Ballou, Hosea (30 April 1771–07 June 1852), theologian and clergyman, was born in Richmond, New Hampshire, the son of Maturin Ballou, a farmer and unpaid Baptist minister, and Lydia Harris, who came from a Rhode Island Quaker family and died when her son was two years old. Growing up in extreme poverty, Ballou had less than three years of formal schooling. A few months before his nineteenth birthday, he came forward in a revival meeting and joined his father’s church. But before the year was over Ballou’s interest in religion had led him to become a Universalist. Moving in with an older brother who was already a Universalist minister, Ballou prepared himself to teach and preach by attending first a community school and then a nearby academy. Despite the fact that his friends, after hearing his first sermon, delivered in 1791, doubted his “talent for such labor,” Ballou preached wherever he found an open door. The next year he determined to make the ministry his career even though he had to support himself by teaching. In 1793 he went to the first of the nearly fifty New England Universalist conventions he would attend, and by the next year’s session he had so impressed his colleagues that they spontaneously ordained him. In 1796 Ballou moved to Dana, Massachusetts, and in September of that year he married Ruth Washburn; they had nine children....
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Ballou, Hosea (1771-1852), theologian and clergyman
Olive Hoogenboom
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Giles, Chauncey Commodore (1813-1893), educator, pastor, and author
David B. Eller
Giles, Chauncey Commodore (11 May 1813–06 November 1893), educator, pastor, and author, was born in Charlemont, Massachusetts, the son of John Giles and Almira Avery, farmers. Young Giles attended Mt. Anthony Academy in Bennington, Vermont, and Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts (1832–1835), with the hope of becoming a Congregational minister. Ill health, however, led him to abandon this goal during his junior year. Williams College later awarded him A.B. and M.A. degrees (1876) and he is listed with the class of 1836....
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McGarvey, John William (1829-1911), minister and theological educator
Anthony L. Dunnavant
McGarvey, John William (01 March 1829–06 October 1911), minister and theological educator, was born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, the son of John McGarvey, a storekeeper, and Sarah Ann Thomson. McGarvey was four years of age when his father died. His mother married Gurden F. Saltonstall, a physician and hemp farmer. The family migrated to Tremont, Illinois, in 1839 and continued raising hemp for rope. McGarvey attended James K. Kellogg’s private school in Tremont....
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Parham, Charles Fox (1873-1929), evangelist and Pentecostal theologian
Henry Warner Bowden
Parham, Charles Fox (04 June 1873–29 January 1929), evangelist and Pentecostal theologian, was born near Muscatine, Iowa, the son of Ann Maria Eckel and William M. Parham, farmers. In 1878 the family moved to more prosperous fields in Cheney, Kansas, but Charles was afflicted with poor health: probably encephalitis in childhood and definitely rheumatic fever that recurred intermittently throughout his lifetime. In a reversal of the usual sequence, he felt called to preach before he had a conversion experience. While studying at Southwest Kansas College (1890–1893) he reaffirmed his commitment to preaching, finally leaving school to become a Methodist supply pastor before completing his degree. By 1895 Parham refused to accept the ecclesiastical supervision common to Methodist bishops and launched an independent ministry. The following year he married Sarah Eleanor Thistlethwaite; the couple had six children....
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Reichel, Charles Gotthold (1751-1825), Moravian bishop and educator
Peter Vogt
Reichel, Charles Gotthold (14 July 1751–18 April 1825), Moravian bishop and educator, was born in Hermsdorff, Silesia, the son of Carl Rudolph Reichel, a Lutheran minister, and Eleonore Sophie Müller. His parents, who were sympathetic to Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf and the Moravians, entrusted him to the Moravian boys’ school at Grosshennersdorf at the age of four. In 1764 he entered the Moravian ...
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Reichel, William Cornelius (1824-1876), Moravian educator and historian
Peter Vogt
Reichel, William Cornelius (09 May 1824–25 October 1876), Moravian educator and historian, was born in Salem, North Carolina, the son of Gotthold Benjamin Reichel, a principal of Salem Female Academy, and Henriette Friederike Vierling, a housemother. Belonging to a family of high standing in the Moravian church ( ...
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Riley, William Bell (1861-1947), Baptist preacher and fundamentalist leader
Stuart D. Hobbs
Riley, William Bell (22 March 1861–05 December 1947), Baptist preacher and fundamentalist leader, was born in Greene County, Indiana, the son of Branson Radish Riley, a farmer, and Ruth Anna Jackson. Riley’s father was a proslavery Democrat, and he took his family to Kentucky soon after the start of the Civil War. Riley grew up in Boone and Owen Counties....
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Sewell, Frank (1837-1915), college president and clergyman
David B. Eller
Sewell, Frank (24 September 1837–17 December 1915), college president and clergyman, was born in Bath, Maine, the son of William Dunning Sewell, a shipbuilder and farmer, and Rachael Allen Trufant. As a young man, he developed artistic skill and sensitivity in music, painting, and literature that characterized his later ministry. He graduated first in his class from nearby Bowdoin College in 1858, after which he toured Europe for three years, studying art and theology in Italy, Germany, and France....
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Stone, Barton Warren (24 December 1772–09 November 1844), evangelist, educator, and speculative theologian
Philip K. Goff
Stone, Barton Warren (24 December 1772–09 November 1844), evangelist, educator, and speculative theologian, was born near Port Tobacco, Maryland, the son of John Stone and Mary Warren, farmers. Reared in Pittsylvania County, Virginia, he moved in 1790 to North Carolina to study law at Guilford Academy. His career plans changed when he was converted to an aggressive form of evangelical Protestantism under the influence of ...
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Stone, Barton Warren (24 December 1772–09 November 1844)
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Wells, Seth Youngs (1767-1847), Shaker theologian, author, and educator
Suzanne R. Thurman
Wells, Seth Youngs (19 August 1767–30 October 1847), Shaker theologian, author, and educator, was born in Southold, New York, the son of Thomas Wells and Abigail Youngs. Little is known of Wells’s early life. He attended high school, where he received a classical education, and studied bookkeeping at the Clinton Academy in East Hampton, New York, in 1788. He taught and served as a principal in the public schools of Albany, New York, and also taught at the Hudson Academy....
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Zinzendorf, Nikolaus Ludwig von (1700-1760), Lutheran theologian and count
Craig D. Atwood
Zinzendorf, Nikolaus Ludwig von (26 May 1700–09 May 1760), Lutheran theologian and count, was born in Dresden, Saxony, the son of George Ludwig, Count von Zinzendorf, a privy counselor of the Saxon court, and Charlotte Justine von Gersdorf. Zinzendorf’s father died when Zinzendorf was only six weeks old, and in 1704 his mother married a Prussian field marshal. She left Zinzendorf in the care of her mother, the baroness von Gersdorf, in her castle, “Gross-Hennersdorf.” Philipp Jakob Spener, who in 1675 had inaugurated the Pietist movement with the publication of ...
