All Souls Church, Unitarian (Washington, D.C.)

All Souls Church, Unitarian is a Unitarian Universalist church located at 1500 Harvard Street NW at the intersection of 16th Street, Washington, D.C., roughly where the Mt. Pleasant-Columbia Heights-Adams Morgan neighborhoods of the city meet. The design of its current building, completed in 1924, is based on St. Martin's-in-the-Fields in London. All Souls, a member of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, describes its theology as having evolved from a liberal Christian tradition into a "rich pluralism."

All Souls was founded in 1821 as the First Unitarian Church of Washington; among the church's founding members were President John Quincy Adams, Vice President John C. Calhoun, and Charles Bulfinch (who designed the original church building at 6th and D Streets NW and more famously the United States Capitol). The All Souls bell was cast in 1822 by Joseph Revere, the son of Paul; this bell, paid for with contributions by, among others, President James Monroe, originally served as a quasi-official town bell for Washington, DC.

The church has a long tradition of promoting liberal religious views and social justice issues. In the first half of the 19th century, it was known for its opposition to slavery, and counts among its past ministers the prominent abolitionist William Henry Channing. The Revere Bell was stripped of its status as Washington's "town bell" after the congregation tolled it to commemorate the death of John Brown; it was thereafter often called the "Abolition Bell."

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