I never thought I would be able to use the words “baseball” and “Universalist” in the same sentence until I stumbled across an interesting story while researching our church history.

The story involves the Rev. Nelson Doolittle, a Universalist minister who was born and raised in New Milford, Pa., about 50 miles east of here. He entered the ministry in 1825, when he was twenty years old. He preached around Montrose for a year or two before moving to New York state, where he served congregations in Berkshire, Cortland, Lisle, and Oxford over a period of thirteen years.

Doolittle attended several Association meetings in Sheshequin and preached there at least once, in 1835. He is a minor character in UUCAS’s history, but often I just can’t resist exploring the stories of people who passed through Sheshequin, however briefly.

Doolittle left New York in 1838 for Ohio and later Philadelphia. In 1854 he returned to Susquehanna county and served the congregation at Brooklyn. In 1860 his wife died. Several years later he married a widow, Christiana Capwell, and settled in Factoryville. Factoryville is on Rt. 6, about eight miles west of Clarks Summit.

Christiana had a daughter from her first marriage, Minerva, who married a man named Gordon Mathewson. In 1880, Minerva and her husband were living with Nelson and Christiana in Factoryville. In August of that year, they had a son, Christopher, who became one of baseball’s greatest pitchers. Christy Mathewson played for the New York Giants for seventeen seasons in the early 1900’s. He was one of the first five players elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Mathewson refused to play baseball on Sundays because of his Christian beliefs. We don’t know if he was a Universalist, but he was probably born in the home of a Universalist minister. So now you, too, can use “baseball” and “Universalist” in the same sentence!