as his uncle Hosea Ballou, was young Hosea's friend and playmate. Hosea later said that they were like twins. When grown, Asahel was a farmer who lived with his wife Martha Starr (1776-1839) in Halifax, Vermont. Among their nine sons were three Universalist ministers: Hosea Ballou 2d, Levi Ballou, and William Starr Ballou.

William Starr Ballou (1808-1865) was ordained in 1833 and itinerated in Windham County, Vermont before settling in Hartland, Vermont, 1832-38; East Randolph, Vermont, 1838-42; Brattleboro, Vermont, 1843-46; Springfield, Vermont, 1847-48; Brattleboro again, 1849; Strafford, Vermont, 1851-52; and Cheshire, Massachusetts. He moved to Illinois in 1858. There, his preaching activities restricted by health problems, he made money in real estate for himself and for his brother Levi. He was a founder and supporter of several Universalist schools, including the Green Mountain Perkins Institute, Melrose Academy, and Lombard University.

Levi Ballou (1806-1865), self-taught in classics, was a teacher and singing instructor before he became a minister. He studied theology with his older brother, Hosea 2d, and his younger brother, William, and entered his new career around the age of 30. He worked with William in Hartland, Vermont, 1837-38, then settled in Randolph, Vermont, 1840; Chester, Vermont, 1841; and at the Second Universalist Society of Orange, Massachusetts, 1843-65. In Orange he was superintendent of the public schools. Serving an old church that had been the First Congregational Parish and Society of Orange, and which was then both Unitarian and Universalist, he was known as the "bishop" of the area.

Levi had a son, William Ballou (1864-1941), who was the first Universalist minister in Fargo, North Dakota, serving that church in 1890-97 and 1904-1919. Because William Ballou was a pacifist and a socialist, in 1919 the church was attacked by rioters. When the society disbanded shortly afterwards, he purchased the property and used the building to stage cultural events.

2) David Ballou (1758-1840) was the first of Elder Maturin's children to become a Universalist. He was converted by Caleb Rich in 1789. David then helped to convert his younger brother, Hosea. A farmer-preacher, David never entered the full-time ministry because he did not like to accept payment for his religious services. He first preached in the Richmond area, then, in 1799, moved to a farm in Monroe, Massachusetts, from which base he itinerated throughout northwest Massachusetts and southern Vermont. In 1812 he organized the Universalist society in Whitingham, Vermont. He attended the New England Universalist General Convention at least a dozen times.

Moses Ballou (1811-1879), a son of David, started preaching Universalism in 1833, itinerating in the area around his home in Monroe, Massachusetts. He was considered a powerful preacher. After receiving fellowship in 1834, he settled in Bath, New Hampshire, 1835; Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 1836-43; New York City (Fourth Universalist), 1843-45; Portsmouth again, 1845-48; Bridgeport, Connecticut, 1848-54; Hartford, Connecticut, 1854-57; Philadelphia (Second Universalist), 1857-59; New York City (Third Universalist), 1859-65; New Haven, Connecticut (supply preaching), 1865-66; and Philadelphia (Second Universalist again), 1866-72. In retirement in Atco, New Jersey, he preached to a small society that he had helped to found. In addition to writing for the Universalist Quarterly and other denominational papers, he wrote The Divine Character Vindicated (1854), a book subsidized by P. T. Barnum.

3) Nathan Ballou (1760-1838) was an industrious farmer who cared for his father, Elder Maturin Ballou, in old age. He followed his older brother David to Monroe, Massachusetts in 1804 and there became a Universalist.

Russell Arnold Ballou (1830-1895), a grandson of Nathan Ballou, was brought up on the family farm in Monroe. After obtaining Universalist fellowship, 1849, he studied with Hosea Ballou 2d in Medford, Massachusetts, 1850-51. He settled in West Bridgewater, Massachusetts (which was a Unitarian society as well), 1852-56; Chelmsford (also Unitarian as well), 1856-58; and Augusta, Maine, 1858-62. From 1862 to 1864 he edited the Gospel Banner, a Universalist paper in Maine. He then worked as general agent of the Universalist Publishing House, 1864-67. He lost the wealth he had subsequently amassed in the real estate business in the Great Boston Fire, 1872.

4) Maturin's daughter, Sarah (1763-1824), had a son, Asa Wheaton (1794-1823), who studied for the Universalist ministry under his uncle Hosea Ballou. He died of tuberculosis, however, before his career was underway.

IB Hosea Ballou's Children

1) Hosea Faxon Ballou (1799-1881) married his cousin Mary Ballou (1801-1883). They lived in Monroe, Massachusetts until 1832, when they moved to Whitingham, Vermont. He was a schoolteacher, shopkeeper, and farmer until he was 32, then studied for the ministry under his brother-in-law, Benjamin Whittemore. He settled in Whitingham, Vermont, 1832-57, and Wilmington, Vermont, 1857-72. He was engaged in town and state politics, serving in the state legislature and attending constitutional conventions. He was president of the Wilmington Savings Bank, 1874-81.

2) Massena Berthier Ballou (1800-1890), like his older brother Hosea Faxon, was born in Dana, Massachusetts. He studied for the ministry under his father, began preaching when he was 20, did itinerant ministry, and then settled in Charlton, Massachusetts, 1827-31. Edward Turner, once his father's friend and colleague in the early Universalist ministry, came to Charlton as Unitarian minister in 1828, offending Ballou senior by competing with his son. Both churches struggled and their ministers were compelled to leave Charlton in 1831. Massena Berthier Ballou's main settlement was at First Parish in Stoughton, Massachusetts, where he served 22 years, 1831-53. His tolerant and non-controversial attitude brought harmony to a congregation emerging from the Unitarian controversy and undecided between Unitarianism and Universalism. Late in life he wrote, "It has always been my endeavor and most earnest desire to live in peace and the exchange of kind offices with all the people with whom I am associated, without regard to religious or political opinions." After his retirement, due to ill-health, he remained in Stoughton for 37 years until his death.

3) In 1823 Mandana Ballou (b.1804), married Benjamin Whittemore (1801-1881), a Universalist minister and the younger brother of Universalist minister and journalist Thomas Whittemore. Benjamin, educated at academies in Lancaster and Groton, Massachusetts, studied for the ministry with Hosea Ballou. He was ordained in 1823 and served churches in South Scituate, Massachusetts, 1823-29; Troy, New York, 1829-30; and South Boston, Massachusetts, 1830-43. He organized societies in the area of Lancaster, Massachusetts, 1843-54, and served at Norwich, Connecticut, 1854-62. Shortly after retiring to Lancaster, he went blind. He received an honorary degree from Tufts in 1867. During the Restorationist controversy, it was he who extracted the crucial admission from Jacob Wood that the signers of the notorious "Appeal and Declaration" were motivated by envy of Hosea Ballou. Most of Benjamin and Mandana's children died young. Their eldest daughter, Mandana Mary Whittemore (1824-1857), married Universalist minister Quincy Whitney.

4) Elmina Ruth Ballou (1810-1856), like her sister Mandana, married one of her father's students. Josiah Crosby Waldo (1803-1890), ordained in 1827, settled in Cincinnati, Ohio, 1828-32. He married Elmina in 1831. In Cincinnati he started a Universalist newspaper, the Sentinel and Star. He later served in Lynn, Massachusetts, 1835-41; Arlington (West Cambridge), Massachusetts, 1841-45; Quincy, Massachusetts, 1845-47; Troy, New York; and New London, Connecticut.

5) Hosea Ballou's youngest son, Maturin Murray Ballou (1820-1895), was a notable journalist, travel writer, and author of lurid adventure novels. He wrote for the Olive Branch, 1838; wrote for and edited the Bay State Democrat, 1840-46; edited the Flag of Our Union, 1846-58; and edited Ballou's Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion, 1851-59. He was the founder and first editor of the Boston Globe, 1872-73. The subjects of his travel books include Alaska, Mexico, the West Indies, Russia, Australia, and the Pacific Islands. Representative of his many novels are The Midshipman's Revenge, 1845, and The Masked Lady; or the Fortunes of a Dragon, 1889. The book that he is best remembered for is the Biography of Rev. Hosea Ballou, 1852. This memoir preserves information on Hosea Ballou, and the Ballou family in general, not available anywhere else.

II Descendents of the first James Ballou

There are five sub-branches of James Ballou's family, stemming from his sons, James, Nathaniel, Obadiah, Samuel, and Nehemiah. The first three sons had numerous Universalist descendents.

IIA Descendents of James Ballou (1684-1764)

1) James Ballou (1723-1812) was the grandson of the first James, the son of the immigrant Maturin. He was born in a part of Wrentham, Massachusetts that was later attached to Cumberland, Rhode Island. At that time this northeast corner of Rhode Island, served by the Six-principle Baptist "Elder Ballou Meetinghouse," was known as the "Ballou District." In 1775, after the death of his parents, he and his sons moved to Richmond, New Hampshire, the new home of many emigrant Rhode Islanders. While still in Cumberland, James had been a leader a breakaway group from his family's Baptist church. When "spiritual wifery" was adopted by members of his Baptist church in Richmond, he withdrew and did not return even after the congregation repudiated the practice. An independent thinker, he decided to consider alternatives to his childhood faith. He ultimately chose to believe in universal salvation, and gave Universalist evangelists his public support.

James's son, Silas Ballou (1753-1837), was in his youth a whaler and a Revolutionary War privateer. Although poorly educated, he read much and collected a "library" of books. In the Richmond area he was celebrated as poet, writing occasional verse for his friends and neighbors. In 1785 he compiled and published the first American Universalist hymn book, New Hymns on Various Subjects, viz: On the Creation of the World; and the Formation of Man—the State Wherein He was Created, and His Sad and Shameful Fall. On the Early and Extensive Promises of God—the Coming of Christ, and the Completion of the Father's Promises: or, the Eternal Redemption and Victorious Salvation of Mankind through Him. A century later, Adin Ballou characterized Silas's religious verse as obsolete, "partly on account of its rusticity or inelegance of poetic diction," and chiefly because his doctrine of the Trinity and belief in vicarious atonement were no longer shared by Universalists.

2) Adin Ballou was great-nephew of the James Ballou who moved to Richmond, New Hampshire. His grandfather Ariel Ballou (1715-1791) was James's older brother. His father, Ariel (1758-1839), led the family out of the Six-principle Baptist church into the Christian Connexion. Adin and his family went from Universalism to Unitarianism via the Practical Christianity that was the official faith of the Hopedale Community.

Adin's daughter, Abigail Sayles Ballou (1829-1918), was the only one of his children to survive past early adulthood. She was born just before the death of her mother, Adin's first wife, Abigail Sayles. As a young girl living in the utopian Hopedale Community founded by her father, she took care of babies while their mothers worked. As she grew older, she started teaching in the community school. She was trained at the State Normal School in West Newton, Massachusetts. In 1851 she married William Sweetser Heywood (1824-1905), who had come to Hopedale to train for the ministry under her father. Heywood stayed with his wife at Hopedale, where he became community president and associate editor of the community paper, the Practical Christian. Abigail and William founded the Hopedale Home School in 1856 and ran it as a coeducational, progressive boarding academy. He taught ancient languages, science, mathematics, and literature; she taught French, history, botany, physiology, art, and other subjects. They tried to instill in their students a "spirit of inquiry, rather than dogmatism." Among the students were children of Samuel J. May and William Lloyd Garrison. The school was disrupted by the Civil War and closed in 1863.

The Heywoods left Hopedale in 1864. Having obtained Unitarian fellowship, William served churches in Scituate, Massachusetts; Hudson, Massachusetts; Holyoke, Massachusetts; and at Parmenter Street Chapel in Boston, Massachusetts. He ended his career as a minister-at-large, serving the poor in the north end of Boston. After his father-in-law's death, he edited and completed the Autobiography of Adin Ballou, 1896, and edited History of the Hopedale Community, 1897. He also wrote a history of Westminster, Massachusetts, 1893. After his death, Abigail lived in New York City with her married daughter, Lucy Florence Holden. In her contribution to Hopedale Reminiscences, 1910, Abigail called Hopedale "one of the grandest experiments ever attempted for the good of mankind" and predicted that "the seed sown by [Adin Ballou] and his co-workers for a higher civilization will one day be realized, and a truer, better order of society will then supplant the present disorderly and crude state."

Adin's son, Adin Augustus (1833-1852), born of his second wife, Lucy Hunt, was groomed to be his successor in the Hopedale Community. While a child, Adin Augustus edited a Community children's newspaper, the Mammoth, ran the Hopedale printing office, and managed the Community post office. He attended the State Normal School in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, 1850-52. Upon graduation he became an assistant teacher at the normal school. Unfortunately he soon after died of typhoid fever. Crushed by this loss, Adin and Lucy Ballou turned to Spiritualism. Adin wrote Memoir of Adin Augustus Ballou, 1853, which preserved some of Adin Augustus's writings. "Be an independent man, a free thinker, a mighty actor," Adin Augustus wrote when he was 17. "Be a wise man, a careful discriminator. Be a good man, blending humanity with impetuosity, humility with power. Be independent and hold for the right and let your whole strength go to improve and not destroy God's creatures."

IIB Descendents of Nathaniel Ballou (1687-c1747)

1) Oliver Ballou (1763-1843) was a grandson of Nathaniel Ballou. Born in Cumberland, Rhode Island, he was a carpenter and builder who did work for Samuel Slater, who, with his textile mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, brought the Industrial Revolution to America. In 1814 Oliver and his son, Dexter Ballou (1789-1849), both Universalists, built their own cotton mill in Cumberland. They moved the business to Woonsocket Falls, Rhode Island in 1817. Overcoming losses due to an 1829 mill fire, Dexter expanded the firm into one of the largest in Woonsocket and purchased another mill in 1841. He promoted temperance and was interested in employee welfare. He started the Woonsocket Falls Bank, of which he was president, 1828-49, and hosted early organizational meetings of the Universalist society. His younger brother George Colburn Ballou (1798-1876), also a Universalist, began his own Woonsocket spinning mill in 1829. He built up his own business, bought control of several other mills, and acquired hundreds of acres of farming lands. By the time of his death he was a millionaire.

Major Sullivan Ballou (1827-1861) was the grandson of Oliver's brother Ziba (1765-1829). Sullivan's father, Hiram (1802-1833), and his Universalist uncles Jonathan Ballou (1792-1869) and Henry Green Ballou (1806-1882) were tailors in Woonsocket. Orphaned young, Sullivan was encouraged and sponsored by Universalist relatives and helped by the eminent Woonsocket Universalist lawyer and politician, Christopher Robinson (1806-1889). After growing up in Smithfield, Rhode Island, Sullivan worked for a year in a store in Rochester, New York. He then studied at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, 1846-48; Brown University, in Providence, Rhode Island, 1848-50; and at the National Law School in Ballston, New York. Admitted to the Rhode Island Bar in 1853, he practiced law in Smithfield and in Providence. He was clerk of the Rhode Island House of Representatives, 1854-56, and, starting in 1857, member of the House for Smithfield. He was chosen Speaker of the House.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Sullivan Ballou organized the 2nd Rhode Island Regiment of Militia and was chosen its major. At the first Battle of Bull Run (Manassas) in 1861 he was hit by a cannon ball and shortly afterwards died of his wounds. He is today best remembered for a letter that he sent to his wife on the eve of battle. "A pure love of my country," he wrote, "and of the principles I have often advocated before the people, another name of honor that I love more than I fear death, has called upon me and I have obeyed. Sarah, my love for you is deathless: it seems to bind me with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence could break, and yet my love of country comes over me like a strong wind, and bears me irresistibly on, with all these chains, to the battle-field." The following year, the Rhode Island Universalist Convention paid "a high and deserved tribute" to Major Ballou "who was largely instrumental in organizing the Convention."

3) Another grandson of the first Nathaniel Ballou was his namesake, Nathaniel Ballou (1750-1838). His sons, New York State farmers Stephen Ballou (1778-1866) and Michael Ware Ballou (1780-1865), became Universalists.

Their nephew, Eli Ballou (1808-1883), was born in Leroy, New York. His father, Chester, died when he was eight and Eli was bought up by his mother, Rachel Hayworth, a Quaker. He later lived with a Universalist family and was converted by listening to their preacher and reading their religious literature. Inspired to become a preacher, he studied theology and in 1831 was given Universalist fellowship by the St. Lawrence Association. Like the Restorationists, he believed in a period of discipline in the afterlife. He preached in northern New York State and nearby Canada, 1832-33, then settled in Swanton, Vermont, 1833-37, and in Stowe and Morristown, Vermont, 1837-40. After recovering from a severe illness, he bought the Christian Repository, which he published and edited, 1840-70. In this editorial post he was widely influential amongst Universalists. He preached in Kansas and Iowa, 1870-72. Returning to Vermont, he settled in South Woodstock, 1872-79; Barnard and Bethel, 1879-1882; and East Montpelier, 1882-83. He received an honorary D.D from a college in Kentucky around 1860.

IIC Descendents of Obadiah Ballou (1689-1768)

Grandchildren of Obadiah Ballou were Captain Jesse Ballou (1741-1800) and Levi Ballou (1744-1805), brothers who farmed in the Ballou neighborhood of Cumberland, Rhode Island. Jesse was converted to Universalism by the preaching of Hosea Ballou. Levi, who became a Universalist as well, was a justice of the peace and a representative in the Rhode Island House.

Jesse's son, Darius Ballou (1762-1829), became an outspoken advocate of Universalism. According to Adin Ballou, "there were few laymen in all the country who could more ably argue in its defense. He was clear-headed, a remarkably fluent talker, and never turned his back to an opponent."

Levi's son, Levi Ballou, Jr. (1782-1836), a local civic leader in the Ballou neighborhood, was also an advocate of Hosea Ballou's theology who in 1822 debated with his friend Adin Ballou, then a minister of the Christian Connexion. That spring Levi invited Adin to attend a meeting of the Southern Association of Universalists in Wrentham, Massachusetts. There Adin met Hosea Ballou 2d, who befriended him and eventually helped him into Universalist fellowship.

Levi Jr.'s younger brother, Olney Ballou (1784-1849), a Universalist, was a brick and stone mason and a prominent state politician, serving in both the House and the Senate. He was a friend and supporter of Thomas Dorr, who led the abortive Dorr Rebellion in 1841.

Barton Ballou (1791-1844), the youngest of Levi Sr.'s sons, studied at Brown University, 1809-16, receiving an M.A. degree. While at university he taught at an academy in Wickford, Rhode Island. He was hired to teach at Nichols Academy, a new Universalist school in Dudley, Massachusetts, but, shortly after he began work, the school burned down. He then went to Baltimore, Maryland and worked as a private tutor. After barely recovering from yellow fever, in 1820 he returned to New England, where he studied for the ministry under Hosea Ballou. He was given Universalist fellowship at the 1822 meeting of the Southern Association, the first Universalist meeting attended by his cousin Adin Ballou. Although he was promoted by his mentor for his intellectual qualities, Barton Ballou, a poor preacher and in uncertain health, was unable to get a call from any Universalist church. He returned to the Ballou neighborhood and worked again as a schoolteacher. When in 1831 Adin Ballou listed him as an agent for the new Restorationist newspaper, the Independent Messenger, Barton complained that his Universalist reputation had been injured by having his name associated with the Restorationists. According to Adin Ballou, "the closing years of Rev. Barton's life were draped with somber mental depression."

Levi Ballou Jr. had two notable Universalist sons, Eliab Metcalf Ballou (1805-1857) and Latimer Whipple Ballou (1812-1900). Eliab, a mason and an owner of the Woonsocket Baking Company, was an active member of the Woonsocket Universalist society and a teacher in the Sunday school.

Latimer W. Ballou was trained as a printer in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He then worked for the Harvard University printing office and was a founding partner of the Cambridge Press. In 1842 he moved back to Woonsocket where he worked in a brother-in-law's store. In 1850 he began a long and successful career in banking, eventually becoming treasurer of the Woonsocket Institution for Savings. A local organizer and leader of the Republican Party, he introduced Abraham Lincoln when Lincoln made a campaign speech in Woonsocket and served as an elector for Lincoln in the 1860 Electoral College. Ballou served in the United States House of Representatives, 1874-80. A close friend of his minister, John Boyden, he was the leading layperson in the Woonsocket Universalist church and for decades the superintendent of the Sunday school. He published several Universalist pamphlets, including Questions in Relation to Sin and Its Consequences, Salvation, and Destiny, 1883. In 1887 he was awarded an honorary LL.D. by Tufts University.

A great deal of information about the Ballou family can be drawn from Adin Ballou's An Elaborate History and Genealogy of the Ballous in America (1888). In the introduction he lays out a theory of the Norman origin of the Ballous which is critiqued by Lynn Gordon Hughes in "The European Origin of the Ballou Family," available at http://www.ballewassn.org/ballou_origins.htm. Some of the ministers in the family have obituaries in the Universalist Register. There is information on Ballous who served churches in Vermont in Edith Fox MacDonald, Rebellion in the Mountains: the Story of Universalism and Unitarianism in Vermont (1976). For Ballou ministers in Massachusetts, see Works Projects Administration, Inventory of Universalist Archives in Massachusetts (1942). On the family of Hosea Ballou, there is Thomas Whittemore, Life of Rev. Hosea Ballou, vol. 1 (1853), Maturin Murray Ballou, Biography of Rev. Hosea Ballou (1852), and Ernest Cassara, Hosea Ballou: the Challenge to Orthodoxy (1961). There is information on Adin Ballou's family, and on some distantly related Ballous, in Adin Ballou, Autobiography of Adin Ballou (1896); Adin Ballou, History of the Hopedale Community (1897); Adin Ballou, Memoir of Adin Augustus Ballou (1853); Hopedale Reminiscences (1910); and Edward K. Spann, Hopedale: From Commune to Company Town, 1840-1920 (1992). There is mention of Sullivan Ballou's Universalism in the Woonsocket Patriot (June 20, 1862) and correspondence of Barton Ballou in the early 1831 issues of the Independent Messenger. Benjamin Ballou's poem is in Hosea Ballou, A Voice to Universalists (1849). See also Thomas Whittemore, "History of the Universalist Society in Portsmouth," Universalist Miscellany (September, 1848); Erastus Richardson, History of Woonsocket (1876); Richard Eddy, Universalism in America, 2 volumes (1884 and 1886); New England Historical and Genealogical Register (1906); Elmo Robinson, The Universalist Church in Ohio (1923); Donald Watt, From Heresy Toward Truth (1971); and Russell Miller, The Larger Hope, vol. 1 (1979). The Sullivan Ballou picture is courtesy of the Medusa/S.S. Foss Media Center.

Article by Peter Hughes - posted February 12, 2007; the Dictionary of Unitarian and Universalist Biography, an on-line resource of the Unitarian Universalist History & Heritage Society. http://uudb.org

Hosea Ballou 2d

Hosea Ballou 2d (October 18, 1796-May 27, 1861), Universalist minister, scholar, educator, and journalist, was the grandnephew of the theologian and denominational leader Hosea Ballou. Ballou 2d played a crucial role defending the elder Ballou in the Restorationist controversy. He made the first substantial contribution to Universalist history, the monumental The Ancient History of Universalism, and worked to elevate the standard of Biblical criticism among Universalists. A mentor to many aspiring ministers, he was an early proponent of more formal theological education. He was a founder, and the first president, of Tufts College.

Hosea 2d was born in Guilford, Vermont, the son of a farming couple, Martha Starr and Asahel Ballou. Asahel was the son of Benjamin Ballou, Hosea Ballou's oldest brother. Born three months before his uncle Hosea, Asahel was Hosea's childhood companion and a friend throughout life. Both Martha and Asahel had originally been Baptists. They converted to Universalism in the early 1790s, before Hosea 2d was born.

Young Hosea's early education at the public district school was supplemented with Latin lessons from local Congregationalist minister Thomas H. Wood. After the age of 14, he was largely self-educated. He was especially attracted to languages, eventually learning Latin, Greek, French, German, and some Hebrew. He spent three years teaching in public schools in Vermont. In 1812 his family briefly considered sending him to college, but decided not to do so, worried that he might be recruited there by the Congregationalists.

In 1813 Ballou 2d became an assistant to his great-uncle Hosea Ballou, who at that time was supplementing his ministerial income by operating a private school in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. For the next two years Ballou 2d taught at the school and was at the same time the elder Ballou's first ministerial student. He adopted the theology his great-uncle held at that time, retaining belief in probationary punishment in the afterlife after his mentor had ceased to believe in it. Like other Ballou students, Ballou 2d was encouraged to write sermons and to begin preaching at an early date. By the end of 1816 he had delivered nearly fifty sermons in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. In 1816 he was welcomed into fellowship by the New England General Convention.

Ballou 2d's first settlement was at the Universalist church in Stafford, Connecticut, 1817-21. Based in Stafford, he traveled in a circuit embracing northeast Connecticut and adjoining areas of southern Massachusetts. In 1820 he married Clarissa Hatch, whom he had known from childhood.

On the advice of his great-uncle, Ballou 2d accepted a call from the new Universalist church in Roxbury, Massachusetts. Hosea Ballou and Paul Dean, Universalist ministers in Boston, had stirred up interest in Universalism in this Boston suburb by regularly lecturing there in 1820. Ballou 2d served the Roxbury society, 1821-38. At the same time he continued his language studies and, from 1826, ran a private school for boys. He served the church in Medford, Massachusetts, 1838-54.

Ballou 2d first wrote for the Universalist Magazine in 1819, the first year of its publication. He made more frequent contributions after his move to Roxbury, often using the pseudonym "Marcus." From 1822-26 he was co-editor with Hosea Ballou and Ballou's fiery young disciple, Thomas Whittemore.

During the 1820s and 30s Universalists were engaged in a bitter controversy between the "ultra" or "death and glory" Universalists, led by the elder Hosea Ballou, and the "Restorationists," who believed in limited future punishment. Although Ballou 2d agreed theologically with the Restorationists, he condemned them—notably, Paul Dean, Edward Turner, and Jacob Wood—for the harshness of their attacks on his great-uncle. After the Restorationists in late 1822 had published two articles in the Christian Repository, "An Appeal to the Public" and a declaration "To the World," Ballou 2d was assigned the job of making a formal reply on behalf of the editors of the Universalist Magazine. As he was known to be open and reliable, and a believer in future punishment, amongst the three editors he would be the one perceived to be most even-handed. His editorial, accusing Dean and Turner of professional envy of his great-uncle, was devastating to the Restorationist cause and put the ministers who had authorized the "Appeal and Declaration," on the defensive. As they elected not to make a public reply, Ballou 2d's verdict was allowed to stand.

Throughout the controversy Ballou 2d attempted to mediate the differences between the two sides, believing that the conflict was based more on personalities than on theologies. When in 1831 a group of Restorationists left the Universalist fold and formed the Massachusetts Association of Universal Restorationists (MAUR), he commented that the New England Universalist General Convention "now counts among its members, as it ever has done, more Restorationists than belong to that party that seems to identify all its movements with that appellation."

Ballou 2d was at heart no theological controversialist. Basically an educator and historian, he participated in the Restorationist controversy only when he felt it necessary to set the record straight. When he did write theologically, it was in a scholarly manner and in the spirit of teaching rather than debate. His Biblical criticism, such as "The New Testament Doctrine of Salvation," in the Expositor, 1840, helped Universalists return to the theology repudiated by his great-uncle during the Restorationist controversy.

Ballou 2d was an active participant in Universalist conventions and associations. At the New England General Convention, which he attended most years from 1816 on, he served as moderator and clerk, on the Seminary Committee, and on various fellowship, disciplinary, and constitutional committees. He was chosen Standing Clerk in 1824 and served the New England General Convention and its successor, the United States General Convention, until 1839. He was also, beginning in 1824, Standing Secretary of the Southern Association.

In 1829, after four and a half years of research, Ballou 2d published The Ancient History of Universalism, from the Time of the Apostles to the Fifth General Council, a comprehensive study that gave Universalists some scholarly recognition and helped to demonstrate that their heresy, if such it was, had a venerable lineage. There was an appendix which in outline fashion brought the story of belief in universal salvation to just before the Reformation. The scholarship held up a long time; new editions appeared in 1842 and 1871.

In the earliest days of the Christian Church, Ballou 2d argued, there was little that could be described as a system of doctrine. Nothing was asked of early converts, except acknowledgment of the mission of Christ and a life that reflected their simple profession. According to Ballou's narration, during the first century little was said about the afterlife and for centuries after that time diverse opinions were openly held. It was only around AD 400 that Universalism began to be censured. According to Ballou 2d, church and civil politics—not the divine ordinance or early Christian teaching—established the heresy of belief in universal salvation.

During his years in Roxbury and Medford Ballou taught and advised a number of students preparing for the ministry, among them two of his brothers, Levi and William Starr Ballou, and a distant cousin Russell A. Ballou. Other students included Thomas Starr King, Edwin Hubbell Chapin, Charles Spear, John Murray Spear, Matthew Hale Smith, and George Bradburn. He recruited Adin Ballou to the Universalist ministry. To broaden the education of self-taught ministers Ballou developed a three-year home study curriculum, Course of Biblical and Theological Study, 1839. By 1840 so many students hoped to study under him that he began to teach them in groups at specified class times, rather than individually.

Ballou 2d was long interested in establishing Universalist academies, colleges, and theological schools. Many established ministers, including the elder Hosea Ballou, were opposed to the institutions for the training of clergy, convinced that a good knowledge of the Bible and a good mentor were all that were needed for the preparation of a minister. Moreover they suspected that a seminary education would expose the students to undue orthodox influence. In "Review of the Denomination of Universalists in the United States," Universalist Expositor, 1839, Ballou 2d tried to assuage these fears. He compared the beliefs and behavior of the clergy in sects that had recently founded theological schools and discovered that "they have grown more liberal in doctrine, and less aristocratic and domineering, less confined to one form of words and one manner of speaking and thinking." The report was much reprinted and influenced the institution-building of the new generation of Universalists.

Feeling the need of more scholarly Universalist journals than were then available, Ballou 2d founded and edited the Universalist Expositor, 1830-40, a bi-monthly with 6 volumes over 10 years. As it had a smaller circulation than general periodicals it generally lost money. Several times discontinued, it was twice revived by Ballou 2d, and continued to be a financial drain until the publisher in 1840 protested, "The Expositor must stop!" Later Ballou 2d edited the Universalist Quarterly and General Review, 1844-56. This magazine contained scholarly articles mixed with pieces of more general interest. He wrote many articles on Biblical, theological, historical, literary critical, philological, and biographical topics. He was the first president of the Universalist Historical Society, serving 1834-35 and in 1846. The Universalist leader and historian Elbridge G. Brooks termed him "probably the most learned theologian in the ranks of self-educated men in the country."

In 1843, to fill the vacancy created by the death of William Ellery Channing, Ballou 2d was appointed to the Harvard Board of Overseers, a position he held until 1858. In 1845 he received a D.D. degree from Harvard, the first Universalist so recognized.

Beginning in 1841 Ballou 2d worked tirelessly in an effort to establish a Universalist college. In that year Charles Tufts, a Charlestown, Massachusetts Universalist, donated ten acres on a hill in Medford upon which to build a seminary. Ballou 2d helped to raise funds, but, partly due to the opposition of the elder Hosea Ballou, the effort fell considerably short of what was needed. Ballou 2d's Occassional Sermon before the General Convention of 1847, "The Responsibilities of Universalists in the Position They Now Hold before God and the World," inspired the educational convention held two days later to initiate a new fund-raising campaign for a Universalist college. After four years sufficient funds had been raised to proceed. To Ballou 2d's disappointment, Medford was selected as the site; he feared that its location so near to Cambridge would mean that it would always be overshadowed by Harvard.

In 1853 Ballou reluctantly agreed to serve as president of the new school and in 1855 Tufts College officially opened. Ballou himself carried a heavy load, teaching history and intellectual philosophy in addition to his presidential duties and conducting the majority of chapel and Sunday services. According to College records, he "gave instruction in history remarkable alike for its quantity and quality, at a time when the study was hardly recognized in American colleges."

Four years later Ballou's health began to fail, necessitating a reduction in his responsibilities. By the time Ballou died quietly at his College home in 1861, Tufts College had been well established. The importance of his work there was increasingly appreciated after his death. A history of the college, published in 1896, included this tribute: "Modest and unassuming in his manners, the influence of his character was felt by all who knew him. He was worthy to be called by that most honorable of titles,—a cultured Christian gentleman."

Hosea and Clarissa Ballou had seven children, two of whom died young. At least four were Universalists. The eldest, Giddings Hyde Ballou (1820-1886), was a painter, writer of illustrated articles for Harper's, and an editor of the Gospel Banner. Harriet Eliza (1830-1859) married Universalist minister Russell A. Ballou. Two unmarried daughters, Julia Crehore (1828-1883) and Mary Jane (1833-1885) were longtime members their father's church in Medford.

Hosea Ballou 2d's sermons and correspondence are in the Universalist Special Collections at the Andover-Harvard Theological Library in Cambridge, Massachusetts and in the Tufts University Archives in the Wessell Library, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts. Among his works not mentioned above are a number of printed sermons and tracts, A Collection of Psalms and Hymns for the Use of Universalist Societies and Families (1837), and Counsel and Encouragement: Discourses on the Conduct of Life (1866). The most substantial source of information on Ballou 2d is Hosea Starr Ballou, Hosea Ballou 2d, D.D., First President of Tufts College: His Origin, Life, and Letters (1896), which contains excerpts from his correspondence and a catalogue of his scholarly journal articles.

Among the biographical essays on Ballou 2d are Elbridge Gerry Brooks, "Hosea Ballou 2d," Universalist Quarterly and General Review (July 1878) and Russell Miller, "Hosea Ballou 2d: Scholar and Educator," Annual Journal Universalist Historical Society (1959). There is a substantial entry on Ballou 2d and entries on his grandfather, his father, and his children in Adin Ballou, An Elaborate History and Genealogy of the Ballous in America (1888) and an entry by Alan Seaburg in American National Biography (1999). There is also biographical information in Richard Eddy, Universalism in America, vol. 2 (1886); Alaric B. Start, ed., History of Tufts College (1896); Inventory of Universalist Archives in Massachusetts (1942); Russell Miller, Light on the Hill, A History of Tufts College, 1852-1952 (1966); Edith Fox McDonald, Rebellion in the Mountains: The Story of Universalism and Unitarianism in Vermont (1976); and Russell Miller, The Larger Hope, vol. 1 (1979).

Article by Charles A. Howe and Peter Hughes - posted October 5, 2003

All material copyright Unitarian Universalist History & Heritage Society (UUHHS) 1999-2015 Links to third-party sites are provided solely as a convenience. DUUB does not endorse materials on other sites. CREDIT LINE: From the biography of _______ written by ________ in the Dictionary of Unitarian and Universalist Biography, an on-line resource of the Unitarian Universalist History & Heritage Society.

John Murray Atwood

John Murray Atwood (September 25, 1869-November 4, 1951), a Universalist minister, educator, and denominational leader, served, for 37 years, as dean of the Canton Theological School of St. Lawrence University.

John (called Murray by his family) was born in a part of Brockton that is now in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. He was the fourth child, and only son, of Almira Church and Isaac Morgan Atwood. Ten years later, when his father became president of the Canton Theological School, the Atwoods moved to Canton, New York. Deeply connected to Canton and St. Lawrence University throughout his life, John graduated from Canton Academy, 1885, and earned three degrees from the St. Lawrence University: B.A.,1889; B.D., 1893; and M.A., 1900. He was awarded an honorary D.D. by Lombard University in 1906. As an undergraduate, he specialized in classics and distinguished himself academically, being elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and was a member of the varsity baseball team. Later, as a theological student, he coached the baseball team.

After taking his undergraduate degree, he spent a year, 1889-90, as a reporter for the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, before returning to Canton to enroll in the theological school. He became active there in the recently established Young Peoples' Christian Union. Like his father, he was ordained at the Clifton Springs, New York church. He was minister there, 1893-95. In 1894 he married Addie B. Ford, whom he had first met while a theological student, and at whose church in Middleville, New York, near Utica, he often preached. They had three children: Ruth, Helen, and John.

Atwood next served The Third Universalist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1895-98. During 1898-99, he returned to Canton to teach ethics and logic at the theological school and to finish his Master's degee. During a settlement in Portland, Maine, 1899-1905, he ministered as well to the students in nearby Westbrook Seminary, a coeducational school which had been founded by Universalists in 1834.

In 1905 Atwood returned to Canton to teach at St. Lawrence University. He remained there for the rest of his life. Initially he taught sociology and ethics in the theological school and Greek in the College of Letters and Science. Subsequently he taught most of the courses offered by the theological school and taught education, psychology, and philosophy in the college. Over the years he came to be regarded as a master teacher, drawing his students into discussions and seldom lecturing. The purpose of education, he said, "is not to make the youth the preconceived kind of being we may want him to be, but to help him fulfill the promise of his own inherent powers. The great object of education is to assist the individual to be what is in him to be."

Atwood was himself a theist, seeing God as the force of living, active, human love, manifest in those who labor with "good will and sacrificial spirit for the good of their brothers." Open to those with other theological orientations, he often defended colleagues who came under fire for their views, among them the pacifist Herbert Philbrook Morrell, Professor of Christian Ethics at the theological school, and Kenneth Patton, minister at the experimental Charles Street Meeting House in Boston, whom he invited to Canton to talk with his seminarians.

After serving a year as Gaines Professor of Philosophy, in 1914, on the death of Henry Prentiss Forbes, Atwood was named dean of the theological school. The years of his deanship, 1914-51, spanned two world wars, the Great Depression, a sharp denominational decline, and increasing competition for Universalist seminarians from theological schools other than those at St. Lawrence or Tufts. Among the graduates in Atwood's time were Emerson Hugh Lalone, who became editor of the Universalist Leader; Gustav Ulrich, who worked with refugees in Europe following the Second World War; Max Kapp, who joined the faculty in 1942 and became the school's last dean in 1960; Jeffrey Campbell, the school's first African American graduate and a leading civil rights activist; Brainard Gibbons, who became president of the Universalist Church of America and then general superintendent; and Gene Navias, who became a denominational leader in religious education. An important addition to the faculty was Angus H. MacLean, a leading religious educator, who followed Atwood as the school's dean.

Atwood took an active part in denominational affairs. He was on the board of trustees of the Canton Universalist church and taught in its church school. He served two terms as president of the Universalist General Convention, 1923-25 and 1925-27. Unlike his father, he had no interest in writing for publication.

In 1949 Atwood suffered a heart attack but was able to continue teaching. In 1951, after a second heart attack, he resigned from the deanship, but as Dean Emeritus continued to meet his classes, often in his home. He died a month later while eating breakfast with his wife Addie and their daughter, Helen Harwood.

A few weeks later, the theological school's Fisher Hall was destroyed by fire. In 1955 Addie Atwood participated in the laying of the cornerstone for a new building. The following year Atwood Hall was formally opened and dedicated as a memorial to Isaac Morgan Atwood and John Murray Atwood.

There is a chapter on John Murray Atwood in Clinton Lee Scott, These Live Tomorrow (1964) and short entries on him in David Robinson, The Unitarians and the Universalists (1985) and in Mark Harris, Historical Dictionary of Unitarian Universalism (2004). See also Russell Miller, The Larger Hope, volume 2 (1985) and Max Kapp and David Parke, 120 Years: An Account of the Theological School of St. Lawrence University, 1856-1976 (1976). The photo of Atwood is courtesy of the Unitarian Universalist Association. 


 

Article by Charles A. Howe - posted March 17, 2007

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John Murray Atwood
 

John Murray Atwood (September 25, 1869-November 4, 1951), a Universalist minister, educator, and denominational leader, served, for 37 years, as dean of the Canton Theological School of St. Lawrence University.

John (called Murray by his family) was born in a part of Brockton that is now in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. He was the fourth child, and only son, of Almira Church and Isaac Morgan Atwood. Ten years later, when his father became president of the Canton Theological School, the Atwoods moved to Canton, New York. Deeply connected to Canton and St. Lawrence University throughout his life, John graduated from Canton Academy, 1885, and earned three degrees from the St. Lawrence University: B.A.,1889; B.D., 1893; and M.A., 1900. He was awarded an honorary D.D. by Lombard University in 1906. As an undergraduate, he specialized in classics and distinguished himself academically, being elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and was a member of the varsity baseball team. Later, as a theological student, he coached the baseball team.

After taking his undergraduate degree, he spent a year, 1889-90, as a reporter for the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, before returning to Canton to enroll in the theological school. He became active there in the recently established Young Peoples' Christian Union. Like his father, he was ordained at the Clifton Springs, New York church. He was minister there, 1893-95. In 1894 he married Addie B. Ford, whom he had first met while a theological student, and at whose church in Middleville, New York, near Utica, he often preached. They had three children: Ruth, Helen, and John.

Atwood next served The Third Universalist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1895-98. During 1898-99, he returned to Canton to teach ethics and logic at the theological school and to finish his Master's degee. During a settlement in Portland, Maine, 1899-1905, he ministered as well to the students in nearby Westbrook Seminary, a coeducational school which had been founded by Universalists in 1834.

In 1905 Atwood returned to Canton to teach at St. Lawrence University. He remained there for the rest of his life. Initially he taught sociology and ethics in the theological school and Greek in the College of Letters and Science. Subsequently he taught most of the courses offered by the theological school and taught education, psychology, and philosophy in the college. Over the years he came to be regarded as a master teacher, drawing his students into discussions and seldom lecturing. The purpose of education, he said, "is not to make the youth the preconceived kind of being we may want him to be, but to help him fulfill the promise of his own inherent powers. The great object of education is to assist the individual to be what is in him to be."

Atwood was himself a theist, seeing God as the force of living, active, human love, manifest in those who labor with "good will and sacrificial spirit for the good of their brothers." Open to those with other theological orientations, he often defended colleagues who came under fire for their views, among them the pacifist Herbert Philbrook Morrell, Professor of Christian Ethics at the theological school, and Kenneth Patton, minister at the experimental Charles Street Meeting House in Boston, whom he invited to Canton to talk with his seminarians.

After serving a year as Gaines Professor of Philosophy, in 1914, on the death of Henry Prentiss Forbes, Atwood was named dean of the theological school. The years of his deanship, 1914-51, spanned two world wars, the Great Depression, a sharp denominational decline, and increasing competition for Universalist seminarians from theological schools other than those at St. Lawrence or Tufts. Among the graduates in Atwood's time were Emerson Hugh Lalone, who became editor of the Universalist Leader; Gustav Ulrich, who worked with refugees in Europe following the Second World War; Max Kapp, who joined the faculty in 1942 and became the school's last dean in 1960; Jeffrey Campbell, the school's first African American graduate and a leading civil rights activist; Brainard Gibbons, who became president of the Universalist Church of America and then general superintendent; and Gene Navias, who became a denominational leader in religious education. An important addition to the faculty was Angus H. MacLean, a leading religious educator, who followed Atwood as the school's dean.

Atwood took an active part in denominational affairs. He was on the board of trustees of the Canton Universalist church and taught in its church school. He served two terms as president of the Universalist General Convention, 1923-25 and 1925-27. Unlike his father, he had no interest in writing for publication.

In 1949 Atwood suffered a heart attack but was able to continue teaching. In 1951, after a second heart attack, he resigned from the deanship, but as Dean Emeritus continued to meet his classes, often in his home. He died a month later while eating breakfast with his wife Addie and their daughter, Helen Harwood.

A few weeks later, the theological school's Fisher Hall was destroyed by fire. In 1955 Addie Atwood participated in the laying of the cornerstone for a new building. The following year Atwood Hall was formally opened and dedicated as a memorial to Isaac Morgan Atwood and John Murray Atwood.

There is a chapter on John Murray Atwood in Clinton Lee Scott, These Live Tomorrow (1964) and short entries on him in David Robinson, The Unitarians and the Universalists (1985) and in Mark Harris, Historical Dictionary of Unitarian Universalism (2004). See also Russell Miller, The Larger Hope, volume 2 (1985) and Max Kapp and David Parke, 120 Years: An Account of the Theological School of St. Lawrence University, 1856-1976 (1976). The photo of Atwood is courtesy of the Unitarian Universalist Association. 


 

Article by Charles A. Howe - posted March 17, 2007

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