text: John Murray Spear (September 16, 1804 – October 5, 1887) was an American Spiritualist minister who was most known for his attempts to construct an electrically powered Messiah which he referred to as the "New Motive Power".
  Early life
  Spear was born in the city of Boston in 1804 and was from a young age a member of the Universalist Church of America. The pastor of this church was Hosea Ballou, under whom Spear and his brother, Charles, studied theology. In 1830, Spear was ordained and became minister of the Barnstable congregation. He later became a close colleague of Theodore Parker and William Lloyd Garrison. In the 1840s, Spear was active in petitioning for social reform including women's rights, labor reform, and the removal of the death penalty. Also a prominent abolitionist, Spear organized the first Universalist antislavery convention and helped to oversee the stretch of the Underground Railroad which ran through Boston.
  Constructing the New Motive Power