Hosea Ballou

BALLOU, Hosea. b. Richmond, New Hampshire, 30 April 1771; d. Boston, Massachusetts, 6 June 1852. The eleventh child of Maturin (1720-1804) a Calvinist Baptist preacher, and Lydia (née) Harris Ballou (1728-73), Hosea converted to Universalism in 1789. He spent several years as an itinerant preacher before taking his first congregation in Portsmouth, New Hampshire in 1809. He subsequently received a call to serve the Second Universalist Society of Boston in 1815. Hosea Ballou made a notable contribution to American Universalism with the publication of A Treatise on Atonement (1805) as well as through the Universalist Magazine, a weekly newspaper that was published from 1819-1828. He is often...