The Museum is closed for the season and will reopen Saturday, May 23.

  • TOUR ONE OF GLOUCESTER’S HISTORIC HOUSES, OPEN SUMMER AND FALL WEEKENDS.

  • LEARN ABOUT JUDITH SARGENT MURRAY, AN 18TH CENTURY ADVOCATE OF WOMEN’S EDUCATION AND EQUALITY

  • COLLECTIONS INCLUDE ARTWORK BY JOHN SINGER SARGENT AND HIS SISTER, EMILY

Judith Sargent Murray’s (1751-1820) Accomplishments (partial list)

  • Extraordinarily progressive early advocate for women’s equality and potential.

  • Multi-genre author of poems, plays, essays, a novel, and a biography (co-author).

  • Met George and Martha Washington at the Presidential Mansion in New York City on August 9, 1790.

  • Founding member of the first Universalist church in America (1779).

  • Wrote the first American Universalist catechism (1782).

  • First American to have plays performed in the Boston’s Federal Street Theatre:

    • The Medium; or Virtue Triumphant, March 2, 1795;

    • The Traveller Returned March 9-10, 1796.

  • First American woman to have a regular column (actually two columns) in an American magazine/newspaper

Visit

John Murray’s (1741-1815) Accomplishments (partial list)

Father of Organized American Universalism.

  • September 1770: John Murray arrives off the coast of Good Hope, New Jersey, meets Thomas Potter and reluctantly agrees to preach in Potter’s small church; first Universalist sermon given in America on September 30, 1770.

  • Served as a chaplain in the Rhode Island Brigade in the Continental Army, September-December 1775, during the Siege of Boston; George Washington supported his appointment.

  • In September 1775 and, perhaps, on March 9, 1776, Murray dined with Washington in his headquarters on Brattle Street in Cambridge MA.

  • First minister of the first Universalist Church in America, Gloucester, 1779-93.

  • Known as “Salvation Murray” to distinguish himself from another minister named John Murray who was nicknamed “Damnation Murray.”

  • Named litigant in Murray vs. Citizens of Gloucester, which established the principle of the separation of church and state, 1783-86.

  • Participated in the first general Universalist Convention in Oxford, Massachusetts, September 1785.

  • Helped organize and was a leading participant in the General Convention of Universalists in Philadelphia, May 25-June 8, 1790, which adopted the Articles of Religion, Plan of Church Government and Circular Letter.

  • This convention passed the first denominational resolution against slavery. It called the practice "inconsistent with the union of the human race in a common Savior" and recommended "gradual abolition."

  • First minister of the First Universalist Society of Boston, 1793-1809.