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Mathews-Williams Family Genealogy
Notes
Wlaker Peyton Conway never married. He was educated at Dickenson College in Pa. He studied law.
Relationship to Bruce Mathews: 5th cousin, 4 times removed.
Moncure Daniel Conway graduated A.B. from Dickinson College, Pennsylvania, 1849; M.A. in 1852; He studied law in Warrenton, VA and wrote for the Richmond Examiner, of which his cousin John M. Daniel, was editor. His opinions then were of the extreme Southern order. He wrote and published, in 1850, his first work advocating free schools in Virginia. That year he abandoned law for the Methodist Ministry. He was appointed by the Baltimore Conference, 1851, to Rockville, and in 1852 to the Frederick, Maryland Circuit. In 1852 he adopted rationalistic views, entered Harvard Divinity School, and graduated in 1854. At Cambrdige he enjoyed the friendship of Emerson, Longfellow, and Agassiz, whose scientific class he attended. Having adopted anti-slavery views had hoped to advocate them in Virginia, but on his return, a groundless suspicion of his having aided the fugitive slave, Anthony Burns, under arrest in Boston, made it impossible for him to remain. He became pastor of the Unitarian Church, Washington, DC, in 1854, and in 1857, the Unitarian Church of Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1861 he became the editor of the "Commonwealth" in boston. In 1863 he visited England to influence opinions there o American issues; writing much in "Fraser" and the "Fortnightly". From 1863 to 1864, he was minister, South Place Religious Society, London, England. In 1884 he returned to the United States to reside. His pen was always busy writing magazine articles and books, and as a tract as a newspaper correspondent. He was published in book form, "Tracts for Today,", 1858; "The Rejected Stone", 1861; "The Golden Hour", 1862; "Testimonies Concerning Slavery", 1865; "The Earthward Pilgrimage,", 1870; "Republican Superstitions", 1872; "The Sacred Anthology", 1873; "Idols and Ideals", 1877; "Demonology and Devil Lore", 1879; A Necklace of Stories", 1880; "The Wandering Jew", 1881; "Thomas Carlyle", 1881; "Emerson at Home and Abroad", 1883; "Omitted Chapters of History, disclosed in the Life and Papers of Edmund Randolph,", 1888; "Washington and Mount Vernon," 1889, a publication of the L.I. Historical Society. The last two works show Mr. Conway to be an enthusiastic historical student. "Life of Nathaniel Hawthorne", 1890; "Washington's Rules of Civility", 1891. It is to him that Rev. Horace Edwin Hayden owed the privilege of having access to the long lost Overwharton Parish Register. Mr. Conway was a Fellow of the "Folk Lore," and the "Anthropological" Societies of London. (Source: "Virginia Genealogies", Hayden, pp. 285-286).
Moncure Daniel Conway (1832-1907), American author and preacher, b. Stafford Co., VA. An ardent abolitionist, Conway lectured in England during the Civil War in the interests of the North. Brought up as a Methodist, he became a Unitarian minister and later a preacher of free thought. Besides editing and contributing essays to periodicals, he was the author of over 70 books, including a biography of Thomas Paine (1892), whose works he also edited (4 vol., 1894-96) (Source: The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition, @ 2000 Columbia University Press).
Moncure Daniel Conway was born in Virginia, USA, in 1832. The story of his life is interesting as a study in the psychology of religious experience. Originally a Methodist minister, later he became a Unitarian, and later still a Rationalist with Theisitic sympathies. In 1863 he came to London, and in the same year was appointed minister of the South Place Chapel (afterwards Institute) London -- an institution which now has its headquarters in Conway Hall, Red Lion Square. This ministry he carried on until 1884.
During this time he gradually moved away from his theistic belief, and it is easy to quote passages from his later writings and speeches which show his compete rejection of both Christianity and Theism. He rendered service to the Freethought cause by his outspoken denunciation of the intellectual dishonesty of those who gave a nominal adherence to religious formularies and doctrines which they did not inwardly accept. His Life of Thomas Paine in two volumes appeared in 1892.
Conway died in Paris in 1907. His later writings and utterances made it clear that up to the time of his death he took a keen interest in the progress of Freethought. "To the last I never found him despairing, never even apathetic," says Mr. J.M Robertson (The Life Pilgrimage of Moncure D. Conway, p. 69). (Source: Infidel Death-Beds, www.infidels.org).For a complete history of the life of Moncure Daniel Conway, see: "Autobiography, Memories, and Experiences of Moncure D. Conway", by Moncure Daniel Conway, published by Cassell and Company, Limited, (London, Paris, New York and Melbourne), MCMIV, 2 vols. with two portraits.
Richard Moncure Conway, C.S.A. He was a Texas Ranger. He was a Diplomat.
Raleigh Travers Daniel Conway and Richard Eustace Conway were twins.