Samuel Porter Putnam

Samuel Porter Putnam (July 23, 1838 - December 11, 1896) was an American freethinker, critic and publicist.

Biography

Putnam was born in Chichester, New Hampshire. His father was a minister of a Congregational church. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1861, then entered the Union Army as a private, and was promoted during the war to a captaincy. In 1865 he entered the theological seminary in Chicago, where he graduated in 1868, and preached for three years thereafter as a Congregational minister in the pulpits of Illinois. In 1871 he became a Unitarian minister, and preached for several years in various states.

Death

Putnam died from a gas leakage on December 11, 1896. His body was found on the floor with twenty year old lecturer May Collins in her hotel room in Boston. They had planned to go to the theatre together but were "poisoned by illuminating gas."

Publications

Prometheus: A Poem (1877) Gottlieb: His Life Golden Throne Why Don't He Lend a Hand? (1880) Ingersoll and Jesus (1882) Waifs and Wanderings: A Novel (1884) Adami and Heva: A New Version (1886) The New God (1887) The Problem of the Universe My Religious Experience (1890) Pen Pictures of the World's Fair Four Hundred Years of Freethought (New York: Truth Seeker Company, 1894)