The original village was surveyed and laid out in 1776 on land owned by Henry Beeson, and the borough was incorporated in 1796. From 1827 to 1832 Uniontown was the seat of Madison College, formed from Union Academy (founded 1808); in 1832 the college was merged with Allegheny College, of Meadville, Pa. In 1866 the buildings were turned over to the Soldiers’ Orphans’ School (now at Jumonville, a suburb), which occupied them until 1875. In the south-eastern part of the county is the district known as Great Meadows; here George Washington built Fort Necessity in 1754, and General Edward Braddock died and was buried here after his defeat by the French and Indians in 1755.
UNITARIANISM, a system of Christian thought and religious observance, based, as opposed to orthodox Trinitarianism, on the unipersonality of the Godhead, i.e. that the Godhead exists in the person of the Father alone. Unitarians carry their history up to the Apostolic age, claim for their doctrine a prevalence during the ante-Nicene period, and by help of Arian communities and individual thinkers trace a continuity of their views to the present time. However this may be, it is certain that the Reformation of the 16th century was in every European country attended by an outbreak more or less serious of anti-Trinitarian opinion. Suppressed as a rule in individual cases, this type of doctrine ultimately became the badge of separate religious communities, in Poland (extinct), in Hungary (still flourishing), and at a much later date in England. Along with the fundamental doctrine, certain characteristics have always marked its professors; namely, a large degree of toleration, a minimizing of essentials, a repugnance to formulated creed, an historical study of Scripture. Martin Cellarius (1499–1564) a friend of Luther, is usually regarded as the first literary pioneer (1527) of the movement; the anti-Trinitarian position of Ludwig Haetzer (q.v.) was not disclosed till after his execution (1529) for anabaptism. Both by his writings (from 1531) and by his fate (1553) Servetus (q.v.) stimulated thought in this direction. The Dialogues (1563) of Bernardino Ochino, while defending the Trinity, stated objections and difficulties with a force which captivated many. In his 27th Dialogue Ochino points to Hungary as a possible home of religious liberty. It was in Poland and Hungary that religious communities, definitely anti-Trinitarian, were first formed and tolerated.
Poland.—Scattered expressions of anti-Trinitarian opinion appear here early. At the age of 80, Catherine, wife of Melchior Vogel or Weygel, was burned at Cracow (1539) for apostasy; whether her views embraced more than deism is not clear. The first synod of the Reformed Church was held in 1555; at the second (1556), Gregory Pauli and Peter Gonesius avowed anti-Trinitarian and anabaptist views. The arrival of Blandrata (q.v.) in 1558 furnished the party with a leader. In 1565 the diet of Piotrkow excluded anti-Trinitarians from the existing synod; henceforward they held their own synods as the Minor Church. Known by various other names (of which Arian was the most common), at no time in its history did this body adopt for itself any designation save Christian. Originally Arian (though excluding any worship of Christ) and anabaptist, the Minor Church was (by 1588) brought round to his own views by Fausto Sozzini, who had settled in Poland in 1579 (see Socinus). In 1602 James Sienynski established at Raków a college and a printing-press, from which the Racovian Catechism was issued in 1605. In 1610 a Catholic reaction began, led by Jesuits. The establishment at Raków was suppressed in 1638, two lads having pelted a crucifix outside the town. Twenty years later the Polish Diet gave anti-Trinitarians the option of conformity or exile. The Minor Church included many Polish magnates, but their adoption of the views of Sozzini, which precluded Christians from magisterial office, rendered them politically powerless. The execution of the decree, hastened by a year, took place in 1660. Some conformed; a large number made their way to Holland (where the Remonstrants admitted them to membership on the basis of the Apostles’ Creed); others to the German frontier; a contingent settled in Transylvania, not joining the Unitarian Church, but maintaining a distinct organization at Kolozsvár till 1793. At Amsterdam was published (1665–1669) the Bibliotheca fratrum polonorum, embracing the works of Hans Krell, their leading theologian, of Jonas Schlichting, their chief commentator, of Sozzini and of Johann Ludwig Wolzogen; the title-page of this collection, bearing the words quos Unitarios vocant, introduced this term to Western Europe.
Transylvania and Hungary.—No distinct trace of anti-Trinitarian opinion precedes the appearance of Blandrata at the Transylvanian court in 1563. His influence was exerted on Francis Dávid (1510–1579), who was successively Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist and anti-Trinitarian. In 1564 Dávid was elected by the Calvinists as “bishop of the Hungarian churches in Transylvania,” and appointed court preacher to John Sigismund, prince of Transylvania. His discussion of the Trinity began (1565) with doubts of the personality of the Holy Ghost. His antagonist in public disputations was the Calvinist leader, Peter Juhász (Melius); his supporter was Blandrata. John Sigismund, adopting his court-preacher’s views, issued (1568) an edict of religious liberty at the Torda Diet, which allowed Dávid (retaining his existing title) to transfer his episcopate from the Calvinists to the anti-Trinitarians, Kolozsvár being evacuated by all but his followers. In 1571, John Sigismund was succeeded by Stephen Báthory, a Catholic, and trouble began. Under the influence of John Sommer, rector of the Kolozsvár gymnasium, Dávid (about 1572) abandoned the worship of Christ. The attempted accommodation by Sozzini only precipitated matters; tried as an innovator, Dávid died in prison at Déva (1579). The cultus of Christ became an established usage of the Church; it is recognized in the 1837 edition of the official hymnal, but removed in the edition of 1865. On the other hand, in 1621 a new sect arose, the Sabbatarii, with strong Judaic tendencies; though excluded from toleration they maintained an existence till 1848. The term unitarius (said to have been introduced by Melius, in discussions of 1569–1571) makes its first documentary appearance in a decree of the Lécsfalva Diet (1600); it was not officially adopted by the Church till 1638. Of the line of twenty-three bishops the most distinguished were George Enyedi (1592–1597), whose Explicationes obtained European vogue, and Michael Lombard Szentabrahámi (1737–1758), who rallied the forces of his Church, broken by persecution and deprivation of property, and gave them their existing constitution. His Summa universae theologiae secundum Unitarios (1787), Socinian with Arminian modifications, was accepted by Joseph II. as the official manifesto of doctrine, and so remains, though no subscription to it has ever been required. The official title is the Hungarian Unitarian Church, with a membership of over 60,000, most of them in Transylvania, especially among the Szekler population, a few in Hungary; their bishop has a seat in the Hungarian parliament. At Kolozsvár, the seat of the consistory, is the principal college; others are at Torda and at Székely-Keresztúr. Till 1818 the continued existence of this body was unknown to English Unitarians; relations have since become intimate; since 1860 a succession of students have finished their theological education at Manchester College, Oxford; others at the Unitarian Home Missionary College.
England.—Between 1548 (John Assheton) and 1612 we have a thin line of anti-Trinitarians, either executed or saved by recantation. Those burned were George van Parris (1551), Flemish surgeon; Patrick Pakingham (1555), fellmonger; Matthew Hamont (1579), ploughwright; John Lewes (1583); Peter Cole (1587), tanner; Francis Kett (1589), physician and author; Bartholomew Legate (1612), cloth-dealer, last of the Smithfield victims; and the twice-burned fanatic Edward Wightman (1612). In all these cases the virus seems to have come from Holland; the last two executions followed the rash dedication to James I. of the Latin version of the Racovian Catechism (1609). The vogue of Socinian views, which for a time affected men like Falkland and Chillingworth, led to the abortive fourth canon of 1640 against Socinian books. The
