American reformer, born in Boston, MA, on the 11th of April 1810. After graduating from Harvard in 1829, he entered the ministry, and from 1834 to 1836 was pastor of a Unitarian church at Leicester, MA. He became deeply interested in the abolition movement, and was secretary of both the Massachusetts and American antislavery societies. After the termination of his ministry, he made Leicester his home, and in 1875 became a member of the state legislature. He was a contributor to The Liberator and Antislavery Standard, and published The Fugitive Slave Law and its Victims.
His cousin, Samuel Joseph May, also a reformer, was born in Boston, on the 12th of September 1797; graduated from Harvard and studied for the ministry. He was a member of the first New England antislavery society in 1832, and in 1835 became general agent of the Massachusetts Antislavery Society, traveling and lecturing extensively. In 1842, at the special request of Horace Mann, he took charge of the Girls’ Normal School at Lexington, MA. In 1845 ne became pastor of the Unitarian Church in Syracuse, NY, where he remained till his death on the 1st of July 1871. Mr. May was one of the strongest advocates of the abolition of slavery, and did much to increase the efficiency of the public school system. As a writer, he is chiefly known by a series of papers recording his Recollections of the Antislavery Conflict (1868). He also published Education of the Faculties (1846) and Revival of Education (1855).
