Bushnell was a first cousin of David Bushnell of Saybrook, Connecticut, who designed and built the first submarine used in war, against the British in 1776, and a first cousin of the theologian Horace Bushnell, of Hartford, Connecticut.
While in California in 1856, for the restoration of his health, he took an active interest in the organization, at Oakland, of the College of California (chartered in 1855 and merged with the University of California in 1869), the presidency of which he declined.
Horace Walpole | Horace Greeley | Horace | Horace Silver | Horace Andy | Horace Mann | Candace Bushnell | Nolan Bushnell | Horace Mann Towner | Horace Trumbauer | Horace James | Horace Horsecollar | Horace Heidt | Horace Bushnell | David Bushnell | Horace Plunkett | Horace Gray | Horace François Bastien Sébastiani de La Porta | Horace Brown | Horace-Bénédict de Saussure | William Horace Temple | Sir Horace Mann, 1st Baronet | Reginald Horace Blyth | Horace Walker | Horace Vernet | Horace Mann Jr. | Horace Lamb | Horace Howard Furness | Horace Everett Hooper | Horace Engdahl |
Led by the likes of Horace Bushnell and Nathaniel Taylor, the New Divinity men broke, some would say irrevocably, with the older pessimistic views of human nature espoused by classical Congregationalist divines such as Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards, declaring instead a more sanguine view of possibilities for the individual and society.
The issue of slavery forced antislavery theologians, including William Ellery Channing, Francis Wayland, and Horace Bushnell, to reconcile what they perceived as contradictory loyalties to the Bible and to antislavery reform.