Very brief biographical information is included in these entries to set historical context of the authors and subjects of the works listed in this guide.
Most of the information on ministers comes from the "General Catalogues" (list of graduates and students) of the theological schools they attended. We have copies in our collection of the catalogues of Harvard, Andover, Princeton, Union, Meadville, Newton, New Brunswick, and Colgate-Rochester, and many of these and others can be found in Google Books. In addition, copies in Google Books of biographical sketches of the graduates of Harvard, Yale, Williams, and other colleges were found to be useful for compiling this data. The print Who Was Who. the Dictionary of American Biography, and other biographical reference sources were also used. For subjects and authors of those in official military service during the War, links have been created to the descriptions of regiments and battles from the National Park Service's Civil War site.
As with any undertaking of a project and presentation of this size, there are likely to be omissions and mistakes. Please email Research Services with comments and corrections.
Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667) was chaplain to King Charles I and later Bishop of Down and Connor in Ireland. His The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying was first published in 1651.
Thomas Baldwin Thayer (Sept. 10, 1812-Feb. 12, 1886) was the minister of the Shawmut Avenue Universalist Church in Boston from 1858 to 1867.
Charles Briggs Thomas (Aug. 4, 1830-Apr. 28, 1875) graduated from Harvard Divinity School in 1855. He was the minister of the First Unitarian Society in Chicago from 1861 to 1864.
James William Thompson (Dec. 13, 1805-Sept. 22, 1881) graduated from Brown in 1827 and from Harvard Divinity School in 1831. He was the minister (1859-81) of the First Congregational Society of Jamaica Plain (Unitarian) where this sermon was preached.
Augustus Charles Thompson (Apr. 30, 1812-Sept. 26, 1901) studied at Yale College and graduated from the Hartford Seminary (then the Theological Institute in East Windsor Hill) in 1838. He was the minister of the Eliot Congregational Church in Roxbury from 1842 until his death.
Joseph Parrish Thompson (Aug. 7, 1819–Sept. 20, 1879) graduated from Yale College in 1838 and studied at Yale Divinity School (1839-40) and Andover Theological Seminary (1840-41). He was minister of the Broadway Tabernacle Church in New York from 1845 to 1871.
Edward Thomson (Oct. 12, 1810-Mar. 21, 1870) joined the Ohio Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1832. He was the first President of Ohio Wesleyan University (1846-60) and the editor of the Christian Advocate and Journal in New York City (1860-64). He was elected a bishop in 1864.
Nicholas Power Tillinghast (Mar. 3, 1817-Aug. 7, 1869) graduated from Brown in 1837 and from the Virginia Theologiccal Seminary in 1842. He was the rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Georgetown (Washington, D.C.) from 1848 to 1867.
John Edwards Todd (Dec. 6, 1833-Aug. 3, 1907) graduated from Yale College in 1855. He was the minister of the Central Congregational Church in Boston from 1860 to 1869.
Brothers George T. and John H. Tucker, sons of Ebenezer and Eliza B. Tucker, were privates in the 38th Regiment, Massachusetts Infantry. John (Feb. 19, 1835-May 27, 1863) graduated from Harvard College in 1862 and had intended to enroll in the Newton Theological Institution to study for the Baptist ministry. He was killed in action, at Port Hudson, Louisiana at age 28. His older brother George was an acting hospital steward; he was discharged at New Orleans on July 17, 1863, and died there on August 13, 1863. The Irving Literary Association (formed in Cambridge in 1855), of which John was a member, made arrangements for the bodies of the two brothers to be returned to Cambridge.
George Palmer Tyler (Dec. 10, 1809-Jan. 18, 1896) graduated from Yale College in 1836 and from Union Theological Seminary in 1840. He was the minister of the Congregational Society in Brattleboro, Vermont, from 1853 to 1869.
Stephen Higginson Tyng (Mar. 1, 1800-Sept. 3, 1885) graduated from Harvard College in 1817. He was the minster of St. George's Episcopal Church in New York from 1845 to 1878.
Stephen Montford Vail (Jan. 15? 1818-Nov. 26, 1880) graduated from Bowdoin College in 1838 and from Union Theological Seminary in 1842. He was a professor in the Methodist Biblical Institute in Concord, New Hampshire (a precursor to Boston University and its Theological School) from 1849 to 1868.
Henry Jackson Van Dyke (Mar. 2, 1822-May 25, 1891) graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1843 and studied at Princeton Theological Seminary (1843-44). He was the minister of the First Presbyterian Church (Old School) in Brooklyn, New York, from 1853 to 1891.
Marvin Richardson Vincent (Sept. 11, 1834-Aug. 18, 1922) graduated from Columbia in 1854. He was the minister of the First Presbyterian Church in Troy, New York, from 1863 to 1873.
James Gardiner Vose (Mar. 3, 1830-Mar. 13, 1908) graduated from Yale College in 1851 and from Andover Theological Seminary in 1854. He was the minister of the Second Congregational Church in Dorchester, Massachusetts, from 1865 to 1866.
Charles Wadsworth (May 8, 1814-Apr. 1, 1882) graduated from Union College in 1837 and studied at Princeton Theological Seminary (1839-41). He was the minister of the Arch Street Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia from 1850 to 1862.
James Samuel Wadsworth (Oct. 30, 1807-May 8, 1864) was a wealthy land-owner and philanthropist. At the age of 53 when the war began, Wadsworth was appointed major general of New York troops by the governor. Instead, he offered his services as a volunteer aide to General Irvin McDowell. Showing his bravery and energy in the battle of First Battle of Manassas (Bull Run), he was commissioned a brigadier general in on Aug. 9, 1861, and commanded a brigade in the defenses of Washington until March 1862, when he was placed in command of the defenses. On December 22, 1862 he was placed in command of the First Division, First Army Corps. His division saw only limited action at Chancellorsville, but at Gettysburg, on July 1, 1863, it was the first infantry division to reach the field and kept Confederate troops from major advancement until other Union troops arrived. In the reorganization for the 1864 campaign he was reassigned to command of the Fourth Division, Fifth Corps, Army of the Potomac, which saw some of the hardest fighting in the battle of the Battle of the Wilderness on May 5-6. In the afternoon of the sixth, he was shot in the head. He died two days later in a Confederate hospital.
George Leon Walker (Apr. 30, 1830-1909) studied at Andover Theological Seminary in 1857/58. He was the minister of the State Street Congregational Church in Portland, Maine, from 1858 to 1866.
James Walker (Aug. 16, 1794-Dec. 23, 1874) graduated from Harvard College in 1814 and from Harvard Divinity School in 1817. He was the minister of the Harvard Church in Charlestown, Massachusetts, from 1818-1839. At Harvard he was Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy, and Civil Polity at Harvard (1838-53); Acting President (1845-46); and President (1853-60).
John Fothergill Waterhouse Ware (Aug. 31, 1818-Feb. 26, 1881) graduated from Harvard College in 1838 and from Harvard Divinity School in 1842. He was the minister of the Cambridgeport Unitarian Parish (Cambridge, Massachusetts) from 1846 to 1864 and of the First Independent Congregational (Unitarian) Church in Baltimore from 1864 to 1867.
Mary Greene Chandler Ware (May 22, 1818-Feb. 2, 1907) was an author and the second wife of John Ware (1795-1864; Harvard College 1813).
Edwin Bonaparte Webb (Jan. 19, 1820-May 20, 1901) graduated from Bowdoin College in 1846 and from Bangor Theological Seminary in 1850; he studied at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1850/51. He was the minister of the Shawmut Congregational Church in Boston from 1860 to 1885.
Mary Ann Trask Webber was born in Beverly, Massachusetts. She was a poet who wrote under the name Mary Webb.
John Weiss (June 28, 1818-Mar. 9, 1879) graduated from Harvard College in 1837 and from Harvard Divinity School in 1843. He was the minister of the First Parish in Watertown, Massachusetts, 1843-45, 1846-47, and 1862-69.
Nathaniel West (Apr. 21, 1826-July 7, 1906) graduated from the University of Michigan in 1846 and from Allegheny Seminary in 1849. He was the minister of the Second Presbyterian Church (Old School) in Brooklyn from 1862 to 1869.
Francis Wharton (Mar. 7, 1820-Feb. 21, 1889)) graduated from Yale College in 1839. He was the rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Brookline, Massachusetts, from 1863 to 1871. On April 19, 1867, he became the first Dean of the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Massachusetts (he had authored the School’s constitution), a position he held for 11 weeks.
Phillis Wheatley (May 8, 1753-December 5, 1784) was the first published African-American woman, whose Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral was published in 1773.
Craig Wheelock (July 11, 1824-Nov. 28, 1868) graduated from Bowdoin College in 1843 and from Bangor Theological School in 1847. He was the minister of the Trinitarian Church in New Bedford, Massachusetts, from 1850 until his death.
William Charles Whitcomb (Feb. 9, 1820-Oct. 29, 1864) studied at Andover Theological Seminary (1847-50). He was the minister of the Congregational Church in Lynnfield Center, Massachusetts, from 1861 to 1862. On July 5, 1862, he received a commission as Chaplain of the U.S. Hospital at New Bern, North Carolina, and served there and in other hospitals in that area, dying of malarial fever and acute bronchitis at Morehead City, North Carolina, at the age of 44.
Pliny Holton White (Oct. 6, 1822-Apr. 24, 1869) studied law and was admitted to the Windham, Vermont, County bar on Nov. 25, 1843. He was licensed to preach by the Hampshire East Association in Massachusetts on May 11, 1858. He served the Congregational Church in Coventry, Vt., from 1858 until his death.
William Orne White (Feb. 12, 1821-Feb. 17, 1911) graduated from Harvard College in 1840 and from Harvard Divinity School in 1845. He was the minister of the Unitarian Church in Keene, New Hampshire, from 1851 to 1878.
Sydney Willard (Feb. 3, 1831-Dec. 14, 1862) graduated from Harvard College in 1852. He was a Captain (from August 13, 1862) and a Major (from September 2, 1862) in the 35th Regiment, Massachusetts Infantry and was mortally wounded on December 13 in the First Battle of Fredericksburg.
William Henry Willcox (Jan. 28, 1821-Dec. 15, 1904) graduated from New York University in 1843 and from Union Theological Seminary in 1846. He was the minister of the Bethesda Congregational Church in Reading, Massachusetts, from 1857 to 1879.
Francis Williams (Jan. 2, 1814-Jan. 8, 1896) graduated from Williams College in 1838 and from Hartford Seminary (then the Theological Institute in East Windsor Hill) in 1841. He was the minister in the Congregational Church in Chaplain, Connecticut, from 1858 to 1892.
William Blackstone Williams (Sept. 28, 1830-Aug, 9, 1862) was a first lieutenant (from May 25, 1861) and later a captain in the 2nd Regiment, Massachusetts Infantry. He was killed in the Battle of Cedar Mountain.
William R. Williams (Oct. 14, 1804-Apr. 1, 1885) graduated from Columbia College in 1822. He was the minister of the Amity Street (later, simply Amity) Baptist Church in New York City from 1832 to 1885.
Edmund Burke Willson (Aug. 15, 1820-June 13, 1895) graduated from Harvard Divinity School in 1843. He was the minister of the North Church in Salem, Massachusetts, from 1859 to 1895. He was a Chaplain in the 24th Regiment, Massachusetts Infantry, Oct. 21, 1863-July 6, 1864.
Sylvester Woodbridge (June 15, 1813-Apr. 1, 1883) graduated from Union College in 1830 and from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1834. After serving Presbyterian churches on Long Island, he moved to California as a missionary, serving churches in Benicia (the first Protestant church in California with an ordained resident pastor) and San Francisco (Howard Street and Woodbridge).
Augustus Woodbury (Dec. 4, 1825-Nov. 19, 1895) graduated from Harvard Divinity School in 1849. He was the minister of the Westminster Church in Providence from 1857 to 1892. He was a chaplain in the 1st Regiment, Rhode Island Infantry (3 months, 1861), (Apr. 17, 1861-Aug. 2, 1861). [Original photos:Augustus Woodbury, UUA Minister file]
Edward James Young (Apr. 1, 1829-June 23, 1906) graduated from Harvard College in 1847 and studied at Harvard Divinity School for two years ending in 1852. He was the Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages and Dexter Lecturer on Biblical Literature (1869-80). He was the minister of the Channing Church in Newton from 1857 to 1869.
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