Putnam, George

Putnam, George D.D., a Unitarian minister of the Old School, was born in Massachusetts in 1808, and was educated at Harvard University, class of 1826. He early entered the ministry, and finally became pastor at Roxbury, Mass., where he sustained a pastorate of nearly half a century, enjoying not only the warm affection of his own people, but the highest respect and confidence of the whole community. Away from home also Dr. Putnam wielded a very wide influence in all directions, and he was beloved by men of every religious school in an eminent degree. Dr. Putnam was more than an ordinary man. He was not only possessed of the most noble personal characteristics, but was endowed with excellent scholarship, remarkable intellectual powers, and great wisdom in judgment. He was always vigorous, fresh, and often very eloquent in his pulpit discourses. For years his Fast-day and Thanksgiving services were largely attended bv visitors from what was then the adjoining city (Boston), to listen to his thoughtful and powerful discussions upon public and national questions. A shock of paralysis in 1872 warned him that the period of his vigor was terminating, and he was obliged to consent to have a younger associate with him in the pastorate. For the last two years before his death, which occurred in 1878, he was able to render service only at the marriage or funeral of some one of his beloved parishioners, who, in these joyful and painful domestic aeras, especially welcomed even the trembling voice of their old pastor. From 1849 to 1856 Dr. Putnam was editorially connected with the Christian Examiners. He published a number of separate sermons, orations, etc.