William Dorrell (vegetarian)
American vegetarian, religious leader
William Dorrell (March 15, 1752 – August 28, 1846) was an American new religious leader of the Dorrellites, a utopian sect located in Leyden, Massachusetts. He was also an early vegetarianism activist.
Biography
Dorrell was born in Yorkshire. He became a soldier and went abroad to fight in the American Revolutionary War in 1775 under John Burgoyne. He escaped after being taken prisoner at Saratoga. In 1777 he married Polly Chase and resided in Vermont. Dorrell began preaching in 1794 and became known Reverend Dorrell. He founded a religious sect in Leyden, Massachusetts which became known as the Dorrellites.
Dorrell preached a vegetarian message that was founded upon the principle that people should not eat animal flesh or cause the death of any living creature. Members were forbidden to wear leather shoes or the skins of animals for any domestic purpose.
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This entry incorporates text from “William Dorrell (vegetarian)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.