MAY, SAMUEL JOSEPH, 1797-1871; b. Boston; graduated at Harvard in 1817; studied for the ministry- with Henry Colman at Hingham, and with Henry Ware, .9.ndrews Norton, and prof. Frisbie, at Cambridge; was ordained in the Chauncy Place church in Boston in lt322, and shortly afterwards settled as pastor of the Unitarian church in Brooklyn., Conn. When, in 1830, William Lloyd Garrison came to Boston to agitate the slavery question, Mr. May was there, and prominent among those who seconded his efforts. He joined the first sooiety to promote the cause of immediate emancipation, and lived to witness the utter overthrow of slavery. When Prudence Crandall, a Quaker, wits persecuted for opening her schoOr for young ladies at Canterbury, Conn., to pupils of African lineage, he became her friend,and adviser, and stood up bravely between her and her persecutors; and though lie did not save the school from being finally broken up by violence, he did succeed in baffling the attempts to accomplish tbat result under the forms of law, and in arousing in that part of Connecticut a public sentiment against slav ery that has never been overcome, and that for many years has determined the political statns of the state itself. The late Arthur Tappan, of New York, furnished him with the funds necessary to prosecute a vigorous campaign for the defense of Prudence Crandall. and to esta-blish press for the enlightenment of the people. In 1834 Mr. May resigned his pastorate in Brooklyn to accept the position of general agent of the Ma.ssachusetts antislavery society. He tvas a public lecturer against slavery in the years 1835-36, when mobs were epidemic, and his life was often in great peril. His gentleness was as con spicuous as his courage, and he was never once betrayed into any harshness of spirit or languag,e. Oct. 26, 1836, he was settled as pastor of the Unitarian church in South Scituate. Mass., where he remained until 1842, when, at the earnest solicitation of the late Horace Mann, then secretary of the state board of education, he took charge for three years of the normal school at Lexington. In 1845 he removed to Syracuse, N. Y.. to
become pastor of a Unitarian society, and there remained until his death. In that city lie identified himself with the cause of education and with every institution of public •charity, and was greatly beloved by the whole people. His house in Syracuse was a con ,stant refuge for fugitive slaves, aud he took an active part in the famous rescue of the slave " Jeriy" from his legal captors at Syracuse in 1851. For this offense against the fugitive slave law he and 17 others were indicted in the U. S. district court at Auburn. A hun dred of the best known citizens of Syracuse accompanied the prisoners to Auburn, and when they were required to give bad for their appearance for trial, William H. Seward -WitS the first to affix his name to the bond, and he also invited the rescuers and their ,friends to his own house for refreshments. Mr. May and two other gentlemen united in a public declaration that they had " assisted all they could in the rescue of Jerry," that were ready for trial, and would give the court no trouble as to the fact, but would rest their defense upon " the unconstitutionality and extreme wickedness of the fugitive slave law;" but the district attorney never brought them to trial. Mr. May, during the war, VMS constantly, engaged in labors for the health and comfort of union soldiers, and when the struggle was ended he took an active part in associations for the relief of tho _freedmen. Many of his sermons and addresses were published, and a folume of his Recollections of the Antislavery Conflict appeared before his ;Ileath. His Memoir by Thomas J. Mumford was published in 1873.