“He was …of diminutive stature, being five feet and one inch in height, and weighing but ninety-five pounds. ... He was active in movement and rapid and nervous in speech, but at the same time of a very calm and even-tempered disposition. He lived his religion.“[i]
He was born in Gloucester Mass, where his dad was a Fisherman, and where his family heard the famous John Murray preach Universalism. Now at this time Universalism was a pretty controversial idea, and you risked “bitter censures, denunciates and condemnations” as Stacy would later recall. He was the 3rd of 7 children, and he didn’t have much education, because he needed to help his dad on the farm. He tried apprenticing as a blacksmith, he tried being a store clerk. He took a job as apprentice to a clockmaker in part because it was near the church where Hosea Ballou was preaching. One day, says biographer Mark Harris “Ballou came into the shop and asked him, “Brother Stacy, what are you tinkering here for?” He had not been able to settle on a career, Ballou told Stacy, because preaching was his true business. Until he began to serve as a minister he would not be happy. Ballou offered to become his teacher and, in October, 1802, took Stacy into his home and study.”[ii]
In 1803, in his first year of ministry, Stacy made the long journey on horseback to the National Convection of Universalists, and was amazed to be in a room with many of his heroes, and to hear them preach. (Being a Universalist preacher in those days could be a lonely business.)
Now here’s the fun bit -- at this convention Stacy was one of 4 new ministers to receive his fellowship as a minister, (that’s like the official stamp approval from the association) and who received fellowship at the exact same time? Noah Murray! Stacy remembers “Mr. Murray was a convert from the Baptists, with whom he preached a number of years; but, many years before this, he had renounced the doctrine of Partialism, (partialism is what we called people who believed only some people would be saved) and had been proclaiming the doctrine of Impartial Grace; (I love that way of explaining Universalism - God’s grace is impartial)” His residence was in the town of Athens, Tioga Point, Pa.” [iii]
A few years later, in 1807, Stacy traveled all around Sullivan, Madison and Cortland counties, where there were no other Universalist preachers. He writes “Homer was then a newly settled country. There was but one solitary house where the flourishing village of Cortland now stands and that was the residence of a friend of ours by the name of Hubbard, ... On my first visit to Homer, I delivered one discourse at the old village, and another at Port Watson. ... I subsequently visited Homer several times in the course of the summer and fall; and organized a society in the place which in after years I regularly supplied for a considerable space of time. [Memoir p. 190]
His obituary in the Universalist Companion of 1869 says “ Father Stacy was one of the most indefatigable missionaries we ever had; and the history of his labors for forty years is in good part the history of Universalism in New York, Pennsylvania and Michigan. ... How cheerful was his temper, how kind his heart, how tranquil his philosophy and how unfaltering his faith, all know who had the pleasure of his acquaintance.”
Translation- he worked hard to share Universalism, even when times were rough and people were mean to him. He was cheerful and kind and never stopped believing that God loves everyone in the universe.
[i] https://nyscu.org/Archives/Universalism-Various/Stacy,%20N%20M.%20Rev..pdf
J. S. Schenck, History of Warren Co., Pennsylvania (Syracuse: D. Mason & Co., 1887) PP. 491-2
