As noted in my last blog, Sheshequin Universalist Society member O. H. P. Kinney was a regular contributor to the Elmira Sunday Telegram in the early 1880s.  His weekly “Short Sunday Sermons” were published under the pen name “Peter Klaus.” One of his more trenchant sermons about orthodox Christian doctrine appeared in the Aug. 15, … Continue reading What Is Heaven?

In the early 1880s, the Elmira Sunday Telegram featured a regular column entitled “Our Short Sunday Sermon” by “Peter Klaus.”  The “sermons” offered a liberal religious perspective – usually critical, sometimes to the point of ridicule – on orthodox Christian doctrines. The original Peter Klaus was a character in a German legend who was the … Continue reading Who Was “Peter Klaus”?

Children do not always adopt the faith of their parents, even when the parent is a minister. After he was converted to Universalism by Noah Murray in 1793, the Rev. Moses Park began preaching universal salvation to his Baptist congregation.  Sheshequin Universalist Society member W. H. H. Gore recalled: “[Park’s] congregation approved of the new … Continue reading Far from the Tree

Julia Kinney Scott was the most famous Universalist poet from Bradford County, but there were a few other local Universalists who were known for their writing.  One of them was Asenath Woodburn Davies. Asenath Woodburn was born in 1803 in Cherry Valley, N. Y.  Her family moved to Wysox about 1808, then to Sheshequin in … Continue reading Asenath Davies, Universalist Hymn Writer

The Universalists’ belief that God would not condemn any of his children to endless suffering was viewed as heresy by their more orthodox Christian neighbors in the nineteenth century.  Many people thought that Universalists, fearing no divine punishment after death, would feel free to indulge in all sorts of licentiousness.  These people apparently only understood … Continue reading The Carrot, Not the Stick

In my last post I wrote about a scrapbook at the Tioga Point Museum which, I concluded, had come from the home of church member Ida Corbin.  The clipping that called my attention to this scrapbook was about a talk given to the young people’s organization at the Athens church by “Miss Maysie Green” in … Continue reading Dr. Mary Wolcott Green

I recently learned of a scrapbook at the Tioga Point Museum in Athens that contained a newspaper article about the Athens Universalist church.  The origin of this scrapbook was a bit of a mystery; the museum has no record of who donated it.  The clippings in its almost 200 pages appear to be from local … Continue reading The Scrapbook Mystery

Many of the members and friends of the Athens Universalist church in the late 1800s lived in Litchfield township, across the Susquehanna river from Athens.  The Wolcott family was the most numerous, and most of the Universalist Wolcotts were descended from Elijah Wolcott and his wife Elizabeth Park. Elizabeth Park Wolcott was born in 1788 … Continue reading They Took Their Marbles and Went Home

The Athens Universalist Society was organized in 1849 and built a meeting house on North St. in 1851. By the mid-1890’s, the building needed a lot of repairs. In November, 1895, the congregation met to discuss the possibility of selling the 1851 meeting house and building a new one about half a mile away at … Continue reading The 1896 “Poverty Party” – Part 2