Frothingham, Octavius Brooks (1822–1895)

US religious leader and author. A theological liberal, he founded the Boston Free Religious Association in 1867 and headed it for 11 years. He published a biography of the Unitarian clergyman Theodore Parker, a study of New England transcendentalism, and a summary of his own religious thought, The Religion of Humanity (1876). Born in Boston, Massachusetts, he studied divinity at Harvard University, graduating in 1843. He was pastor of North Church, Salem, Massachusetts, for eight years before leaving in a dispute over his antislavery activities. In 1859 he became pastor of the Third Congregational Unitarian Society in New York City.