David Atwood Wasson
David Atwood Wasson (1823–1887) was an American minister and Transcendentalist author, an essayist and poet. He was early influenced by Thomas Carlyle, an influence he would shed; he is usually regarded as a disciple of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Life

He was born in West Brooksville, Maine. He studied at Phillips Academy, Andover and Bowdoin College for just one year from 1845. After theological training at Bangor Theological Seminary, he became pastor at Groveland, Massachusetts, but only briefly after a conflict with his congregation. He then moved to Worcester, Massachusetts. He lost a position at the Medford Unitarian Church because of his abolitionist views.

He was appointed by the "28th Congregational Society" of Boston, and succeeded Unitarian radical Theodore Parker, who died in 1860, in 1865. In 1867 he became a founder of the Free Religious Association.

Works
The Radical Creed: A Discourse At The Installation Of Rev. David A. Wasson, As Minister of the Twenty Eighth Congregational Society of Boston, May 7, 1865. Delivered by the Pastor Elect (1865)
Poems By David Atwood Wasson (1888)
Beyond Concord; Selected Writings of David Atwood Wasson (1965), edited Charles H. Foster

Notes

References
Robert Spence, D. A. Wasson, Forgotten Transcendentalist, American Literature, Vol. 27, No. 1 (March 1955), pp. 31–41
Robert C. Albrecht, The Political Thought of David A. Wasson, American Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 4 (Winter, 1965), pp. 742–748

External links

Entry from The Poets of Maine

1823 births
1887 deaths
American clergy
19th-century American poets
American male poets
People from Brooksville, Maine
Bangor Theological Seminary alumni
Bowdoin College alumni
Poets from Maine
American male essayists
19th-century American male writers
19th-century American essayists
19th-century American clergy