Vernon Stauffer

Vernon Stauffer was an American church historian of the early twentieth century. He taught New Testament and church history at Hiram College in Ohio, where he served as dean, and earned his doctorate at Columbia University with New England and the Bavarian Illuminati, published in 1918. The study traced how fears of a secret European conspiracy against religion and government spread through New England pulpits and politics around 1798, and it remains a standard account of the episode.