Joseph Priestley

Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) has a special position in the history of the Unitarian Universalist congregation in Northumberland, PA. An educator, political theorist and amateur scientist, Priestly is most famous today for his discovery of the gas oxygen. He counted Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and James Watts as his friends. Also an ordained clergyman, Priestley wrote many theological works that upset the established church in England, primarily because he challenged the divinity of Jesus.

Although Priestley had lived happily in Birmingham, England for a decade, in July 1791 a mob incited by local authorities (and probably King George III) burned his home, church, library and lab as well as the homes of other Unitarian and dissenting families. Priestley and his family fled to London. His three sons left for America in 1793 to speculate on land in the Loyalsock Valley near Forksville with the hope that English settlers would come to America and buy the lands. Fearing imprisonment, Joseph Priestley and his wife Mary left for America in May 1794, eventually settling in Northumberland to be near their children and grandchildren. Here Priestley built a large house and laboratory that is now a state museum. In this house Priestley taught school and held Unitarian services to which local folks were invited and many came.

Joseph Priestley died in 1804 and is buried with his wife and youngest son in the Riverview Cemetery in Northumberland. His oldest son, Joseph, continued to live in the Priestley house until 1811, when he returned to England. Priestley’s grandson, Joseph Raynor, returned to Northumberland in 1819, married a local woman, and with other English settlers in the area formed the Unitarian congregation that eventually built the Priestley Chapel in 1834. The chapel was used for services until 1911, when it was given to the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) in Boston. UUCSV used the chapel from its inception in the 1990s until 2006, when the congregation outgrew the space.

The UUCSV typically holds a service honoring Priestley in March to coincide with the Priestley House Museum and Priestley Chapel Open House, celebrating Joseph Priestley’s birthday.