Notes on Two Hundred Years (and More)
by Douglas H. Parkhurst

The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Danbury (UUCD), organized in 1822 as the Universalist Society, will mark 204 years this coming December. More than sixty clergy have, in one way or another, been associated with the congregation over the past two centuries. Perhaps half were settled or parish ministers; others can be categorized as itinerant, supply, part-time, on-loan, extension, interim, or contract. In recent years, UUCD has also had a community minister and a religious education/family minister. Historically, a minister’s average length of service with this congregation has been about four years, with many staying for shorter periods. Only eleven of the total number have served six or more years. The past three decades have seen much turnover in the congregation’s clerical leadership; since 1996 UUCD has employed three settled, four interim, and three contract ministers, and periodic guest speakers, with the community and religious education/family ministries providing support and continuity.

Such clerical turnover is not new. It resembles comings and goings in the Universalist Society’s first years. In this article, we will look at some early preachers who touched the Danbury Universalists. Unfortunately, Society records before 1850 are missing and we must rely on a variety of denominational and local history sources for information.

First, a few words about John Murray. Some UUCD historians speculate that John Murray (1741-1815), the most influential advocate for and organizer of late 18th century Universalism in America, preached to yet-to-be-organized Universalists in Danbury. Murray, who was voted out of his Methodist congregation in England for advancing the heresy of universal salvation, sailed to the American colonies in the summer of 1770. The circumstances leading to his journey, his arrival in New Jersey, and the start of his ministry in this country are the stuff of a Universalist “miracle” story [see note below]. During his first years in America, John Murray proselytized up and down the east coast, from Maryland to New Hampshire. He later pastored congregations in Gloucester and Boston, Massachusetts, while continuing his travels. Murray’s form of Universalism has been described as “Calvinism [or Arminianism] improved,” retaining an orthodox basis while adding the then radical notion of God saving all souls, not just a select few [see note below]. It is known John Murray preached in coastal towns in Connecticut, as well as in Norwich, Preston, and Hartford. With documentation absent the question of whether he visited Danbury remains open.

Hosea Ballou (1771-1852), in early life a Baptist, became a leading light of the generation of Universalist clergy following John Murray. Ballou visited Danbury in 1807 and spoke at the courthouse on Main Street. The General Convention of Universalists was meeting that year in Newtown; Hosea Ballou was moderator and took the opportunity to come to Danbury, bringing the “good news” of the faith with him. Ballou, in his book A Treatise on Atonement (1805), developed a rational approach to religion and a unitarian (in contrast to a prevailing trinitarian) form of Universalism. In 1821 Hosea Ballou visited and preached in and around Hartford. Perhaps Ballou’s presence in Connecticut, his prominence in the denomination, and the memory of his earlier stop in Danbury inspired those who formed the Danbury Universalist Society a year later.

But Hosea Ballou was not the only influence. Solomon Glover, an Episcopalian turned Universalist, was a life-long resident of Newtown and member of a large Newtown family. Born in 1750 he was ordained in 1801, among the earliest Universalist preachers in Connecticut. In those days the towns of Danbury and Newtown shared a common border [see note below] and it is likely Solomon Glover brought his Universalist good news to his neighbors in Danbury before 1822. As time passed he came to be called Father Glover by those in the denomination.

Shortly before his death, at age 91, Father Glover was visited by Rev. Charles Spear, a correspondent for the periodical Evangelical Magazine and Gospel Advocate. Parts of the interview read this way [see note below]:
“…The last time he [Glover] preached was in Danbury, about ten years ago. The text was, ‘For we brought nothing into this world, and we can carry nothing out.’ I remember the argument: We brought no sin into the world, and we can carry none out. I leave the reader to judge of the strength of the reasoning…. ‘In preaching,’ he said, ‘he always told the people not to believe him, but search the Scriptures, and he never told the people that they were to be saved, but they were saved already’…. He went back to the old revolutionary war, and said he had always been governed by the principle that it was not right to kill a human being! Would to God all Universalists would adopt the same opinion….”

Solomon Glover married Mary Northrup in 1773; after Mary’s death he married Rachel Munson Ambler, widow of Stephen Ambler. Stephen was one of the twelve organizers of the Universalist Society in Danbury. Solomon Glover was the oldest Universalist minister in the United States when he died in 1842.

In 1821 Josiah Dikeman of Danbury was fellowshipped and ordained by the General Convention of Universalists, meeting in Hudson, New York. The moderator of the 1821 session was Solomon Glover. Perhaps Dikeman was Glover’s ministerial protégé. Josiah Dikeman was not among the twelve organizers of the Danbury Society in 1822, but his name does appear in the annual Connecticut state registers for 1825, 1826, and 1829 as a Universalist minister in Danbury. Connecticut State Convention records include him with those who preached to Universalists at Long Ridge (northern part of Stamford). In 1826 he officiated the marriage of Solomon Glover and Rachel Ambler. Josiah Dikeman’s ministerial fellowship was withdrawn by the Southern Association of Universalists (Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island) at its annual meeting in 1832.

The first permanent, though itinerant, minister of the Danbury Universalists, starting in 1824, is identified as Rev. Thomas Farrington King, then in his twenties and just beginning his career. Born in 1798 in New York City, King was working there as a tradesman, perhaps a cobbler, when friends encouraged him to pursue the ministry. He likely studied under the auspices of Rev. Edward Mitchell, a former Methodist who embraced trinitarian Universalism. Mitchell was leader of a congregation in New York City called “Society of United Christian Friends.”

Thomas Farrington King was fellowshipped by the General Convention in 1822 and ordained the following year. He preached first in Greenwich Village and briefly in Hudson, New York. King then moved to Norwalk, Connecticut, and rode a circuit preaching to Universalist groups in and near southwestern Connecticut, including Danbury. He was among the organizers of the geographically large Hudson River Association of Universalists which held its first meeting in Danbury in 1826 and included the Danbury congregation [see note below]. Around this time King returned to Hudson, New York. Thomas F. King was later called to Universalist churches in Portsmouth, New Hampshire (1828) and Charlestown, Massachusetts (1835).

While ministering in Charlestown Rev. King wrote, “The basis of Universalism is the nature of the blessed God. It recognizes the impartial and unchangeable love of our heavenly Father, and its grand moral design is, to assimilate man to the likeness of his Maker.”

John Greenleaf Adams, D.D., in his book Fifty Notable Years (1882) includes this description of Thomas Farrington King: “He came up from the humble walks of life, and by hard study and the improvement of every opportunity for mental culture, became a scholar of excellent acquirements….His voice was rich, deep, and musical….This, aside from their intrinsic merits, made his discourses strongly impressive….Mr. King had a large, warm, sympathetic heart, and made the joys and sorrows of the people his own. He was the life of the social circle…He had an unusually rich voice in singing. His pulpit services were pervaded with a profound reverential spirit….” Perhaps these fine qualities were emerging when he preached to the Danbury Universalists at the start of his career!

King was sympathetic to the Restorationist theological position within the denomination. Simply stated, Restorationists believed a temporary (though perhaps lengthy) future punishment or “cleansing” of the human soul after physical death was required to atone for sins committed in this life. When this process was complete, the soul achieved final salvation. Contrast this to the theological position of so-called Ultra Universalists (including Hosea Ballou) that sins in this life are punished in this life. The soul is so profoundly transformed upon physical death, through God’s love and the agency of Christ’s ultimate sacrifice, that it achieves final salvation immediately. No intermediate punishment is necessary. Compare these also with John Murray’s teaching that redemption for all was assured by Jesus’ death. It was not something that will happen in the future; redemption has already been accomplished. To Murray, “salvation” was achieved when the individual became aware of this truth. The role of the preacher was to apprise his listeners of this happy news.

Thomas Farrington King was a significant denominational as well as community leader. He was active in the work of the Universalist General Convention and in state conventions and regional associations. In 1837 King was chosen one of two chaplains of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. A Freemason, he was Grand Chaplain of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, 1838-39. Sadly, King fell ill and died in Charlestown in 1839, at the age of 41. Thomas F. King had married Susan Margaret Starr, also of New York City, in 1823. Their oldest son, Thomas Starr King, became an eminent Universalist and Unitarian minister. During his Civil War-era pastorate at the Unitarian church in San Francisco, Thomas Starr King became known as “the man who saved California for the Union.”

[Note – See the Murray Grove website at https://murraygrove.org/thomas-potter-and-john-murray-story/]
[Note – John Murray held that humankind, past, present, and future, had been redeemed by the death of Jesus on the cross. As “In Adam’s fall, we sinned all,” through the death of Jesus (the second Adam) all were saved.]
[Note – The parish of Bethel, on Danbury’s east side and west of Newtown, was part of the town of Danbury until Bethel was set off as a separate town in 1855.]
[Note – Magazine issue of July 22, 1842.]
[Note – The Connecticut Universalist Convention and three multi-county state associations (Hartford, Quinebaug, and Southern) were not established until the 1830s.]