early Universalist evangelists was Dr. George de Benneville. Born in a Huguenot family exiled to England, he arrived in America in 1741. A physician and lay preacher, he spread Universalism among the German immigrants of Berks County, Pennsylvania, and later around Philadelphia and New Jersey. Benneville also commonly visited the Ephrata Cloister, a utopian community with Universalist beliefs. He arranged for the translation of a German book about universalism, The Everlasting Gospel (1753 translation), by Georg Klein-Nicolai of Friessdorf, Germany. Nearly forty years later, Elhanan Winchester read the book and converted to Universalism. He was influential in the printing of the Sauer Bible of Christoph Sauer (1695–1758), the first German Bible printed in America, with passages supporting Winchester's belief in the universal availability of salvation. In the South, Rev. Giles Chapman was a former Quaker and Continental Army Chaplain who married into a Dunker family. The first Universalist church in South Carolina (and possibly in America) was the Freedonia Meeting Hall situated in Newberry County. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a convert to Winchester's teaching of universal salvation, but not a member of a Universalist church, was a vigorous foe of slavery, advocated the abolition of the death penalty, advocated for better education for women, supported free public schools, was a pioneer in the study and treatment of mental illness, and insisted that the insane had a right to be treated with respect. He published a pamphlet on the iniquity of the slave trade. As part of his abolitionism, he helped organize the "Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage," the first antislavery society in America; he also served as its president. Rush believed, as did Winchester and most Universalists, in a state of punishment after death for the wicked. The first General Society was held in 1778. Annual conventions started in 1785 with the New England Convention. In 1804, this convention changed its name to "The General Convention of Universalists in the New England States and Others." At its peak in the 1830s, the Universalist Church is reported to have been the 9th largest denomination in the United States. Consolidation The Church consolidated with the American Unitarian Association to form the Unitarian Universalist Association. Some state Universalist Conventions did not accept the consolidation. These churches and others form minor pockets of Christian theological