13 Facts About Joshua Young

Joshua Young was an abolitionist Congregational Unitarian minister who crossed paths with many famous people of the mid-19th century.

Joshua Young received national publicity and lost his pulpit for presiding in 1859 over the funeral of John Brown, the first person executed for treason by a US state.

Joshua Young continued his studies at Harvard Divinity School, graduating in 1848.

Joshua Young became a Mason and was the chaplain of his local chapter.

Joshua Young died in 1904 in Winchester, Massachusetts, at the home of his son.

Joshua Young described himself as "bred in the Garrisonian school of abolitionists".

Joshua Young was a member of the Boston Vigilance Committee, set up after passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 to help fugitives avoid slave catchers.

Joshua Young saw the forced and public return of fugitive Anthony Burns to slavery, and gave a sermon on it, published as a pamphlet.

Joshua Young was "a station-keeper on the Underground Railroad when the blow at Harper's Ferry shook the whole nation like an earthquake".

Joshua Young often spoke about it and, as an old man, he wrote up his experience at length.

Joshua Young was socially ostracized and snubbed and prominent members of his church resigned.

Joshua Young was told that he would never again be permitted to occupy a pulpit.

Joshua Young presided over the 1899 ceremony in which ten of Brown's men, which had been buried elsewhere, eight of them thrown into two packing crates, were reburied next to John Brown's grave.