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.GANNETT, WILLIAM CHANNING (1840 1923).A leader of theWestern Unitarians who advocated a broad-based free faith, he wasan important hymn writer as well.Gannett had a long Unitarian pedi-gree.His father was Ezra Stiles Gannett, who was William ElleryChanning s associate and then successor at the Federal StreetChurch (later Arlington Street Church) in Boston.Gannett wasnamed after and christened by Channing after he was born on March13, 1840.His mother Anna Tilden died when he was only six.De-spite this church heritage, Gannett was unsure what he wanted to dowith his life.He graduated from Harvard College in 1860 and taughtschool in Newport, Rhode Island.He tried Harvard DivinitySchool, but then left to work in the Sea Islands off South Carolina.Here the New England Freedman s Society employed him for fouryears.The work was hard and he was frequently ill, but he made alifelong commitment to freeing African Americans from oppression.Here he managed farms and organized a school.After he went to Europe for a year with his father, he returned toHarvard Divinity School and graduated in 1868.He immediatelywent west and took the relatively new congregation in Milwaukee,Wisconsin.After his father became ill, he returned east and served thechurch in East Lexington, Massachusetts.His father died in 1871,and Gannett spent the next few years working on a biography, EzraStiles Gannett: Unitarian Minister in Boston, 1824 71 (1875).By1877 he was ready to return to the west and was called to UnityChurch in St.Paul, Minnesota.He began to use his poetic skills moreand more and in 1880 coedited Unity Hymns and Chorals (1880).Hewrote several hymns that have remained popular in Unitarian Uni-versalist congregations, including The Morning Hangs a Signal. 210 " GAY, EBENEZER (1696 1787)In 1883 he became minister at large for the Western UnitarianConference (WUC).After this, his relationships with the Westernradicals deepened, especially Jenkin Lloyd Jones.Gannett (withJones) founded and edited the WUC s periodical Unity for a time andheld the copyright.He also wrote many Sunday School lessons.Atthe meeting of the WUC in 1886, Jabez Sunderland and Gannettsquared off with the delegates finally passing a resolution offered byGannett that the WUC would follow no dogmatic tests as a conditionfor fellowship but would welcome all who want to establish truth,righteousness and love in the world. Although Sunderland opposedcreeds, the two could not find a compromise.Gannett was stuck oneliminating the use of the phrase kingdom of God. At the 1887meeting of the WUC Gannett presented his Things Most CommonlyBelieved Today among Us and the group approved it by a large ma-jority, but Sunderland was not present.Gannett s statement helped become the basis for reconciliation in1894 at the National Conference meeting in Saratoga, New York,where the gathering agreed that there would be no authoritative testsand that the churches accepted the religion of Jesus summed up in apractical way as love to God and love to man. In 1887 Gannett wasmarried to Mary T.Lewis.He was settled in Quincy, Illinois, for twoyears and then moved on to Rochester, New York, for his final parishsettlement.Susan B.Anthony was a member of his congregation inRochester who helped influence him to work diligently on womansuffrage issues.Together they also worked to have women admittedto the University of Rochester.He retired in 1908 and was namedemeritus at the church.He died in Rochester on December 23, 1923.GAY, EBENEZER (1696 1787).A leading liberal minister in the 18thcentury who prepared the way for the development of Unitarianismin America.Gay was born in Dedham, Massachusetts, on August 15,1696, the youngest of eight children born to Nathaniel and LydiaGay.Ebenezer showed a natural inclination for scholarly achieve-ment early in life, and his father decided to steer him toward the min-istry.He went off to Harvard College in 1710 with a good trainingin the classics, and he developed a reputation as a scholar.After hegraduated in 1714, he began to prepare for his second degree andworked as a teacher, first in Dedham, then in Hadley, and later in Ip- GAY, EBENEZER (1696 1787) " 211swich, all in Massachusetts.When he finished the degree he wascalled to the parish church in Hingham, Massachusetts, in December1717 with a unanimous vote from both church and parish.At the be-ginning of his ministry he introduced the Half-Way Covenant, a de-vice whereby the children of church members could have their chil-dren baptized, but they did not have to be confessing members of thechurch.Two years after he settled in Hingham, Gay married JerushaBradford in November 1719.Although Gay s theology was somewhat evangelical in the earlyyears of his ministry, his scholarly reputation made aspiring clericsflock to him, and his significant contribution of training many futureliberals began at this time.He began to seriously align himself withthe liberals after he participated in an ecclesiastical council in East-ham, Massachusetts, concerning the dismissal of Samuel Osborn, aradical Arminian whom Gay wanted to see vindicated.His leadershipof the liberal faction was confirmed by his response to the GreatAwakening and its excesses.In an ordination sermon for his nephewSamuel, Gay stressed both the covenant of works and the covenant ofgrace.Revivalists had made Samuel s beginning in Suffield, Massa-chusetts, difficult, and their lack of training and threat to the orderand unity of established churches drove Gay to condemn their be-havior and tactics.Despite divisions in Hingham leading to newparishes in South Hingham and Cohasset, Gay maintained harmonywithin his own community.As the years went by he became the con-fessor for the entire community.In 1745 Gay was asked to deliver theElection Sermon, a sign of his leadership among the clergy
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