California Reading discussion

I just learned about Thomas Starr King. I watched a documentary about San Francisco and he was mentioned as one of the few people interred in SF after so many others were dug up and reburied outside of city limits in the 1940's.

I had to research that and discovered Starr King was a Unitarian minister who came to California in 1860. During the Civil War he toured the state speaking about staying loyal to the Union, and keeping slavery out of our state. I started thinking of him as a saint for doing that - and then heard others back then called him "The Saint of California" . . . but he wore himself out and died at the age of 39. I'm glad he's still interred in the city - on Unitarian Church property.

He is sometimes referred to as "The orator who saved the nation."

I used to live in SF but didn't know about this at the time. I was raised in California and he was never mentioned in school, that I can recall. Why? I'm mystified about this. Something important was left out of our education here.

A statue of Thomas Starr King used to be in the National Statuary Hall next to Junipero Serra's - but it was taken out in 2006 and replaced with a statue of Ronald Regan! A state senator said this was because he didn't know who Thomas Starr King was! "To be honest with you, I wasn't sure who Thomas Starr King was, and I think there's probably a lot of Californians like me." - State Senator Dennis Hollingsworth

The statue has been relocated to the Civil War Memorial Grove in Capitol Park, near the State Capitol building in Sacramento.

He was a writer:
A Vacation Among the Sierras: Yosemite in 1860.
The White Hills; their Legends, Landscapes, & Poetry. (1864).
Patriotism and Other Papers. Boston: Tompkins, 1864.
Christianity and Humanity. Boston: Osgood, 1877.
Substance and Show, and Other Lectures. Boston: Houghton & Osgood, 1877.
...and more...

There are also some books written about him.

I did more research about Unitarianism. Why was Thomas Starr King a Unitarian minister?

Well, his father was a Unitarian minister, so it ran in the family.

Unitarians in the 1800's considered themselves Christian, but they didn't believe in the trinity. They thought God was one entity only.

Christian Universalists (my grandmother was one) believed everyone is saved because God loves us all.

Then these two churches merged in 1961 forming a liberal movement in which just about anything goes... called the Unitarian Universalist Church...

And then there are Christians - who actually read the Bible and believe what's in it.

Fascinating history that I wasn't aware of and I like that you shared your grandmother's beliefs. And your comment at the end just had me laughing!
I have my paternal grandmother's Bible and she has notes in it and so obviously read it and studied it, but I do not know her beliefs. She died when I was quite young.

I didn't know my paternal grandmother was a dedicated Universalist until my father mentioned it in 1996 at a family gathering right after my maternal grandmother's funeral. I was shocked that he'd never mentioned this to us before, as if it weren't significant. He was agnostic and I guess, just wanted to forget his mom's religion. Back when I was about 10 (around 1962) she stayed with us for a week and during that visit came to my room for a private conversation and told me exactly what I wrote above about Universalists.