Charles Turner Torrey

Charles Turner Torrey (November 21, 1813 - May 9, 1846) was a leading American abolitionist. Although largely lost to historians until recently, Torrey pushed the abolitionist movement to more political and aggressive strategies, including setting up one of the first highly organized lines for the Underground Railroad and personally freeing approximately 400 slaves. Torrey also worked closely with free blacks, thus becoming one of the first to consider them partners. John Brown cited Torrey as one of the three abolitionists he looked to as models for his own efforts.

Torrey was born November 21, 1813, in Scituate, Massachusetts. By the time he was 4 years old, his mother, father, and baby sister had all died from tuberculosis, so he went to live with his maternal grandparents in a part of Scituate that later became Norwell. His maternal grandfather, once a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, remained active in local affairs, and introduced his grandson to political issues.

Torrey attended Exeter Academy in New Hampshire and was then admitted to Yale University at age 16. While at Yale, Torrey attended a revival meeting, pledged his life to Jesus Christ, and thereafter took his vow very seriously. Following graduation in 1833, Torrey tried teaching secondary school for a year, but after a year decided to become a Congregational minister instead.

In 1834, Torrey enrolled at the Andover Theological Seminary, where slavery's abolition was a major topic of discussion. Torrey adopted the cause as his own and although tuberculosis caused him to suspend his studies for a year, he became an active worker for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, which was headed by William Lloyd Garrison. Garrison believed that slavery could best be abolished by “moral suasion,” i.e., changing the way people thought about it through lectures and pamphlets.

After graduation, Torrey served Congregational pastorates in Providence, Rhode Island, and Salem, Massachusetts. However, he relinquished his professional duties to devote himself to anti-slavery activism in Maryland, having come to believe in a much more activist approach than his mentor. Torrey and Garrison disagreed on other issues as well. For example, Garrison and his female abolitionist followers wished to incorporate women’s rights into the anti-slavery movement, whereas Torrey and the majority of other abolitionists thought such mixture of issues unwise.

...
Wikipedia