Love Notes: The Love Letters of Judith Sargent Murray and John Murray, A Timeless American Love Story Set to Music

John Murray of Alton, England, was the first Universalist minister in America. News of his charismatic preaching style and organizing ability as the denomination’s figurehead spread quickly through the colonies once he arrived in New Jersey in 1770 and agreed to speak. He caught the attention of Winthrop Sargent of Gloucester, a wealthy merchant and leader of a fledgling group of Universalists. Sargent invited Murray to Gloucester in 1774, and he walked through the front door of the mansion on November 11—into the presence of Sargent’s daughter, Judith.

Sparks flew. There was an instant connection.

As for Judith, she was a 23-year-old married woman. Self-educated, self-confident, brilliant, and beautiful, she was starved for an intellectual equal—and here was the spiritual leader of her chosen faith. A few days later, setting propriety aside, Judith wrote to John and asked to engage in correspondence, hoping that they would “mingle souls upon paper.”

Hundreds of letters followed, written during John’s long absences as he traveled to help organize Universalist societies. Judith supported his efforts in Gloucester by publishing a Universalist catechism for children (the first in America) and her first essay on female equality. He wanted to know everything she was thinking and doing, and she obliged by sometimes writing journal-style letters that went on for days. Some were quite flirtatious.

When John was in Gloucester, he boarded in Judith’s home on Middle Street. Her first husband, John Stevens, a sea captain, was often away. When Judith was ill, John took her into the countryside. When his ministry was attacked by the established clergy, she defended him. When the Universalists faced lawsuits for wanting their own church and minister, Judith signed her name to the documents involved. And when John Stevens faced debtors’ prison, John Murray intervened with his creditors—to no avail.  

News of Stevens’ death in 1787 coincided with Murray’s hasty departure for England for his safety. Not knowing if he could ever return, he arranged for all of his American assets to go to Judith in the event of his death.

And he wrote to her from Boston Harbor, asking her to marry him.

Judith said yes.

He was able to return, and they were married in Salem on October 6, 1788.

As husband and wife, they were equal partners who loved, respected, and supported each other. In their individual ways—his as a Universalist pastor, mentor to young ministers, and organizer; hers as a bold writer who achieved several literary “firsts” in this country, as a correspondent with national figures, and as an educator for her own and others’ children—they worked toward a shared vision of love, fairness, kindness, and virtue in THIS world.

They knew they would be together in the next world as well.

Join us for this very special Valentine's Day to hear Judith Sargent Murray's own loving words to and about John Murray!