James Freeman Clarke (11810-1888) American theologian and author. Ordained into the Unitarian church he first became an active minister at Louisville, Kentucky, then a slave state, and soon threw himself into the national movement for the abolition of slavery. In 1839 he returned to Boston where he and his friends established (1841) the Church of the Disciples which brought together a body of people to apply the Christian religion to social problems of the day. Clarke contributed essays to The Christian Examiner, The Christian Inquirer, The Christian Register, The Dial, Harper's, The Index, and Atlantic Monthly. In addition to sermons, speeches, hymnals, and liturgies, he published 28 books and over 120 pamphlets during his lifetime. In 1855, Clarke purchased the former site of Brook Farm, intending to start a new Utopian community there. This never came to pass, instead the land was offered to President Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War; the Second Massachusetts Regiment used it for training and named it "Camp Andrew". In November 1861, Clarke was in Washington, D.C. with Samuel Gridley Howe and Julia Ward Howe. After hearing the song "John Brown's Body", he suggested that Mrs. Howe write new lyrics; the result was "The Battle Hymn of the Republic". ALS, 1874, 1p, 5x8".

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