Cool nineteenth-century Universalist fact
In a comment, Mitchell Santine Gould wrote:
A preacherman with Ubuntu. Wow, that’s even hipper than worshipping The Flying Spaghetti Monster. PS Do you have any quirky and exotic stories about Universalism in the nineteenth century?
Hipper, indeed. I’m glad you noticed! A shame you can’t see my natty five-day-old beard and new hair cut.
OK Mr. Gould — who blogs at leavesofgrass.org — this one’s for you: Walt Whitman, when in Washington, D.C., worshipped in the Universalist parish. (I used to be the pastor of the successor church, and read about him in their archives.)
The young congregation (established 1868) met in the then newly built Masonic Hall (dedicated 1870; demolished, I think; no it isn’t!) at the corner of Ninth and F Sts, NW., Washington. Looking at the photo, think it was the northwest corner.
I don’t know when he worshipped with them, but he had his stroke in 1873, so perhaps before that.
That’s pretty neat, and better than one of those “Hosea Ballou was on a horse” stories.
2 June 2006 at 11:10 pm
I believe it is still around….
2 June 2006 at 11:44 pm
Well that’s good news. I can’t visualize it, and the Google Maps satellite image suggests another building; perhaps just a unifying roof. Hubby and I might have to swing past it tomorrow with the digital camera . . . .
4 June 2006 at 12:46 am
[…] James (Pereginato) pointed out that the Masonic Hall, where the Washington Universalist parish met when Walt Whitman was a visitor (c. 1870), was not demolished as I had feared. In fact, it is in a vital part of downtown across the street from the National Portrait Gallery (which has been closed for renovations for six years and reopens July 1!) and catty-corner from the new Spy Museum. You can have a very nice and expensive seafood dinner there now. The strip of F Street in the foreground (where the black sedan drove up) is called Walt Whitman Way. Walk back behind you from the vantage of the photo, and you will get to the office where Clara Barton ran her Missing Soldiers Office. (National Park Service press release). The building’s now condo, with the original space preserved for history — and a Starbucks on the ground floor. […]