|
|
1832 (March 17)--Moncure Daniel Conway is born at a house known as Middleton in Stafford County.
1834--His father purchases Inglewood, a large farm just north of Falmouth near the present Drew Middle School. It is here that Conway has his earliest memories of growing up.
1838--Inglewood burns, and the family moves into a brick house along the Rappahannock River at Falmouth. The large Georgian home today is owned by Norman and Lanetta Schools and still is known as Conway House.
1842--Conway enters school at Fredericksburg Classical and Mathematical Academy, which he described in his autobiography as "the principal educational institution in northern Virginia."
1847--At age 15, he enrolls at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa. He graduates with the class of 1849 and soon begins work in the law offices of a family friend in Warrenton.
1850--Conway discovers the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose philosophy of self-reliance strengthens his growing anti-slavery beliefs and will be an influence on him the rest of his life.
1851--Conway turns his back on a career in law, commits himself to the Methodist Church and becomes a circuit-riding minister.
1852--Conway's older brother, Peyton, dies, leaving him the eldest son in a family with power and influence. Conway leaves Virginia for Massachusetts, however, and embraces Unitarianism. He also enters Harvard Divinity School and graduates the following year.
1854--After standing next to William Lloyd Garrison as he burns a copy of the Constitution during a Fourth of July gathering of abolitionists, Conway makes his first anti-slavery speech in Framingham, Mass.
1854--Conway becomes minister at the First Unitarian Church of Washington.
1857--When his anti-slavery views become an issue with his congregation, he is asked to leave. He then accepts a position at the Cincinnati Unitarian Church.
1858--Conway meets and marries Ellen Dana. Together they will have four children: three sons, Eustace (1859), Emerson (1861) and Dana (1865), and a daughter, Mildred (1868).
1862--Both Conway and his wife separate from the Unitarian church. He travels throughout the North as an outspoken leader in the abolitionist movement. Meanwhile, Conway House in Falmouth is saved from destruction by Union troops when a young soldier recognizes Conway's portrait hanging in his mother's bedroom.
1862--Conway arranges for transportation north for 31 of the family slaves who had escaped Stafford and gathered in Washington. The group survives a dangerous trek between train stations in Baltimore and eventually reaches safety in Ohio.
1863--Conway temporarily settles in London and plans an anti-slavery speaking tour to encourage Britons to support the Union.
1866--He takes the position of minister of the South Place Chapel in London, and becomes a respected scholar of world religions and philosophies.
1870--Conway serves briefly as a newspaper correspondent, covering the Franco-Prussian War in Europe. On one occasion, he rides through the night gripping the roof of a boxcar on an overcrowded troop train to deliver his story to a telegraph office.
1875--On a visit from England, Conway gives a public lecture in Fredericksburg. Newspaper accounts of the time report that he was very welcome.
1884--He and his wife return to the United States, and Conway enhances his reputation as a writer and scholar during an eight-year stay.
1897--Now back in England, Conway loses his beloved Ellen, who dies of cancer on Christmas Day.
1900--Conway addresses the Paris Peace Conference, offering suggestions for a world peace-keeping process that resembles the basic tenets of the League of Nations, and its successor--the United Nations.
1904--With funds donated by Andrew Carnegie, Dickinson College constructs a four-story building named Conway Hall to honor its famous alumnus. The structure eventually was torn down in 1967, but another building on campus now retains the name.
1907 (Nov. 15)--Conway dies alone in his Paris apartment. His body is cremated and its final resting place is Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, N.Y., next to his wife and son, Dana.
1929--Conway Hall is completed in London and named in his honor. It remains an international center for intellectual, political and cultural studies and is home to the South Place Ethical Society.