Samuel Johnson

JOHNSON, Samuel. b. Salem, Massachusetts, 10 October 1822; d. North Andover, Massachusetts, 19 February 1882. Johnson graduated from Harvard College (AB, 1842) and Harvard Divinity School (1846). Always a Unitarian and a free thinker even by the liberal standards of Unitarianism, he formed and served the Free Church at Lynn, Massachusetts (1853-70). He ‘looked with distaste upon all parties, sects, lodges, and other organized forms of social groups… and never allowed it to affiliate with the Unitarian denomination’ (Christ-Janer et al., 1980, p. 452). In retirement he returned to Salem, and devoted himself to lecturing and writing. Shortly before that time he had published The Worship of...