John Humphrey Noyes

John Humphrey Noyes (September 3, 1811 – April 13, 1886) was an American preacher, radical religious philosopher, and utopian socialist. He founded utopian communities at Putney, Vermont; Oneida, New York; and Wallingford, Connecticut, and is credited with coining the term complex marriage.

Early years

Noyes was born September 3, 1811, in Brattleboro, Vermont, to John Noyes, who worked variously as a minister, teacher, businessman, and member of the U.S. House of Representatives; and to Polly Noyes (née Hayes), aunt to Rutherford B. Hayes, later the 19th president of the United States.

In 1831, at the age of 20, Noyes was influenced by the preaching of Charles Grandison Finney, a leader in the Second Great Awakening. Noyes underwent a religious conversion. "My heart was fixed on the millennium, and I resolved to live or die for it", Noyes later recalled. He graduated from Dartmouth College shortly thereafter and dropped plans to study law, instead enrolling at Andover Theological Seminary with a view to entering the Christian ministry.

In the fall of 1832, Noyes left Andover to enter the Yale Theological Seminary so that he could devote more time to Bible study. In addition to attending daily lectures and practicing his preaching technique, Noyes began to dip his toe into political activism, helping to organize in New Haven one of the first Anti-Slavery Societies in the United States.

While in his second year at Yale, Noyes made what he considered a major theological discovery. While attempting to determine the date of the second coming of Christ, Noyes concluded that the event had already occurred, in 70 AD, and that therefore "mankind was now living in a new age".