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Joshua Young (September 23, 1823 – February 7, 1904) was an abolitionist Congregational Unitarian minister who crossed paths with many famous people of the mid-19th century. He received national publicity, and lost his pulpit (job) for presiding in 1859 over the funeral of John Brown, both the most famous person in the country and the first person executed for treason in the history of the United States.[1][2] Contrary to his friends' expectations,[3]: 236 [4] his resignation under pressure in Burlington did not ruin his career; the church in Burlington later apologized and invited him back to speak,[5] "an honored guest",[6] There is a memorial tablet in the church.[7]

Life and career

Young was born in 1823 in Randolph, near Pittston, Maine, the youngest of eleven children of Aaron Young and Mary Colburn Young.[8] At about age 4 the family moved to Bangor, where he attended local schools. At the age of 16 he entered Bowdoin College, where he was a member of Chi Psi Fraternity, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1845. He continued his studies at Harvard Divinity School, graduating in 1848. In 1890, he received the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity from Bowdoin College. He became a Mason and was the chaplain of his local chapter.[9] Hr described himself as a "Garrisonian abolitionist".[3]: 235 

In 1849 he married Mary Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of Sylvanus Plympton, M.D., of Cambridge, Massachusetts.[10] Their children were: Mary Elizabeth Young Stevens (1849–1891), Lucy F. Young (1854–1922), Dr. Joshua Edson Young of Medford, Massachusetts (1856–1940), Henry Guy Young of Winchester, Massachusetts (1865–1936), and Mrs. Grace D. Patton of Bangor, Maine.[8]

He held the following positions as minister:

  • 1849–1852 New North Church, Boston.[11]
  • 1852–1862 First Congregational (Unitarian) Church, Burlington, Vermont.[12] His salary was $1,000, equivalent to $35,176 in 2022.[7]: 265  He was at first very popular, but began to lose popularity when parishioners learned that he had been on the Boston Vigilance Committee and sheltered fugitive slaves in his home. He was also accused by the church of doing the same in Burlington; the charge was not substantiated. In 1858, when he resigned his pulpit at the Burlington church, the church held a meeting to persuade him to withdraw his resignation, which he did.[13] He was also Superintendent of Common Schools in Burlington.[14] He resigned these positions in 1862.[15] There followed a year in Deerfield [Massachusetts].[8]
  • 1864–1868 3rd Congregational Society, Hingham, Massachusetts. One source says his salary was $1,200 (equivalent to $22,453 in 2022),[16] another $1,500 (equivalent to $28,066 in 2022).[17] Between this position and the following one in Fall River he travelled to Egypt, the Holy Land, and Europe.[18]
  • 1868–1875 Unitarian Church, Fall River, Massachusetts.[19][20]
  • 1875–1904 First Parish Meeting House, Groton, Massachusetts.

Young died in 1904 in Winchester, Massachusetts, at the home of his son.

Young and slavery

Young described himself as "bred in the Garrisonian school of abolitionists".[3]: 235  His graduate school and his first call to the pulpit were in Boston, center of the American abolitionist movement and where Wm. Lloyd Garrison's newspaper The Liberator was published. Young was a member of the Boston Vigilance Committee, set up after passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 to help fugitives avoid slave catchers. He saw the forced and public return of fugitive Anthony Burns to slavery, and gave a sermon on it, published as a pamphlet.[21]

Young was also "a station-keeper on the Underground Railroad when the blow at Harper's Ferry shook the whole nation like an earthquake".[3]: 635–636  He frequently sheltered fugitives himself.[22]: 45  In Burlington he was less than 50 miles (80 km) from the Canadian border. One account says that he sheltered up to six fugitives at a time in his "comfortable" barn.[5] Another source says that about 1850 fugitives appeared daily, and sometimes more than one a day, but then dropped to two or three a fortnight.[22]: 81–82 

The John Brown funeral

The most significant event of Young's life, in his own judgment, was his participation in the funeral of abolitionist John Brown, the consequences of which participation surprised and pained him. He often spoke about it and, as an old man, he wrote up his experience at length.[3]

Brown was executed by the Commonwealth of Virginia on December 2, 1859, after his conviction for murder, treason, and inciting a slave insurrection. Young had never met Brown, but when his abolitionist friend Lucius G. Bigelow informed him that John Brown's body was passing through Rutland en route to be buried at his home in North Elba, New York, only 100 miles (160 km) away across Lake Champlain, they decided to attend.[3]: 236  They traveled all night and arrived only hours before the service began. As he was the only minister present (others had declined[5]), when Wendell Phillips asked him to preside, he said that he then "knew why God had sent [him] there".[3]: 239  The reporter present, who took it down "phonographically" (stenographically), called Young's impromptu opening prayer "impressive".[23] As the body was being lowered into the grave he felt moved to recite words of the apostle Paul: "I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith" (2 Timothy 4:7).

When he returned to Burlington, he found himself savagely attacked in the local paper. He was socially ostracized and snubbed and prominent members of his church resigned. Young said he was the victim of persecution.[24]

Honorable men there were who suggested it would be a spectacle not for tears to see me dangling at the end of a rope from the highest tree on the common, swinging and twisting in the wind.[6]

He was told that he would never again be permitted to occupy a pulpit.[25]

In a 2016 sermon on Young, Rev. Karen G. Johnston says, without explanation, "that there is dispute between Young’s account, and that of the Burlington church, about what led to his leaving."[26]

Reburials in 1899

Young presided over the 1899 ceremony in which ten of Brown's men, which had been buried elsewhere, eight of them thrown into two packing crates, were reburied next to John Brown's grave.[27]

Publications

Legacy

References

  1. ^ "(Untitled)". Burlington Weekly Sentinel (Burlington, Vermont). December 16, 1859. p. 2. Archived from the original on July 9, 2021. Retrieved July 9, 2021 – via newspapers.com.
  2. ^ "Washington's Birth Day and Farewell Address". Burlington Weekly Sentinel (Burlington, Vermont). February 28, 1862. p. 2 – via newspapers.com.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Young, Joshua (April 1904). "The Funeral of John Brown". New England Magazine: 229–243. Archived from the original on 2021-07-11. Retrieved 2021-07-09.
  4. ^ Heller, Paul (2017-10-05). "Abolitionist's funeral brought turmoil to pastor's career". Times-Argus (Barre, Vermont).
  5. ^ a b c d Green, Melinda; Johnston, Karen G. (August 8, 2018). "Joshua Young". Dictionary of Unitarian & Universalist Biography. Unitarian Universalist History & Heritage Society. Archived from the original on April 22, 2020. Retrieved July 11, 2021.
  6. ^ a b "Tells of funeral and burial of John Brown—Interesting article published in current number of Congregationalist". Montpelier Morning Journal (Montpelier, Vermont). 8 Dec 1911. p. 2 – via newspapers.com.
  7. ^ a b Twynham, Leonard (September 1938). "A Martyr for John Brown". Opportunity. A Journal of Negro Life. 16 (1). Leonard Twynham is a pseudonym, first used by Achsa White Sprague (1827–1861). The real name of the author of this article is Leonard Twinem (per http://psychictruth.info/Medium_Achsa_W_Sprague.htm): 265–267. {{cite journal}}: External link in |others= (help)
  8. ^ a b c "Rev. Joshua Young, D.D." The Purple and Gold. 21: 283–285. 1904. Retrieved July 10, 2021.
  9. ^ Young, Joshua (December 9, 1892). One hundred years of Old Colony Lodge A.F. and A.M. Centennial celebration, Hingham, Dec. 9, 1892. Hingham, Massachusetts.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  10. ^ "Marriages". Cambridge Chronicle (Cambridge, Massachusetts). September 22, 1849. p. 3 – via Cambridge Public Library.
  11. ^ Hedge, Frederic Henry. (1849). Leaven of the Word. A Sermon Preached at the Ordination of Rev. Joshua Young, as Pastor of the New North Church in Boston, Thursday, Feb. 1, 1849. Boston. Archived from the original on 2021-07-11. Retrieved 2021-07-09.
  12. ^ "The Installation of the Rev. Mr. Young". Burlington Courier (Burlington, Vermont). December 23, 1852. p. 3. Archived from the original on July 9, 2021. Retrieved July 9, 2021 – via newspapers.com.
  13. ^ "(Untitled)". Burlington Free Press (Burlington, Vermont). December 17, 1858. p. 2, col. 8. Archived from the original on 2021-07-14. Retrieved 2021-07-14 – via Chronicling America.
  14. ^ "Exhibition of the Union High School". Burlington Free Press (Burlington, Vermont). December 21, 1861. p. 2. Archived from the original on July 9, 2021. Retrieved July 9, 2021 – via newspapers.com.
  15. ^ "Mr. Young's resignation". Burlington Daily Times (Burlington, Vermont). November 25, 1862. p. 3. Archived from the original on July 9, 2021. Retrieved July 9, 2021 – via newspapers.com.
  16. ^ "Call accepted". Burlington Daily Times (Burlington, Vermont). March 24, 1864. p. 3 – via newspapers.com.
  17. ^ "(Untitled)". Burlington Weekly Sentinel (Burlington, Vermont). April 1, 1864. p. 3. Archived from the original on July 9, 2021. Retrieved July 9, 2021 – via newspapers.com.
  18. ^ "Rev. Joshua Young, Fall River, Unitarian. 1872, 1873". Proceedings of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, 1872. pp. 385–387.
  19. ^ "Obituary. Joshua Young". The Fall River Daily Herald (Fall River, Massachusetts). February 9, 1904. p. 3 – via newspapers.com.
  20. ^ "Had a Large Influence Here. Rev. Dr. Joshua Young Remembered in This City as a Warm Friend of Human Liberty". Fall River Daily Evening News (Fall River, Massachusetts). February 9, 1904. p. 4 – via newspapers.com.
  21. ^ Young, Joshua (June 11, 1854). God Greater than Man.—A Sermon Preached June 11th, after the Rendition of Anthony Burns, by Joshua Young, Minister of the First Congregational Church, Burlington, Vt. Burlington, Vermont: Samuel B. Nichols. Archived from the original on July 9, 2021. Retrieved July 9, 2021.
  22. ^ a b Siebert, Wilbur H. (1937). Vermont's anti-slavery and underground railroad record : with a map and illustrations. Columbus, Ohio: Spahr and Glenn. Archived from the original on 2021-07-12. Retrieved 2021-07-14.
  23. ^ "The Burial of John Brown. The passage of the body to North Elba. The funeral. Speeches of Mr. McKim and Mr. Phillips". New-York Tribune. (Most of this article appeared in The Liberator, December 16, 1859, p. 3). December 12, 1859. p. 6. Archived from the original on May 3, 2021. Retrieved July 11, 2021 – via newspapers.com. {{cite news}}: External link in |others= (help)CS1 maint: others (link)
  24. ^ "Slave's Friend. Rev Dr Joshua Young of Winchester Dead. Ostracized for John Brown's Funeral Sermon. Noted Figure in Fight for Abolition". The Boston Globe (Boston, Massachusetts). February 9, 1904. p. 14 – via newspapers.com.
  25. ^ "Once Burlington pastor". Burlington Free Press (Burlington, Vermont). February 8, 1904. p. 2. Archived from the original on July 14, 2021. Retrieved July 14, 2021 – via newspapers.com.
  26. ^ Johnston, Karen G. (February 28, 2016). "Illuminating the Ministry of Joshua Young: His Ministry Still Speaks (sermon)". Archived from the original on January 23, 2021. Retrieved July 14, 2021.
  27. ^ Donaldson, Alfred Lee (1921). "John Brown at North Elba". A History of the Adirondacks. Vol. 2. New York: Century. pp. 3–22, at p. 22.
  28. ^ Curtiss, Elz (November 4, 2012), Responsive reqding notes (PDF), archived (PDF) from the original on July 11, 2021, retrieved July 10, 2021

This article incorporates material from a work in the public domain: Proceedings of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, 1872, pp. 385–387.