Background
He was born in West Brooksville, Maine.
He was born in West Brooksville, Maine.
He studied at Phillips Academy, Andover and Bowdoin College for just one year from 1845.
He was early influenced by Thomas Carlyle, an influence he would shed. He is usually regarded as a disciple of Ralph Waldo Emerson. After theological training at Bangor Theological Seminary, he became pastor at Groveland, Massachusetts, but only briefly after a conflict with his congregation.
He then moved to Worcester, Massachusetts.
He lost a position at the Medford Unitarian Church because of his abolitionist views. He was appointed by the "28th Congregational Society" of Boston, and succeeded Unitarian radical Theodore Parker, who died in 1860, in 1865.