Fifty Notable Years: Views of the Ministry of Christian Universalism During the Last Half-Century; with Biographical SketchesAdams, John G. (John Greenleaf)
Religion
Fifty Notable Years: Views of the Ministry of Christian Universalism During the Last Half-Century; with Biographical Sketches
Adams, John G. (John Greenleaf)
Universalism; Universalist Church -- Biography; Universalists -- Biography; Universalists -- United States -- History
Rev. EDWARD TURNER was for years one of the ablest ministers in the
Universalist Church. He was born in Medfield, Mass., July 28, 1776,
and was in early life sent to the school of the celebrated Hannah
Adams and her sister. In 1786 his family removed to Sturbridge, Mass.,
and in his seventeenth year he was at Leicester Academy. He was
educated under "orthodox" influence, and used to say that he "held the
minister in such fearful reverence that he would jump over the wall to
hide himself if he saw that he must meet him on the road." The towns
in the section of Worcester County in which he lived were among those
where Universalism was first preached. Oxford, especially, was one of
its strongholds, the first Convention having met there when he was ten
years old. In such a neighborhood he could not have lived long without
hearing something of the "strange doctrine," but all that is known is,
that he is said to have been a Universalist as early as his sixteenth
or seventeenth year. He began to preach in 1798, when, at the age of
twenty-two, he preached his first sermon at Bennington, Vt. He first
appears in the public records of the Universalists in 1800, when it is
stated that a Letter of License was given him by the General
Convention. From this time until 1824 his name appears in the records
nearly every year. He is mentioned in the records of the Convention
for 1803 as of Sturbridge and also of Charlton, from which it is
inferred that both these towns had societies of which he was pastor.
In 1809 he removed to Salem, Mass. Here he remained till June, 1814,
when he accepted a call to Charlestown, Mass. In March, 1824, he
accepted an invitation to Portsmouth, N. H., where he continued till
the spring of 1828. He was afterwards minister in Charlton, his old
home, and at Fishkill Landing, N. Y. In 1841 he removed to Jamaica
Plain, to a home left by a son-in-law, where he passed the remainder
of his days. He was twice married. He occasionally preached up to the
last. He was present as one of the bearers at the funeral of his old
friend and co-worker, Mr. Ballou, June 9, 1852, and departed this life
Jan. 24, 1853.
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