The meeting at Quincy in 1860 was one of great interest and enthusiasm. The missionary spirit rose high; and it was proposed to put into the field an aggressive worker, and to give him the necessary financial support. To this end a missionary association was organized, with Rev. Robert Collyer as the president, and Artemas Carter, a successful business man of Chicago, as the treasurer. Before the result desired could be realized, the war gave a very different direction to all the interests of the western churches. Of the twenty-nine ministers in the west at this time, sixteen went into the army,--twelve as chaplains, two as officers, and two as privates,--while several others devoted themselves to hospital work for longer or shorter periods. Rev. Augustus H. Conant, Rev. Leonard Whitney, Rev. Frederick R. Newell, and Rev. L.B. Mason answered with their lives to their country's call. The period immediately following the close of the civil war was one of generous giving and of great activity on the part of the western churches. From 1864 to 1866 the field was occupied by twenty-one new laborers, several new societies were organized, four old ones were resuscitated, seven new churches were built, and fifteen missionary stations were opened. The churches during these two years contributed $5,000 to missionary purposes and $13,000 to Antioch College. The degree of success met with in the efforts of the Western Conference depended in large degree upon the interest and activity of the western churches themselves. When they devoted themselves earnestly to missionary work, they contributed to it with a fair degree of liberality, and that work prospered. When the conference was asked to withdraw from the direction of that work by Rev. Charles Lowe, in order to secure greater unity of missionary effort by bringing all work of this kind under the direction of the Association, the contributions of the churches diminished, and the missionary activities in the west languished. However valuable the aid of the Unitarian Association,--and there can be no question that it was of the greatest importance,--local interest and co-operation were also essential to permanent success. Local activity and general oversight were alike necessary. [Sidenote: The Autumnal Conventions.] For more than twenty years Autumnal Conventions, as they were called, were held in the larger cities, beginning at Worcester in 1842. These meetings originated in the Worcester Association of Ministers at a meeting held July 11, 1842, when the association considered the "desirableness of a meeting of Unitarians in the autumn for the purpose of awakening mutual sympathy and considering the wants of the Unitarian body."[11]