Edward Cornelius Towne was a second-generation Transcendentalist minister from Medford, Massachusetts, who grew increasingly dissatisfied with the conservatism of the Unitarian church and became one of the founding members of the Free Religious Association in 1867. He wrote for the
Radical and established the
Chicago Examiner in 1870.
Amos Bronson Alcott was very close to the free religionists at first but moved away from them as time went on.