Nathaniel Stacy

Nathaniel Stacy (1778-1868) was a pioneer Universalist preacher born in New Salem, Massachusetts, to parents who had heard John Murray preach in Gloucester. A protege of Hosea Ballou, who took him into his home to study for the ministry, he was fellowshipped in 1803 and spent decades as an itinerant missionary, organizing scores of Universalist societies in central New York and later in western Pennsylvania and Michigan, and helping to found several regional associations. His Memoirs (1850) are a major firsthand source for the early spread of Universalism in New York State.

The frontier memoir of American Universalism. Stacy, a protégé of Hosea Ballou, spent fifty years as a missionary preacher — planting societies across central New York, then Pennsylvania, then the Michigan frontier — riding circuit through wilderness settlements, debating village Calvinists, and living on next to nothing. His plainspoken recollections are both a primary source for the denomination's westward spread and a vivid picture of religious life in early rural America.

(Note: this summary was automatically generated and may be inaccurate.)