ABSTRACT
It was in New England, particularly in Boston, that Unitarian congregations (often with ministers who were recent Harvard graduates) believing in the 'simple Unity of God' emerged within Congregationalism in the early nineteenth century. Meetings of ministers and other 'gentlemen' expressed commitment to their version of religious piety and truth, initially in private discussions. Desiring public doctrinal expression and practical application of their ideas a group of rational religionists met at William Ellery Channing's church in Boston in January 1825. Although there were different degrees of enthusiasm in the group they began the American Unitarian Association in May 1825. The report presents them as a New England body uncertainly reaching out to rumoured pockets of enlightenment elsewhere.
