- Laurentine Hamilton
Laurentine Hamilton (
1826 -April 9 ,1882 ) was aPresbyterian minister accused ofheresy , and founder of theFirst Unitarian Church of Oakland .Hamilton was born in
Catlin, New York , near Seneca Lake. He graduated fromHamilton College inClinton, New York in 1850. He went on to attendAuburn Theological Seminary , from which he graduated in 1853. In 1854, Hamilton became an ordained minister of the Presbyterian church in Ovid, New York.In 1855 he was assigned the pastorage of Columbia,
California , a small mining camp established during theCalifornia Gold Rush . He built the Presbyterian church that still stands there. In 1859, Hamilton came toSan Jose, California to preach at the First Presbyterian Church of San Jose. He became Superintendent of San Jose Schools, and in 1861 he travelled withWilliam H. Brewer andCharles F. Hoffmann to the summit of a nearby mountain, as part of the initialCalifornia Geological Survey . That mountain, Mount Hamilton, is named after him.In 1864 Hamilton became pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, his sermons appearing in the Oakland Daily Tribune. He served on the Oakland
Board of Education from 1866 to 1872. In 1869, Hamilton came under scrutiny for teaching thedoctrine of "a second probation after death" (stating one has a second, chance ofsalvation ). He was charged with heresey and forced to leave his pastorate and resign from his ordination in the Presbyterian church. Most of his parishioners joined him in forming the First Independent Presbyterian Church, later to become the Independent Church of Oakland. In 1879 the church joined theAmerican Unitarian Association and became theFirst Unitarian Church of Oakland .While preaching on
Easter Sunday , 1882, Hamilton spoke "We know not what matter is..." and then collapsed onto the ground, dead.
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