Born to the prominent Boston merchant Joseph May and Dorothy Sewall, Samuel Joseph May enjoyed a comfortable childhood. He graduated from Harvard College (1817) and Harvard Divinity School (1820), then sought a pastorate with a Massachusetts Unitarian congregation. After several failed attempts, May agreed to accept a position with the First Congregational Church in Brooklyn, Connecticut, where he became the only Unitarian minister in the state. (Samuel Joseph May should not be confused with his fellow Unitarian minister and abolitionist Samuel May Jr. of Boston, who was not his son but his near contemporary.) Often at odds with his Congregationalist parishioners, May turned to reform, becoming active in the American Unitarian Association and gaining a national reputation for his activities on behalf of the peace and temperance movements and as a champion of public education and women's rights.
Although May embraced many reform goals the abolition ...