William Harvey Young was a minister in the Congregationalist faith. He graduated from Union Theological Seminary in 1915, after receiving his degree from Grinnell College in Iowa. He spent most of his life as a congregational minister in the towns of Brimfield, Chillicothe, Thawville, and Galesburg, Illinois, from the early 1920’s until his retirement in the early 1960’s. Social action was an integral part of his religion. While attending sociology classes at Columbia University in New York City, he lived on the East Side among the Bohemian people with whom he worked, and many of his sermons reflect the social concerns of the time. He was also involved the temperance movement and conducted an investigation of taverns in Illinois in the early 1930’s as a member of the Anti-Saloon League. His interests included photography and theater, and he often wrote to playwrights seeking permission to host their plays. Taking a respite from church duties, he sold law correspondent courses in the mid-west in the early 1920’s. He converted to Congregationalism from Methodism in 1923, and took a pastorship at the Union Church in Brimfield, Illinois. He would remain a Congregational pastor throughout the rest of his ministry. He was concerned with the merger between Congregational Church and the Evangelical and Reformed Church the occurred in the 1950’s, and was active in its opposition. He married Blanche De Bra in 1914. They had four children: Harvey, Jr., Arthur, Barbara, and Katherine.