The executive work of the Association fell to the charge of the secretary, Ezra S. Gannett, who had been one of the most enthusiastic advocates of the new organization. Gannett was but twenty-four years old, and had been but one year in the active ministry, as the colleague of Dr. Channing. He had youth, zeal, and executive force. Writing of him after his death, Dr. Bellows said: "He had rare administrative qualities and a statesmanlike mind. He would have been a leader anywhere. He had the ambition, the faculties, and the impulsive temperament of an actor in affairs. He had the fervor, the concentration of will, the passionate enthusiasm of conviction, the love of martyrdom, which make men great in action."[9] Throughout his life Gannett labored assiduously for the Association, serving it in every capacity refusing no drudgery, travelling over the country in its interests, and giving himself, heart and soul, to the cause it represented. The Unitarian cause never had a more devoted friend or one who made greater sacrifices in its behalf. To him more than to any other man it owes its organized life and its missionary serviceableness. Lewis Tappan, the treasurer, was a successful young business man. His term of service was brief; for two years after the organization of the Association he removed to New York, where he had an honorable career as one of the founders of the Journal of Commerce, and as the head of the first mercantile agency established in the country. He was later one of the anti-slavery leaders in New York, and an active and earnest member of Plymouth Church in Brooklyn.[10] The executive committee was composed of the three devoted young ministers who had been foremost in organizing the Association. Barrett was thirty, Ware and Walker were thirty-one years of age; and all three had been in Harvard College and the Divinity School together. Samuel Barrett had just been chosen minister of the newly formed Twelfth Congregational Church of Boston, which he served throughout his life. He was identified with all good causes in Eastern Massachusetts, a founder of the Benevolent Fraternity, and an overseer of Harvard College. Henry Ware, the younger, was, at the time of his election, the minister of the Second Church in Boston. Five years later he became professor in the Harvard Divinity School, and his memory is still cherished as the teacher and exemplar of a generation of Unitarian ministers. James Walker was, in 1825, the minister of the Harvard Church in Charlestown, and already gave evidence of the sanity and catholicity of mind, the practical organizing power, the wide philosophic culture, and the dignity of character which afterward distinguished him as professor in Harvard College, and as its president.