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Bodies of Belief: Baptist Community in Early America
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Table of contents :
Contents
Introduction: A New People of God
Chapter 1. “Little Tabernacles in the Wilderness”: Baptists in Colonial Pennsylvania
Chapter 2. “Sons and Daughters of Zion”: Baptists in Colonial Virginia
Chapter 3. “A Heaven-Born Stroke”: Evangelical Conversion
Chapter 4. “Putting on Christianity”: Ritual Practice
Chapter 5. “Holy Walking and Conversation”: Church Discipline
Chapter 6. Sisters in Christ: Gender and Spirituality
Chapter 7. Free People in the Lord: Race and Religion
Chapter 8. The Manly Christian: Evangelical White Manhood
Conclusion: Baptists in the Early Republic
Appendix. Partial List of Baptist Ministers in the Mid-Atlantic and Chesapeake, 1689–1830
Abbreviations
Notes
Index
Acknowledgments

Citation preview

Bodies of Belief

E A R LY A M E R I C A N S T U D I E S Daniel K. Richter and Kathleen M. Brown, Series Editors Exploring neglected aspects of our colonial, revolutionary, and early national history and culture, Early American Studies reinterprets familiar themes and events in fresh ways. Interdisciplinary in character, and with a special emphasis on the period from about 1600 to 1850, the series is published in partnership with the McNeil Center for Early American Studies.

A complete list of books in the series is available from the publisher.

Bodies of Belief Baptist Community in Early America Janet Moore Lindman

PENN

University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia

Copyright © 2008 University of Pennsylvania Press All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher. Published by University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 10

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lindman, Janet Moore. Bodies of belief : Baptist community in early America / Janet Moore Lindman. p. cm.—(Early American Studies) ISBN: 978-0-8122-4114-3 (alk. paper) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Baptists—North America—History. 2. Body, Human—Religious aspects—Baptists— History of doctrines. 3. Body, Human—Social aspects—North America—History. 4. North America—Church history. I. Title BX6233.L56 2008 286.0973—dc22 2008010812

Contents

Introduction: A New People of God

1

1

“Little Tabernacles in the Wilderness”: Baptists in Colonial Pennsylvania 11

2

“Sons and Daughters of Zion”: Baptists in Colonial Virginia 33

3

“A Heaven-Born Stroke”: Evangelical Conversion

4

“Putting on Christianity”: Ritual Practice

5

“Holy Walking and Conversation”: Church Discipline

6

Sisters in Christ: Gender and Spirituality

7

Free People in the Lord: Race and Religion

8

The Manly Christian: Evangelical White Manhood Conclusion: Baptists in the Early Republic

52

71

112 134

179

Appendix: Baptist Ministers in the Delaware Valley and Chesapeake 185 List of Abbreviations Notes

195

Index

257

Acknowledgments

193

269

90

156

Selected Baptist Churches in the Mid-Atlantic, 684–830 This partial list of Baptist churches by county includes those that came into existence in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries. Several churches had multiple names throughout their histories; the names listed here are those used at the time. Some of the meetings listed below were branches of a main church; many have no extant records. D E L AWA R E

N EW J E R SEY

P E N N SY LVA N IA

V I R G I N IA

Kent County Cow Marsh, 78 Duck Creek, 78 Mispillion, 783

Burlington County Burlington, 690 New Mills 764 Upper Freehold, 766 Jacobstown, 785 Mansfield, 786 Burlington, 80

Allegheny County First Baptist, 82 First Colored, 830

Albemarle County Albemarle, 773

New Castle County Welsh Tract, 70 Wilmington, 785 Sussex County Head of the Sound, 779 Broad Creek, 78 Gravelly Branch, 785 D I ST R IC T O F C O LUM B IA First Baptist, 805 M A RY L A N D Allegheny County George’s Hill, 784 Baltimore County Chestnut Ridge, 742 Winter Run, 754 Chestnut Grove, 773 Carroll County Winchester, 775 Caroline County Falling Creek, 78 Tuckahoe Creek, 790 City of Baltimore Baltimore, 785 Second Baptist, 797 Mt. Zion Baptist, 830

Cape May County Cape May, 72

Worcester County Lower End, 779 Indiantown, 780

Fluvanna County Lyle’s, 774

Buckingham County Buckingham, 77

Frederick County Mill Creek, 757 Buck Marsh, 77 Bethel, 808 (Frederick and Clark Cos., VA) Salem, 80

City of Philadelphia Charles City County Philadelphia, 746 Charles City, 776 Sansom Street, 804 Elam, 80 First African, 808 Blockley African, 823 Charlotte County Mossingford, 785 Delaware County Ashcamp, 803 Marcus Hook, 789 Chaney’s, 825 Roxbury, 86 Chesterfield County Fayette County Chesterfield, 773 Great Bethel, 770 Tomahawk, 777 Mt. Moriah, 784 Skinquarter, 778 Big Redstone, 79 City of Chesapeake Fulton County Shoulder’s Hill, 785 Konoloway, 765 City of Norfolk Greene County Norfolk, 86 Goshen, 773 City of Petersburg Lycoming County Gillfield, Jersey Shore, 827 2nd African, 83 Petersburg, Luzerne County First African, 820 Pittstown, 786 City of Portsmouth Montgomery County Court Street Church, Montgomery, 78 794 Mt. Pleasant, 807 City of Richmond Northampton County First African, Lower Smithfield, South Richmond, 790 82 First Baptist, 825 Philadelphia County Pennepek, 688 City of Williamsburg Montgomery, 79 Williamsburg African, 776 Washington County Peter’s Creek, 773 Culpeper County Ten Mile Creek, 773 Culpeper, 77 Enon, 79 Mt. Poney, 774 Gourdvine, 79 Westmoreland County F.T., 805 Salem, 803

Monmouth County Middletown, 688 Morris County Morristown, 752 Roxbury, 753

Salem County Salem, 755 Pittsgrove, 77

Queen County County Queen Anne, 780

Botecourt County Mill Creek, 804

Gloucester County Tuckahoe, 77 West Creek, 792

Middlesex County Piscataway, 689 Cranbury, 745

Somerset County Mount Bethel, 767 Turkeyfoot, 788 Sussex County Newtown, 756 Wantage, 756 Warren County Knowlton, 763 City of Camden Camden, 88 City of Trenton First Colored, 82

Fairfax County Difficult, 775 Fauquier County Broad Run, 762 Carter’s Run, 769 Thumb Run, 77 Upperville, 775 Upper Goose Creek, 799

Chester County Great Valley, 7 Brandywine, 75 Valley Forge, 720 Vincent, 737 Hepzibah, 754 London Tract, 780

Hunterdon County Hopewell, 75 Kingwood, 742 Woolverton, 755 Lambertville, 825

Franklin County Mt. Pleasant, 829

Bedford County Bedford, 77 Goose Creek, 77 Hatcher’s Church, 787

Essex County Scotch Plains, 747 Lyon’s Farm, 769 Canoebrook, 786 Woodbridge, 790 Jefferson’s Village, 80

Frederick County Fredericktown, 773

Somerset County Salisbury, 780

Amherst County Amherst, 77

Cumberland County Cohansey, 690 Dividing Creek, 76

Ocean County Manahawkin, 770

Montgomery County Seneca Creek, 772

Blair County Long Valley, 822 Bucks County Cold Spring 684 Southampton, 746 New Britain, 754 Falls Township, 789

Dorchester County Vienna, 782

Harford County Harford, 754 Gunpowder, 804

Berks County Tulpehocken, 738

Amelia County Nottoway, 769

Essex County Enon, 820

Caroline County Burruss’, 773

Gloucester County Gloucester, 797

Louisa County Thompson’s, 770 Elk Creek, 83 Fork, 824 Lunenburg County Bluestone, 758 Meherrin, 77 Tussekiah, 777 Monongalia County Forks of Cheat, 775 Nansemond County South Quay, 775 Northumberland County Coan, 804 Nottoway County Uncle Jack’s, 790 Orange County Blue Run, 769 Rapidann, 769 Patrick County New Hope, 798

Goochland County Goochland, 77

Pittsylvania County Blackwater, 76 Birch Creek, 77 Lower Banister, 798

Halifax County County Line, 77

Prince Edward County Saylor’s Creek, 78

Henrico County Boar Swamp, 777

Prince William County Occoquan, 776

Henry County Beaver Creek, 777

Rockingham County Greenbrier, 78

Isle of Wight County Mill Swamp, 774

Scott County Stony Creek, 85

King and Queen County Shenandoah County Upper King and Linville’s Creek, 756 Queen, 774 Smith’s Creek, 774 King and Queen Elk Creek, 787 County, 782 (black) Waterlick, 787 Beulah, 82 Mill Creek, 798 Mattaponi, 828 Southampton County King William County Black Creek, 774 Beulah, 776 Spotsylvania County Lancaster County Waller’s, 769 Morattico, 778 Piney Branch, 789 Lee County Copper Creek, 807 Loudon County Ketocton, 75 New Valley, 767 Goose Creek, 775 North Fork, 784 Frying Pan, 79 Ebenezer, 804

Stafford County Champawamsic, 766 Hartwood, 77 White Oak, 789 Sussex County Mill Swamp, 757 Racoon Swamp, 772 High Hills, 787 Westmoreland County Nomini, 786 Yeocomaco, 789

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Introduction: A New People of God

John Taylor was more interested in social pursuits than spirituality when Baptists began preaching near his frontier home in 1770. After attending one of their meetings merely for entertainment, he came away deeply affected. He read the Bible, quit his sinful habits, and became convinced he could obtain salvation without the help of “noisy Baptists.” When two of Taylor’s neighbors underwent conversion and started preaching Baptist theology, however, his spiritual certainty quickly disintegrated. He now knew that he only understood the “external demands” of religion; he had changed his behavior but not his heart. Evangelical preaching had exposed his true nature; he needed to embrace “truth and holiness in the inward parts.” Without an embodied spiritual experience, his newfound faith was superficial and temporary: “the light and goodness I thought of before was blown out as with a puff, and I was left as a perfect blank of darkness, from which . . . all manner of evil was constantly flowing and with a torrent which it was impossible for me to stop.” Inundated by a “host of Hell-bred corruptions,” Taylor became painfully aware of his ignorance and unbelief. He prayed constantly, ate indifferently, slept little, and feared for his sanity. He vacillated between feelings of hope (he was capable of conversion) and despair (he was justifiably damned). He read the Bible for insight and solace, all the while fearing the Devil would deceive him into an “unsound” conversion. Taylor continued to suffer physically and emotionally. He went to meeting eager for saving grace but left desolate about its realization. Then one day in the spring of 1772, he walked outside his father’s house to read a hymnbook and pray alone. After many months of bodily struggle and spiritual contemplation, Taylor’s efforts finally culminated in salvation: A tide of heavenly joy flowed into my soul and [it was] of the rapturous kind far exceeding anything I had ever felt before. . . . Which constrained me to answer as Thomas did in John 20th chapter 28th verse, “My lord and my God.” This answer was repeating through my mind with such heavenly rapture that I scarcely knew whether

2

Introduction

I was in the body or out of the body. I now believed I was born of God, that Christ was my Saviour.1

Taylor would later describe this long process of conversion—fluctuating between anticipation and despondency, visceral response and spiritual longing—as a “paradoxical, religious phrenzy.” His “phrenzy” and the conversion it engendered illustrate two primary and related components of the Baptist religion in eighteenth-century America. The first is the corporeality of evangelicalism; Baptists came to their faith through a rigorous and grueling experience that occurred in the body after months, even years, of spiritual turmoil. The second factor is the paradoxical nature of Baptist practice. Baptist meetings were known for their physicality and emotionalism, yet members were required to reject customary social pleasures and pursue circumspect lives. Once saved, Baptists maintained their embodied faith through ritual and discipline, as belief was experienced through the body, with physical release and bodily restraint key elements of evangelical spirituality. Baptists advocated a body-centered religion, asserting that all believers could attain salvation by demonstrating a substantive conversion. Yet they obviated the universal attainment of an ideal evangelical body (one free of earthly bonds and equal to all others) by employing secular concepts that racialized and gendered believers’ bodies. From this paradox of an embodied faith (of spiritually identical but socially different bodies) flowed other paradoxes within the Baptist community. Baptists adopted the spiritual equity of the New Testament but built an institutional structure based on racial and gender asymmetry; they supported the inclusion of blacks into church membership but created separatist policies and waffled over slavery; they recognized egalitarian relations among male and female members but limited the role of women in the institutional church; and finally they endorsed a circumscribed model of masculinity while white male members gained authority and dominance within church polity. The paradoxical nature of the Anglo-American Baptist religion was also evident in church practice. Baptist religious community was based on the lateral relationship of siblings, while church government was rooted in the hierarchical relations of husbands and wives, masters and slaves. As Bible believers, Baptists ascribed to a family model in which men headed “the household of God” to supervise women and children, servants and slaves. This model was embedded in biblical precedent and patriarchal relations that mitigated the spiritual equality of evangelical religion. Baptists emphasized familial connection and spiritual togetherness, and, at the same time,

A New People of God

3

privileged male supremacy in church government. This dominance was evident in the relations among members. God as sovereign patriarch put Christians, male and female, white and black alike, in the role of vulnerable children dependent upon an omnipotent father for salvation. This relationship was replicated when white male leaders assumed patriarchal power over female and black members—and their bodies—placing them in an ambiguous position as both spiritual equal and social dependent. These two patterns of church relations coexisted, sometimes uneasily, as Baptists simultaneously affirmed spiritual brotherhood and sisterhood as well as a tradition of biblical patriarchy. Baptist community transcended earthly concerns and yet was grounded in a hierarchical social order and a doctrine of bodily control. Indices of the secular world pervaded the godly order; race and gender served as operative categories not only as a means of social division among the members but also as a method of denominational organization. The body was fundamental to the Baptist experience in British North America at the same time religious experience was shaped by local context. This book will examine the growth of the American Baptist church from isolated congregations in the seventeenth century—“little tabernacles in the wilderness”—into a mainline denomination by the early nineteenth century. I trace the development of the Baptist religion, specifically in Pennsylvania and Virginia, from its struggles of early settlement and church building; to the centrality of the body in Baptist faith and identity; to the varieties of doctrine and worship; to the multivalence of conversion, ritual, and godly community in early America. Though Pennsylvania and Virginia Baptists had dissimilar beginnings, they were linked together by an embodied faith, religious belief, ministerial network, and interregional connection that fostered institutional development. This comparative local study of religion will detail the politics and practices of spirituality among Baptists in Pennsylvania and Virginia during the eighteenth century. While the history of Baptists in New England and the Chesapeake has been well documented by scholars, those in the Delaware Valley have received less attention, in part because their history follows a different trajectory than their northern and southern counterparts.2 Rather than adhering to the dominant discourse evident in histories of Massachusetts and Virginia Baptists—in which stalwart believers overcame persecution to gain the right to worship as they chose—Pennsylvania Baptists enjoyed religious freedom from the beginning of white settlement; they were in greater danger of being subsumed by other religious groups than suffering harassment by the state.3 In addition, the impact of Pennsylvania Baptists was far greater outside the colony than within it. Like Quakers

4

Introduction

and Presbyterians of the region, Delaware Valley Baptists directed an intracolonial organization that offered support to their co-religionists in other parts of British North America. The widespread influence of Philadelphia Baptists aided their persecuted brethren and sisters in New England and the Chesapeake. The divergence and convergence of the Baptist denomination in these two regions offer a valuable comparison to understand the myriad expressions of evangelical religion in early America. Baptists arrived in Pennsylvania in the late seventeenth century to create church polity in a new colony based on religious tolerance, at the same time competing with other ideologies and denominations. While Pennsylvania Baptists never grew to large numbers, their organizational acumen resulted in the creation of the Philadelphia Baptist Association, which became a leading authority for Baptists in other parts of British North America during the eighteenth century. Virginia Baptists emerged in the eighteenth century to demonstrate more diversity in belief and practice and were one of many dissenting Protestant groups confronting an established church. They underwent a period of persecution before the Revolutionary War, due in part to the corporeality of evangelical religion. They experienced resistance but gained acceptance to become one of the largest Protestant denominations in the antebellum South. The Great Awakening impacted both Pennsylvania and Virginia Baptists, as evangelical revivalism engendered congregational division, lay activism, and institutional growth. Baptists created a colonial network that provided guidance to co-religionists throughout British North America. Many Delaware Valley clergy and laity moved south in the mid-eighteenth century to lead and form Virginia congregations, and the Philadelphia Baptist Association served as a center of Baptist activism in the colonial period. Concomitantly, Virginia Baptists looked north for advice and support when they endured religious persecution as well as when they organized churches and associations. The intervention of the American Revolution momentarily halted the growth of this network and transatlantic relations among Baptists. After the war, new congregations flourished, membership rose, and revivals broke out. The successful campaign for religious freedom in Virginia served as an impetus for Baptists to utilize their interregional relationships to push for disestablishment in Massachusetts. To study popular religion is to examine it as “lived experience”: how Baptists adopted and nurtured faith through individual identity and collective activity. Most Baptists practiced closed communion among their members but allowed nonmembers to attend their services. Nonetheless, they

A New People of God

5

wished to associate only with other believers and avoided the outside world as well as other denominations. This sense of spiritual community valued harmony and consensus, in a seamless whole that was inured to disruption or conflict; maintaining spiritual purity was of primary concern to Baptists. This purity focused on the bodies of believers. As “a variable boundary,” the body became a channel of belief and behavior that was permeable to both sacred and secular forces. As a part of the physical world, bodies are subject to material demands based on societal expectations and individual experiences. Yet as centers of transcendent faith, bodies acted as instruments of spiritual salvation. Baptist bodies surpassed worldly hierarchies and at other times reverted to them. As a mediating force within the godly community, bodies enacted pious belief and were acted upon through socially constructed identities.4 Baptists implemented and fostered their faith through conversion, ritual, and discipline. Being a Baptist began with the emotional and corporeal experience of conversion. Conversion marked the Baptist body through a spiritual crisis that transfixed individuals and their bodies. After the painstaking and physically draining process of gaining salvation, Baptists preserved their faith through church ritual.5 As with conversion, church rites occurred through sacred performances that became Baptist belief in action.6 AngloAmerican Baptists used a range of rituals not only to mark a convert’s entry into church membership but also to sustain piety. Ritual practice became an integral part of Baptist identity. The final step in the three-part process of becoming and remaining a Baptist was church discipline. Members who engaged in sinful behavior—misused their bodies—were called before the church court for breaking the bonds of religious communion. As conduits of religious authority, the church courts set behavioral standards for all believers. Disciplining the Baptist body became a principal means of engendering spiritual identity and belief and demarcating status and power within the church. The body-centered faith of Baptists would become especially apparent during the Great Awakening in the mid-eighteenth century. This series of revivals galvanized crowds in emotional outbursts and visceral demonstrations. At the same time, changing concepts of the human body impacted the Baptist corporeal regimen. New knowledge garnered from the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment had altered Euro-American understandings of the human body by the mid-eighteenth century. Now defined as enclosed and self-regulating, the human body and its “passions” were to be contained and rationalized through internal control. At the same time, European philosophy

6

Introduction

and science differentiated human bodies by race and sex in essential and definitive ways. These bodily concepts based on “natural” differences fed into cultural concepts of status, as scientists used nature to “prove” the inferiority of women and people of color.7 Hierarchies of race and sex based on biological and social disparity emerged as Baptists were embracing their ideal of an evangelical body. This new model of the human body complicated the spiritual experience of American Baptists and also impacted the public perception of their religion. Observers were alarmed by the physical nature of Baptist revivalism, scoffed at the bodily restrictions of church membership, and feared the racial and gendered implications of egalitarian spirituality. Race and gender intersected with the Baptist body as part of religious experience. The evangelical body was at once highly desired and sought after yet evanescent and elusive. The believer’s striving for a restful soul and sinless body drove Baptist faith practice. The ability of believers like Taylor to be “in the body or out of the body” simultaneously demonstrates that spiritual belief came through the body and yet went beyond it. As a believer, Taylor found faith through an atomized experience made significant within religious community. As a white man, Taylor’s religious choice offered him access to leadership as an elder and minister. Thus, gender and race became salient indicators of status and participation.8 Though women had a numerical advantage in most congregations by the late eighteenth century, they had limited rights within church government. They exercised spiritual leadership outside the meetinghouse by creating their own devotional culture based on female friendships, household meetings, and community involvement. This culture was more stable and extensive for white women, but black women, too, had opportunities for spiritual sisterhood in the eighteenth century. Race also shaped religious experience. Though few African-Americans pursued the Baptist faith before the American Revolution, its egalitarian message drew in many blacks by the end of the eighteenth century. Black Baptists trod a rocky path toward church membership in Virginia and Pennsylvania alike. Some black men served as church elders and preachers, but they found their leadership moderated by their racialized status in temporal society. Blacks sought out their own prayer meetings and religious leaders. Although white and black Baptists worshiped together in biracial churches during the eighteenth century, by the nineteenth century, many black Baptists had formed their own meetings. Free blacks were prime movers in creating these separate churches and beginning the process of segregated community building. The Baptist religion remade men as well as women by writing new scripts for white concepts of manhood. Male converts rejected the dominant

A New People of God

7

model of manliness to embrace emotive spirituality. For many white men, conversion posed not just a spiritual test but also a gender crisis. Becoming a Baptist required authentic conversion, altered behavior, and a new body; male converts had to eschew secular status and social pleasure to maintain church membership. Baptist men rejected the traditional model of manhood and increased their participation in church polity as part of the “priesthood of all believers.”9 This impacted white men more than black; though some black men enjoyed positions as preachers, elders, and association delegates, often under white supervision. White ministers, and to a lesser extent, white laymen, created close bonds with other men, as they displayed attributes of an evangelical manhood and inculcated male dominance into church organizations. This process of consolidation continued into the nineteenth century, as white men dominated institutions, white women filled up the pews, and black men and women, when possible, gathered their own churches. Though members of the same denomination, these groups experienced their faith in manifold and divergent ways. American Baptists demonstrated both progressive and regressive elements based on a religious ideology of spiritual equity and a social practice of church hierarchy and racial and gender inequality. By detailing the paradoxical and multivalent aspects of the Baptist faith in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, this book offers an alternate interpretation of evangelicalism in British North America. American Baptist denominationalism has been touted for its democratic ideals, yet it shaped an institutional framework that duplicated the disparities of secular society. The Baptist body exemplified this incongruence as an emotional, anxious, and suffering corpus that sought God’s grace to become a decorous, joyful, and believing body that had attained salvation. Once a member, spiritual equality in religious community was balanced by embodied racial and gendered status. The success of the Baptist church was predicated on its ability to foster concurrently a radical spiritual ethos and a conservative social outlook. Baptist ideals of spiritual egalitarianism and congregationalism allowed for freedom among the members but the structure of church polity, which was tied to secular indices of social status, grounded these relations in hierarchy and difference. The Baptist religion did not progress on a one-way course from marginal sectarian movement to traditional mainline denomination; instead it encompassed both radical and conservative attributes from the onset of development in early America. The journey to becoming a Baptist took several routes.10 In early modern England, many men and women first became Puritans, Independents, or Separates before embracing the Baptist faith. John Smyth, one of the first

8

Introduction

English General Baptist ministers, followed this path. Smyth attended Cambridge and was ordained an Anglican priest in 1594 by the bishop of Lincoln. He began to question Anglicanism and resisted conformity along with other Puritans. He eventually lost his ministerial post, renounced his ordination, and, in 1607, became a Separate. Soon after, he, layman Thomas Helwys, and their followers immigrated to Holland to escape persecution. Smyth baptized himself and the others, believing that when three or four people were gathered in Jesus’ name, they formed a church. However, he came to doubt the church’s legitimacy and sought out local Mennonites for affiliation. Helwys disagreed and they parted company. Smyth died in Amsterdam and most of the remaining group moved back to England in the 1610s. Some English believers became General Baptists and followed the teachings of the Dutch theologian Jacobus Arminius. As Arminians, General Baptists asserted general atonement for all humankind; anyone could be saved as long as they experienced saving grace. Particular Baptists, also known as Regular Baptists, were Calvinists and believed in predestination and particular salvation—only the elect would be saved. Some English followers also endorsed Seventh Day worship. These theological positions were fluid in the early years of denominational growth. Baptists sanctioned a number of doctrinal positions, such as Thomas Lambe who believed in general redemption but also argued that some people were destined for salvation. Though a General Baptist, he endorsed some aspects of Calvinism. Ritual practice also was slow to develop. Baptism by immersion was not used until the 1640s and initially it was performed in a basin rather than in a body of water. Some Baptist churches practiced both adult and infant baptism and allowed adults who had been baptized as children to become members.11 English Baptists debated a range of theological and ritual issues during the seventeenth century. They differed over open or close communion (whether all congregants or only members could participate in the Eucharist), pacifism, taking oaths, predestination, church ritual, officeholding, and political activism. Early Baptists clashed over the practice of several rites, including foot washing, communion, and the laying on of hands. The last ritual, which was based on an apostolic duty, would become a persistent subject of controversy among Baptists. In the 1670s, a pamphlet war broke out between Benjamin Keach, who defended this ritual based on Scripture, and Henry Danvers, who claimed it was too tainted by Catholicism to be meaningful. While both General and Particular Baptists agreed to the use of the imposition of hands during ordination, only the Generals required it after baptism; they made it a mandatory practice in their 1660 Confession of Faith.

A New People of God

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Church leadership also became an important topic in seventeenthcentury England. General Baptists approved the use of elders and deacons, the latter both male and female, to care for the church’s poor and sickly. By mid-century, English Baptists had instituted the offices of deacons, elders, and evangelists. John Smyth downplayed the role of the minister and believed all members should share responsibility for governance, even permitting women and children to participate in officers’ elections. The 1644 Confession of London asserted that the ministerial role would be subordinate to congregational authority. Any “preaching disciple” could administer church rituals. Particular Baptists reiterated this policy of role sharing by clergy and laity when they issued a new confession in 1689.12 At the same time English Baptists were debating doctrine, they became involved in the political upheavals of the seventeenth century. Many Baptist men served in Cromwell’s army during the English Civil War; some supported the Leveller cause, while others advocated the Fifth Monarchy.13 Baptists were among the men who executed Charles I in 1649. These associations contributed to the public image of Baptists as radicals, both politically and religiously, and would lead to a new wave of persecution after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. Baptists codified their beliefs early on not only to specify doctrine but to dispel rumors that they denied original sin, disavowed the magistracy, and engaged in “acts unseemly” during baptism. Opponents circulated a popular medical belief that the full immersion of a believer’s body was dangerous to one’s health. They also argued that the baptismal rite imperiled the modesty of female converts; exposing women’s wet bodies to male strangers was deemed morally decadent. Presbyterian Thomas Edwards focused on these fears of sexual disorder to disparage his religious rivals. He linked English Baptists directly to the Münster Anabaptists, a group of religious radicals who participated in a rebellion during the 1530s. This uprising began when Anabaptists sacked and destroyed churches in the city and persecuted Catholics and Lutherans who refused to be rebaptized; many of whom were later slaughtered. During their short reign, the Münster Anabaptists instituted radical practices, such as spiritual marriage and communal ownership. The reputation of Münster Anabaptists for bloodletting and sexual license became part of a sensational literature that spread throughout Europe. When the first history of Baptists in England was published in the 1730s, it vehemently denied any connection between English Baptists and their Münster brethren. The specter of Münster would continue to haunt English and American Baptists during the eighteenth century.14

10

Introduction

When British Baptists emigrated in Pennsylvania in the early 1680s, they brought with them a contentious history and radical reputation.15 They would successfully establish congregations in the Delaware Valley by adapting to a new religious environment and maintaining the sacred traditions honed by their English ancestors. The conflicts over ritual and leadership begun in England would continue on the American continent. Transplanting their religion proved complicated even in a colony that guaranteed religious toleration to European settlers. Amid a plethora of Protestants advocating an assortment of beliefs and practices, Baptists vied for a place in the new colony. William Penn’s government welcomed a variety of sects and denominations into a new religious marketplace, one based on freedom as well as competition. Baptists would cooperate and contend with fellow Christians in their new home.16

Chapter 1

“Little Tabernacles in the Wilderness”: Baptists in Colonial Pennsylvania

In 1714, Morgan Evan wrote to a friend in Wales attesting to the harmonious coexistence of multiple religions in colonial Pennsylvania: “we all agree and are at peace with one another and every one worships God in his own way.” A new immigrant, Evan celebrated a degree of religious tolerance unknown in Europe. However, the state of spiritual bliss that existed in early Pennsylvania was a recent development. Religious controversy wracked the colony in the first two decades of settlement, as newcomers attempted to come to grips with the lawful existence of diverse beliefs under one government. Though William Penn devised the plan for religious toleration in his colony, it would be the early inhabitants who made it a reality.1 A variety of religious groups immigrated to the Delaware Valley in the late seventeenth century and jockeyed for position in this environment of religious freedom: Quakers, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Baptists, German Reformed, Pietists, Mennonites, Lutherans, Independents, Roman Catholics, and Jews arrived in the first years of colonization. Also present were members of the Philadelphia Society, some Muggletonians, and a few Fifth Monarchy men. Dunkers, Schwenkfelders, and Moravians would arrive in the early eighteenth century. As a destination for many religious societies, Pennsylvania became a site of spiritual experimentation. In the 1690s, a short-lived Pietist community emerged in Germantown headed by Johannes Klepius, a celibate mystic who advocated a female aspect to God, astrological beliefs, and voluntary church fellowship. During the same decade, some future Baptists joined with Pietists to form a religious group that practiced foot washing and communal ownership.2 As early settlers of Pennsylvania, Baptists found themselves submerged in a cauldron of religious doctrines, rites, and practices that at times mixed peacefully, and at others boiled over into dispute and division. While religious tolerance posed challenges to the integrity of some congregations, it also provided an atmosphere free of persecution in which Baptists

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could practice their faith and become an advocate for their co-religionists in other parts of British North America. The British Baptists who settled Penn’s colony in the 1680s immigrated from England, Ireland, and Wales. Both Regular and General Baptists, they came from a century-long tradition of religious dissent and political radicalism. When nine men and three women gathered a church near the Pennepek Creek (outside Philadelphia in Lower Dublin Township) in 1687, they found a minister to lead their fledging congregation in Elias Keach, a nineteen-yearold immigrant. The Pennepek church knew of Elias by the reputation of his father, Benjamin, a leader of London Particular Baptists. The younger Keach was baptized and started preaching at the Pennepek meeting. In the spring of 1688, he sought to regularize church order by asking all members to undergo the laying on of hands as a conferral of membership that he had experienced when baptized. Most—but not all—of the members complied with this request. The church set up “meetings for conference” wherein the brethren took turns exhorting one another.3 While this structure provide some stability, dissent surfaced when the church learned that one of its deacons, Samuel Vaux (assumed to be a Baptist when he arrived in 1687), had never been baptized. A negligent member before this scandal arose, Vaux soon after deserted the meeting. At the same time, Elias Keach decided to move to Middleton, East Jersey, leaving the most active laymen, John Watts and Samuel Jones, to lead the meeting. Questions about Keach’s ability to serve as a clergyman emerged after his departure. These queries reveal larger concerns of early Baptists: how to create and institute their concept of ministerial authority and church polity in the new colony with little institutional structure or clerical leadership. The church discussed Keach’s qualifications and found that he “didn’t walk so circumspectly as became a minister of the gospel of Christ: which unhappy differences gave occasion of too much strangeness between him towards them, and in them, towards him.” This “strangeness” is not specified in the church book, but likely was exacerbated by Keach’s belief in predestination—a doctrine some did not endorse. While some members attempted reconciliation, most remained unsatisfied because they still saw “the same common infirmities” in Keach, notably his lack of training: “we had not opportunity to be formed into a particular church for want of persons fitly qualified to oversee a church,” as the clerk wrote, “or to carry on the work of the ministry.”4 While the church book makes note of Keach’s baptism, there is no mention of his ordination. In a 1770 publication, Morgan Edwards asserted that although Keach was not ordained, he still donned clerical dress and passed

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himself off as a minister. When Keach preached for the first time, he broke down and confessed his “imposture with tears in his eyes and much trembling.” Edwards’s account may be apocryphal, but the entry in the church book concerning “want of persons fitly qualified to oversee a church, or to carry on the work of the ministry” makes new sense in light of this dispute. In the wake of Keach’s departure, the members questioned whether they still were a “particular church,” intimating that without clergy, however irregular, they were not fully constituted.5 As scattered flocks of “little tabernacles in the wilderness,” Baptists of the Delaware Valley struggled to constitute spiritual community over long distances and in sparsely inhabited white settlements by relying on male laity to nurture a godly order. The shaky start at Pennepek would be emblematic of early Baptist church development. Despite Keach’s attempts to formalize the worship service and ritual practice, controversy broke out again over the laying on of hands and the singing of psalms. In 1691, agreeing to disagree, the members decided that they “should break no bonds of communion, but that we should bear with one another leaving each other to their liberty.” They continued to sing psalms and decided to allow the voluntary use of the imposition of hands. Like its English predecessors, the Pennepek meeting persevered under the guidance of lay leadership. Deacon John Watts carried out the Lord’s Supper and, along with other male members, led singing and prayers during Sunday services. Conditions began to stabilize, and the members agreed to formally organize a church government to tend “to the abating of pride and the preservation of love and amity.” By 1695, the laity had set up a rotating schedule for Watts to attend the meetings in Lower Dublin, Burlington, and Philadelphia. The members of this church spread from the city and county of Philadelphia, west to Chester and Bucks Counties, and east to Burlington, Salem, and Cohansey in West Jersey.6 Amid the internal struggles at Pennepek, this small band of Baptists faced another challenge: how to preserve their church order in a colony dominated by the Society of Friends.7 Initially, Quakers outnumbered Baptists and all other religious societies. Penn’s “holy experiment” guaranteed European immigrants the right to worship according to their own beliefs, yet the freedom engendered by this policy saw the rise of theological disputes and interdenominational mixing. Maintaining orthodoxy in the midst of other religious groups and spiritual influences posed a dilemma for Baptists in the early years of colonization. Heterodoxy flourished because of religious toleration. Alchemy of religious ideas coexisted and constituted new threats to a group’s particular beliefs.8 Sectarians who had once suffered persecution

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in their homelands now had to come to terms with the meaning of religious toleration; free from state oppression, they confronted ruptures within their own communities. The Society of Friends experienced such division with the Keithian controversy, notable for its long-term social, political, and spiritual implications in colonial Pennsylvania.9 What began as a disagreement between Quakers would come to have a serious impact on Baptists in the Delaware Valley. This crisis arose when George Keith, a new immigrant and Public Friend, became a member of the Philadelphia Meeting of Ministers in 1689. Alarmed by the lack of theological orthodoxy among local Quakers, Keith set out to reform the Society. He urged the creation of a more structured organization based on the New Testament model of the early church; each Friend would have to agree to a written creed and publicly profess his or her faith. Keith also endorsed the election of church officers, such as elders and deacons. These stipulations caused a split within the Society of Friends. Banished by the Yearly Meeting in 1692, Keith left the Quaker order and, along with his followers, founded four separate meetings at Southampton in Bucks County, Upper Providence in Chester County, Lower Dublin Township in Philadelphia County, and the city of Philadelphia—places that already had or would have a Baptist church. When Keith returned to England in 1694, his societies began to fragment, and within ten to fifteen years the four Keithian meetings would disappear. Their demise came in part from internal disputes as well as the influence of other religious groups, such as German Pietists and Independents.10 Sectarian splintering and religious searching led some Keithians to the Baptists; by the late 1690s, the Pennepek church began to receive requests for baptism from Keithians. The church initially opposed these petitions because the Keithians still retained some Quaker principles, in particular, the stance against oaths. The church asserted that “their opinions seemed to be of very ill tendency, as to destroy Christian civil government . . . was contrary to Scripture, and the common belief of Christians and might tend to render us contemptible.” This hostility to Quaker principles can be traced back to England, where Baptists were associated with the Society of Friends and suffered persecution. Despite this enmity, some Keithians became members of the Pennepek church. In 1696, former Mennonite Thomas Rutter, former Quaker William Davis, and the remaining Keithians at Southampton were baptized; in 1702, they joined the Pennepek meeting. Though the route taken to the Baptist religion could be circuitous, the choice was a logical one. The form of church government recommended by George Keith closely

“Little Tabernacles in the Wilderness”

15

resembled Baptist congregationalism. Replicating the structures of the early church by requiring written covenants and public professions of faith were all essential ingredients of the Baptist religion. The adoption of believer’s baptism by Keithians steered them toward Baptist ritual practice, and the use of deacons and elders complied with Baptist ecclesiastical order. Keithians also emphasized belief in the savior as a necessary component of Christian doctrine, contrary to local Quaker practice, which often neglected the salvific role of Jesus Christ. But the transition from Keithian to Baptist was by no means a straightforward progression, and Baptists were slow to sanction membership to Keithians. Initial resistance occurred due to heterodoxy. As the Pennepek church book stated, “We found them still too much of Quakerism, rueben-like, unstable as water, too ready to give ear to any notion or new opinion.” Keithians retained Quaker principles while practicing believer’s baptism. This was evident among the Chester County Quaker Keithians, led by William Beckingham and Thomas Martin. They regularized their meeting in 1697 along the lines of a Baptist church but still remained distant from the Pennepek meeting.11 The Quaker/Keithian influence led to a bitter quarrel within the Pennepek church centered on William Davis, a former Keithian. Born an Anglican, Davis became a Quaker as a young man in England. He immigrated to Pennsylvania in 1684 and was among the Friends who broke away from the established order with Keith in 1692. Like other Keithians, Davis became interested in the ritual practices of the ancient church, and in the early 1690s he was part of a group of Keithians and German Pietists who worshiped together. When this society disbanded, Davis joined the Pennepek church and began to stir up trouble. He caused conflict because of theology, in particular, his belief that Christ was both divine and human and as such was inferior to God the Father. George Keith had advocated this doctrine of the “two Christs,” and Davis’s support of it may have been due to his influence. At first, the church tried to tolerate his “strange opinions,” which were a modified form of Arianism, the belief that the Son of God is not eternal but dependent upon the Father for his position in the Trinity. John Watts attempted to correct his erroneous views, but Davis argued “that these were plain truths” that he had been contemplating for several years. At a Sunday service in 1698, Davis preached from John 6:38 to prove his doctrine: “For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own but the will of him that sent me.” Watts refuted Davis’s assertions by sermonizing from James 1:17 on the “unchangeableness” of God. Though the church suspended him, Davis

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continued to speak and “by private insinuations” tried to “ensnare” others in his heresy. This controversy came to a head in February when Davis was called upon to defend his dogma. Davis denounced the other members as “Quakerian hereticks, nessarians and sabellians.” When Watts attempted to lay out his heresies, Davis interrupted him and when he failed to stop talking, Watts admonished and finally excommunicated him.12 Angry over this incident, Davis left Lower Dublin to preach in Philadelphia. By the spring of 1699, he had gained new followers in Bucks and Chester Counties, and by “cunning craft and subtlety” began to “infect others with his heresies—and to rage and rail against us, particularly against John Watts.” Davis wrote to the Pennepek meeting accusing them of violating church order by such a “rash sentence of excommunication.” He asked the members to attend a meeting to sort out this problem and to hear themselves “charged and proved guilty not only of holding and maintaining gross and hurtful errours and heresies, but also condemning fundamental and evangelical truths for such.” Davis’s offensive tactic gained steam when some of his supporters in Chester County wrote to the Pennepek church requesting a public meeting to the settle the dispute. After much wrangling, the two parties finally agreed to meet in Philadelphia on May 23, 1699, before an “impartial panel of men,” which included three Anglicans (one of them the priest Thomas Clayton) chosen by Davis, and one Independent and two Presbyterians (including one minister) chosen by the Pennepek church. The Baptists began laying out their case with John Watts reading Davis’s letter to the Pennepek church. Next, Thomas Bibb, a Pennepek member, read out seven points detailing Davis’s heresy and the reasons for his excommunication, which included his belief that Christ was “human divine” and inferior to God the Father. He presented written and oral testimony of several people who had heard Davis preach these heretical ideas. Though Davis admitted six of the seven allegations, the Anglicans were reluctant to condemn him. The Pennepek leaders pushed them to conclude that the evidence proved the charges against Davis and “that the doctrine contained in the seven points is erroneous and heresy.” The Anglicans finally relented and the crisis seemed to end.13 Men were Davis’s principal proponents and opponents. This conflict was in part a crisis of leadership among male members contesting control and dominance of the church; this is especially evident in the antipathy and competition between Davis and Watts. Those who supported Davis tended to be former Quakers and Keithians—men who had become fellow believers during the Keithian crisis or with whom he had organized religious societies,

“Little Tabernacles in the Wilderness”

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including William Beckingham, Thomas Martin, Thomas Rutter, Abel Noble, and Richard Wansel. Elizabeth Davis, William’s wife, who had stopped attending the Pennepek church when her husband was excommunicated, seems to have been the only female member who sided with Davis. Each side accused the other of being heretical. The Pennepek church questioned the motives of Davis and his followers in part because they were converts and seemed to willfully misunderstand Baptist theology. In turn, Davis defined his opponents as “Quaker heretics, necessarians, and sabellians.” By using such terminology, especially the phrase “Quaker heretics,” Davis accused former Friends of a double heresy—leaving the Society of Friends and questioning his theology. In turn, the Pennepek meeting castigated Davis for his heterodox beliefs and combative spirit; both led to excommunication. For example, when Davis and Rutter stood up at the meeting and claimed that the former had been unjustly accused, the church book recorded this as an attempt “to vindicate the whole doctrine contained in the seven articles, using any subtle, deceitful, crafty ways, tricks, and evasions to promote their heresies and stigmatize us if they could.” Even in his absence, Davis continued to have an impact on the Pennepek church. In the fall of 1699, the meeting made note of his publication, Jesus, The Crucified Man, The Eternal Son of God, and its effect on some members. The church book reported that Davis’s “doctrine [was] beginning now to eat like a canker.” To fight these contagious effects, the church called for a day of fasting and prayer to find “strength against heresies and to help recover weak Christians,” in particular, three male members who abstained from communion as a show of support for Davis. The Davis affair mirrored the Keithian schism in many ways.14 Like Keith, Davis introduced a controversial doctrine (the two Christs) and attempted to force his views upon others. Davis, like Keith, was a troublesome individual who not only instigated a theological argument but also attacked the church’s leadership (and in Keith’s case, the colony’s leadership). Similarly, Davis publicized his views through the press, roused support from outsiders, and accused Baptists of not being true to their doctrine. Davis cultivated doubt among Baptists as they pondered the meaning of Baptist theology and spiritual identity. The Davis controversy exposed the ambivalence Baptists felt between supporting clerical authority on the one hand and asserting egalitarian polity on the other. This incident demonstrated the difficulty of adhering to the English tradition of shared governance among all members and confirmed the need for clear boundaries between ministerial power and lay activism.15 Both parties wished to create “a true church in

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Christ” while maintaining peace among themselves and separation from the outside world. Rivalry among male members, who vied for control of leadership, led the meeting to define the limits of religious authority within their denomination by codifying Baptist doctrine and stipulating who could speak for the church. At the same time, Anglicans, Presbyterians, and Baptists came together to settle a doctrinal dispute in an orderly manner, as they competed for followers and strove to define their own brand of Christianity. The currents of the Davis affair had a ripple effect on the religious sea of early Pennsylvania, which ebbed and flowed with waves of religious heterodoxy, ritual experimentation, sectarian infighting, and denominational competition. While various denominations could peacefully coexist, the fallout from the Keithian crisis and the Davis affair rattled Pennsylvania Baptists, and left many, particularly those in Philadelphia, in a vulnerable condition. The Keithian controversy led to the formation a new religious society and the introduction of new ideas and members into the Baptist church. This engendered doctrinal feuding and congregational instability at a pivotal moment for Baptists. At the time this controversy took place, relations between Baptists and other Protestants were in transition. Philadelphia Baptists faced challenges to their institutional autonomy. As a branch of the Pennepek church, the Baptist meeting in Philadelphia had a visiting minister, who divided his time between the city, outlying counties, and West Jersey. To provide regular clerical service, the city’s Baptists began a close relationship with Presbyterians in 1694, using “the Barbadoes storehouse” for joint meetings. For more than three years, the two groups worshiped together at services led by their respective preachers. This relationship ended, however, when the Presbyterians hired a full-time minister, Jedediah Andrews, in 1698. A New Englander, Andrews opposed this arrangement and successfully commandeered the storehouse for the sole use of his parishioners. The Baptists asked that their relationship continue, that “each side may own, embrace and accept of each other as fellow brethren and ministers of Christ, and hold and maintain Christian communion and fellowship.” With no answer forthcoming, the Baptists began holding services at a brew house near the waterfront and eventually took over the “Keithian Baptist” meetinghouse.16 With this move, the ecumenical relationship between the Philadelphia Baptists and Presbyterians that came about due to a shortage of ministers, limited meeting space, and a policy of religious tolerance had ended. At the same time that the Presbyterians were separating themselves from the Baptists, the city’s Anglicans petitioned local Baptists to rejoin the Church of England. In September 1698, as the Davis affair raged on, the

“Little Tabernacles in the Wilderness”

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rector of Christ Church, Thomas Clayton (the same man who adjudicated for Davis), offered church membership to Philadelphia Baptists. Clayton saw little reason for a separate Baptist society to exist and believed their objections to be “stumbling-blocks” based on a willful denial of the true church. His letter of invitation asked for justification why they could not become Anglicans. The Baptists outlined the validity of their beliefs and challenged Clayton to prove the truth of his church’s tenets. Last, they asked him to “suspend all charge of schism against us, and desist from blaming us for our peaceful separation.”17 As a branch of the Pennepek church, Philadelphia Baptists found themselves susceptible both to exclusion from a shared meetinghouse with the Presbyterians and to submergence within the Church of England. The policy of religious toleration supported by Penn’s government did not prohibit interference from competitors. After the Keithian and Davis controversies, the Baptist meetings of the Delaware Valley changed in two ways. First, Baptists embraced some aspects of the Quaker religion, and second, they paid more attention to church order. Corporeal control through discipline and ritual became more regularized. The Keithian influence is evident in the adoption of Quaker practice by several Baptist churches, including bodily decorum in speech and dress. The Seventh Day church in Newtown, Chester County, used numerals to denote days and months, authorized plain speaking and dressing, and prohibited swearing oaths or fighting. Quaker custom also influenced the Brandywine Church of Chester County. Founded in 1715, this meeting practiced communion, adult baptism, and church discipline and required members to use “modest apparel, proper language, [and] the days of the week and name of the month as first, second and so forth.” Brandywine included members who had been part of a Quaker/Keithian/Baptist meeting at Upper Providence in the 1690s. This latter church endorsed pacifism, rejected oath taking, and practiced Quaker conventions regarding dress, language, and the numbering of months and days. The Friends’ influence permeated Baptist congregations in other ways. Members at both the Brandywine and Pennepek churches used the appellation “Friend” and pronoun “thee” to indicate those with whom they shared religious communion. Baptists instituted marriage customs similar to the Society of Friends; the Brandywine church regularly excommunicated members who wed outside the faith. The Pennepek meeting also cited members for irregular marital proceedings. Lastly, Baptists followed the Quaker practice of gathering local churches together into yearly meetings.18 The Pennepek church also became more focused on educating members about Baptist theology, citing disorderly behavior, and holding days of

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fasting and prayer. The church court charged members for bodily misconduct, heterodox beliefs, and joining other religious societies. In March 1715, Mary Shepherd was cited for withdrawing from church in a disorderly manner. When lay leaders asked her opinion about Baptist doctrine and discipline, she replied positively but “thought the Episcopalian church might do seeing it was established by law, and having so many good men in the community.” Excommunicated for being “a covenant breaker,” Shephard placed more value on being part of an established church than on Baptist theology. Church leaders also had to contend with members who challenged their authority even after being expelled from membership. Katherine Wood was excommunicated in June 1723 for various crimes, including “being a very gross offender,” disobeying her spouse, making “scornful reproaches” to other members, and missing public worship. Wood’s speech acts were especially troubling. When she received a copy of her excommunication letter, she questioned the charges even though she had begun attending the Presbyterian church. Seven male members of the Pennepek church met with Katherine Wood and some Presbyterian ministers and deacons. The Baptists were insulted that the Presbyterians sided with her, “a notorious offender.” After much debate, which “tended to unravel much of [Wood’s] whorish actions and discourse,” the Pennepek church convinced the Presbyterians that they had just cause to excommunicate her. The next day, the Presbyterians excluded Wood. The Pennepek members continued to be bothered by the slight they had experienced when the Presbyterians showed “little charity for our just proceedings against her, but rather believed her against us.”19 These incidents reveal not only the uneasy relationship between Presbyterians and Baptists as colleagues and competitors but also the role of female laity in contesting male oversight of the church court. Though both Shepherd and Wood eventually faced excommunication, they did not readily accept the brethren’s decisions concerning their religious status. The laity made individual choices about their religious affiliation at the same time that denominational lines became more entrenched and clergymen gained dominance in the church. In the early eighteenth century, Delaware Valley Baptists struggled with one of their most contentious bodily church rites: the laying on of hands. In 1701, a controversy broke out over this ritual when several people from the Welsh Tract settlement applied for membership in the Pennepek church. After some deliberation, the Welsh Tract Baptists concluded that they could not become members because the church did not practice “strict imposition of hands.” Unable to reach a solution, many of the Welsh Tract Baptists

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moved to New Castle County in 1703, while maintaining their communion with Pennepek. In 1706, the Welsh Tract Baptists decided they could not continue this relationship because of the persistent neglect of the laying on of hands by Lower Dublin and Philadelphia Baptists. As the Welsh Tract church book stated, “some of them believed in the ordinance, but neither preached it up nor practiced it.” This argument arose in part out of the ethnic background of Welsh Baptists whose faith tradition routinely practiced this rite. The Baptists who resisted the use of this ritual or used it episodically tended to be English or Irish in origin. The debate over this rite continued to rage until a solution was worked out at the home of Richard Miles (a former Quaker and Keithian), in Chester County. Miles, a Welsh immigrant and a leader in the local Baptist meeting, defended the use of the laying on of hands in worship and ordination. Those in attendance agreed to allow transient communion for members of both churches but would not receive them into full membership. They also agreed that those who advocated the use of this ritual had the right to “freely converse on the subject.” Finally, the brethren approved a plan whereby each church would decide for itself to what extent it would use the imposition of hands in worship services.20 Why was this ritual at the center of a squabble in the early Pennsylvania church? The purpose of the imposition of hands was to signify the setting apart of the true believer after conversion and baptism and to denote one’s entry into membership. As the ritual culmination of a three-part process, it served as a somatic and symbolic expression of the spiritual relationship among believers and signified the blessing of the Holy Spirit. It emphasized the ideal of spiritual connection among Baptists and their special status as a people set apart. Members of the Welsh Tract meeting placed great meaning on this ritual, as the church book states they “came over with invincible prepossession in favor of the rite.” Their adamant insistence on its regular use affected their reverence for and belief in the power of the Holy Spirit to separate out true believers. Resistance to the rite by English and Irish Baptists may have been because they believed, as one English immigrant put it, that it “was an insufficient thing,” and “a mere ceremony (like anointing the sick and washing feet), which ceased with the apostles.”21 Optional use of the imposition of hands may have demonstrated a reluctance to carry out the rite and disagreement with its efficacy. It disuse also signified a challenge to clerical power. With this rite defined as optional or obsolete, ministers would have one less ritual duty to perform and one less occasion to exercise religious authority. Lastly, the conflict over laying on of hands occurred at a time when Delaware Valley Baptist churches were struggling to provide ministers to their

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scattered flock. The inability to practice this rite may have been due to the lack of qualified clergymen to carry it out. As evident in this controversy, Welshmen served as leaders among Pennsylvania Baptists in the early eighteenth century. Their presence had a significant impact on the Baptist church in the Delaware Valley. Most of the Welsh who came to Pennsylvania in the 1680s were Quakers—only a small contingent was Baptist.22 Welsh Baptists were among the earliest members of the Pennepek church, some of them natives of Pembrokeshire and Monmouthshire, bastions of religious nonconformity in southern Wales. Welsh men and women constituted the two earliest churches in Chester County, the Great Valley and Brandywine. Immigration infused these churches with a high concentration of Welsh members in the early eighteenth century. Though Welsh immigrants never constituted a large segment of the European population in colonial Pennsylvania, their role in the institutional development of the Baptist religion would be disproportionate to their numbers.23 The Welsh brought experience and knowledge and transplanted Old World religious practices to New World congregations. Welshmen dominated the Philadelphia Baptist Association leadership during the first fifty years of its existence. The largest and most notable group of Welsh Baptists came to Pennsylvania in 1701. These believers had organized a church in Pembrokeshire, Wales, and then emigrated together with their minister, Thomas Griffith. Known as the Welsh Tract Church, they stayed in Philadelphia County for two years before settling near the Christiana River in Delaware County. As an ethnic enclave of Welsh immigrants, the Welsh Tract Church produced many ministers who would serve Delaware Valley Baptists.24 Ministers and leaders of early Baptist community in the Delaware Valley created the Philadelphia Baptist Association (PBA). Five churches established the PBA in 1707: the Pennepek and Welsh Tract of Pennsylvania, and the Middletown, Piscataway, and Cohansey in New Jersey. An association was a collection of individual churches in an affiliated organization, usually within a specific geographic location. Begun in England and Wales to challenge religious persecution and to establish doctrine, associations served as councils offering spiritual guidance and financial support to member churches and ministers. According to Benjamin Griffith, a Welsh minister and early leader in the PBA, churches gathered together in association “for their mutual strength, counsel, and other valuable advantages, by their voluntary and free consent, to enter into an agreement and confederation.” The strict congregationalism of Baptists demanded that associations fulfill an

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advisory capacity; they could recommend but not impose policy. This allowed individual meetings great freedom in church polity. The founding of the Philadelphia Baptist Association—the first Baptist association established in British North America—attests to the rapidity of ecclesiastical organization in the Delaware Valley. This occurred because of the climate of religious tolerance and a desire to formalize doctrine. The arrival of several ministers from Wales and England in the 1710s also helped stabilize the association. Their dominance within the organization’s leadership formalized its duties, including advising member churches on policy and practice, raising funds for ministerial education and destitute congregations, maintaining a library for religious education, and instituting days of fasting and prayer. The PBA also appointed clergymen to specific churches, sent out itinerant preachers to service vacant pulpits, and officiated at the ordination of ministers and church officers.25 In the early years of its existence, the PBA dealt with procedural queries from churches, such as what to do with members who married nonbelievers, how to choose an elder, and how to interpret the fourth commandment properly. In answering these queries, the PBA established policy. It standardized procedure in the 1720s when member churches were required to submit their yearly letters with “salutations” and “contemplation” on one page and “complaints” and “grievances” on another. By the 1760s, it began listing individual churches, their ministers, and membership numbers in the association minutes. Even with these developments, the PBA still looked to London for assistance: they initiated correspondence with their English counterparts, planned to send ministerial candidates to a Baptist academy in London, and often cited the London Confession of Faith before officially adopting it in the 1740s. The PBA also worked to maintain denominational orthodoxy despite the scarcity of qualified ministers. When the Brandywine church asked what they should do on Sundays when they had no clergy, they were counseled to meet when convenient, read the Bible, sing psalms, and pray for someone with ministerial gifts. They were prohibited from meeting with other denominations or allowing anyone to preach before a mixed group until he was approved by the PBA. When an elder in the Cohansey church became a leader among the Seventh Day Baptists, the PBA advised disownment. When Middletown wanted to use a minister of a different persuasion at their meeting in the 1730s, they were warned not to pursue this plan. It was unacceptable for members to neglect meeting and attend other churches. However, the influence of the PBA only went so far; when some elders in the Montgomery

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church began preaching heterodox views, the PBA sent church leaders to settle the dispute. Though the PBA wrote a letter condemning “Arian, Socian and Antitrinitarian systems,” the disputing party refused to be reconciled or to abide by the PBA decision. Two years later, the PBA decided to no longer accept letters from Montgomery regarding the ongoing controversy. In the wake of this conflict, the PBA agreed to have an essay written about associations to assure others and themselves of their advisory role. This was done to define the PBA’s position and to guard against anyone who might question their power or abuse it to “lord” over the churches.26 Finding qualified clergy to minister to their churches was an enduring concern for the PBA. The association repeatedly asked congregations to look for “any young persons hopeful or the ministry and inclinable for learning.” Deciding who qualified to be a minister was a crucial issue for Baptist leaders, and irregular clergy plagued Delaware Valley Baptists from the onset. The Keach and Davis incidents convinced the Pennepek church to license only those preachers whom they knew personally or who were members of a local meeting. In a colony of immigrants with diverse religious backgrounds, the need to enforce ministerial orthodoxy became paramount. Regulating clergy came under discussion at the first PBA meeting in 1707, when it decided that “a person that is a stranger, and has neither letter of recommendation, nor is known to be a person gifted, and of a good conversation, shall not be admitted to preach, nor be entertained as a member in any of the baptized congregations in communion with each other.” Any man who felt called to preach could only do so if sanctioned by his own church. In response to the lack of training available to Baptists in British North America, the PBA devised guidelines to guard against the onslaught of “self-made preachers,” who were as insidious as “quack doctors” and “pettifogging lawyers.” In 1723, the association drew up a proposal that would examine “all gifted brethren and ministers that come in here from other places.” The PBA reiterated their clerical standards in 1753 when it decided that a Baptist brother who felt called to preach must do so before other churches and gain their approval before he was ordained.27 This not only tested his ability before other meetings but it also meant that men of heretical doctrine or limited appeal would be found out before their ordination. Ensuring that only “regular” clergymen served the church proved a challenge for Baptists, who touted congregational independence, required no formal ministerial training, and came from an English tradition of shared leadership among the brethren. Henry Loveall presented one such challenge. Born in England, Loveall immigrated to Rhode Island, converted to the Baptist

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faith, and began preaching in Providence during the 1720s. In 1729, he migrated to New Jersey and became active in the Piscataway church, where he was ordained. Trouble arose when some members discovered that their clergyman was living under an assumed name. Loveall’s real name, Desolate Baker, had been dropped to conceal a history of social and sexual disorder: running away from his master, committing bigamy, engaging in sexual relations with black and Indian women, and contracting syphilis. Nathaniel Jenkins, minister of the Cohansey church, found Loveall’s alias to be “a very suitable name agreeable to his properties who loves so well the black, the swarthy, and the white so as to lie with them.” Loveall’s immorality—his ecumenical choice of sexual partners—angered his parishioners, and he relocated to Maryland to serve the Chestnut Ridge church. His tenure continued there until the 1740s when he moved to Virginia and became active in the Opequon and Mill Creek meetings of Berkeley County. Loveall’s improper behavior resurfaced and, in 1746, the Mill Creek church excommunicated him for immoral conduct. Henry Loveall was precisely the kind of the clergyman the PBA leadership feared most. He was an immigrant, a convert, and an outsider whose mobility enabled him to avoid censure. Loveall’s ability to get hold of and retain a pulpit is evidence of the scarcity of qualified clergymen. It also shows the parochialism surrounding most Baptist meetings; isolation from co-religionists could damage church polity as well as the public standing of Baptists. This situation worsened when the PBA learned that a minister named Paul Palmer had ordained Loveall. Palmer lived in North Carolina and was not a member of a local church or affiliated with the PBA. One cleric noted the public outcry against Baptists in 1746, but found that “the clamor and violence ceased when it was seen that the Baptists abhorred the errors of a Palmer and a Loveall as much as any other society could do.” For the PBA, this incident demonstrated the need for a strong association with influence beyond the bounds of the Delaware Valley, one that would detect irregular ministers and safeguard the denomination’s reputation.28 The PBA’s extensive reach throughout the colonies would regulate church order and ministerial training during the eighteenth century. The PBA was a Regular Baptist organization, which endorsed the London Confession of Faith. It set the tone for Baptist associationalism in British North America; organizations founded after the PBA followed “the Philadelphia Plan” in form and purpose.29 In some cases, this was due to the presence of brethren who had been part of the PBA network: James Manning, a native of Elizabethtown, New Jersey, and a graduate of the New Jersey College, who became

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president of Rhode Island College and founding member of the Warren Association, and David Thomas, a Pennsylvania-born Welsh Baptist, who immigrated to northern Virginia, where he helped establish the Ketocton Association. Similarly, Oliver Hart, born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, was a member of the Southampton meeting in the 1740s when a South Carolina church wrote to Philadelphia requesting a minister. After his ordination in 1749, Hart moved south to take over the pastorate at the Baptist meetinghouse in Charleston; he would become a leading member of the city’s association. The pervasiveness of the Philadelphia Plan, and the role of Welsh ministers, was broadened through the work of itinerant clergy. Ministers of the Delaware Valley spread outward during the mid- to late eighteenth century. Some like David Thomas and Oliver Hart relocated to other colonies. Abel Morgan, Jr., pursued a regional itinerancy. Minister to the Middleton church of New Jersey, he routinely traveled to the Philadelphia and Welsh Tract churches, and also serviced twenty-four Baptist meetings throughout New Jersey from Cranbury in the north to Cape May in the south. Samuel Jones engaged in limited itinerancy during his long career. As the settled minister at the Pennepek church, Jones attended to Baptists in Pennsylvania and New Jersey for more than forty years, but he also journeyed throughout Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New York.30 As an “emporium of Baptist influence,” Philadelphia was a center of Baptist activity in colonial America. As the first—and for some time only— Baptist association in British North America, the PBA included member churches geographically distant from Philadelphia. In 1755, PBA churches stretched from Fairfield, Connecticut, and Oyster Bay, New York, throughout the Mid-Atlantic, and down to Baltimore, Maryland, and Loudoun County, Virginia. By 1763, the PBA included twenty-nine member churches from seven different colonies. It refereed disputes within and between churches and answered queries about ritual practice. A Connecticut church wrote for help in a dispute over washing feet and the Lord’s Supper; the association sent three men to resolve the matter. The PBA became known as “the spiritual Israel” of the Baptist denomination during the eighteenth century and inspired the creation of associations elsewhere. When James Manning planned the first association meeting of Baptist churches in Rhode Island in the 1760s, he asserted that the influence of Mid-Atlantic ministers upon “our public concerns in this colony is great; their coming, or not, will make a very sensible difference in the numbers of members at the meeting.”31 As a principal authority on the Baptist religion, the PBA set denominational policy for their fellow believers. Yet congregationalism remained strong and localism

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persisted. Though the Baptists of the Delaware Valley never rivaled their New England or Chesapeake co-religionists in size or variation, the PBA delineated the scope of Baptist community during the eighteenth century. The strength of Baptist community would be tested by the revivalism of the 1740s that came be known as the Great Awakening. When the Great Awakening hit the Mid-Atlantic, Baptists, like other Protestants, were drawn to this new religious phenomenon.32 The visits of George Whitefield to Philadelphia in 1739 and 1740 sparked an outbreak of spiritual gatherings throughout the city. During his stay, Whitefield met with Baptist leaders, including Jenkin Jones, minister of the Philadelphia church, who was an ardent supporter of the Grand Evangelist. Whitefield described Jones as “the only preacher that I know of in Philadelphia, who speaks feelingly and with authority. The poor people are much refreshed by him.” Many flocked to Whitefield for prayer and contemplation, and he organized meetings for Baptist men and women. His influence empowered the laity to pursue spiritual activities in and out of the meetinghouse. The emotionalism and physicality of evangelical worship infiltrated the Baptist church, generating interest and dissent. In May 1740, a black woman, newly converted by Whitefield, attended Sunday services at the Baptist meetinghouse. When moved to praise God vocally, she was told to remain silent by the officiating minister and some members. When she refused, she was removed from the building. Whitefield recorded the incident of this unnamed woman, noting that “the glory of God shone so brightly round about her, that she could not help praising & blessing God, & telling how God was revealing himself to her soul.” While he described her emotional state as “rational and solid,” many Baptists believed her behavior originated from mental instability.33 Revivalism not only introduced new forms of worship, it also emboldened the lowly to testify about their salvation. As Calvinists, some Philadelphia Baptists were uncomfortable with New Light preaching. The reversal of power and authority evident in evangelicalism was particularly unsettling to Ebenezer Kinnersley.34 An ordained minister, Kinnersley (who filled in for Jones on occasion), objected to Whitefield’s influence and denounced the rise of revivalism during a sermon in July 1740: What spirit such enthusiastic ravings proceed from, I shall not attempt to determine, but this I am sure of, that they proceed not from the spirit of God; . . . such whining, roaring harangues, big with affected nonsense, have no other tendency, but to operate on the softer passions, and work them up to a warm pitch of enthusiasm.

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Kinnersley viewed Whitefield’s ecumenical style as a menacing challenge to traditional religious authority. He feared that such preaching would endanger the weak and unsuspecting, who are “terrified to distraction, others drove into despair; . . . while others are filled brim-full with enthusiastic raptures and ecstasies.” He singled out John Rowland, a New Light Presbyterian, who had preached from the Baptist pulpit recently in such a “designing, artful and deluding manner . . . as to reign tyrant over the passions, and terrify almost to distraction, many of his weak hearers.” Compelled by his conscience, Kinnersley preached to reveal the delusional nature of such “enthusiastic extravagancies.” Kinnersley’s diatribe, however, was interrupted when a female member led a group of communicants out of the church in protest. Kinnersley described the incident as follows: “The foremost of the gang, I am informed, was a woman, who supports such a character as modesty forbids to mention; and as one fool has often times made many, so this infamous leader was followed by a multitude of negroes, and other servants, among whom were some few of higher stations, but not overburdened with discretion.” Labeling his opposition a “gang,” Kinnersley focused on this woman and her lax morality in defying his authority. He implied that her behavior would infect others to question their status, whether enslaved or indentured. Kinnersley’s attack played upon the gendered and racial fears that revivalism evoked; the wrong people—women, blacks, the poor— would be empowered and rise above their station. Kinnersley’s sermon created a rift within the meeting, and he was called before the church court for disorder. Kinnersley questioned the fairness of the hearing not only because the primary accusers served as both “judge and jury” but also because female members joined the discussion. “Arm’d with their best weapons,” women verbally opposed Kinnersley and “seemed to pay not the least deference to the Apostle Paul, who says, it is a shame for them to speak in church.” After heated debate, the members decided that Kinnersley must confess his error and apologize for his behavior. When he refused, the church judged him unworthy to preach or partake of communion. Kinnersley blamed the outcome of his trial on the undue influence of “the weaker vessels,” that is, the female members.35 He was not only bothered that these women had publicly questioned his authority, but they had also challenged his sermon and supported his expulsion. Kinnersley’s objections match that of other antirevival ministers, who argued that evangelicalism engendered social disorder. Though the church reprimanded Kinnersley, the traditional order would remain intact; lay activism by the lesser sort would ebb and flow within this meeting. White women remained active but would have to defend

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their place in church government during the 1760s. Black membership grew very little in the wake of the Great Awakening and black men and women would continue to have a minor presence in this church into the nineteenth century. At the same time, the Great Awakening encouraged connections among different evangelicals, inspired ministers, and brought new men into the church. Oliver Hart attended meetings held by George Whitefield and the Tennent brothers before becoming a Baptist. Benjamin Miller deserted his “wild and reckless youth” after hearing a sermon by Gilbert Tennent. John Gano, whose father was Presbyterian and whose mother was Baptist, wanted to become a Presbyterian but was bothered by the practice of infant baptism. He eventually joined the Hopewell church. George Whitefield inspired Abel Morgan, Jr., to engage in itinerant preaching and to recount his own conversion experience in his sermons. Evangelical ministers sermonized with and against one another in competitions. Methodist and Presbyterian ministers preached in the Philadelphia church and Protestant denominations held joint meetings in New Jersey. Baptist ministers debated Presbyterian clergymen in Kingwood and Cape May. Separates from New England organized a number of meetings in New Jersey and brought the revival spirit to the colony. By the mid-eighteenth century, religious diversity persisted in the Delaware Valley, at the same time there was “a growing sense of denominational consciousness.”36 In 1746, the Philadelphia meeting formally separated from the Pennepek church. The religious fervor ignited by Whitefield’s visits as well as increased membership led to this change. By this date, the Philadelphia church had 56 members and would eventually surpass the Pennepek church in size and prestige. The church’s aged and ailing minister, Jenkin Jones, struggled to continue his ministry. Due to his poor health and lack of oversight, the male laity took a more active role in church business during the 1750s. Increased lay activism, at times, resulted in squabbling. In June 1758, the church deacon, Samuel Morgan, took it upon himself to bar some members from communion without sufficient explanation. He also began to hold business meetings in conjunction with preparatory meetings for communion, a practice which at least one member, Henry Woodrow, found problematic. In the same month, a group led by Joshua Moore attempted to organize a separate meeting of business contrary to the minister’s direction. To circumvent this action, Samuel Morgan locked the meetinghouse door. The bickering continued into 1759 and two separate “parties” emerged with differing opinions on church business. A struggle for power ensued and eventually Samuel

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Morgan lost his position as deacon; Henry Woodrow, Samuel Burkelo, and Joshua Moore emerged as new leaders.37 This party spirit was particularly evident when the meeting had to call a new minister to supplement and eventually replace Jones. Over a period of three years, fourteen different ministers supplied the church as visiting clergy, including Isaac Eaton, John Gano, Benjamin Griffiths, Ebenezer Kinnersley, Samuel Jones, John Marks, Isaac Stelle, Samuel Stillman, and Peter Van Horn. Even after Jones’s death in May 1760, the members could not agree upon a successor. John Gano claimed that the church “had been so particular in the requisite qualifications for a minister that it had given offence to the preachers; so they were entirely destitute.” The Philadelphia meeting finally wrote to the Board of Ministers in London for a replacement. John Gill, a staunch Calvinist, recommended the Welsh minister Morgan Edwards. Upon his arrival, Edwards began to reorganize the Philadelphia church.38 Infighting ceased in the Philadelphia meeting with the appointment of Morgan Edwards, as he set the church in order, keeping detailed meeting minutes and financial records as well as regulating practices of granting dismission letters, receiving new members, and hearing discipline cases. Plans to build a new meetinghouse were discussed, new communion ware was donated, and the church officers became more consistent in collecting the minister’s wages. In 1763, Edwards’ salary was raised to £200 per year, making him the highest paid Baptist minister in the Delaware Valley. Edwards endeavored to change church practice as well; soon after his arrival, the meeting agreed to alter its tradition of line singing. Instead of relying on the minister to prompt the singing, Edwards wanted members to obtain books and follow along themselves. Edwards also wanted to gain greater control over the rite of communion. In November 1762, he introduced a new system for admission to the Lord’s Supper. Each member would be given twelve tickets to put in a “box at every communion, that it may be known who are absent that an enquiry may be made after them.” Not all members agreed and the success of this system was limited. Edwards also sought to enforce the practice of charging pew fees. Some members balked at having to pay for their seats and several complained that the rates were set too high. By 1765, the church leaders agreed “that all pews in house, held by people who refuse to pay for them shall elect to any persons until the previous owner pays off arrears.” Complaints arose again and some members still refused; they were told to pay up or forfeit their place in the meetinghouse.39 Lay leadership expanded under Edwards’s ministry with the appointment of seven trustees, three of whom served as deacons. Barnaby Barnes

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became clerk of the meeting and Isaac Jones, Esq., served as treasurer. In 1766, the church added new leadership positions by reviving the practice of ruling elders and ordaining Jones, George Wescott, and Samuel Davis. Some of these men differed from the church leaders who served before Edwards’s arrival. While most church officers came from the middling sort, Jones, Barnes, and Westcott came from wealthier backgrounds and introduced a new dynamic to the godly community; the church gained male laity who could provide financial support.40 Edwards was able to enhance his power as minister in several ways. He not only increased the number of church officers, he obtained a paid assistant, Stephen Watts, to share the workload. The church also agreed to allow the minister—instead of the whole membership—to hear and examine potential candidates for baptism. Edwards successfully petitioned the church’s permission to wear his master’s gown at “common services” and to reuse his sermons instead of writing three discourses a week. By the mid-1760s, this church had changed significantly: it had line singing books, pew rents, richer communicants, additional church leaders, and a highly salaried minister, who wore his master’s robe and repeated his sermons. The Philadelphia meeting bore little resemblance to its fellow churches. Some members opposed these alterations and stopped paying Edwards’s salary, while others began attending services at competing denominations. Edwards and the church leaders claimed that these actions cast “contempt on our ministers, grieve the brethren, give very bad examples to hearers and members; break their own solemn covenant, and so do all in their power to destroy the very being of this church.” This did not squash lay resistance. Some members questioned the abilities of assistant pastor Stephen Watts, while Henry Woodrow spread a rumor in New Jersey that Edwards’s salary was £400 per year. The grumbling culminated in a formal complaint lodged by Nicholas Cox in the summer of 1766. Cox alleged that Edwards’s ministry was not “properly called and appointed,” that members neglected meeting, and that the church leaders carried out business so quickly that “members are frequently surprised into a vote not agreeable to some of them.” Cox’s first charge was dismissed as “frivolous,” while the others were referred to the elders for consideration. As Edwards’s reformation stalled, he pursued activities outside the church.41 By the time of the American Revolution, Delaware Valley Baptist churches had matured into stable institutions reaching from the city of Philadelphia and its outlying counties, south to Delaware, and east to New Jersey. Baptists had weathered doctrinal disputes and Quaker influences to

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become securely established. The guidance provided by Welsh immigrants and their offspring, combined with the religious freedom of the Delaware Valley, allowed Baptists to grow into a small but principal denomination. Their churches formed the PBA, providing leadership and guidance to believers up and down the eastern seaboard and fostering alliances among members of the Baptist community throughout the colonies. The Philadelphia church, the most prominent among these congregations, had entrenched leadership by white men and church accouterments comparable to other denominations. The maturation of Baptist institutions within the Delaware Valley occurred as their brethren and sisters in Virginia were struggling to obtain religious toleration.

Chapter 2

“Sons and Daughters of Zion”: Baptists in Colonial Virginia

In 1771, Samuel Harris wrote to the Philadelphia Baptist Association (PBA) to report on the status of Virginia Baptists. A convert and minister, Harris informed the PBA about two preachers who had been jailed in Chesterfield County. Despite harassment by the colonial government, Harris noted that there had been an “an unusual outpouring of the spirit on all ranks of men in those parts . . . many negroes endure scourgings for religion’s sake” and “two clergymen of the Church of England preach Jesus Christ with unusual warmth.”1 Though Baptist ministers were suffering for their faith, evangelicalism was having a pervasive impact on local society, reaching up and down the social order from Anglican priests to enslaved blacks. Samuel Harris’s letter to the PBA is indicative of the relationship between Virginia and Pennsylvania Baptists in the revolutionary era. Virginia Baptists looked to Philadelphia co-religionists for direction and support as they faced local opposition and government persecution, while Pennsylvania Baptists hoped to provide stability and guidance to these new believers. Though the Baptist religion arrived later in Virginia than in Pennsylvania, once it came it spread rapidly throughout the colony, gathering converts, founding meetings, alarming officials, and initiating resistance. In the two decades before the American Revolution, interest in the Baptist religion mushroomed among the native white population, meetings flourished, and an indigenous leadership emerged. The first sustained presence of Baptists in Virginia began in 1710, when Robert Nordin and Thomas White traveled from England to minister to a small group of General Baptists in Prince George County.2 White died en route, but Nordin went on to serve this small community of believers. Nordin’s activities spread to Surry County in 1717, when he, another minister and six laymen, obtained a certificate from the county to hold meetings in a private home. By 1725, this meeting had forty members and became known as the Burleigh church. Struggling to survive in the late 1750s, the church

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wrote to the PBA and confessed to being “under clouds of darkness concerning the faith of Jesus Christ, not knowing whether we are on the right foundation.” The PBA dispatched two ministers to investigate conditions and set the church in order as a Regular Baptist meeting; it became a member of the PBA and was known as the Mill Swamp church. More General Baptists would arrive from Maryland in 1743 when they organized a meeting at Opekon in the Shenandoah Valley. Edward Hays and Thomas Yates emigrated from the Chestnut Ridge church in Baltimore County and began holding meetings south of Winchester. Their minister, Henry Loveall, followed them to Obequon and soon after a church was constituted based on Arminian theology. The congregation fell into dispute over the Loveall controversy of the 1750s. Like the Burleigh church, Opekon appealed to the PBA for assistance and it was reconstituted with the help of Philadelphia clergy. The number of General Baptists was small in Virginia; at their numerical height in 1730, there were three discrete churches with ninety-two members. By 1760, only one active meeting with twenty communicants remained in Virginia.3 The arrival of immigrants had reinvigorated these Baptists, as outsiders sustained the Mill Swamp and Obequon meetings. Through the help of neighboring colonies, early Baptists formalized their beliefs. The trickle of activity by General Baptists became a torrent with continued migration into the colony. Baptists came to Virginia via two different migration streams in the mid-eighteenth century. The first was a group of New England Separates, led by Shubal Stearns, who traveled first to Obequon in 1755, where he met up with his sister Martha and her husband, Daniel Marshall. This group moved on to nearby Berkeley and Hampshire Counties and finally settled at Sandy Creek in Guilford County, North Carolina. Their small church increased to 600 members and a revival spread into southern Virginia. Stearns and Marshall organized meetings in many southwestern counties of Virginia; forty-two would be founded in seventeen years. The second migrant stream came with settlers from the Delaware Valley. One Regular Baptist meeting that resulted from this migration was Linville’s Creek church, established in 1757 in Frederick County. Six founders had been members at meetings in Montgomery, Bucks, and Lancaster Counties in Pennsylvania. This meeting maintained ties to the Mid-Atlantic region and was periodically ministered to by Benjamin Griffiths and John Gano, from Pennsylvania and New Jersey, respectively. It continued to receive new members through the migration of Baptists into the Shenandoah Valley from Chester and Berks Counties until the end of the eighteenth century at the same time the church became a member of the PBA.4

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The Broad Run church of Fauquier County was also the outcome of activity by Pennsylvania Baptists. This was one of the first Regular churches in Virginia, organized in December 1762 by David Thomas and John Marks, both Regular Baptists born in the Delaware Valley. After Thomas was ordained in 1760, he pursued itinerant preaching in Berkeley and Fauquier Counties, where he organized meetings. He settled in Fauquier County and became the minister at Broad Run. Thomas continued to travel as an itinerant and converted and baptized several hundred people as the scope of his ministry spread throughout northern Virginia. Later known as “Daddy Thomas,” he became a “spiritual father” to younger clerics, many of whom he converted, baptized, and ordained. As a Calvinist, David Thomas had a profound effect on the growth of Regular Baptist churches in northern Virginia, and he was a primary agent in the formation of the first Regular Baptist association in Virginia.5 Virginia Baptists relied on their northern counterparts for assistance as their faith spread throughout the commonwealth. While Pennsylvania Baptists helped Virginians maintain congregations, build meetinghouses, and place ministers, they also provided advice and support in the fight against religious persecution. After being arrested in Loudoun County for preaching without a license in the late 1760s, William Fristoe escaped and “went to Philadelphia to ask for advice how to act. The brethren there counseled him to be qualified according to the Toleration Act which counsel he took.” Fristoe was part of an indigenous ministry, which emerged rapidly in Virginia. Most of the clergymen active in the colony by the time of the American Revolution were native-born Anglicans. Among fifty-two men who became Baptist ministers in the mid-eighteenth century, forty-two were born in Virginia and forty-one began life in the Church of England. Generally, Separate ministers focused their activities on southern Virginia, while Regulars preached in the north. The itinerancy of individual Baptist preachers spread over large areas in some cases, while others kept a smaller sphere of influence. James Ireland covered counties in the northwestern region of Virginia from Culpeper and Fauquier Counties to Frederick and Shenandoah Counties. Jeremiah Moore not only preached in Virginia and Maryland but also traveled to the Carolinas, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania. David Thomas journeyed throughout northern Virginia, visiting churches in Berkeley, Fauquier, Orange, and Culpeper Counties. Baptist ministers found success on the frontier where the Anglican ecclesiastical structure was weak and ineffectual. In 1769, the parson and some residents in Fauquier County asked the House of Burgesses for permission to divide their parish because “many

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of the inhabitants reside so far from their parish churches that they can but seldom attend public worship, from which causes dissenters have opportunity and encouragement to propagate their pernicious doctrines.”6 These small buds of religious dissent would flower and mature during the fruitful period of revivalism that became known as the Great Awakening. The onset of Protestant revivalism brought radical ideas and emotive preachers into the colony. The visit of George Whitefield in 1739 elicited the same criticisms that greeted him elsewhere. He was condemned as “a downright deceiver” who engendered “folly” and “captivating delusion” in his followers. Dissenters who followed found themselves described in similar terms. Presbyterians were called “strolling, pretended ministers,” and “enthustiastic freaks,” while Methodists were labeled “scoundrel . . . preachers” who “turned the world upside down.” Baptists were decried as lower life forms. They were “sturgeons . . . wallowing in the sand,” and insects whose intent was “to tease, to sting, and to torment” nonbelievers. Evangelical religion was construed as a form of physical and mental disease, a “madness” and “distemper” that wrought “the greatest fury.” New Lights were also referred to as “Moonlights” for the alleged lunacy their preaching induced. Critics of the Great Awakening saved their most disparaging remarks for dissenting ministers, who they viewed as unscrupulous seducers who would “intoxicate” their unwitting hearers. As one Anglican parson complained, “instead of instructing the people to ‘serve the Lord with gladness’ and to have ‘joy in the Holy Ghost,’ these miserable teachers advance a gloomy and dreadful religion.” Anglicans were especially bothered that many New Light clerics were uneducated, like William Murphy, who was “so ignorant that he cannot read plain, or write his name.” It irked one Anglican parson that unqualified men, such as “a broken officer, an English baker, a Dutch shoemaker, [and] a crazy planter” would be admired for their untutored preaching. Virginia Baptists were aware of the negative view many took of their religion. As Hannah Lee Corbin, an early convert, wrote to her sister in Philadelphia: “I am not surprised that you seem to have a mean opinion of the Baptist religion, I believe most people that are not of that profession are persuaded we are either enthusiasts or hypocrites.” Being rebuked for one’s faith only proved the truth of the Baptist cause: “the followers of the Lamb have been ever esteemed so, this is our comfort and that we know in whom we have believed.”7 The whirlwind of evangelical religion that swept across Virginia in the mid-eighteenth century introduced new forms of doctrine and piety with which local inhabitants had little knowledge. According to one minister, “the name of Baptist was scarcely known” in this time period. When Richard

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Dozier began attending meetings in the early 1770s, few people were “heard to talk about the new birth in this place.” Spiritual rebirth was a baffling concept to one Anglican: “What do you mean here by conversion? Not from idolatry, or paganism, to Christianity. Those you apply to are already, or pretend to be, Christians; I own I can fix no meaning to this term as you use it, but their foresaking the established Church and becoming of your opinion.” Baptists confounded one member of the gentry “with their arguments and texts of Scripture.” His particular dislike of Baptists kept him from converting: “if any other people but the Baptists professed their religion I would make it my religion before tomorrow.” When Norvell Robertson first heard the doctrine of election preached, he found it “so inconsistent and contradictory to every principle of reason” and “so pernicious in its tendency that all the passions of my soul was excited and stirred up in opposition.”8 Virginians puzzled over the behavior observed at evangelical gatherings. They found the emotional enthusiasm and bodily movement not only unbecoming but also fraudulent. One “gentlewoman” asked Samuel Harris why people were carrying on so after he preached in Goochland County: “Mr. Harris, what do you think all this weeping is for? Are not all those tears like the tears of a crocodile? I believe I could cry as well as any of them, if I chose to act the hypocrite.” Elnathan Davis suspected evangelicals of duplicity and sought to prove their frenetic behavior fallacious. After observing some “people tremble as if in a fit of the ague,” he examined them to make sure it was not “a dissimulation.” The clamor created by evangelicals held little meaning for nonbelievers. Nicholas Cresswell admitted he went to hear “the bombast, noise and nonsense, uttered by a Methodist and an Anabaptist preacher.” The cacophony at religious meetings confused some who were quick to disparage the significance and power of evangelical preaching. William Bradley complained to Nathaniel Saunders that he and his brethren prayed so loud it could be heard for half a mile, and argued that this did not demonstrate authentic spirituality: “praying is no more a sign of true godliness than I think loud laughing is a sign of real pleasure.”9 Though aware of the dissenting Christians in their midst, Anglicans could not always distinguish one sect from another. The Regular Baptist Henry Toler found this out while on a preaching tour with John Leland, also a Regular Baptist. Toler overheard a conversation in which “a gentleman . . . ask’d who these men were? Said another, I believe Leland is a kind of Methodist and Toler a kind of Presbyterian.” This left many to conclude that there was little difference between dissenters. Before his conversion, Norvell Robertson admitted that he had heard both Baptists and Methodists preach, “but never

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discovered any difference between their doctrinal principles. All preaching was alike to me.” Even when he began to attend more meetings, he was still unsure which group to join: “I was utterly at a loss to know which denomination had the best claim. My prejudices against the Baptists would not suffer me to admit that they had (even) the shadow of a claim. And my being much in company with the Methodists I discovered some things that tended greatly to diminish my confidence in them.”10 Observers commented on ministerial ranting and its effect on audiences. Dissenting preachers had an extraordinary ability to elicit paroxysms of screams, groans, and tears from potential converts. Owen Smith displayed such power at a Pittsylvania County meeting: “by his shouting, and praising, and exhorting,” he was able to “set the whole assembly in motion.” Lewis Craig was known for his prodigious preaching skill that “would make men tremble and rejoice,” while James Ireland “never failed to cause a flood of tears to flow from the eyes of his audience.” James Waddell became celebrated for his electrifying eloquence: “under his preaching, audiences were irresistibly and simultaneously moved, like the wind-shaken forest.” The power to move people irresistibly in bodily contortions and emotional outbursts was deemed unworldly, and some observers spread rumors about the preternatural powers of evangelical clergy. After preaching at a schoolhouse, Henry Toler tried to dissuade a woman of her belief that Baptists could tell “when a person was converted, [or] whether he was to be damned.” Another woman wondered how Toler “knew every body’s thoughts.” The sense of otherworldliness was evident in descriptions of Baptists as “outlandish” and “deformed”; as one critic claimed “hardly any of them looked like other people.”11 Baptist activity was met with disbelief and cynicism. John James Trabue would not permit Baptists to preach at his house, believing they were “false teachers.” William Hickman had a skeptical reaction when he first heard about Baptists in the 1760s: “They told us they would take the people and dip them all over in the water; . . . I was sure they were false prophets: I hoped I never would see one.” Hickman was living in Buckingham County by 1770, when he found out that New Lights were in the vicinity. This time “curiosity” led him to go hear “these babblers.” Hickman’s experience was like many others. He saw Baptists first as foreign and strange, then as curious, “noisy,” and demented. Hickman went further, deciding he wanted to be one of these “warm” and “affectionate” people. Like Hickman, many Virginians initially attended evangelical meetings for diversion. John Taylor went to a religious service as he would a “frolic, . . . with no more concern for my soul than the horse I rode on.” Norvell Robertson occasionally went “for no other purpose

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than to see and be seen.” Elnathan Davis planned to observe a baptism solely for its comical value; John Steward, “a very big man,” was to be baptized by Shubal Stearns, a minister of “small stature.” As communal gatherings in public places, evangelical meetings attracted hearers for many reasons: to heckle the minister, to see the unusual, to satisfy their curiosity, and to assuage their spiritual yearning. John Leland commented on how bystanders, marveling at the somatic nature of Baptist meetings, came to various conclusions: “some thought they were deceitful, others that they were bewitched, and many convinced of all, would report, that God was with them.”12 Evangelicals elicited multifarious reactions. Uncertainty and bewilderment led to fear and fascination and to outright loathing and hostility. One man showed his abhorrence when he claimed “he had rather go to hell than to heaven if going to the latter required his being a Baptist.” John Taylor recalled that “all the connections I had in the world, held the New Lights, as they were called, in the utmost contempt”; Daniel Trabue and his family and neighbors felt the same level of disdain. James Ireland held “the most violent prejudices” toward Baptists, and John Waller regularly unleashed his anger against them: “None was more active than he in opposing them and presenting them to the court as nuisances.”13 Like Taylor, Trabue, and Ireland, Waller would become a Baptist minister. Their acceptance of the new faith occurred within a society replete with anxiety and trepidation about evangelical religion. The contempt that some Virginians felt toward the Baptists would turn violent by the 1770s. The increasing size and influence of Baptists caused uneasiness in many inhabitants. Feelings of confusion and anger toward dissenters at times boiled over into violence. Baptist ministers were heckled and harassed, beaten and jailed. Malcontents often interrupted meetings and prodded the local sheriff to arrest the minister for preaching without a license. Some opponents mocked Baptists with their own rituals. To show their contempt, some men threw dogs into a stream to muddy the baptismal water. During one meeting, a mob grabbed the two ministers present and “dipped” them in a nearby river until they nearly drowned. In between dunkings the two men were asked if “they believed.” The same “gang of well dressed men” belittled the sanctity of the service by singing an obscene song while the congregation sang a hymn. Mobs entered meetinghouses and talked, jumped up and down, and insulted the minister. At times, unbelievers focused their wrath on the material aspects of evangelical religion. In Fauquier County, a crowd broke into a Baptist church and proceeded to do “the most slovenly things, tearing their pulpit and communion table to pieces.”14 Though contemptuous of

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Baptists, the unbelieving horde still placed value on their spiritual endeavors and sought to destroy their appeal and appurtenances. The radical reputation of the Baptists came in part from their corporeal spirituality. Their “noisy” and “enthusiastic” meetings made a public spectacle of religious belief and elicited a visceral emotionalism that stripped away social masks. By crying, groaning, sighing, falling down, and screaming, attendees embodied the anxiety and fear evoked by their damnation. These displays were especially disturbing in a society that traditionally carried out religious devotions in private. Religious meetings entertained, confused, and even enraged some listeners, such as Norvell Robertson, who recorded his primal response to a Baptist preacher: “I was exasperated to such a degree against the preacher that I felt prepared with a little encouragement to resort to violent means against his person. Hence I soon had a deep settled prejudice against the Baptist denomination, insomuch that I almost came to the resolution never to hear another Baptist preach.”15 A significant number of clergy and a few laymen suffered a short period of intense persecution in 1770s. Not only ministers were jailed; laymen who hosted Baptist meetings were also arrested. John Delaney suffered this fate when he invited a preacher to his home. Persecution occurred because Baptists preached out-of-doors before the general public, which was a violation of civil and ecclesiastical law. Baptists who resided in counties that lacked licensed ministers or meetinghouses often ran afoul of secular authority. In the early 1770s, seven Baptist ministers were arrested and jailed in Chesterfield County for preaching dissenting religion. In February 1774, David Tinsley was brought before the Chesterfield County Court for “having assembled and preached to the people at sundry times and places in this county as a Baptist preacher.” This situation changed when a Baptist meetinghouse was organized in the county. In 1773, the Chesterfield Baptist Church was founded; after 1774 the county court no longer indicted Baptist preachers; a constituted church mediated their acceptance into the local community. Likewise, Baptists gained a foothold in Fauquier County when they successfully petitioned the local court to build a meetinghouse in 1775.16 As dissenting Christians, Baptist ministers were required to apply to the General Court for a special license to preach. The license was attached to the meetinghouse, not the individual, and could not be transferred to another site. This policy was geared toward restraining New Light itinerancy. If Baptists compiled with this law, the government claimed they would “meet with protection, and not interruption” from the magistracy. If they stepped outside these limits “and every one undertakes to preach every where,” the

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government would proceed against them. While many Regular Baptists abided by this policy, most Separates did not. The latter refused to obtain a license or sign a bond promising not to preach, believing such conformity was sinful. The conflict over ministerial licenses gave nonbelievers an instrument with which to accuse Baptists of unlawful assembly and public disorder. This occurred in Middlesex County when the local magistrate, Captain James Montague, showed up at Baptist meeting “in a most furious rage.” Accompanied by the parson and other community members, Montague took four Baptist ministers and two laymen into custody. The men were searched for firearms and charged with “carrying on a mutiny against the authority of the land.” Finding no guns or preaching licenses in their possession, Montague told the ministers to post a bond and promise never to preach in the county again.17 As religious ramblers, Baptist ministers violated the bounds of Anglican parishes and the contours of conventional religious practice. Many of the warrants that were issued against Baptist ministers came after they traveled outside their home county. In December 1770, William Webber and Joseph Anthony, residents of Goochland County, crossed the James River to preach at a meetinghouse in Chesterfield County. Arrested for “misbehavior by itinerant preaching,” they were incarcerated. When John Waller left his home in Spotsylvania County to preach in two other counties, he was jailed for itinerancy. A Regular Baptist licensed to preach in his Orange County church, Nathaniel Saunders held meetings in Culpeper County, which caught the attention of the local court. Cited in 1770 and 1773 for preaching and teaching contrary to the law, Saunders withstood pressure from both the county court and local gentry to cease his activities. Virginia courts deemed itinerant preachers to be similar to “strollers”—indigent inhabitants who traveled from county to county looking for work and sustenance. When Jeremiah Moore was arrested in Fairfax County, the local magistrate ordered his imprisonment as follows: “I send you herewith the body of Jeremiah Moore, who is a preacher of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and also a stroller.” But evangelicals preached when and where the spirit moved them and were willing to be jailed for their faith. Samuel Harris was accused of being “a vagabond, schismatic, [and] disturber of the peace” by a county court after preaching more than 200 miles from his home.18 Attempts to control the impact of evangelical religion evolved over time. County courts not only cited dissenting ministers for preaching without a license but also those who disrupted Anglican worship or wrote or spoke critically about the established church. When Chesterfield County

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officials arrested and jailed a number of Baptist ministers in the early 1770s, they found they had to do more than just incarcerate these men, who continued to preach from their prison windows. Justice of the Peace Archibald Cary had a brick wall built around the prison to muffle their exhortations. Though Baptists challenged magisterial authority in matters of faith, they acquiesced to the power of the court and even used it for their own benefit. When James Ware and James Pitman were imprisoned for preaching in their homes, they first refused to give bond or agree not to preach again but eventually yielded. When some Chesterfield County justices tried to assert that the Act of Toleration did not apply to Baptists, Jeremiah Walker, arrested for preaching, argued so persuasively for its application that he was discharged. Baptists sent the courts petitions to free their ministers, to erect their own meetinghouses, and to enjoy toleration. In 1772, Baptists in Sussex County appealed to the House of Burgesses for the same religious freedom given to Quakers and Presbyterians. The House’s Committee on Religion found this request “reasonable.” Similarly, Amelia County Baptists argued that their “religious exercises” were restricted and they would be exposed to “severe persecution” if the Act of Toleration was not enforced. Claiming their beliefs “in no way affect the state,” they asked for more preaching licenses; only this would secure their “liberty of conscience.”19 Some Virginians questioned this religious harassment. In 1774, James Madison wrote to a friend describing the “diabolical, hell-conceived principle of persecution” that raged in Virginia. He reported that six Baptists were imprisoned “for publishing their religious sentiments, which, in the main, are very orthodox.” Similarly, Patrick Henry was incredulous when he learned that a Baptist minister had been jailed in Alexandria for preaching the gospel. Some Anglican parsons, such as Samuel Henley, challenged this policy of oppression by preaching about the dangers of religious intolerance. These enlightened attitudes did not stop the persecution or take away from the fact that dissenting meetings were proliferating faster than the established church; by 1775, Anglican priests served only one-ninth of the local population.20 Growing concern about Baptists spread to public venues. In the late 1760s, the Virginia Gazette published an article alleging that “Irregular Baptists” were causing “considerable disturbances” in the backcountry. First noting the “insignificancy” of Baptist ministers, the author took them to task for claiming divine inspiration in their preaching, a connection that ended with the apostolic age. Thus, Baptists were mendacious prophets, who could not and should not give extemporaneous sermons; only educated ministers could do godly work.21 A 1771 article defended governmental policy after a

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group of Baptist ministers were jailed in Caroline County for preaching without licenses. The essay’s author was a lawyer, who invoked both historical tradition and legal precedent to prove that Baptists had breached the public order. While he admitted, “the private opinions of men are not the objects of law or government,” he took Baptists to task for “publicly preaching and inculcating their errors, raising factions tending to disturb the public peace, or uttering doctrines which in their nature are subversive of all religion or morality, they become obnoxious to civil punishment.” The author questioned Baptist claims to preach when they could not produce credentials. He doubted the ability of dissenters to provide any deeper biblical insight than Anglican ministers, who “have educations suited to such work, and have no interest in deceiving us.” He maintained that Baptist activities exchanged “orderly, pure, and rational worship, for noise and confusion.” Baptists not only meant “to terrify and frighten many honest, and . . . pious men, to forsake their church” but also their families and friends. Their treacherous doctrine separated wives from husbands, children from parents, and slaves from masters, threatening social stability and traditional authority. Through their deceptions, Baptists terrified people and encouraged the erroneous idea “that after conversion a man cannot sin unto death.” Arguing that sanctification gave converts license to indulge in any and all abominations, he alleged that converts would “let loose to commit upon us murders, and every species of injury.” Baptists not only preached an erroneous doctrine that would lead to social chaos, but would instigate a crime wave throughout the colony. This reputation for social disorder was reinforced when the Gazette published an article revisiting the Münster rebellion. Explicitly linking Virginia Baptists to German Anabaptists confirmed the view of Baptists as criminal and revolutionary.22 In this discourse of anti-evangelicalism, Baptists were discordant, hypocritical, and obstinate pretenders who sowed seeds of political disorder rather than religious piety. Baptists responded in defense of their religion generally and of the image of Münster Anabaptists specifically. In the 1760s, the Roanoke District Association decided to compile a history of Virginia Baptists, in part to combat their negative image and to “disown any affinity to the madmen of Munster, which has been so often attempted to be fixed upon us by abusive pens and rancorous tongues.”23 A more detailed defense came in 1774, when David Thomas published The Virginian Baptist to answer critics’ charges and to explain Baptist theology. He noted the “uncommon opposition” against Baptists in Virginia: “Yea, what atrocious villainy can be mentioned, that has not been laid to our charge? All which we solemnly deny: Neither can our

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adversaries prove the things which they witness against us. . . . our principles and practice are exactly consonant with the word of God.” He assured readers that Baptists did not imperil public order or challenge political authority: “We meddle not with any state affairs, no, we leave such things to the commonwealth, to which alone they belong. . . . We form no intrigues. We lay no schemes to advance ourselves, nor make any attempt to alter the constitution of the kingdom to which as men we belong.” After asserting loyalty to the king and local government, Thomas explained that Baptists desire no “further liberty, than peaceably to enjoy the fruits of our own industry; and to worship GOD in a manner which we verily believe is most acceptable in his sight, without molestation.” To answer the charge that Baptists were dissenting from the Church of England, he declared that many of his faith were not former Anglicans and could not be accused of deserting an institution of which they never were a part. Coming from other colonies, many Virginia Baptists “found no cause of retraction, or any reason to alter their opinion.” As “free born Britons,” Baptists had the right to choose their own religion.24 Anglican ministers led the fight against Baptists. Isaac Giberne, a parson in the Northern Neck, preached against their “enthusiasm” by claiming that they were direct descendents of German Anabaptists, whose “the dangerous tenets” were “subversive to almost every Christian and moral duty.” Giberne boasted to William Lee that he had successfully stalled the settlement of dissenting Christians in his parish. Archibald McRoberts purposely preached in favor of infant baptism when Baptists became active in his county. Thomas Smith delivered a sermon against all dissenting ministers in the 1770s, using as his text 2 Timothy 4:3: “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts, shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears.” James Maury published a tract outlining the scriptural fallacies of the Baptist religion. Like other Anglican clerics, he questioned their ability to preach because they lacked state authority. An advocate of Enlightenment philosophy, Maury found the Baptist approach to Christianity irrational.25 While many Anglican ministers preached against religious dissenters, others entered sermon competitions to prove their superior doctrine. Anglican Parson Meldrum regularly attended Baptist meetings, accompanied by some of his parishioners, to dispute with the minister. After hearing John Pickett preach, Meldrum accused him of being a “schismastick, a broacher of false doctrines, and that he held up damnable errors that day.” After listening to a New Light preacher, Parson Kain mounted the platform to disprove the new birth and criticize extemporaneous prayer. Thomas Smith, a priest in

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the Northern Neck, planned to preach about conversion at the Nomini church but instead counseled the audience to follow Anglican practice. He also “preached that fiddling and dancing were not criminal,” to the disgust of one Baptist in the audience. Anglican clergy and laymen also took it upon on themselves to limit the appeal and influence of Baptists. Jonathan Boucher obtained a bond to free some Baptist preachers from jail in Spotsylvania County, believing imprisonment only strengthened their cause. William Bradley kept close watch on the activities of Nathaniel Saunders, a Baptist minister active in Orange County. He wrote to Saunders warning him that he would face prosecution if he preached. Bradley attended court when Saunders was cited for preaching without a license. When the court forgave Saunders, Bradley still advised him to cease this activity: “if you persist in denying it I can produce the records of this court to prove it.” When Zechariach Talliaferro took a Baptist minister into custody and forbade him from preaching, he also uttered “great swelling words of vanity” to scare local dissenters. Still, Anglican leaders admitted they knew little of dissenting theology. William Green, a vestryman of St. Mark’s Parish in Culpeper County, wrote to Nathaniel Saunders confessing his ignorance: “I cannot say that I am thoroughly acquainted with all your doctrines and tenets.” Not all Anglicans viewed evangelicals with hostility and contempt. Green had written to Saunders in part because some Baptists had allegedly uttered “indecent and scandalous invectives and reflections against the Church and its members.” Rather than cause discord, Green wished to live “peace and love with a good man in any of the various sects of the Christians; nor do I perceive any necessity for differing or quarreling with a man because he does not think as I do.” The violence directed at Baptists elicited sympathy from some Anglicans; when John Waller preached in Middlesex County, the parish priest intervened and saved him from being pulled off the stage by the local magistrate.26 As evangelical religion spread, Anglicans began to discuss “the new faith.” Some, who found it attractive, left the established church. John Barnett resigned his position in the Frederick Parish vestry to become a Baptist. Robert “Councillor” Carter, a vestryman in Westmoreland County, served as an elder in the Morattico church after his conversion. Elijah Morton was ousted from his seat as a justice of the Orange County Court when he joined a Baptist meeting. While it is difficult to know how many Anglicans became Baptists, the rapid rise in membership and the number of nativeborn, white men who became Baptist ministers demonstrates its popularity.

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The impression of Baptists as radical enthusiasts and iconoclastic rebels began to fade. Local government recognized, albeit grudgingly, the existence of dissenters. By the time the Revolutionary War began in 1775, New Light religion was spreading throughout the colony. Evangelical parlance and practice became common knowledge to Virginians, whether they embraced it or not.27 Evangelical religion also rejuvenated some parts of the Anglican Church. As dissenters competed for converts, Baptists, both Separates and Regulars, faced the challenges of denominational success. Separate and Regular Baptists both collaborated and competed with one another in Virginia. Separates and Regulars have traditionally been differentiated by doctrinal belief. Separate Baptists, like General Baptists, endorsed general atonement for humankind; anyone could be saved as long as they were willing to confess their sin and receive grace. As Calvinists, Regular Baptists held to a stricter interpretation of human salvation and believed that only the elect would be saved. The theological differences between Regulars and Separates existed along a continuum. While Regulars were staunch Calvinists, Separates adopted a modified form of Calvinism. John Leland, a New Englander who lived in Virginia during the mid-eighteenth century, asserted that Separates held some Calvinist beliefs, such as the sovereignty of God, to which they added their brand of Arminianism. Less consistent in their theology, they did not concern themselves with the thorny issue of predestination.28 He distinguished them as follows: “The Regulars were orthodox Calvinists, and the work under them was solemn and rational; but the Separates were the most zealous, and the work among them was very noisy.” Though they varied in style and doctrine, Separates and Regulars shared a common theology, church structure, ritual practice, and status as dissenters, which, at times, obfuscated their differences. Their common belief in the bodily rite of adult baptism by immersion made them more similar than different when compared to the other dissenting Christians. The division of Separate and Regular Baptists, however, did not initially occur in Virginia. John Taylor argued that the labels given to Regulars and Separates came later: “It may be remembered, that the word separate here, did not design a separation from what was called the regular Baptists, for it may be they were not called regulars until afterwards—the word separate came from New England.” Regulars and Separates were not distinct entities for Taylor. This is clear in his personal experience; when he joined the Lower South River church in the 1770s and became its minister, it was a Separate meeting. In 1783, this church became a member of the Regular Baptist Ketocton Association; this “was done for convenience and not from contrast of doctrine.” Morgan

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Edwards agreed with Taylor and argued that Separates are called by that name “not because they withdrew from the Regular Baptists but because they have hitherto declined any union with them. The faith and order of both are the same, except some trivial matters not sufficient to support a distinction; but less a disunion.” Separate and Regular Baptists interacted with one another despite their differences. The Separate James Ireland ministered to the Waterlick church in Shenandoah County, whose members included both Separates and Regulars. This church joined the Ketocton (Regular) Association. The theological distinctions between Regulars and Separates did not always translate into practice nor were their differences always discernible to converts. At the Chappawamsic meeting, a group of Regular Baptists experienced the presence of God, “the spirit coming as a rushing wind and the people trembling and falling down and crying out, as among the separate Baptists.” Conversely, at one Separate church “both ministers and people resemble those [regulars] in regarding impulses, visions and revelations.” After being baptized by a Regular Baptist, Allen Wiley invited a Separate preacher to hold meetings at his Culpeper County home. Similarly, five converts were baptized by a Separate Baptist clergyman in Louisa County after hearing a Regular minister preach. Separate ministers preached to Regular Baptists and vice versa. While traveling in western Pennsylvania, John Taylor preached for some Regulars near Redstone. After introducing himself as a Baptist of the Separate order, “it produced some oblique looks, for the Baptists there were Regulars, and they considered the Separates a heterodox people.” Concern about Taylor’s heterodoxy was belied by his sermon: “My Regular brethren perhaps forgot that I was a Separate, for we parted that afternoon with tears of cordial friendship.”29 Ministerial itinerancy also broke down barriers between Separate and Regular Baptists. Their clergymen routinely traveled with one another, preached at the same meetings, and shared accommodations and jail cells. When John Gano, a Regular Baptist minister, visited an association meeting of Separate Baptists in Virginia, he reported back to the PBA that “doubtless the power of God was among them; that although they were rather immethodical, they certainly had the root of the matter at heart.” Regular Baptists of the Northern Neck remarked that the Separate ministers who attended their association meeting appeared to be “orthodox, sensible, and pathetic.” Though John Taylor began his ministerial career as a Separate Baptist, he traveled with Regular Baptists on preaching tours. After he moved to Kentucky, he became a member of the Elkhorn Association, which patterned its organization after the Philadelphia association of Regular Baptists.30

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As Separates and Regulars gained converts, organized meetings, and formed associations, their differences became more apparent. Separate and Regular Baptists disagreed most on the requirements of church membership, in particular, the necessity of a written confession of faith. While Regular Baptists had adopted the Philadelphia Confession of Faith, Separate Baptists resisted this policy believing it compromised congregational independence. In the 1760s, Regular and Separate Baptists attempted to form one association. Three messengers from the Regular Ketocton Association attended the annual meeting of a Separate Baptist association in North Carolina. The Ketocton group asked for peace and reconciliation: “if we are all Christians, all Baptists—all New Lights—why are we divided? Must little appellative names, Regular and Separate, break the golden bond of charity, and set the sons and daughters of Zion at variance?” They reminded the meeting members that “to indulge ourselves in prejudice is surely a disorder and to quarrel about nothing is irregularity with a witness.” After lengthy debate, the proposal to merge was defeated by a small majority. William Fristoe, a Regular Baptist, commented on the reluctance of Separate Baptists to commit themselves to a written statement of belief: “The regular Baptists were jealous of the separate Baptists, because, as yet, they never formed nor adopted any system of doctrine, or made any confession of their faith more than verbally; and it is thought unreasonable, that if they differed from all other denominations why they should not in a fair, open and candid manner, make known their principles to the world, and in so doing, act as children of the light.”31 By refusing to codify their tenets due to their “unreasonable” diffidence, Fristoe believed the Separates would damage the reputation of Baptists. Differences over doctrine and practice occupied the attention of Virginia Baptists into the 1770s. In 1772, representatives of a Separate association met with a Regular organization to see if they could commune together. After considerable discussion, the Separates refused to form a joint association for three reasons: Regular Baptists were “not strict enough in receiving experiences” of potential members; they accepted members who had been baptized before conversion; and they allowed members to wear superfluous apparel. The Regulars found the second charge the most damning and resolved not to “commune with anyone who confessed they were baptized before they believed in Christ.” This issue split the Regular association; some member churches wanted to address this issue, while others opposed it. Even Regulars and Separates who were allied disagreed over theology. Particular salvation became the topic of debate in May 1775, at an annual meeting of the Separate Association, which was divided into two districts. The northern

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district supported Calvinism, while the southern endorsed Arminianism. The Calvinists won the debate, while the Arminians claimed their differences should not be “a bar to fellowship and communion.” The two parties agreed to retain their alliance despite their theological disagreements, and the association continued to meet as one body.32 Dissenting ministers cooperated in evangelizing efforts in the Chesapeake. John Waller became close friends with the Methodist minister Philip Gatch when he took over the Hanover circuit. When Gatch moved to Buckingham County in 1780, he commented that dissenters “dwelt together ‘in unity.’” Dissenting ministers preached together, often holding joint meetings, mixing denominations and beliefs. Baptist Lewis Lunsford preached to a household meeting of 45 people, though only six of his fellow believers were present. When Methodist John Littlejohn led a morning service at a Presbyterian church in Caroline County, John Waller conducted a night service at the Baptist meetinghouse, after which a Quaker preacher “gave a lecture on the spirit.” John Early, a Methodist preacher, attended a household meeting of “mixed orders”—Methodists, Quakers, and Baptists. Family relations at times engendered interactions between dissenting Christians. After Baptists and Methodists became active in Powhatan County, the sons of the Smith family converted and served as clergymen; one son became a Separate Baptist, while his half brother was a Regular Baptist. Conversely, the youngest son became a Methodist clergyman, and a daughter converted to the faith and married a Methodist minister. Presbyterians, Baptists, and Methodists competed to gain converts and to establish churches. The three dissenting groups vied for the attention of prominent dissenters, such as Robert “Councillor” Carter. Carter attended meetings held by evangelicals and invited many itinerants to preach at his Westmoreland County home. His ecumenical sponsorship engendered competition. After baptizing a child at Carter’s Nomini Hall plantation, the Presbyterian Ebenezer Brooks preached adamantly about the doctrine of infant baptism. Baptist Lewis Lunsford, who was present, criticized Brooks in his next sermon and defended immersion as “the mode of baptism used by John Baptist.” Baptists and Methodists held preaching competitions with one another, sometimes over a particular point of doctrine. Observers predicted the winner by how many listeners joined each group. Philip Hughes engaged in two such contests in Maryland and Virginia. At the first event, Hughes faced Methodist minister Henry Willis. Both sides claimed victory and the next day three men were nominated as class leaders in the Methodist church, while many others sought out Hughes for baptism. In the second debate,

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held near the Potomac River, the Methodist LeRoy Cole challenged Hughes. This time the Baptist victory was decisive: “twenty-two members of the audience underwent adult baptism the next day.”33 Such rivalry led some dissenters to condemn one another’s doctrines as false and erroneous. Amos Thompson, a Presbyterian minister in Loudoun County, mocked Baptists from his pulpit after they gained a following among the local inhabitants. In 1768, Thompson tried to stall the ministerial efforts of David Thomas in Fauquier County. Thompson challenged Thomas to a public dispute to prove the errors of the Baptist faith; hundreds of people attended this event and though the Presbyterians claimed victory, ten members of Thompson’s church—including an elder and the clerk—joined the Baptist meeting at Little River. Similarly, John Wright, a Presbyterian minister, vehemently opposed Baptist proselytizing in Pittsylvania County and began “slandering them to their faces.” He wrote to a local Baptist minister, “The more I consider that kind of religion among the Baptists and the religion of my Bible, the more fully I am convinced that it is an awful delusion.” Devereux Jarratt, an Anglican minister with Methodist leanings, disparaged the Baptists and wrote a tract criticizing their religion.34 Religious competition sometimes led to hostile encounters. In 1757, the Presbyterian minister Alexander Miller and some of his congregants began to make trouble for Baptists in Frederick County. Presbyterians and Quakers had preceded Baptists into the county and both groups lost members when a Baptist meeting was organized.35 What began as a dispute over “infant sprinkling” between the Baptist and Presbyterian congregations escalated into a personal attack on the reputations of the minister, John Alderson, and one of the deacons. Ridiculing both men, Miller singled Alderson out as “a Papist.” The bad mouthing continued and in September of 1757, Miller and his followers took over the Baptist meetinghouse to denounce the two men: “The said Miller and a rude assembly in a disorderly manner, without leave or previous notice given to the church, or persons by him accused, opened our meeting house and assumed our pulpit, and there slanderously, falsely, and contrary to Christian rule and order, despitefully use our minister and brother, the deacon, with opprobrious speeches, of spite and malice, entirely untruth, and unknown to the said parties.” The church book recorded this event as a “riotous action” carried out by “the hand of Satan,” which caused turmoil both among the Baptist church and the local community. By commandeering the Baptist meetinghouse and denouncing the work of its leaders, the Presbyterians attempted to intimidate and silence their competition. A week after this incident, Indians attacked the white community in Frederick

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County; an act interpreted by the Baptists as divine punishment: “It pleased God to permit the heathen to fall on our settlement, and disordered the whole worse than they [Presbyterians] had done themselves the week before, a swift retaliation for such unheard of proceedings, and measures they had taken.” The Presbyterians had suffered God’s wrath for their unchristian behavior toward Baptists. Though Frederick County dissenters had established churches even before the parish system was fully instituted, this lack of structure did not encourage tolerance. Contending for a place on the frontier, dissenters were equally capable of expressing prejudice and aggression toward other religious groups.36 Baptists would continue to compete for followers with other evangelicals as they struggled to obtain religious tolerance from a resistant colonial government. In the midst of imperial protests and the onset of war, Baptists attracted members, built meetinghouses, and proffered a new spiritual identity. Though political concerns would override religious ones in the mid-1770s, Baptists, along with other dissenters, had introduced a practice of spiritual dissent that would eventuate into religious freedom.

Chapter 3

“A Heaven-Born Stroke”: Evangelical Conversion

On a snowy day in 1770, eighteen-year-old John Taylor, a resident of “Helltown,” went to hear Daniel Marshall preach in the shadow of an abandoned chapel. During the year, Taylor and his friends had been attending evangelical gatherings for diversion and sport—a common practice among young white men on the Virginia frontier. On this particular day, Taylor had gone “to see and amuse” himself by observing people in “strange exercises” as they “hallowed, cried out, trembled, [and] fell down.” But something different occurred on this occasion. When Marshall preached the following words: “Oh rocks fall on me, oh mountains cover me from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of his wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand,” they had a visceral effect on Taylor. He reported that his “eye and ear were caught by the preaching” and he “felt the whole sentence dart through my whole soul, with as much sensibility as an electric shock.” This “heaven-born stroke”—a sensory experience that touched his body, mind, and spirit—was Taylor’s first step on the arduous journey toward conversion to the Baptist faith.1 John Taylor’s religious experience documents an ironic but familiar story of Baptist conversion: the unbelieving heckler who shows up at a religious meeting to ridicule those in attendance ends up converting to the faith through the ineffable power of God’s message and the irresistible preaching of the minister. But another critical component of Taylor’s religious conversion was its corporeality—it happened in the body. Evangelical religion was expressed through corporeal displays during the eighteenth century. To critics this bodily behavior was evidence of hypocrisy and deception, to believers it was a physical manifestation of God’s presence and power. The range of somatic states on display at evangelical gatherings had multiple origins. One source came from a Protestant practice of exhibiting intense corporeal spirituality, evident among the Montanists, Camisards, and Quakers of seventeenth-century Europe and the Methodists, Baptists, and Shakers of

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eighteenth-century America.2 Another came through the cultural encounters of the New World. European settlers brought their own notions of somatic religion to British North America, while they also observed and at times adopted the performative aspects of African and Indian spirituality. White, black, and red religious practices coalesced into a new world version of sacred movement and pious embodiment. As Ann Taves asserts, Christian religious experiences of early America occurred in “an interracial and more importantly a multicultural context.”3 Eighteenth-century Baptists embraced the New Testament concepts of spiritual community as a corporeal entity “to unite in a complete, perfect, and glorious body in a state of eternal union and oneness with the head of Lord Christ and all his members.” Becoming a “glorious body” of believers required surveillance by the individual and the church in the corporeal and spiritual performance of faith. Marking of the Baptist body began with conversion— after the painstaking, physical experience of finding salvation—and was sustained by church ritual and discipline. This tripartite process—conversion, ritual, and discipline—imprinted the Baptist body. A religion based on somatic expression and embodied belief was central to Anglo-American Baptists, who drew from biblical motifs as well as ancient and early modern rituals to construct their particular form of practice. Baptists studied the New Testament to replicate the religious customs of the early church, including a physical spirituality. The body as image and metaphor pervades Christian rhetoric; corporeality was evident in Christ’s coming to earth when “God was manifest in the flesh.” God brought redemption to the world through the “enfleshment” of Christ, fulfilling the divine plan for human salvation. Jesus used somatic imagery to preach his doctrine during the Last Supper when the bread became his body and the wine his blood. As a primary rite of the Protestant church, the Eucharist celebrates Christ’s corpus as an offering; communicants gather for a meal to eat the symbolic body of God as a testament to that sacrifice and their unity as one: “For we being many are one bread and one body.”4 As a collective experience, oneness of the body is a persistent theme in Christian cosmology. It is evident in the eighteenth-century concept of the Baptist church as a gathering of believers who in “all the body by joints and bonds” are “knit together.” Members at the Hepzibah church pledged in their covenant to “standfast in one spirit, with one mind.” Members of the Wicomico meeting longed to be united “in a compete, perfect and glorious body.” “As fellow members of the same body under Christ,” believers became part of the visible church and strove to maintain the religious community,

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“for the beauty and strength of the body depend on it not being maimed, or disordered.” This beauty and strength required collective and individual endeavor. As one Baptist minister put it: “to be a Christian, is to be united to Christ. To have his spirit—his nature his mind—to receive his laws his gospel his doctrines—his ordinances . . . to walk in him thro’ the whole of his life.” To walk in God allied believers’ bodies to a Christian concept of spiritual unity. In the process, they integrated their bodies and selves into a godly community of saints who “dwelt together in Christ’s body.” Conversely, those who remained outside this community with “hardened hearts” and “stiff necks,” were bound “to the limb of the devil.”5 Church preambles used bodily images to connote spiritual connection. Members of the High Hills church pledged to freely “give ourselves to the Lord and one another according to his word to be one body under one head jointly to Christ.” When the Racoon Swamp church held quarterly gatherings at their main meetinghouse in Sussex County, they occurred “at the body.” To show their desire to “become a distinct body to maintain the order and discipline of Christ’s house,” the 33 founding members of the Yeocomico church rose up, clasped hands, and stood in a circle. As church members and part of Christ’s body, Baptists joined a spiritual community that superseded all others. The body and soul of the believer was drawn into a new material and spiritual realm, where one’s identity was based on religious belief and bodily conduct. Baptists advocated spiritual separation from the secular world by endeavoring to be “a garden enclosed . . . a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.” An ideology of enclosure and demarcation obliged them to associate only with fellow believers and to live lives of quiet introspection. Believers were to “careful how and with whom they walk,” lest they “contract filth or foulness” from outside influences. This process of “encapsulation” insured that they shut out competing ideas to concentrate on core religious values. Baptists wished to protect themselves from outside interference and to safeguard their bodily integrity and soulful purity in an individual and collective sense.6 Baptist sources from the eighteenth century are replete with instances of bodily movement and corporeal manifestation. They recount individuals who at “lively meetings, not only jump up, strike their hands together, and shout aloud, but will embrace one another and fall to the floor.” Potential believers wept “bitter tears,” shook uncontrollably, flailed their limbs, moaned and groaned, and dropped, sighing, onto meeting benches. Others trembled “as if in a fit of the ague, and fall to the ground and lay still as if struck dead.” Samuel Harris found himself kneeling with his “head and hands hanging

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down on the other side of the bench . . . senseless as in a fit.” After hearing a layman preach, Sarah “weeped bitterly and quaked a little.” So overcome by evangelical preaching, Philip Mulkey threw himself “on the ground expecting the fire and brimstone” and continued “in this posture for some time almost dead with terror.” Converts expressed a gamut of emotions and enactments from “falling down as in fits and awaking in ecstasies” to experiencing “visions and revelations,” and being “melted down into tears.” Crying, groaning, sighing, and panting were common behaviors. Men and women wept so loudly at one Baptist meeting that their cries drowned out the preaching. The physicality of evangelical assemblies made them raucous and infectious. Elnathan Davis found this out when he attended a religious meeting and witnessed “the trembling and crying spirit” of the people present. He scoffed at this display until he started shaking too. He tried to leave but with “his strength failing and his understanding confounded, he, with many others, sunk to the ground.”7 Both the evangelical message and its messenger transported the body of the listener. Baptist ministers had a reputation for their emotive style, for making “soft impressions on the heart,” which induced tears in their listeners, made them “shake their very nerves” and hurl their bodies into “tumults and perturbations.” Lewis Craig had such an impact on his community. After converting to the Baptist faith, he began to preach: “many would be affected and weep, some faint, till all the neighborhood was alarmed.” Even when jailed for preaching without a license, John Waller “made very serious impressions on the minds” of his listeners. Joseph Cook spoke with such animation and fervor “that at the end of his sermons he frequently left the audience in tears.” “Celestial light” poured from Samuel Harris’s eyes when he preached; with just a look, he could “strike down numbers at once.” John Williams noted with grim satisfaction the physical effect his preaching had on saint and sinner alike: “The Christians seem’d to get much matter, the unconverted visible impress’d & one particular old soldier for the Devil (J.W.) scream’d out & fell down, after some time rise upon her knees with her hands up, hollowing out & sometimes crying to God for pardon.” Those who heard evangelical preaching described its impact on their bodies as well as their souls. “Uncle Jack,” an enslaved Virginian, recalled a minister who “turned my heart inside out. The preacher talked so directly to me, and about me, that I thought the whole sermon was meant for me. I wondered much, who could have told him what a sinner I was.” Some converts claimed that a minister’s penetrating stare and spiritual power drew them in emotionally and physically. Tilden Lane remembered such a reaction after hearing a

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sermon by Shubal Stearns: “He fixed his eyes upon me immediately, which made me feel in such a manner as I never had felt before. I turned to quit the place but could not proceed far. I walked about, sometimes catching his eyes as I walked. My uneasiness increased and became intolerable. I went up to him, thinking that a salutation and shaking hands would relieve me: but it happened otherwise. . . .When he began to preach my perturbations increased so that nature could no longer support them and I sunk to the ground.”8 The power of evangelical preaching singled out individuals and struck them down, as the sinful literally could not stand before God’s wrath and righteousness. The minister’s piercing gaze—surveying the sinner before him—proved to be an impetus in the conversion of Tilden Lane; his sense of being seen by another brought about his spiritual transformation.9 The bodily impact of evangelical religion occurred in public, before believers, hearers, onlookers, and critics, garnering a variety of responses. When Daniel Fristoe arrived to baptize thirteen converts in Stafford County, he found a large crowd gathered in anticipation. Among them were some “very troublesome” combatants, especially James Nayler, who after “raging and railing after a while, fell down and begun to tumble and beat the ground . . . cursing and blaspheming God all the while.” When Fristoe administered the ordinance, the Baptists wailed and wept, while the nonbelievers cursed, swore, and acted “like men possessed.” Fristoe noted that he “never before saw such manifest appearances of God’s working and the Devil’s raging at one time and in one place.” Opponents who denied God’s power were caught up the throes of the Devil. John Williams noted a similar scene after a baptism in 1771 when “the Christians [fell] to shouting, sinners trembling & falling down convulsed, the devil a raging & blaspheming.” He hoped that this ritual enactment would pluck a soul from “the jaws of death, hell & eternal destruction.”10 The appearance of God and the Devil at one and the same time was a danger posed by evangelical religion, when the “wild-fire mixed with the sacred flame.” After a revival began in his church, one minister feared it was based on a “delusion” engineered by Satan. He sought the advice of another clergyman, who assured him that this activity was divinely sanctioned, though, he cautioned, “when god works, the devil will work too.” The bodily nature of evangelical religion raised the specter of the Devil’s presence; Christian cosmology taught that the Devil was to blame for bodily sin. His presence was possible when the soul was exercised and the body was suffering. Baptists believed that Satan showed up to invoke fear and confusion in potential converts. Dutton Lane had this experience after returning home from hunting, when he “fancied that he saw the Devil standing in the way

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before him.” Unsure whether to retreat or to fire his gun, he ran away convinced that the Devil was chasing him. When he reached his house, he went inside, “bolted the door, and fell down with rifle and game and all, on the floor.” For Davis, the Devil was a tangible being, one that materialized to “deceive” him.11 From fervent preaching, soul searching, and bodily manifestations, listeners became utterly convinced of their status as damned souls. The power of the evangelical message profoundly affected potential converts who came under “soul exercise.” Becoming aware of one’s status as a sinner was only a first step, and the process of conviction and conversion was mentally and emotionally exhausting, long, and drawn out. Converts went weeks, months, even years, before salvation occurred. Daniel Trabue was under conviction for nearly four years before he experienced saving grace. During the intervening period, converts described in bleak terms their bodily state as degraded, polluted beings. When “very low in body,” Sarah Pierce pleaded with a minister for refuge from her sins, which she described “as big as mountains and as black as hell.” She asked, “can one so vile as I be pardoned?” John Taylor, fearful that he would never find true salvation, referred to himself as “a ponderous load of filth.” As his doubts continued, he sunk into a “dark despondency.” Under “a cloud of darkness,” Rebecca Moulder felt herself within the “borders of depression,” and hoped she would be “ransomed from the power of hell.” Jane Taylor experienced “agony and distress” for more than a month when she stopped eating and sleeping, and at times, seemed deranged by her sinful state. Jeremiah Jeter became a fretful insomniac before his conversion. Philip Mulkey felt great mental anxiety as a sinner and could “neither eat, nor sleep nor rest for some days; but continued to roar out I am damned! I shall soon be in hell!”12 The hell-bound agonies of one person under conviction could have a visceral effect on others. While under “great pressure of guilt,” Lewis Craig went from one meeting to another, “and when the preaching was ended, he would rise up in tears and loudly proclaim that he was a justly condemned sinner. And with loud voice warn the people to fly from the wrath to come and that except they were born again, with himself they should all go to Hell together. While under his exhortation, the people would weep and cry aloud for mercy.” “Heavy heartedness,” utter hopelessness, and eternal damnation caused stress, suffering, and despair in converts, who experienced a spiritual, physical, and emotional crisis. Spiritual turmoil produced corporeal manifestations. Through jerks, moans, screams, and a type of spiritual/physical paralysis, converts embodied fear, sorrow, and inertia about their eternal fate

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that was only relieved by conversion. After falling to the ground in a fit, Elnathan Davis “found nothing in him but dread and anxiety,” bordering on horror. He continued this way for many days until he felt “joy and ease fill his soul” when he experienced “relief by faith in Christ.”13 The “new birth” came about through an awareness of one’s sinful nature (conviction) followed by a change in heart and mind and a visible and physical demonstration of one’s spiritual rebirth (conversion) within a communal context. Many people occupied the time before conversion in “contemplating their wickedness” and searching for some sign of salvation. After reading religious works, Samuel Harris became convinced he was “a hapless and helpless sinner,” and “pressed with this conviction,” he began attending Baptist meetings. But hearing Baptists preach only increased his distress. Converts became agitated and uneasy as they awaited conversion, never knowing when it would come or if it would be authentic and lasting. James Ireland experienced such a period of uncertainty. He passed “lonesome nights, wearisome and distressing days, under the temptation that I was not within the verge of God’s electing grace in Christ Jesus.” Praying alone in the woods for many days, Ireland longed fervently for conversion. John Taylor’s emotions fluctuated while under conviction; he read the Bible, prayed all day and night and yet felt no change: “Satan was not far off and desired to sift me.” He struggled for many months to reconcile his situation but could find no relief: “I was driven to my wits’ end, believing that I was as sure to be lost as if I was then in hell. I was often on my knees day and night crying for mercy, if it could possibly be obtained.”14 Observing the conversion of others could initiate a change or continue one’s suffering. Taylor tried to assess his spiritual status by comparing himself to new converts, but it provided little relief. While attending a Baptist meeting, he heard eight people relate their religious experiences in preparation for baptism; he believed only one of the eight was actually saved: “The others only related what I had felt myself. This grieved me much. I doubted even the preacher himself being a Christian for encouraging them poor, deluded souls to join the church who were in no better state than myself.” When Jeremiah Jeter found himself surrounded by fellow seekers on their knees, who “broke forth in sobs and lamentations,” their intercessions did not affect him. Hearing others’ testimonies often compounded the emotional stress felt by those who had yet to be saved. After listening to one young saint describe her conversion experience in rapturous detail, two women “could no longer contain [themselves] but crying out, got up and went out of the house to vent their grief.” Conversely, seeing other believers

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provided some consolation to Abigail Harris, who found the “tumult in my breast was somewhat calmed by seeing & hearing an old grey headed man” baptized. For some, the examination of new converts was more powerful than preaching. Attendees at one meeting claimed that hearing friends and family members relate their experiences was the cause of their own conversions. After Elhanan Winchester baptized some young women, John Leland was deeply affected: “I . . . made my vows to God to forsake all sinful courses and seek the Lord.”15 Potential converts experienced a tangible sense of damnation while under conviction. As John Gano stated: “I cannot express the anguish with which my mind was frequently oppressed, with the idea of being eternally damned from God, in endless despair, to everlasting destruction.” Gano wondered if he could ever gain pardon for his sins and believed himself to be “the vilest of sinners, more worthless and odious than the meanest reptile.” He prayed for God’s grace but saw the fault in his own “hard and obstinate heart.” Contemplating his faith, he continued to suffer: “From that time on, the nature of my conviction was altered, and my grief was greater. I knew that I must be changed, and that it was to be effected by God, and that he would affect it was my most fervent wish. But how he could be just and save me I knew not: that he could be just and condemn me, appeared plain. In this state, I remained for some time.” Gano was not fully convinced until he heard “a sermon from these words, with light and power fasted on my mind: ‘Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me.’”16 Many converts prayed in desperation for a definite sign from God clearly acknowledging their salvation. When it was not forthcoming, the individual remained tormented. Enoch Edwards’s sense of damnation was expressed in bodily anguish during his conviction. Walking home from Philadelphia, he found himself overtaken by spiritual pain and retired to a grove of woods to pray. He continued on his way, “crying and howling amazingly for it seem’d as though the pang of hell had laid hold of me and laid upon to my view my most shocking crimes.” “Mourning” his pitiful state, Edwards struggled for spiritual relief but only found a flawed conscience “flying in my face and the intrinsic enormous guilt increas’d my calamity.” Once home, he retreated to a solitary spot and spent hours “in the greatest distress imaginable,” rolling around and beating his breast “in the greatest extremity.” His emotional state became so dire that he considered suicide: “I wish to die that I might come to the worst of my misery if such a thing could be, for I thought the damned in hell was not to be compar’d to me for misery.” Similarly, Norvell Robertson waited for God to deliver him from a “long state of anxious suspense” and

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enable him to recognize saving grace. Some converts doubted they had been saved until others told them. After a period of meditation and private prayer, a female friend informed Benjamin Hickman he was converted; soon after he felt the “love of God flow into his soul.”17 Evangelical Christianity became known as “heart religion” in the eighteenth century and centered on a radical transformation of belief and behavior. The groans and sighs elicited from congregants were described as “heartfelt,” and the state of one’s heart connoted one’s receptiveness to conversion. “Hard hearts” were impermeable, while “tender” and “open” hearts received the word of God. Elizabeth Biles noted the power of God’s mercy to “entirely disengage our hearts from every thing here and fix our whole attention with sincerity to observe his those glorious precepts, which are recorded in the Scriptures.” Sarah Howley was greatly affected after hearing a minister preach from Proverbs 29:1: “He that, being after reproved, hardeneth his heart, shall suddenly be destroyed and that without remedy.” Once converted, a believer’s “heart of stone is taken away and a heart of flesh is given.” Conversion changed the individual’s heart. The Holy Ghost would perform a “work of regeneration in the heart” and by sanctification, God would “circumcise” a believer’s heart.18 One’s heart could prove a stumbling block on the way to conversion. Potential converts complained that their “dark” and “hard” heart kept them from finding salvation. Henry Toler lamented his lapsed state and admitted he “felt quite dead and cold in my own breast.” Sarah Baldwin rued her “wretched heart” while attending a women’s meeting. “Uncle Jack” admitted he had “a very wicked heart, every thing I did, to make it better, seemed to make it worse.” Ann Hart prayed that God would “break” her unconverted son’s “rocky heart.” John Leland described his resistance to conversion by comparing his heart to “a spring of water, rising up against God and godliness.”19 The heart as a site of human emotion and spirituality was a central concept in the Christian tradition. The Bible abounds with heart imagery as a conduit of piety: “God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them . . . for he purified their heart by faith”; “I will put the law in their minds and hear it on their hearts”; and “so that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith” (Acts 15:8–9; Jer 31:33; Eph 3:17). European and American Protestants utilized the heart metaphor extensively. For New England Puritans, the heart was “the source of perpetual corruption,” and “a jealous and indifferent barrier to grace, or the final realm of understanding.” Jonathan Edwards argued, “if the great things of religion are rightly understood, they will affect the heart.” Only proper religious preparation could soften the heart and

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help the convert recognize the need for saving grace. Methodists claimed that the heart allowed converts to attain justification, assurance of forgiveness, union with Christ, and hope of eternal life: “All this they experience and feel in the heart.”20 Converts came to their faith through a visible emotional and physical struggle, and the heart had to be prepared for the onset of salvation. John Williams found this out after a night meeting in which “my hard heart seem[ed] to open and let Jesus in.” Hannah Lee Corbin blessed God who “put it in my heart” to follow Christ. During his conviction, Samuel Harris believed his “heart was ready to burst.” Daniel Trabue wished for the “soft penitent hearts” of the newly converted instead of his “hard wicked heart.” Benjamin Loxley finally felt “the power of His grace” after going to meetings for many years “without being thoroughly touched to the heart.” Conversion brought an emotional release for the new believer. Upon gaining faith, Jeremiah Jeter slept as if he “had been in paradise.” The next morning, his heart was “overflowing with gratitude, love, and joy, and longed to give utterance to its emotions.” The dramatic change wrought by religious conversion was evident in John Leland’s graphic assertion that he would know he was saved “as distinctly as if a surgeon should cut open my breast with his knife, take out my heart and wash it, put it back again and close up the flesh.”21 Heart religion was manifested as a close loving relationship to God in which Jesus had a palpable presence. Enoch Edwards came to conversion not by attending a meeting, hearing a sermon, or reading a book but by contemplating his fate alone in his bedroom. One night while praying to Jesus to intercede for him, “these words came in my mind as though Christ himself spoke them I have satisfy’d divine justice thy sins are forgiven thee.” These words elevated his “dropping heart” and seemed to lift him “up to heaven.” Edwards extended his arms, thinking he “could clasp Jesus. . . : In this ecstasy of joy I remained about a hour and then comfortably went to sleep.” His conversion initiated a close relationship with a reassuring savior. When Margaret Macay told her minister that the lord visited her the night before “with his love,” he asked to her share her experience with some other young women: “Jesus Christ is sweet, he is precious, had I know his sweetness . . . I would not have liv’d so long without him.” Some young men in the same church gathered at a night meeting and cried out for a similar connection: “O give me Christ! Give me Christ!”22 For Baptists, conversion initiated a rapport with a divine and consoling redeemer. This newness of spirit would also be evident in the bodily comportment of converts. Spiritual conversion was a transformative, life-altering

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event, one that encompassed and changed the whole person of the believer. According to one Baptist minister: “This new birth does not consist of partial amendment of our moral conduct; or in the outward performance of religious duties, or in the bare enjoyment of ecclesiastical privileges; nor in all these put together; but in a real inward change of heart as well as of life and conversation.”23 Conversion occurred in the body and changed the bodily conduct of the newly saved. Through salvation “the Lord put a new song” into the believers’ mouths; what they said and how they acted would be utterly transformed after conversion. Having had “the Lord smite their hearts powerfully,” and “break in with light, power and sweetness” upon their souls after salvation, the newly converted “sang and wept and smiled in tears, holding up their hands and countenances toward heaven.” Only Jesus could change the “vile bodies” of converts and “fashion them according to his glorious body.” By the working of the Holy Ghost, the truly repentant would “become new creatures, and proper subjects for membership in the visible Church of Christ.”24 After his conversion, John Arnold remarked that his hands “were not the hands” of his old self “but of the new.” After making a public profession of faith, Norvel Robertson “seemed to be changed into another man.” Andrew Broaddus preached that “if any man be in Christ he is a new creature.” Members of the Middletown church avowed this sense of newness in their covenant when they agreed to “continually put off the old man with his deeds and have put on the new man which is daily renewed in righteousness and holiness.” This new body and new self came about through the process of conviction and conversion, which incorporated a spectrum of bodily movements and physical behaviors that, in turn, brought about radical change not only in the believer’s spiritual outlook and emotional status but also in a transfigured corporeality.25 Budding converts engaged their bodies and their “passions” in religious expression to achieve eternal salvation. One Baptist minister readily acknowledged, “it is no wonder the passions are raised while the heart glows with love to God and Christ and everything sacred and divine.” Yet he counseled against overwhelming the passions with “clash and noise to the confounding of reason.” “The passions,” which included both the physical and emotional, needed to be focused on belief and practice to prove the efficacy of evangelical religion. In so doing, Baptists hoped to counter the intense scrutiny they faced from unbelievers who scorned their performance of corporeal spirituality as disorderly and debauched. Unbridled passions with no rationale could have dangerous consequences. Evangelicals saw the need

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to differentiate between emotion and reason even while in the throes of spiritual conviction, both to specify this dynamic as well as to silence critics who foresaw only social disruption from such religious expression. David Thomas argued that upon conversion “all the powers, and faculties, and passions and affections are rectified and freed from their natural disorder in some good degree.” He believed it was the “irresistible work of the Holy Spirit” that soothed the earthly passions, whereby “the dark understanding is enlightened, the obstinate will is subdued, and the carnal affections are spiritualized.” By spiritualizing the carnal, God sanctified the believer’s body to guard against uncontrolled and outlandish behavior. William Fristoe believed that God had endowed “rational creatures with noble passions and made them capable of sorrow, joy, love, hatred, desire, etc.” These noble passions were to be exercised and monitored by preaching, prayer, and reflection.26 Evangelical religion employed physical expressions as Enlightenment philosophes reconfigured ideals of the human body and began to stress the need of civilized individuals to maintain control of their bodies and passions. By the eighteenth century, a new model of the body took hold in Western culture. As Susan Juster argues, “the body remained the primary means of spiritual access in the eighteenth century, even while its more rigid and solid structure yielded less easily to the overtures of the Spirit.” While the medieval spiritual body was defined as a porous entity that was frequently engulfed by erotic encounters with Christ, the early modern body formed into a solid entity that was more impervious to spiritual invasion. This new solid body corresponded to the Enlightenment view of the human body as a closed and contained system, capable of self-discipline and self-regulation.27 Evangelicals used new metaphors to symbolize the spiritual penetration of God into this solid body; natural phenomena, such as electricity, lightning, temperature, and fire, described conversion. John Taylor spoke of godly intervention as an “electric shock” to his body and soul. The newly converted claimed to be engulfed by “flames of lightning.” Jeremiah Jeter depicted his attainment of salvation as a “light-finding rest.” Jonathan Edwards used the concepts of heat and light to describe the changes wrought in a convert. Both were necessary for salvation; light provided divine understanding, while heat transformed a cold heart into an “affected fervent heart.” Evangelical religion was a spontaneous “fire” that “ran from heart to heart” through a congregation, with believers “purified in the flames of divine love.” One cleric declared that preaching “set the Christians all a fire with this love of God.” David Thomas claimed that the “fire” of evangelicalism was “kindled” among Baptists, “where it continues burning to this day.”28

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Temperature was invoked to connote ardent belief. Successful meetings were described as a “melting time,” and effective ministers as providing “a very warm & melting exhortation.” Members of the Lyons Farms church related their experiences to one another and found their “hearts much warmed with the sense of divine things.” Temperature also designated spiritual strength. “Hot love” conveyed intense commitment to Christ, “cool love” meant one’s faith had waned. Those who became spiritually tepid were in danger of losing their place in the godly community. Marshall Edwards, an elder in the Lower Dublin church, used biblical language to warn a backsliding member: “O let us beware of falling into a state of lukewarmness so being neither cold nor hot the lord may justly spew us out of his mouth.” This image of the indifferent believer disgorged from Christ’s body vividly conveyed the corporeal conception of Baptist religion.29 The process of conversion demanded fundamental change in the individual, both internally and externally; the saint who was “buried” in baptism was reborn to a second birth and a new life. The ability to reform one’s life, however, proved difficult for many. While evangelicalism espoused a genderless religious ideal, setting a single standard of belief and behavior for all members, it appealed more to women than to men, giving rise to the common perception that women were more pious than men. Indeed, more women than men attended evangelical meetings and women dominated church membership by the late eighteenth century. White men who became Baptists not only underwent an emotional and physical transformation, their bodies interacted with others in new ways. John Taylor described the physical closeness exhibited by saintly men while in prayer: “Is it fancy to conceive of these four men, locking hands and all kneeling down, in a little circle or a small square with their faces near together, and when a signal was given from Heaven that the prayer was accepted, clasp each other in their arms with heavenly rapture, and more mutual love than they ever had before or than they now could have, had there never been a rupture between them.”30 This physical closeness generated fraternal ties and close relationships among white men, which served ministerial connections and denominational interests. The emotional excess engendered by evangelical spirituality was increasingly associated during the eighteenth century with the feminine principles of self-abasement, humility, and pathos—all evangelical ideals. Opponents of evangelicalism claimed it appealed to the “softer passions” and led astray “captive silly women” through religious fanaticism.31 “Captive silly women” was a common trope employed to disparage evangelical efforts as feminizing; only those with limited capacity to reason would fall under the spell of

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revivalists. The passions of women and the fleshiness of their bodies made them susceptible to weakness. The physical state of women’s bodies as debilitated corresponded to feminine attributes of “deceptiveness, changeability, and instability.” Corporeal vulnerabilities correlated with emotional weaknesses. This made women’s bodies porous and vulnerable; they were easily swept up in religious enthusiasm. African Americans were also believed to be more susceptible to the emotionalism and physicality of evangelical religion. Defined as animalistic in nature and possessing an overt sexuality, enslaved blacks were inferior to whites, who claimed more control over their bodily behaviors. Categorizing black bodies as monstrous became part of a process of maintaining racial distinctions that justified slavery. The development of “scientific” theories to explain the creation of various races and the two sexes contributed to these concepts of difference. Thus, race and gender were “naturalized” as social categories within Anglo-American culture over the course of the eighteenth century, just as white men became coterminous with the ideal citizenry of Enlightenment philosophy.32 The association of heart religion with women and blacks made religious conversion problematic for white men. Ironically, the throes of “a new birth” may have reflected the agony experienced by especially aware white male converts when surrendering their self-identity and bodily integrity. In all events, it signified a profound capitulation of the “civilized self,” particularly for elite white men, as the onset of religious conversion brought changes in masculine identity that occurred through the body. A regimen of corporeal activity transformed the stoic male into the weeping sinner, the swearing drunkard into the pious saint.33 The potential convert endured religious trials through the body, in trembling, moaning, groaning, and physical and mental ailments. John Leland observed the various forms of “religious adoration” that evangelicals routinely performed, including “crying, weeping, lifting up the eyes, groaning, sighing, panting, breathing, and so on. Selfabasement is also expressed by veiling the face, rending the garments, kneeling and falling on the ground.” Demeaning one’s self in public was the means to the spiritual rebirth. A display of “tender feeling” was evidence of godliness. Emotional sensitivity—not the rational assessment of theology— constituted genuine spirituality for evangelicals. Potential saints suffered great mental anxiety and physical discomfort before finally reaching a state of emotional release with conversion.34 The bodily comportment of male evangelicals violated traditional gender norms, and the physical intimacy often evident at religious meetings made

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some white men uncomfortable. Recalling his own struggles while in the midst of conviction, James Ireland labeled evangelical religion “effeminacy” after worshiping with another man who “kept his left arm around my waist, and feeling, affected at some passages as he sung them, he would hug and press me to him.” Elnathan Davis attended a Baptist meeting out of curiosity, when a man approached him, placed his head on Davis’s shoulder, and wept bitter tears. When Davis realized the man “had wet his white new coat, [he] pushed him off, and ran to his companions.”35 The capacity of evangelical religion to feminize white male converts was compounded by the possibility of engaging in allegedly primitive spiritual behavior associated with African Americans. The bodily movement and impassioned outbursts apparent at religious meetings resembled an African style of worship. Evangelical ministers such as Samuel Davies and George Whitefield commented upon the “fellow-feeling” of blacks as evidence of their deeply spiritual nature. Similarly, the Baptist preacher John Leland noted the dedication of blacks at religious gatherings: “when religion is lively, they are remarkably fond of meeting together, to sing, pray, and exhort, and sometimes preach, and seem to be unwearied in the exercises.” But, as one Presbyterian noted, most “gentlemen” detested these emotion-laden, biracial meetings because they were “afraid of being laughed at.”36 The inherent loss of status and dignity a white man—especially of elite background—could suffer at such an assembly challenged his sense of self and potentially damaged his social reputation. Some white men attempted to hide their interest in evangelical religion. Attracted to the “warmth of feeling among the communicants” at a Baptist meeting, Jeremiah Jeter remained behind to learn more and, at the same time, display his disinterest. He tried “amusing” himself with a female acquaintance, who had been deeply affected by the meeting but soon his “own attention was arrested,” and he burst “into an irrepressible flood of tears.” Evangelical preaching elicited a range of emotional responses. Jeter’s discomfort with evangelical religion was evident when he found himself shaking with laughter after hearing a new convert, Bill Carter, roar “like a lion” at a night meeting. Jeter left the meeting to contemplate his “lost condition.” After praying, weeping, and meditating, he regained his composure. However, just as he began to feel hopeful, “the image of Bill Carter, with his mouth spread and his cries deafening the congregation, rose before my mind, and the ludicrous scene again upset my gravity, and I laughed long and convulsively.” Male hostility to evangelicalism was countered by female support in evangelical discourse of the eighteenth century. Evangelicals documented male

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resisters, such as Captain Pierce, “a great opposer to religion,” who accepted dissenting ministers into his home only after his wife’s deathbed intercession. This pattern of male opposition continued into the next generation when the captain’s son, Ransdell Pierce, admitted to disliking “his sisters for being religious and would endeavor to hinder their going to meeting.” Similarly, Archibald Alexander reported a division along gender lines at a dinner table conversation he heard while serving as a tutor in Spotsylvania County: In these conversations, Mrs. Posey, who professed to be a “seeker”, defended the Baptist opinions, and so did old Mrs. William Jones, who I believe was a truly pious woman. General Posey declared that he did not believe in any such miraculous change, but added that he would credit it, if Mrs. Posey should ever profess she experienced it. Mr. William Jones was a good-natured, luxurious, skeptical man, who plainly insinuated that religion was a disease of weak and superstitious minds, and all that was necessary for a cure was acquaintance with philosophy. Major Jones cared for none of these things. His opinion was that preaching was as much a trade as any thing else.37

Whether “a disease for weak and superstitious minds,” or merely another form of employment, evangelical preaching elicited scorn from these gentlemen. The Anglican minister James Craig concurred with this view and railed against “the ignorant and en[thusiastic anti]paedo-baptists, [who] subvert all rational and man[ly religion].” “Manly religion” equaled lucid and solemn consideration of spirituality, not the emotive responses and physical performances on display at evangelical gatherings. Men who converted to the Baptist faith often did so in concert. Conversion to a new faith that subverted traditional gender roles may have been more tenable in the company of other men. Jeremiah Jeter and Daniel Witt were friends in their youth, sat together in meeting, and experienced religious conversion at the same time. They would eventually travel together as itinerant ministers. David George became a Baptist after conversing with fellow slave Cyrus. George Schools became a preacher at the same time that Edmund, one of his slaves, became a deacon. Some of these relations were familial. James and John Dupuy and five other men, who converted around the same time, formed an alliance to support one another in their new faith. Like the Dupuy brothers, male siblings from the Craig and Sutton families (the latter included five sons) all became Baptist ministers. Some men attempted to convert their friends, often garnering a violent response. When Philip Mulkey visited his “neighbor Campbell” to preach about the new birth, the latter swore and said: “What devilish project are you now upon

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with the word of God in your hand?” He then challenged Mulkey to a fight. When he sat down and began to cry, Campbell still dared him to engage in a brawl, to which Mulkey replied, “you know, my dear neighbour, that I am unable to beat you; but now you may beat me if you will, I shall not hinder you!” Astonished by this acquiescence, Campbell also sat down and wept.38 Baptists looked to their religious community to provide solace and to sustain their faith. Family and friends provided one avenue of spiritual sustenance. After Alexander Edwards watched his son Enoch struggle with conviction for about a month, he enquired after his status. Enoch burst into tears; Alexander also wept and told him about “the comforts of Christ.” Thomas Jones encouraged his son Samuel “to keep close with God in private which is an excellent means to maintain the life of religion, Oh let the thoughts of God be thy daily repast, strive to get thy heart to run out freely constantly and unwarily after God.” While away at college, Evan Edwards tried to socialize only with other believers: “The nearer I keep to God and the more from the transitory things of this world, the livelier views I would have of the love of God in my mind.” Early in his ministerial career, Henry Toler struggled with unbelief and prayed continually for guidance: “Lord, help me to deny myself more than I do, let not the devil, oh my God, get the advantage of me.” He eventually found relief by conversing with a female believer. After their talk, he felt his “mind better satisfyed than . . . for some hours past.” When Sarah Baldwin wrote to Abigail Harris that she felt she was deceiving herself about salvation, Harris responded by asking, “did you not my dear, when you set out in this race, expect to meet with clouds as well as sunshine, sorrow as well as joy?” Ministers provided spiritual assistance to converts, particularly young men, who planned on a preaching career. When Jeremiah Jeter finally gained spiritual release after months of guilt, anxiety, and doubt, he told Elder William Harris about his newfound faith.39 Spiritual contemplation did not cease upon attainment of conversion, baptism, and church membership. Self-reflection was an ongoing process among Baptists and many believers struggled to maintain their faith. In the summer of 1754, the young minister Oliver Hart considered his religious state with a sense of emptiness and futility; he felt “oprest under a sense of my barrenness. Alas, what do I do for God? I am indeed employed in his vineyard but I fear to little purpose.” Feeling “the wan of the life and the power of religion” in his own heart, Hart resolved to rise earlier, study harder, and to “be more active for God.” Henry Toler also noted the importance of rumination: “We never should be examining our state in religion if we had not doubts about it. For there is no fear in love. And not to go forward in

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religion is to go back.” While reading the Bible, Christopher Collins hoped “for a heart, more refined & cleansed from sin—more loving & obedient to my Lords commands & for deep repentance for all my transgressions & follies.” Believers had to be vigilant about themselves and others to maintain “a holy walk and conversation.” Abigail Harris was afraid to call herself a “child of God because, I at times feel such lukewarmness in his service, [and] do not feel that hungering & thirsting after holiness, righteousness, & conformity to the divine will which that times I have enjoy’d.” Believers persevered, being mindful of themselves as “Christ’s virgins,” who looked “often in the glass of the gospel, espying and brushing away every spot of dust, keeping clean and neat for his everlasting embrace.”40 Selfhood was an important component of evangelical religion. The Protestant obligation for self-assessment placed new weight on the interiority of the self and soul. To be saved, one had to reveal personal struggles with sin and demonstrate triumph over evil through salvation. This atomization of the sinner/saint heightened the sense of self for the believer. The concept of selfhood, however, was paradoxical. The drama of conversion, which centered on the individual will and was the means of entry into church membership, occurred through the self. To be a Baptist, one had to demonstrate authentic religiosity based on a singular experience in a communal context. However, once a member, the believer’s self became secondary to the bonds of spiritual community. In a Christian concept of the self, there is “no truth about the self without a sacrifice of the self.” The religious subject was shaped and defined through individual conversion, ministerial authority, ritual practice, and communal connection. Being a religious “subject” connotes an individual identity and sense of self-knowledge; at the same time it refers to someone who is “subject” to the control and power of others.41 Baptist concepts of religious identity and corporeal membership make use of this paradoxical relationship by its emphasis on an atomized self and abnegation of individual will. Once a member, the believer had to acquiesce to religious authority via the minister, members, ritual practice, and church court. Baptists joined in a community of believers based on a model of familial relationship. They voluntarily gave power over to the church by agreeing to be watchful over others, and to be watched by them, to correct one another when necessary, and to serve the interests of the group rather than one’s own, as part of the body of Christ. The convert underwent a highly personalized experience of spiritual transformation and then willingly placed him- or herself and his or her body under the command of other believers in a specified religious community.

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Those who became Baptists did so through a rigorous conversion that manifested in the body; this visceral experience took the believer on an emotionally draining and physically demanding journey, one that occurred individually but was meaningful in a community of family, friends, and fellow believers. Religious conviction and conversion was an interactive process, which took months to achieve and followed a pattern of psychological struggle, bodily performance, and emotional release. Joy, relief, peace, and calm followed doubt, indecision, fear, and depression. This choreography of conversion, enacted with common theology, language, and movement, was experienced singularly and collectively. When this spiritual expedition ended, the new believer gained not only a sense of elation and respite but a new identity and status as a church member. The drama of conversion would be followed by the bodily enactment of religious ritual meant to nourish believers’ spiritual states and to set them apart as brothers and sisters in Christ. The emotional outbursts and bodily contortions of conversion, paradoxically, would be followed by decorous behavior and circumspection. Conversion was the first step in a three-part process; ritual performance and church discipline would make saints out of sinners and create new Baptists in heart, mind, and body.

Chapter 4

“Putting on Christianity”: Ritual Practice

On a Saturday in October 1792, Elizabeth Powell recounted her conversion experience in the Brandywine meetinghouse of Chester County, Pennsylvania. The next day, she and Mary Davis waited to be baptized in the Brandywine River by Elder Joshua Vaughan. Before he could proceed, Joseph and Mary Powell interrupted the ritual to object to Elizabeth’s admission because of “an old abuse of her tongue.” Joseph claimed he would “not sit in communion” with Elizabeth unless she gave satisfaction for her irregular speech. Mary asserted that if Elizabeth acknowledged her sinful conduct to the assembled members, she would be “reconciled with her.” After their declarations, the Powells went home, leaving Elizabeth to apologize for her past behavior to Vaughan and six other congregants. The baptismal rite resumed but Elizabeth’s entry to membership was momentarily delayed by the Powells’ announcement. Two months later, the church welcomed her as a member.1 The laity played a crucial role in ritual practice among Anglo-American Baptists. Though they were recent members themselves (joining the church in 1790), Joseph and Mary challenged the elder’s acceptance of Elizabeth’s admission. They were obligated to question her entry into the godly community because they had knowledge of previous conduct that connoted an unchristian spirit; membership could not be conferred unless old sins had been repented. Elizabeth’s past behavior did not suit that of the ideal Christian— or woman—in this religious society. As members of the laity, the Powells willingly disrupted the sacred rite of baptism; allowing it to go forward without speaking up would contaminate the spiritual community. Clerical and lay intervention in Baptist church rites contributed to a range of customs, which changed over time and varied by region. The parameters of this ritual practice were peculiar to time and place and strongly rooted in the historical background of its practitioners. Baptists of British North America traced their beginnings to the activities of their English ancestors, who struggled to define their own traditions as true embodiments of Christ’s word. Interpreting what that true church represented and which rites were to be used became the subject of intense deliberation among English Baptists

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during the seventeenth century. This resulted in a complex and often conflicting legacy, which informed the church rites of Anglo-American Baptists and their adaptations in eighteenth-century congregations. Through the trial and error of ritual performances and theological discussions, Baptist laypeople and clergymen honed a repertoire of rites suited to their specific social needs and political contexts. At the same time, Baptists invested them with a particular spiritual ethos that occurred through the body. These rites provided a means to enact and perpetuate faith among believers and communicated knowledge about spirituality, social decorum, and religious community; they told Baptists about their place in the larger world. In addition, ritual practice became a mechanism to inculcate self-identity. Ritual served as a centerpiece of Baptist corporeal spirituality in early America. It became a primary means of evoking and retaining religious belief. As with conversion, church ritual occurred through sacred performances. Early American Baptists utilized bodily imagery to define their unity as co-religionists, which they, in turn, affirmed through faith and rite. Following New Testament theology, Baptists placed the body at the center of Christian belief. As a site of sin and salvation, as a focus of faith and unbelief, the body revealed the level of spirituality attained by the individual. Believers entered into faith through converting the body, maintained spiritual identity based on ritualizing the body, and experienced falling away and reintegration through disciplining the body.2 The centrality of the body in this theology is reflected in the common Protestant phrase “holy walking and conversation,” one used regularly by Baptists. Holy walking—or walking “the path of righteousness”—denoted faithfulness to an ideal of spiritual belief as active and embodied. The term “conversation” referred not only to an individual’s verbal proficiency but also to one’s personal conduct, social reputation, and way of life generally. To maintain one’s faith, one had “to keep a close walk with God and be earnest with him day and night.” Church members who engaged in sinful behavior were accused of “irregular” or “disorderly walking.” This metaphor of walking with the Lord was utilized in church preambles. Members of the Middletown meeting agreed “to walk in all holiness, godliness, humility, and brother love, as much as in as lyeth to render our communion delightful to God, comfortable to ourselves, and lovely to the rest of the lord’s people.” Vigilance in “holy walking” was necessary to avoid backsliding. To continue walking the path of righteousness required belief, perseverance, and concentration. Abigail Harris argued that “a hard heart, a blind mind, and languid affections” resulted when “we are most off our guard, off of our watch, when cares or trifles too much ingross the mind.”

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To be a good Baptist necessitated physical and emotional commitments ranging from the sincerity of internal belief to the comportment of outward behavior. Sharp distinctions between body and mind, belief and behavior, were blurred within Baptist cosmology. Spiritual fusion of the believer with God and the undifferentiated nature of the body/mind occurred through the corporealization of church ritual and discipline, whereby the body became a vital instrument of religious faith. For Baptists, such faith was more than an emotional exercise; it was a process of embodiment that touched all aspects of their lives. Ritual was a way to enact belief and help integrate the convert into a new life. It also represented what ought to be: the Baptist ideal of sinless bodies, peaceful souls, and a religious community that was unified and contained. The physical requirements of conversion continued with ritual practice; members who participated in church rites placed their bodies in the care of others, just as caring for the body was the focus of many rituals: feeding it, washing it, holding it, kissing it, and healing it. Baptists constructed ritual as a set of movements, postures, and gestures to be practiced repeatedly. The ritualization and regulation of Baptist bodies sustained appropriate belief and behavior. Through ritual, believers learned the range of motion and expression performed in the godly community. Temporary and contingent, church rites required repetition to sustain spiritual identity and a sense of religious community in a believing body.3 Eighteenth-century Baptists practiced an extensive repertoire of rituals, made up of “the nine Christian rites.” Not all congregations exercised these rites at all times or in all regions of British North America. The nine rituals utilized by American Baptists included adult baptism by immersion, communion, the laying on of hands, the right hand of fellowship, the love feast, washing the saints’ feet, the kiss of charity, the fellowship of children (also called “dry christening”), and anointing the sick with oil. Examining the changing nature of ritual practices uncovers a complex web of historical traditions, local practices, spiritual ideals, and secular realities. Baptists celebrated a range of church rites based on the experience of early Christians as outlined in the New Testament. In their attempt to replicate the customs of the ancient church, Baptists culled the Bible for precedent to give form to their practice; as one church book asserted “we believe the scriptures of the Old and New Testament . . . are an invariable rule of faith and practice.” They resurrected “old” rituals in order to define “new” community. Through the ongoing practice of church rites, Baptists affirmed their identity among the elect and their dedication to a righteous life. As an expression of religious community, ritual established members’ ties to their spiritual siblings. Ritual

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was susceptible to change and American Baptists tested many ritual forms during the eighteenth century. With time, they revised some rites and omitted others from their inventory. Defining ritual orthodoxy was an ongoing process for Baptists as they deliberated the utility and meaning of New Testament rites.4 The creation of ritual orthodoxy occurred through a process of trial and error during the eighteenth century—a pivotal period in the proliferation of the American Baptist religion. Baptists in different regions of the American colonies observed a variety of rites. Rhode Island Baptists made the “sixth principle” (the laying on of hands) a central ritual of their community, while many Regular Baptists in Virginia and South Carolina did not require this rite. A majority of Delaware Valley Baptists used it. Separate Baptists in Virginia rejected it, but those in North Carolina specified its use in their covenants. Washing the saints’ feet was performed in the Mid-Atlantic and Chesapeake. Believers in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Delaware utilized the rite of anointing the sick with oil. “Dry christening” was a rite used episodically by both Regular and Separate Baptist congregations in Virginia, despite the fact that it was Separate in origin.5 Besides baptism and communion, the right hand of fellowship and the imposition of hands were the church rites that pervaded Baptist meetings from Massachusetts to Georgia. The array of religious ritual evident throughout the American colonies was a result of the Baptists’ commitment to congregationalism. Each church was the ultimate authority on issues of belief and rite within its own community. Many ritual traditions existed among Baptists within the same colony and even the same county. The Dan River and Fall Creek meetings, though both located in Pittsylvania County, Virginia, and both Separate congregations, did not perform the same rites. Unlike the Dan River church, which practiced only baptism, communion, and the laying on of hands, the Fall Creek church embraced all nine rites. The Kehukey church in North Carolina, a Regular meeting, practiced the rite of the laying on of hands, but a branch of this meeting in a neighboring county did not. A change in theology did not always mean a change in ritual practice. Many General Baptists became Particular Baptists without adopting the imposition of hands. Similarly, the theological divide between Regular and Separate Baptists was more apparent than real when it came to ritual. For example, the Regular church at Linville’s Creek used the Separate rite of blessing children. At the same time, some Separate churches limited their rites to the ones found in Regular meetings (baptism, communion, and laying on of hands). Morgan Edwards pointed out that not all Separates practiced the same rituals: “there are some

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exceptions: neither do all regard the nine Christian rites, but only baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and imposition of hands.” Furthermore, doctrinal and regional differences among clergy did not always mean a divergence in practice. Rane Chastain, a Separate Virginia Baptist, John Waller, a Regular Virginia Baptist, William Kinnersley, a Regular Pennsylvania Baptist, and John Davis, a Regular New Jersey Baptist, all administered the rite of anointing the sick with oil.6 This intermixing of ritual practice attests to the role of both laity and clergy in defining sacramental traditions; it also demonstrates the localized nature of this religion. The primary ritual for all Baptists was adult baptism by immersion, which one minister defined as “a rite of divine institution and perpetual obligation.” Adult baptism required the initiate to be completely “dipped” in a body of water. This ritualized submergence signified not only the death of the sinner but also of the sinful body; to be “buried with Christ in baptism” marked the end of one life from the beginning of another. Death, burial, and resurrection occurred when the individual was plunged in water and raised up again. After passage through the “watery grave” of baptism, the true believer was reborn to “walk in newness of life.” Baptists used death imagery purposefully to indicate the dramatic nature of the second birth; as John Taylor asserted, the minister’s task during baptism was “to lean one back and figurate a burial” as a symbol of this spiritual transition.7 The baptismal rite provided the means of “encouraging hope of pardon, sanctification and salvation; putting on Christianity, binding the party to observe its laws, having a right of admission into a visible church; and confirming the doctrine of resurrection.” The multiple connotations of this act made it the defining rite of the Baptist religion. Moreover, “putting on Christianity” evoked an active approach to religious ritual that was characteristic not only of the baptismal rite but of others as well. This was not meaningless repetition, but the conscious enactment of deeply held beliefs by members united in spiritual community. As a symbolic act, this ritual told a story of renewal, salvation, and acceptance to its participants and observers. It provided a way for Baptists to shape their worldview and to delineate the meaning of sanctity within their godly order.8 The baptismal rite came after the recitation of a persuasive conversion narrative before assembled church members and onlookers. The initiates would stand in a row “hand in hand, and the minister joining the rank at the head, would march down the water regularly, like soldiers of Jesus, singing as they went.” One by one, the minister would take the initiate by the hand, lead them to the water, and placing one hand in theirs and the other on their

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head, “dip him discreetly backwards all under the water,” at the same time reciting the words, “in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the authority of my office, I baptize thee, in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” After the rite had been performed, fellow members welcomed the new converts. In some congregations, initiates would change their clothes and return to the meetinghouse for the laying on of hands ritual. The second birth through immersion indicated an extraordinary transition from one spiritual status to another; as both a beginning and an end, it transfigured the recipient. As a public performance, baptism was indicative of a cumulative spiritual and physical transformation. Henry Toler described the altered appearance of “Sister Strong” after her immersion: she “seem’d happy & pleasant in her baptism, as its right subjects often are coming out of the water, with an open, yet humble countenance.” Baptism marked the end of an often long and laborious spiritual struggle.9 As a beginning, baptism designated one’s entry into the church and access to the privileges of membership, which included regular attendance at worship services and participation in church rituals and church business, such as overseeing other members, choosing and hiring a minister, and contributing to church finances. In joining the church, converts agreed to place themselves—and their bodies—under the supervision of their fellow members. Baptism was a seasonal rite. The majority of Baptist meetings baptized new members in the warmest months, from May to September, with some as late as November.10 While few communicants underwent baptism between December and April, it was not unheard of for believers to gather near icy ponds and rivers for this rite. Rhoda Heath was baptized on a February day when it was four degrees below zero. During the winter of 1752, two men were dipped in a frozen river near Mansfield, New Jersey. To facilitate the ritual, “the ice was broken for the purpose, in the form of a grave,” and the two men immersed in the frigid stream. The physical dangers of performing this rite in the dead of winter were outweighed by the spiritual power it invoked. David George baptized his first converts at Christmas time after relocating to Nova Scotia during the Revolutionary War. During a revival in the winter of 1788–89, John Taylor and his colleagues found they had to carry out baptisms twice a month, dunking thirty people at a time: “I once baptized twenty-six myself on a cold, freezing day—the ice cut about six inches thick where the people stood close to the edge of the icy grave.” Despite these conditions, John Leland asserted that no one became ill after such an experience: “I have seen ice cut more than a foot thick, and people baptized in the water, and yet I have never heard of any person taking cold, or any kind of sickness, in so

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doing.” David Thomas believed that God protected baptismal candidates from any harmful effects.11 The rite of baptism was administered in the many rivers dotting the landscape of colonial America. The Baptists of Philadelphia utilized the Schuylkill and Delaware Rivers for this ritual. Chester County Baptists settled near the Brandywine River, while members of the Lower Dublin church in the Northern Liberties used the Pennepek Creek. Welsh Baptists of the Great Valley built their meetinghouse in Tredyfrrin alongside a brook they called Nant yr Ewig. New Jersey Baptists made use of lakes and rivers as well as the brooks and estuaries situated along the Delaware River and Atlantic Ocean. Baptists in Delaware organized their church near Iron Hill Brook, which ran into the Christiana River. Virginia Baptists employed the Potomac, James, and Rappahannock Rivers as well as the many contiguous tributaries for their baptisms. Virginia meetinghouses in particular bear the mark of their watery associations with names like Blackwater, Nottoway River, Guinea’s Bridge, Goose Creek, and Racoon Swamp. The performance of religious ritual out-of-doors extended the reach and power of Baptists beyond the meetinghouse while also sacralizing the physical world. Some churches cleared landings near the water for their “baptisterion,” or the site where the congregation gathered, the minister preached, and the rite was administered. The Philadelphia church had a large stone on the eastern bank of the Schuylkill River that served as the pastor’s pulpit.12 Immersion required a complete change of clothing. Converts usually brought their own clothes; in some cases, the church provided initiates and the minister with special robes to wear during this rite. Some congregations formalized the arrangements to prepare converts for dipping. The Scotch Plains church appointed a team of four white women to “superintend the dressing and assisting females at the ordinance of baptism.”13 Changing clothes required shelter and the Philadelphia meeting constructed a special building for this purpose (see Figure 1). This baptismal house was set near the water, divided into two sections for each sex. The edifice stood as a material manifestation of the spiritual threshold that believers passed over as they moved from being degenerate sinners to sanctified believers. Baptist terminology reinforced this image of the threshold; church books often used the phrase “a door was opened,” to denote when the minister would ask if any of those present wished to relate their conversion and undergo baptism. At the water’s edge, clergy would typically exhort those in attendance, particularly those about to be submerged, about the seriousness of this undertaking. In many churches, the rite of baptism was performed, followed

Figure 1. Block print of a minister performing a baptism in the Schuylkill River. From Morgan Edwards, Materials Toward a History of Baptists in Pennsylvania, vol. 1 (Philadelphia: Joseph Crukshank and Isaac Collins, 1770), Accession# Aa7770 F56. Courtesy of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

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by the imposition of hands by the minister, and singing and praying by the congregation.14 Equally important to the execution of the baptismal rite was the presence of the community. To legitimate this rite required not only complete immersion of the believer’s body in water but also saints and sinners to witness the event. Hezekiah Smith baptized two people before a crowd of hundreds. Some converts underwent this rite at their own homes before large assemblies. James and Nancy Green were baptized in a “large pond near the sea side” of their New Jersey home. The ritual took place “before a large collection of people of different denominations—the large concourse of people behaving extreamly composed and the profound silence that were amongst the multitude of people when the ordinance[s] were adminster’d.” Daniel Fristoe witnessed such spectatorship when he administered the baptismal rite to thirteen people before a crowd of 2,000, some of whom climbed trees “Zacheus like” to get a better view of the proceedings. It was not unusual for supportive members, interested hearers, and jeering spectators to watch Baptist ritual performance. In addition, the celebration of baptism as a public, communal event instigated bodily performances in members and nonmembers alike. Fristoe observed this after completing the forementioned baptisms: “In going home I turned to look at the people who remained by the water side and saw some screaming on the ground, some wringing their hands, and some in ecstasies of joy, some praying, others cursing and swearing and exceedingly outrageous.” John Leland heard “many souls declare they first were convicted, or first found pardon going to, at, or coming from the water” during a baptism.15 In this sacred space, participants and onlookers alike witnessed the spiritual power of ritual practice and the contagious nature of evangelical religion. The theater of baptism was one of many ways Baptists redefined sacred contours. Henry Toler carried out his ministry in the Northern Neck under a stand of trees, near bridges and ferries, in warehouses, and on outdoor stages specially constructed for preaching. John Williams sermonized in the barns and arbors of his neighborhood as well as at his father’s house. Henry Smalley of New Jersey preached in his own meetinghouse and at local courthouses. Some men spoke from barrels, wagons, and horseblocks. Like other evangelicals, Baptists appropriated public spaces for their meetings. In this way, they inculcated their ideal of the sacred into the secular world. They reconfigured consecrated sites, as Daniel Marshall did by preaching in front of a deserted Anglican chapel. Evangelicals were ecumenical in their use of sacralized space. Isaac Backus followed this pattern on a preaching tour

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through Virginia, when he spoke at a Presbyterian church, a Methodist meetinghouse, and “an old England church.” The meetinghouse was one venue of religious performance. Preaching, conversions, and baptisms were held outside, while praying, family worship, hymn singing, and love feasts took place at home. By sanctifying places beyond the meetinghouse—the outdoors, private households, and public buildings—Baptists translated their notion of piety to the wider community. While such activity exposed them to scrutiny and censure by the unbelieving public, it also expanded the range and impact of their theology. Preaching and ritual practice, in and out of the meetinghouse, made the godly community actively present to itself. The use and meaning of ritual within Baptist meetings permeated not only the physical landscape out-of-doors but also the domestic sphere. Meeting in individuals’ homes had been a tradition among dissenting Christians in Europe and it continued in colonial America. This practice originated with the ancient believers who held household services. Some Baptists took this precedent seriously; members of the Piper Creek church in Frederick County, Maryland, never built a meetinghouse because they preferred “to assemble in each other’s private dwelling in imitation of primitive Christians.”16 Communion was another primary ritual of the Baptist church. Most meetings celebrated the Lord’s Supper once a month. Some held this ritual every quarter, while those without ministers had communion every two months when visiting clergy could come to officiate the rite. Meetings of preparation were held on the Saturday before communion Sunday. Members were to use this time to reflect on Christ’s death and resurrection and examine the state of their faith. They were to approach this holy rite with the proper solemnity. Communion confirmed a member’s first expression of faith and his or her ongoing dedication to a Christian life as well as commitment to the religious community. Only members in good standing could participate in this ritual; those under censure for misconduct could not partake of the meal. Recipients remained seated as the minister administered the bread and wine while reciting the “words of distribution.” This was followed by a hymn, collection, and benediction. The accouterments of communion were relatively plain; poor churches used simple communion ware, while larger churches had silver chalices and plates to hold the bread and wine. Celebrated on a regular basis, communion enhanced spiritual community among the members.17 The other rituals were used individually and in concert. At a ritual celebration like the love feast—when members gathered to eat in a private home,

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to sing hymns, pray, and give donations to the poor—believers performed other rites in conjunction with this one, such as practicing footwashing and the right hand of fellowship. The love feast, also called the feast of charity, was meant to promote “brotherly love and relieving the poor.” The Fall Creek church practiced this rite from the onset of its organization under the leadership of its minister, Samuel Harris: “From the beginning of 1771 these people met at Mr. Harris’s house, where they were entertained at his expense; he killing beeves [cattle] and opening his cellars against the times of meeting; these entertainments he called his love-feasts.” At the conclusion of this meal, the host would offer the right hand of fellowship to the departing guests as a symbol of communal unity.18 The mixture of food, fellowship, and bodily contact increased social interaction and communion among the members at the same time it reinforced awareness of their connection as part of the same spiritual family. Such physical contact through ritual elided secular boundaries and corporeal distinctions among believers as “one body in Christ.” Morgan Edwards recommended using love feasts in combination with washing the saints’ feet, the kiss of charity, and the right hand of fellowship, as well as singing and prayer. Washing the saints’ feet was often accompanied by the recitation of conversions and sermons. In 1771, a group of Separate Baptists, led by John Williams and other ministers, met at a night meeting where they “took experience [for] 3 hours” and “then proceeded to fulfill the ordinance in the 13th chapr. John [feet washing].” At a meeting in July of the same year, Samuel Harris preached, and “after he was done he wash’d the saints feet & truly the love of God seem’d to be among us.” Like the kiss of charity and right hand of fellowship, washing the saints’ feet was a ritual that affirmed the spiritual connection between the brethren and sisters.19 During church services, rituals were often used in combination. In 1773, the Albemarle church ended Sunday worship with the right hand of fellowship followed by the kiss of charity. This latter rite was a visible means “to plight and testify brother[ly] love” to fellow members. Kissing fellow members (of the same sex) on the cheek was symbolic of the close bonds that tied them together as a community. At another Sunday service, two ministers preached, another baptized two people and administered communion, and they “parted with the brethren with a kiss of charity.” Like the kiss of the charity, the right hand of fellowship signaled spiritual connection and was used on Sundays to welcome new members. The laity offered the right hand of fellowship to converts as acknowledgment of their saintly status and acceptance into the church. The imposition of hands took place

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in some cases immediately after baptism, followed by prayer and singing, while in others it occurred the next day in the meetinghouse during the regular Sunday service. The laying on of hands was used to signify the believer’s status as recently converted and newly baptized. In his description of the imposition of hands, John Taylor noted the importance of this rite and the ways in which ministers customized it to fit individual needs: Those upwards of fifty stood up in one solemn line on the bank of the river, taking up about as many yards as there were individuals—the males first in the line. About four ministers went together. Each one laid his right hand on the head of the dedicated person, and one prayed for him, and after praying for three or four of them another proceeded [to pray] till they went through [the line]. It would appear as if that solemn dedication might be some barrier to future apostacy, for the prayers were [uttered] with great solemnity and fervour and [were designed] for that particular person according to their age and circumstances.20

As a ministerial seal, the imposition of hands finalized the convert’s entry into faith and membership at the same time as it protected the believer from “future apostacy.” A more obscure Baptist ritual was anointing the sick with oil, an act whose purpose—to relieve the ill of their suffering—was a form of faith healing. Though officiated by a minister and group of elders, this rite was utilized when requested by an ailing member. After confessing one’s sin, a sick person was prayed over and anointed with oil to absolve the sufferer of sin and cure the ailment. Baptists in the Mid-Atlantic and the Chesapeake practiced anointing with oil. Owen Thomas, minister at Welsh Tract, declared that he administered this rite only three times during his twenty-year tenure as a clergyman. However infrequently applied, anointing with oil demonstrated a belief in faith healing and a dependence on the church for physical and spiritual well-being. Ministers as well as laity endorsed the use of this rite. Morgan Edwards carried out this ritual when requested by Catalina David, who had been sick “in a dying way for a long while.” Three days after Edwards anointed her, David recovered and left her sick bed. Another miraculous case involved the wife of Rane Chastain, whose “deplorable, violent spasms had so set her joints that her fingers could not be straightened nor her limbs perform their functions.” After John Waller administered oil, “the cure was speedy and perfect.” Baptist ministers elicited this ritual for their own benefit. After various treatments for a sickly arm, Hugh Davis requested the elders anoint him with oil to relieve his physical

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disorder; his health was restored soon afterward. During his last illness, Abel Morgan, Jr., asked his church to perform this ritual.21 William Kinnersley, an English immigrant and early minister in the Delaware Valley, was initially skeptical about the efficacy of this rite. After a crisis of faith over this ordinance in 1705, Kinnersley embraced it and actively sought out those in need of healing. The first person he approached, “a gentlewoman who had the dead palsy on one side,” refused his offer because she had no faith in this practice. Kinnersley sought out a member of his church, Mary Munings, a milliner, who had a crippled daughter. He apprised the milliner and her daughter of his conviction to perform the ritual: I told her how I had been convinced touching the ordinance of anointing with oil. She was much surprised (knowing how vigorously I had opposed it) and asked, whether I had faith in the application of it to her daughter. I told her I had; and asked, “whether she believed in the ordinance?” She replied in the affirmative. Then I asked her daughter, “child! Do you believe the lord can make you whole?” She answered, “the lord’s hand is not shortened that it cannot save, neither is his ear heavy that he cannot hear.”

Kinnersley began the ritual by first blessing the oil, and setting it apart by prayer, “from a common to a special use.” Then he anointed the sixteen-yearold girl three times in the places where she was crippled: “her hip bone was out of the socket and would run up towards her arm, her leg was crooked, and the ankle was started out of its place . . . [and] her left foot was in the form of a stump.” Presented with such deformity, Kinnersley had doubts about his ability to heal this young woman: “My countenance fell, and I said to myself, I am worse than a madman! Can crooked limbs be made straight?” He persevered, anointed her, and then fell to his knees in prayer. After twice proclaiming, “child, the lord hath made thee whole!” she was healed. Kinnersley reported her response: “The damsel got up and said, ‘what shall I render to the lord for all his benefits! While you pronounced the whole the second time my bones snapped to their places without any pain!’ and to our astonishment we beheld her straight and whole and a full hand’s breadth taller than she was before.” This young woman’s recovery attests to the power of faith and the interactive role of minister and lay recipient in bringing an end to physical suffering.22 Church ritual served as a vehicle of Baptist religious experience and self-identity. It acknowledged the saints’ religious character and animated the members’ original state at the time of their conversion, while simultaneously connecting them to the godly order. Ritual recognized the experience

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of believers and invited nonbelievers to listen and participate. The regular use of church rites preserved and enhanced the believers’ spiritual status and produced a sense of belonging among converts. Ritual shaped both individual selfhood and collective identity within a community of believers. At the same time, it separated Baptists from other religious groups and from secular society with all of its “sinful, carnal ways.” Ritual practice instilled unity and structure into a religious community but it could also create chaos and disorder. Rituals did not always run smoothly; members skipped communion, left before the services ended, and challenged the cleric’s authority to administer a particular rite. Some members refused to participate to protest a particular issue or bring attention to another’s behavior. A male member of the Ketocton meeting informed the elders that he would not take communion because he believed the church was not doing enough to “support their own poor independent of the civil government.” Mary Church, a member of Pennepek, refused to attend the Lord’s Supper because she disliked the new minister.23 Disagreements over ritual fractured spiritual unity. At the Baptist meetinghouse in Cape May, eight members of the newly constituted church wished “to wash each others feet” and in the process “have their hearts wash’d too.” The minister disagreed with their request and asked for help from Philadelphia to settle the dispute and put an end to the prevailing “party spirit.” Political infighting affected ritual practice at the Pennepek church during the 1740s, because of the activities of George Eaton, an unlicensed preacher. Eaton had split the members by attempting to set up his own meeting and by flaunting the elders’ authority. This conflict spilled over into communion when two of Eaton’s party, Samuel Swift and Peter Eaton, showed up to participate in this rite despite their disorderly conduct. Minister Jenkin Jones disallowed their participation and admonished them for violating the sanctity of this ritual: “yet they did carnally gnash with their teeth the sign and sacrament of so holy a thing.” Similarly, church politics invaded ritual practice when Henry Woodrow, an elder on trial, accused one of the deacons of “arbitrary proceedings” in church polity. Woodrow’s accusation occurred on a Saturday after a preparatory meeting for communion. On the following day, deacon Samuel Morgan “refused to give the bread and wine” to Woodrow and two of his supporters. Undaunted, Woodrow “snatched the bread” out of Morgan’s hands and administered it to himself.24 Such unorthodox behavior hardly fostered spiritual harmony. Baptists experimented with and codified church rites as they searched for meaning. One example of an ancient church rite that was practiced for a

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time during the eighteenth century was washing the saints’ feet. As a ritual specific to the body, in which each individual touched and cleansed another’s feet, this rite enjoined all believers to be of service to others. Typically, Baptists utilized this rite after communion, and at night meetings and love feasts. The interpretation of this rite diverged over time. Morgan Edwards advised that washing the saints’ feet be used “to oblige Christians to be benevolently condescending one to another; and to signify to them a cleansing from the sins they are liable to after baptism.” John Williams also defended this rite; he believed it to be one blessed by Jesus even though it was denied by “the greatest part of the world of mankind, even by the greatest part of Christians.” The Kehukee Association agreed that washing feet was a duty, while the Ketocton Association resolved that was not an ordinance of Christ. Of those meetings that made note of its use, some required it of all members while others utilized it on a voluntary basis. The PBA received several queries about washing feet. After Kingwood submitted a question on this rite in 1773, the association informed the church that though it could not agree on this issue, they recommended that the church remain unified and not condemn one another for using this rite. Two decades later another query on footwashing led the PBA to assert that though it did not recognize this as a mandatory ritual, it did not object to those who believed it was their duty to practice it. The Redstone Association of western Pennsylvania debated this rite in 1777 and agreed to leave its practice to the discretion of individual churches. By 1804, this ritual had fallen into disuse in this area. Over the course of the eighteenth century, this rite became increasingly optional among many Baptists. For some Virginians, this rite lost its spiritual efficacy. Washing feet was not a means to cement spiritual connection but rather equated with the labor of enslaved blacks. In the 1790s, the Dover Association decided that this rite was not “an ordinance of the Gospel, but an act of entertainment, and being a servile act, . . . may include any other act usually performed by servants.” The Dover Association’s pronouncement of this rite as “entertainment” and “servile” de-spiritualized its meaning at the same time white members equated it with service (i.e., the work of slaves) and something they did not do. The disuse of washing the saints’ feet resulted in fewer ritual opportunities for church members to celebrate their familial relationship and to enact spiritual egalitarianism. At Saylor Creek, members held a discussion on “washing the saints’ feet” and the brethren concluded that it was an ordinance of God “instituted by Christ to be observed by his church.” While the Goose Creek meeting endorsed this ritual as a “Christian duty,” it did not

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require it of members. The South Quay church practiced washing the saints’ feet to “commemorate Jesus’ death and suffering.” Individual congregations continued to set their own policy, even as the use of washing the saints’ feet became episodic in the early republic.25 The experience of the Linville’s Creek meeting exemplified changes in church polity and ritual practice and their impact on the godly community. Founded in 1756 by four men and three women, this church was located near the Shenandoah River in Frederick County. The congregation gained members from white settlers already living on the frontier as well as from Pennsylvania Baptists who migrated into the Shenandoah Valley before and after the American Revolution. The influx of Pennsylvania Baptists continued with the settlement of laity and clergy, including John Alderson, Sr., who served as minister beginning in the 1760s. In 1772, the church decided to alter its policy toward errant members: “It was agreed that private offenses are to be dealt with privately and publick offenses are to be dealt with publickly.” What they defined as public and private offenses is unclear; what is clear is that lay members were to have less say in the status of disorderly members. Certain offenses would only to be heard by the minister and elders. At the same time, the church leaders agreed that candidates for baptism could decide whether their conversion “will be examined privately or publickly.” The recitation of conversions only to the minister and/or elders, who then would report on the experience to the rest of the membership, enhanced clerical power while it decreased the role of laymen and women in accepting or rejecting a new member. These significant changes in polity lessened the ability of the laity to exercise power in the meeting. The ritual use of the right hand of fellowship, a rite often carried out in conjunction with admission to membership, also came under debate at Linville’s Creek. In 1791, the church voted on whether all members would perform this rite or only church officers. The decision that this rite be carried out “by the moderator or minister only, in the name and behalf of the whole church,” changed the ritual format and relations between the laity and clergy. Restricting the performance of this rite to officers meant that lay members had a less active role in the church. This trend to consolidate clerical power continued, at the same time, the meeting took steps to safeguard itself from outside scrutiny. Four years later, the church decided to hold business meetings every two months, rather than once a month, and changed its record keeping. By vote, it agreed that the absence of members from business meetings or public preaching “will only be entered into the minutes if their misconduct leads to censor or suspension.”26 By the end of the century, the

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power of the laity had been limited while oversight of members had lapsed; this significantly altered the nature of spiritual community in the Linville’s Creek church. Ritual practice revealed power relations within the Baptist church. How church rites were structured, who officiated, and who participated, are important considerations in understanding the flow of power in evangelical congregations. One ritual in which we see this dynamic at work is the rite of the laying on of hands—a contentious subject in Baptist history. For eighteenthcentury Baptists, the imposition of hands set certain believers apart from others. According to Morgan Edwards, this was a “rite of divine origin and perpetual continuance,” which was to be used after a person was baptized to denote the “consequent ruling of the Holy Ghost.” It was often performed in conjunction with the right hand of fellowship. The imposition of hands was utilized by churches to ordain ministers and induct officers into church government as well as when infants and young children were blessed before the congregation. The laying on of hands was a central ordinance of the Baptist church, after baptism and communion. Despite the prevalence of this rite among Baptists in British North America, it remained controversial during the eighteenth century.27 In 1742, the Philadelphia Baptist Association formally adopted the London Confession of Faith, with two emendations, one of which required the laying on of hands as a church rite.28 This formal decree did not end the debate. William Van Horn, minister of the Southampton church, aired his opposition to the imposition of hands beginning in the 1760s. When Isaac Hough, Jr., related his conversion and offered himself for membership two decades later, he admitted that he “had doubts concerning the practice of laying on of hands.” Van Horn took this occasion to renew his objections. A discussion ensued but no decision was made whether to accept or reject Hough’s application. After three months, the issue was broached again and the members agreed by unanimous vote to allow each person to state his or her preference when applying for membership; if individuals did not see it as “their duty to submit to imposition of hands,” they would be welcome without it. The imposition of hands also generated a public debate between two leading ministers of Pennsylvania, David Jones of Chester County and Dr. Samuel Jones of Philadelphia County (no relation) in the 1780s. Dr. Jones wrote a pamphlet on this ritual in 1783. He traced its beginnings to the dominance of Welsh ministers in Pennsylvania and the PBA; their influence accounted for its extensive use among Delaware Valley Baptists. After an examination of

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the Bible, Dr. Jones concluded that there was no scriptural basis for the imposition of hands. It had only been practiced in Pennsylvania because of tradition; he admitted he had long performed it merely out of habit. It was only to be used for “the purpose of conveying miraculous gifts, and only by the Apostles, who had that power.” Lacking such power, Dr. Jones argued that contemporary ministers practiced this church rite because of social custom, not scriptural direction. He cautioned other clergymen against using this ritual without “endeavoring to enlighten their churches, and bring them off from an unscriptural practice,” and he questioned the PBA for endorsing a ritual that was “not supported by the word of God.” David Jones responded by issuing his own pamphlet defending the imposition of hands as essential to spiritual community. Tracing the use of this rite back to the Apostles and the Protestant Reformation, Jones asseverated this rite as a divine ordinance. Citing Scripture, the church fathers, and two eighteenth-century Baptist luminaries who advocated its use, he excoriated Dr. Jones’s call to eliminate this rite. He accused his fellow cleric of inciting schism by urging ministers to tell their congregants that this ritual was not based on Scripture. Jones requested that his colleague answer these charges; as a “precious ordinance of Christ,” this rite demanded his conscientious defense.29 Baptists in Virginia began to doubt the meaning and legality of the imposition of hands in the late eighteenth century. In June 1787, the Ketocton Assocation decided that ministers who were ordained without the imposition of hands could baptize new members. Other associations made the ritual a voluntary practice. In May 1790, the Strawberry Association agreed that the use of this rite after baptism was to be left to the minister’s or elder’s discretion. By 1800, members of the Ketocton Association again questioned the necessity of this ritual and it fell into disuse. This association formalized the policy by expunging the laying on of hands from its confession of faith. Disputes over ritual did not mean that Baptists lacked theological substance or held frivolous attitudes toward church polity or religious community. Rather these conflicts reveal the power with which believers invested church rites. Though great variety existed in the use of ritual by Baptists in North America, all Baptists shared a desire to create and maintain a “true church of Christ.” Alterations in practice connoted a search for meaning, an exploration by those who sought knowledge through ritual. This search changed over time as the size and number of Baptist congregations increased and the political context was transformed after the American Revolution. By the 1780s and 1790s, Baptists faced new challenges. Competition from Methodists and Universalists led Baptists to codify their practice just as

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ritual innovation declined and the range of rites practiced by Baptists decreased.30 Anointing with oil, love feasts, the kiss of charity, washing the saints’ feet, and the imposition of hands were used with less frequency by the turn of the nineteenth century. Baptist ritual practice focused on baptism by immersion, communion, the right hand of fellowship, and the imposition of hands in specific cases, such as the ordination of ministers and the induction of church officers. The use of church rites among Anglo-American Baptists underwent a period of experimentation during the eighteenth century. Baptists of early Pennsylvania crafted religious practice that was influenced by Keithian Quakers. The founding of the Philadelphia Baptist Association in 1707 brought clerical oversight to orthodox belief and behavior and made ritual practice more uniform. Nonetheless, rites such as the imposition of hands continued to be debated by Delaware Valley Baptists. Virginia Baptists demonstrated a broader spectrum of ritual practice because of the presence of Regular and Separate Baptists, who interacted with one another and borrowed each other’s rites. When these two groups joined together in one association in 1787, ritual variation lessened.31 At the same time, the disestablishment of the Anglican Church in Virginia ushered in a new era of religious pluralism, which transformed the status of Baptists and their relationship to the state and other religious groups. The radical challenge posed by evangelicalism declined as religious toleration was instituted.32 By the early nineteenth century, the increasing importance of associations in Virginia and Pennsylvania downplayed the multiplicity of ritual customs; yet due to congregationalism local traditions endured. While variance persisted locally, denominational uniformity occurred at the regional and state level.

Chapter 5

“Holy Walking and Conversation”: Church Discipline

When Betsy Goodman decided to leave her husband in the spring of 1813, her action became a citable offense for the Boar Swamp meeting. At the same time, Betsy’s mother, Judith Garthwright, was accused of showing partiality toward her daughter in the marital dispute rather than attempting to reconcile the couple’s differences. Judith’s noncompliance with church rule was exacerbated when she consulted nonmembers about her daughter and son-in-law’s personal problems. The two women had sinned in different ways—one by leaving her spouse, the other by interfering in a disorderly manner and revealing privileged information. These women had violated the ethos of the godly community, which was predicated on ideals of obedience, decorum, and faith as well as orderly households and harmonious families. They had also exposed an enclosed community that did not discuss its difficulties with nonbelievers. Members like Judith Garthwright were prosecuted not only for sinful behavior but also for failing to follow protocol that maintained stability and preserved privacy. This ideal of order and secrecy was agreed upon by all church members. New converts gave their allegiance to the Baptist community, performed religious obligations, promoted felicity among all believers, and pursued orderly “walking,” that is, suitable conduct. Rules of appropriate behavior were outlined in church covenants. Members at one church strove for communal accord when they agreed to “endeavour to avoid defaming speeches; revealing church secrets, or any thing that may grieve and trouble one another.” The Goose Creek church expected its members “not to indulge the infirmities of each other to any, etc., when it can be lawfully avoided.” Baptist meetings oversaw the entry of new converts into membership, their participation in church rites, and their supervision through church discipline. Church discipline was the last in the three-part progression of creating Baptist bodies, which upheld rigorous standards of embodied belief and behavior and structured Baptist ideals of spiritual identity. A triumvirate of

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conversion, ritual, and discipline shaped the Baptist model of religious subjectivity. To maintain this subjectivity, members regularly met in community, to renew their spirits and have access to “gospel food,” which was “calculated to refresh and strengthen the soul.” Conversion, or “renovation of the heart,” was followed by “a corresponding reformation of manners and a suitable deportment.”1 Baptists acknowledged their faith through pious speech and circumscribed demeanor and by following a model of “holy walking and conversation.” As embodied expressions of inner faith, the personal conduct of members had to be consistent with Baptist theology, and church discipline enforced bodily decorum upon all believers. Baptists were to “exhort and stir up one another to a diligence attendance on the means of grace, [and] stir up one another to zeal in holy living and in supporting the gospel.” Members promised “to bare one another’s burdens, to cleave to one another, and to have a fellow feeling with one another in all conditions, both outward and inward.” With charity and love, brethren and sisters surveyed the conduct of one another to sustain their community. They led lives of “watchfulness and prayer” and kept order both in “their inward and outward man according to the Scripture.” Religious belief without pious behavior, or the reverse, was insufficient; both were required to live a godly life.2 Those who broke the bonds of religious communion by belief or behavior were answerable to the church court. As a means of social control, the church courts set standards of conduct for all members. The corporeal basis of church discipline inscribed regulation upon the believer’s body; in turn, that regulation constructed a discourse of an enclosed body and a concept of internalized sin in which bodily comportment became the outward symbol of an authentic spirituality. Once cited, the church hoped the accused would see “the evil of their standing.” Those who faltered in their faith fell into “a supine and lethargic state.” This was followed by a loss of “faith, hope and love for God and his Zion.” Backsliders would be indifferent to religious duties and their hearts would become “callous,” their minds wander, and their “zeal languid.” They would “grow weary waiting on the Lord.” Being too much in the world was a visible sign of a troubled believer.3 The Baptist body was part of an evangelical discourse—and gained its meaning through that discourse—of religious propriety and social decorum. The corporeal nature of Baptist spirituality, from personal conversion to ritual practice, was countered by the strict regulation of members and their bodies through church discipline. Disciplining the believer’s body was an integral part of the Baptist faith. The new person born out of the “watery

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tomb” of baptism, infused with saving grace and blessed by the Holy Spirit, was now required to live a decorous and constrained life. Entry into membership and ritual practice formed a Baptist body, which complied with evangelical doctrine. When members lapsed in behavior, they faced discipline. Those who were unrepentant, were “cut off,” “cast out,” and “dismember[ed]” by the process of excommunication. These rules of corporeal supervision structured the dynamics of power and authority in the church while they also held implications for status, order, and difference in the wider society. The struggle between spiritual parity and social inequity surfaced in the Baptist court system, as elders enforced evangelical ideals of pious conduct and yet affirmed social relations of racial and gender inequality. Through the process of defining and maintaining orderly conduct among their members, Baptist churches infused a new religious authority into a social order based on gender and race. The Baptist religion repositioned the bodies of its believers for their successful entry into the godly community at the same time it marked them with secular conceptions of difference. The surveillance of all believers through a system of discipline, adjudicated by white men, became an intensive means of corporeal regulation. By modifying the Baptist body through belief, ritual performance, and church discipline, and by interweaving bodily control with the interactive hierarchies of gender and race, the church both challenged and validated existing social norms.4 Baptists espoused a strong sense of bodily management that dictated specific rules of ideal conduct for believers, which, in turn, governed all activities of daily life. To demonstrate piety and meekness, believers were “to live soberly, righteously and godly.” Members at Great Valley agreed to “enter a covenant to walk in fellowship of that particular church or congregation and submit themselves to the care and discipline thereof and to walk faithfully with God in all his holy ordinances.” The Shippen Township church covenant was more explicit and pledged members to “take heed to ourselves to temper our conversation and company, not to indulge in passionate, revengeful anger, but to maintain a peaceful, quiet deportment at home and abroad; not to allow ourselves in lascivious talking, foolish jesting, evil speaking nor tavern haunting but to have our conversation and company as becometh the gospel of Christ.” In addition, “theatres, balls, races, frolicks, and games of hazard” were to be avoided because they took attention away from God. Believers manifested saintly status through “holy living”: in speech, behavior, social habits, daily conversations, family and marital relationships, and community life. Baptist meetings found even the minutiae of personal conduct worthy of citation; members guilty of scoffing, tattling,

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idleness, vanity, and being “unsteady and useless” could be cited for wrongdoing.5 Those who displayed “a disorderly walk” faced accusations before the church court; they had to repent their misconduct and hopefully find firm footing again. Baptists set up church courts to enforce orthodox belief and behavior among their members. Discipline took place at monthly business meetings, usually held on Saturdays, where members strove to maintain cordial relations. The Canoebrook church began its meetings with prayer and then inquired “if we are at peace one with another.” These meetings were overseen by a quorum of white, male members. The church officers, specifically the elders, administered the discipline process. Instructed to “manage the affairs of his Church here in the world,” elders called before the court all members who had fallen into sin. The Welsh Tract meeting counseled its elders “to act wary and wisely” in these cases and to be “tendered hearted” toward the sinner. Referencing 1 Timothy, this church asserted that elders be just to the accused and yet not “wink at his sin least they be partakers of his sin.” It is difficult to generalize about church discipline in Baptist meetings because of their staunch congregationalism. A range of behaviors and conviction rates existed with some churches more punitive than others. Baptists continued to cite members for disorderly conduct throughout the eighteenth century, though the nature of “sin” changed over time. As autonomous entities, Baptist churches operated as the highest authority over their members’ conduct and used their courts to enforce a single code of moral and social behavior. Baptists wrote “gospel rules” to guard against “fornication, covetous[ness], idolaters, railers, drunkards, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulation, wrath, strife, sedition, heresies, envying members, reviling and such like.” Meetings warned their members that from such activities sin could grow to infect others, as sin begat sin to contaminate the spiritual health of the entire religious body. Baptists endorsed a corporate ideal of community and defined any misconduct as a threat to that community. When a member committed an offense, such as drinking, fighting, or cohabiting with another’s spouse, they not were only indulging in sin but also “wounding the cause of religion.” This behavior disrupted the meeting, undermined the godly order, and generated public censure.6 Baptists valued spiritual harmony and labored hard to settle disputes when members were at odds with one another. Baptist courts were consciously set outside the reach of the secular government and enforced religious conformity through a moral code exclusively for its members. In general, Baptists

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preferred their own courts to resolve conflicts rather than relying on outside authority; the church court served as an alternative to the secular judiciary. Members had to gain the church’s permission to pursue cases in the secular courts, even if they concerned temporal affairs, such as money or property issues. When “Sister Cason” filed a civil suit against her son, Edward, the elders tried many times to reconcile the pair, asking Cason to drop the suit and allow them to settle the dispute. When she “pointedly refused,” she was excommunicated.7 The church court strove to play the role of a central authority in the spiritual, social, and bodily concerns of its members, and as an institution, it confirmed the right of Baptists to watch over one another and convey any wrongdoing to the elders. This system of surveillance relied on eyewitness testimony from members who investigated and reported on the disorderly behavior of others. The right of one member to cite another for misconduct, however, was structured, and members were expected to follow prescribed etiquette. As part of the church covenant, members agreed to oversee each other’s “walking and conversation.” They had the right to “reprove one another” but not the right to “be whispering and backbiting one another.” “Evil surmising,” “tatling,” and “being busybodies” was to be resisted by all communicants. One minister directed members to “avoid everything that tends to cool love, and make disagreeable impressions.” When conflicts arose, members were “to take the gospel steps”—to abide by proper protocol.8 The appropriate procedure to follow when in dispute with another church member was outlined in Matthew 18:15: “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone; if he listens to you, you have gained your brother.” This policy placed responsibility upon the aggrieved individual to seek reconciliation as the first recourse. It was most preferable that the dispute be settled “with wisdom and tenderness” between the two parties, without involving the church. However, if the quarreling members were unable to reach an amicable settlement, the matter was brought before the business meeting for resolution. David Thomas outlined the functions of these monthly gatherings: “we . . . enquire into the conduct of members; acquit the innocent, receive the penitent and pass judgment upon irreclaimable offenders.”9 Church discipline followed a ritualized performance similar to civil court proceedings: accusation of wrongdoing, evidence gathering, witness testimony, defendant’s statements, and judgment by the court officials. The church court relied on oral communication from members to formulate accusations against their brethren and sisters. Even when

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the information was based on gossip, the court would send an elder or group of elders to investigate the situation to see whether it merited formal accusation. When the elders believed there was a case, the church court would announce the misconduct and request the accused to appear at the next meeting to answer charges. If the accused failed to appear, the case was usually carried over to the next monthly meeting. If the accused appeared, they were expected to explain their irregular behavior and either confess their sin and ask forgiveness or deny the misconduct and suffer punishment: admonishment, censure, and exclusion or excommunication. Whatever the outcome, harmony was restored to the church. This ritual of sinning, admission, and repentance was the preferred sequence of events from the point of view of the church court, and many cases that are recorded in Baptist church books follow this pattern. A typical example concerns Elizabeth Powell, who was called before the Tomahawk church for having a child too soon after her marriage. Powell attended the business meeting, readily admitted her guilt, and showed contrition. Satisfied with her repentance, the church restored her membership. Elihu Smith was accused of drinking and “staying at the tavern at unreasonable hours,” but he acknowledged his guilt, “declared his sorrow and humiliation of soul” and prayed that God and the church would forgive him, which they did. When Effey was accused of living with a man who was not her lawful husband, she confessed, said she was “truly sorry,” and hoped “God had pardoned her sin.” The process of accusation, public confession, and forgiveness put the accused in a subordinate position to the church leaders and other members who ultimately judged their conduct. The process of confession as a ritualized performance delineated a specific role for the penitent and an appropriate response from those judging the erring member. Both parties followed scripted roles. The goal was reintegration and wholeness of the community with emphasis on confessing sin and gaining forgiveness. As David Hall argues, “confession released people from their punishment and restored them to the body of God’s people.”10 Members who refused to see the error of their ways faced one of three punishments. The most severe, excommunication, resulted in their expulsion from the church body. Elders wrote out letters of excommunication and delivered one to the accused and, in some cases, posted another one on the church door for public perusal. Excommunications were also announced at the business meeting.11 These letters laid out the specific charges against the accused, noted the attempts made to correct the behavior, and justified the need to proceed with judgment. The church defended its action with the

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relevant biblical references. This was evident in the excommunication letter Esther Pierson received from the Scotch Plains church: We therefore have found ourselves under the necessity of proceeding to the means of excommunication, which was concluded on the 31 day of January last, in virtue of the trust power and authority CHRIST has left in his church, to cast out as well as receive in; according to the Apostles direction to the Corinthians 5.13, to put away from themselves that wicked person, and also to the Thessalonians c. 3.6 to withdraw from every brother that walketh disorderly.

The need to “cast out” a “wicked person” from the church followed biblical directive: the saved must separate themselves from evildoers to maintain spiritual community. The Philadelphia church used sterner language when excommunicating John Taylor for repeated bouts of drunkenness and for absconding from his master: “We hold ourselves bound to set him off from the church, erase his name out of the church book, and deliver him up to Satan for the destruction of the flesh that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus, and accordingly he is hereby excommunicated. And God have mercy on his soul. Amen.”12 At times, members submitted letters outlining their faults and asking for forgiveness. Samuel Burkloe, a member of the Philadelphia meeting, followed this course. He admitted wrongs committed against two members as well as his failure to follow proper procedure, including suing John Biddle in secular court. Burkeloe promised better behavior, while acknowledging that the proceedings against him were just. John Williams took a similar approach, writing a long letter to the High Hills church confessing his many flaws but still wishing to retain his membership: “I know that I am unworthy to be united with you but I cannot live in the world. I want to be with a people who relish religion that come to talk of the ordinances of God’s house, of the way to heaven, and of Jesus.” Williams requested the forgiveness of all members, including the “the least esteemed African” and even young children; if they rejected his admission, he would accept their decision.13 Church court proceedings did not always run smoothly, and sometimes they deviated from their own guidelines. John Gano found this out while training to be a preacher. Not yet ordained, Gano had taken a trip to Virginia, where he had exhorted at a few meetings. When he returned to New Jersey, he found himself accused of misconduct. His minister, Isaac Eaton, had heard that Gano had preached during his travels and feared that this would “intone his character, as going disorderly into the ministry.” Eaton called a meeting to investigate the charges and Gano was “arraigned as being guilty of disorder.”

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What ensued, however, strayed from the standard rules of evidence and judgment required to prove an accusation. As Gano wrote later: I wished them to exhibit the charge, and proofs. They had none, but informed me that travelers had passed through there and reported it, and they wished I would give them a relation of the matter. I told them, it was the first time I knew the accused party called as the only evidence in the cause, however, I would give them as just and impartial a relation as I could; which I did. They then asked me what I thought of my own conduct, whether I did not think had been disorderly. I told them, I considered this question more extraordinary than the request. But was now called on to judge in a cause, where I was the accused party.

The church may have given more leeway to Gano to judge his own guilt because he was a minister in training. Though this irregular process benefited his case, he realized the ways in which the church court violated its own rules.14 The accused did not always follow the ritualized script. Some refused to show up, others appeared and denied the charges or claimed ignorance about their conduct. Defiance of the church’s authority by a member was as much a sin as the original accusation. One church asserted the right to censure members, stating that “in case of obstinate continuance” members would be “entirely excluded from our communion.” Not acquiescing to the court’s judgment brought punishment. After accusing “Brother Hatcher” of an unspecified crime, the Goose Creek meeting decided he was “disfellowshipt for not hearing the church.” In 1777, the Upper Freehold church accused Elizabeth Mason of stealing money. Though she was innocent of the charge, her angry response and “use of irritating language” resulted in her suspension from communion. Confessing one’s sin to another member even before appearing in the church court constituted guilt as well. The widow Eleanor Gum found this out after admitting to a fellow member that she was “basely begotten with child.” The church book noted that she had been cited for this crime but had not yet appeared before the business meeting; she was eventually excommunicated. The case of James Seabrook reveals the ways in which disagreement with the church’s ruling might increase the charges. Seabrook was initially brought before the Middletown church in 1735 because of a report that he had helped a condemned woman escape jail and run away. Seabrook tried to justify his actions and then refused to accept the church’s admonition. He compounded his sins by not only denying his guilt but by misrepresenting the facts in the case as well as discussing the church’s conduct with outsiders. Instead of one charge, Seabrook was found guilty of four.15

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The church court’s progress on a case could be laborious and slow. Many times, the monthly business meeting carried cases over for weeks, months, and even years. Sometimes this was due to the continued absence of the accused, but at other times the court delayed action to allow errant members time to reform their behavior. The patience to tolerate wrongdoing seemed infinite in the case of one member at the Scotch Plains church. Rubin Compton was brought before the court in June 1789 “for absenting himself from the assemblies of the church for upwards of twenty years past.” The church book noted “that much labor and pains have been taken by successive committees appointed to endeavor to restore him to a gospel walking with them, yet he obstinately persisted therein.” After two decades, he was finally excommunicated. The Welsh Tract church took action against Philip Truax only after many years and multiple offenses. A member since 1709, Truax had neglected meeting for years and slighted “the call of the church by their messengers.” In February 1716–17, the church finally agreed to cite him for several charges, including missing meeting and going away with “his affairs unsettled and his poor family unprovided for.” Having fled the county, leaving his business, creditors, and family behind, the court lodged four citations against Truax, but agreed not to excommunicate him in hopes that he would return and answer the charges: “this forbearance to be continued as along as the church thinks fit.” The church excommunicated Truax five years later.16 Church courts commonly charged white men with absence from business meetings. The Boar Swamp church summoned white men for this reason; James Hamblet was cited seven times in three years for this offense. Male absence from meeting was a pressing issue because the lack of a white male quorum hampered the church’s ability to conduct business. The concern over men’s attendance reveals the importance of these men in sustaining church leadership. The South Quay church labored hard to keep white male members. In September 1801, John Lee was accused of going to a race. The leaders debated his conduct and postponed any decision until the next business meeting. By the time the next meeting came around, another charge had been added to Lee’s accusation: hosting shooting matches at his home. The church decided to excommunicate him for both crimes in December of the same year. Despite his misconduct, that was not the end of Lee’s affiliation with South Quay, and his former behavior did not preclude future leadership. In November 1803, John Lee was restored to membership and less than a year later, he was appointed clerk of the meeting.17 The same church also tried repeatedly to correct and restore Ethelred Gardner to its membership. A church deacon, Gardner was first cited for

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misconduct in August 1811, when three major accusations were made against him. First, “his general conduct and conversations in public companies is too light and airy, and calculated, at times to excite mirth and laughter, amongst the ignorant and wicked part of mankind, and at other times to excite anger and strife and thereby bringing upon himself disputes, quarrels, and (sometimes) fights, to the great dishonor of our holy religion.” Second, he was accused of having a verbal and physical fight with another man at a local store; and third, of “amusing a vain and giddy crowd” at court day “by playing very uncommon and ludicrous pranks with a stud horse.” Gardner’s case was deferred until November when he finally appeared and admitted the charges but still tried to justify his behavior. For this the church unanimously decided to expel him. A year later, Gardner renewed his membership by confessing his sin and asking forgiveness; he was restored. His troubles, however, did not end. In 1815, Gardner was accused of drinking and fighting again. This time, Gardner quickly confessed his guilt and was readmitted. Gardner’s struggle with alcohol continued, and he admitted to excessive drinking but resolved to “try to get the power of regulating himself in the use of brandy which he found to be a great evil.” In 1818, after seven years of sinning, confessing, gaining forgiveness and re-admittance to the church only to start the cycle again, Gardner decided to move to Georgia. He apologized for his former behavior and expressed regret for his expulsion—most likely to obtain a dismission letter before moving out of state. Gardner’s long and tortuous relationship with the South Quay meeting is unusually prolonged; it shows the degree to which this church would go to accommodate the sins of one of its male leaders.18 Members accused of wrongdoing could affect the outcome of their cases. Nancy Mattox, a member of the Waterlick church, preempted an accusation against her by obtaining depositions from her alleged victims. Accused of stealing money from three different men, Mattox obtained written statements from two of them asserting her innocence. The church court declared the charge against Mattox to be groundless and gave her permission to pursue legal action in civil court. In this case, Mattox’s timely action saved her from the need to justify herself or to defy the church’s authority and face censure. Members cited for misconduct also gained help from others to support their case. This was especially true for black members, whose testimony was not readily believed by white leaders. When the Hepzibah church of Chester County delayed the entry of “Black Nancy” into membership for drinking, she presented a letter from her master and mistress testifying that she was “clear of liquor.” The Piscataway church told Tom to obtain his

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master’s permission to attend meeting to hear charges of misconduct, while they also solicited information from Tom’s master about his behavior. White support proved useful to black members. Pompey, a slave in Nansemond County, was charged with “having acted disorderly in Portsmouth, in taking a horse and riding off.” When he explained that the horse was a stray and that he “had no ill intention” in riding it, the elders did not believe him, and he was whipped for stealing. The church agreed not to admit Pompey until he proved his innocence and suggested the best way to do that was to procure a note from “some gentleman’s hand” verifying his version of the events. He was successful; “Brother John Moore of Portsmouth” wrote to the deacon substantiating Pompey’s account of the incident and his membership was restored. While writing to his minister, John Locust evoked the response of a white woman to bolster his claim against a fellow member who alleged that he threatened her with bodily harm: she was “so intoxicated . . . with passion, that her threats against me were most awful, and bitterly made, the blood of Mrs. Julia Ramsay run cold.”19 Church courts cited members for a range of misbehavior such as dancing, singing, drinking, fiddle and fife playing, card playing, wearing ornate clothing, and attending the theater, balls, and races, to more serious offenses including fornication, adultery, illegitimacy, assault, theft, and murder. Members were cited for being irresponsible parents, abusing their spouses, disobeying their elders, and deserting their families. Social misconduct ran the gamut, from gossiping and telling tales to frequenting taverns and associating with people of questionable character. The church rules at Burruss’s meetinghouse warned members not to “be indulged in scandalous or wicked conversation—in excessive drinking—in joining the assemblies of persons rioting, revelling, or gaming, without necessity—in frequenting houses of bad fame—or in any of those practices reprobated in God’s word.” The Upper and King County church asserted that “no member . . . should allow him or herself to join, mix, or be a party to the feasts or parties of the carnal and unbelieving.”20 Church courts investigated religious, social, and sexual offenses. Religious misconduct included behavior contrary to church governance and orthodoxy, such as missing monthly meeting, worship and communion services, purporting heretical doctrines, joining another denomination, working on Sunday, neglecting family prayer, or moving away without obtaining formal dismissal from the church. Social sins ranged from dancing, singing secular songs, playing cards, wearing excessive dress, lying, swearing, and the “sin of drunkenness,” to verbal and physical abuse; from fights and disputes to

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excessive emotionality, such as the “sin of anger.” Sexual misconduct included obvious sins such as licentiousness, illegitimacy, adultery, and fornication as well as interracial mixing and irregular marriage. There was overlap in these three categories of sin; some bodily sin came through both social and sexual misconduct. To maintain the faith and the community of believers demanded the corporeal management of all members. Those who walked in sin had violated the rite of baptism and communion and, therefore, the integrity of the church body. Sin, like salvation, entered the church through the bodies of its members. Irregular conduct connoted not only the presence of sin, it compromised the sanctified body of the believer at the same time it brought “disorder” into the church; it also violated the bond between believers and the boundary between the sacred and secular world. Ichabod Benton Halsey conceded this point in 1789 when he admitted that his misconduct had “disgraced the station which I professed and have not walked as becoming a follower of Christ.” Misconduct was subject to punishment because it misused saints’ bodies and transgressed the “peaceful, quiet deportment” of members. The Baptist body was a signifier of what was sacred and orthodox in evangelical cosmology and signified the range of behavior accessible to believers. The body as decorous, sinless, and contained was central to Baptist religious belief. As a boundary, the Baptist body demarcated the difference between faith and unbelief, between salvation and sin, as a border preserved and regulated by the church court. This ideal of contained and sinless bodies, however, confronted a reality in which weak and wayward bodies, with their propensity for misconduct, compelled supervision and reprimand. Those who broke the bonds of communion and engaged in wayward behavior could be excommunicated as “degenerate persons.” Backsliders preforated the boundary between sin and salvation, between the true church of Christ and a corrupting society. In addition, sin compromised the believer’s body, a body that had been reborn and made anew through conversion and baptism. Vigilance was paramount. Sinful behavior easily disrupted the communalism of Baptist churches, severing the spiritual link among believers.21 Baptist church court records reveal regional differences among eighteenth-century believers. In Pennsylvania, Baptists monitored marital practices. The Pennepek church followed this policy, most likely a result of Quaker influence. In 1695, Margot Eaton was excommunicated for committing fornication due to an unsanctioned marriage. In December 1709, the church formalized its marital policy and required notification at three public meetings. These regulations were expanded in 1716 and members were required not

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only to notify the church officers of their plans to marry and to publish that intention at a public meeting, but they were also encouraged to wed “so far as possible such persons as have experienced the work of conversion upon their souls.” Anyone who did not follow these rules would be placed under church censure “as an unquestionable offender, such as infidels, idolators, heretics, or as scandalous, profane persons.” The church used this policy in 1726 to cite Ruth Brock for “hastly and rashly contracting marriage with one Robert Bower upon two or three days acquaintance.” She was charged not only for disregarding the church’s marital policy but also for how she celebrated her wedding; she went away “in the dead time of the night to be married [and] then [the] next day [was seen] sailing up and down the river with firing of guns on the shore in a vain manner.” Ruth compounded her sin by marrying “a very vain, profane, swearing, wicked Church of England man”; she was expelled for bringing scandal to “her holy profession.” Hannah Brooks, a member at Southampton, also suffered discipline for marrying the wrong man. In the spring of 1754, she was cited for being “too familiar with John Burns.” In the fall of that year, Hannah informed the church that she intended to marry him. The church advised against this because Burns was “a man of vicious life.” Hannah persisted and a month later again asked for permission to marry. The church leaders refused and “lovingly and earnestly exhorted” her not to wed “so ill a character.” Despite this advice, Hannah married John Burns in 1755 and she was suspended from communion. By July, the reason for Hannah’s persistent pleas became apparent: she was excommunicated for giving birth to a child four months after her wedding.22 Virginia churches focused attention on the marital practices of black members, particularly if they were enslaved. The growth in the number of black Baptists forced churches and associations to deal with marriages that were not recognized by the state or respected by slave owners. White Baptists were sensitive to this issue and posed queries about this problem. In 1789, the Middle Association struggled over what was to be done with a couple owned by different masters and never likely to see each other again. Though no resolution was reached, this association, like others, wondered if it could forbid serial unions to enslaved black members. The following year, the Dover Association addressed the “perplexing question” of slave marriage. Again no answer was forthcoming and the association leaders advised churches to act prudently on a case-by-case basis. Slave marriage continued to flummox white leaders. In the 1790s, the Portsmouth Association attempted to answer whether it was “lawful and agreeable to the word of God” for an enslaved man to marry another woman when his first wife, who was still alive, had

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been sold away. The gathered men decided to withdraw this query and formulate a new one. The new question focused on the responsibility of the slaveholder rather than the slave and asked: “what ought churches to do with members in their communion, who shall either directly, or indirectly, separate married slaves?” Despite a long debate, the association resolved nothing. When the issue of separating married slaves was raised at the next yearly meeting, it was only to agree that the query be deleted from the record. Expunging this question not only left the issue unresolved, it also meant enslaved black Baptists were subject to a white model of marriage that was difficult to follow.23 Potentially all church members could be brought before the church for misconduct. However, some members were more vulnerable to accusation of particular offenses. Social and sexual sin in the Baptist cosmology made women and African Americans more liable to accusations of misconduct than men or whites. Secular constructs of gender, race, and status thus influenced church proceedings. In addition, a hierarchy of body types informed Baptist conceptions of sin and disorder. As a physical expression, sin became gendered and racialized within the church courts.24 Social and cultural conceptions of the body that emphasized sexual and racial differences affected the Baptist member under scrutiny for sinful behavior. In early modern medical terminology, “cold, wet humors” dominated women’s bodies, while “hot, dry humors” ruled men’s bodies. The humoral theory was displaced by new scientific ideas that gendered male and female bodies in multiple ways. Differences in physical anatomy translated into the assignment and validation of dichotomous social qualities to the sexes by the eighteenth century. Defined as feeble and erratic, women’s bodies contrasted to the stronger and more principled bodies of men. This intertwining of the corporeal and metaphorical meanings of bodies continued, and, with increasing medical knowledge, various parts of the human body became gendered; the nervous system became feminized as the musculature was masculinized. Women became associated with emotionality and hysteria and continued to be considered physically and emotionally weaker than men and, therefore, more liable to outside influences. As radically different creatures from men, women were in need of male protection and suited to a subjugated and dependent existence. Black bodies were equated with corporeality and defined as savage and monstrous. Blacks were also seen as more excitable and immature in their emotional behavior compared to whites. The institution of slavery, and the perpetuation of a racial ideology that defined non-Europeans as uncivilized,

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created new social meanings for bodies of color. Eighteenth-century science developed theories to explain the origin of the races and create a hierarchy in which blacks were “naturally” subordinate to whites. One theory, polygenesis (the belief that people of distinctive geographic regions originated separately), would eventuate into a theory of the races as distinct. The “black” race, scientifically classified as separate and inferior in the eighteenth century, ascribed to African American men and women a childlike and inhuman character that warranted their enslavement. These essential differences occurred on a visual and visceral level, as blacks were “inferior to whites, both in body and mind.” Through systems of dominance—patriarchy and slavery— gender and race were reified as primary social categories.25 White men enjoyed power and authority as officials in church government, overseeing and enforcing religious codes of conduct. As the church court, white men served as arbitrators of the social, sexual, and religious behavior of other members. They policed white women, black women, black men, and each other, for violations of spiritual and social norms. This role of overseeing church discipline mirrored the traditional power of men in the family to protect, reprimand, and punish their dependents. White men bore accusations relative to their social status in society and their sins often came in the form of leisure activities prohibited to Baptists, such as gaming, horseracing, swearing, whoring, and drinking to excess. Church courts admonished white men for “the crime of playing cards” as well as for “playing the violin and associating in the company of wicked men.” The Welsh Tract church excommunicated Joseph James “because his associates are godless men and he spends his time with loud talkers and in the midst of disorderly nights carried to a great extreme.” Jonathan Meeker was cited for “conducting himself in the world in merriment and dancing with the carnal.” Henry Jelly was excommunicated for keeping “idle” and “uncivil company” as well as “holding false principles, and practicing bad discipline.” White men were often accused of brawling with others, a charge William Weeks suffered in 1776 for “wrangling, quarreling and attempting to fight his neighbors.”26 Abandoning the social obligations that white men exercised as household heads was also cause for concern. The court cited white men for neglecting family prayer and allowing “too much liberty” within their households. Conflicts with family members, particularly wives, showed up in church books. Men who abused or deserted their wives, or had more than one spouse, found themselves before the church court. Ignatius West was barred from communion for “misusing his wife and threatening to shoot a man for a very frivolous cause,” while Anthony Griffin was censured for “whipping

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his wife and using ill language.” Even past misconduct could be cause for punishment, as James Bridges found when the Shoulder’s Hill meeting excommunicated him for “treating his deceased wife ill in her life time.” Though church courts cited male members for spousal abuse, the number of cases is relatively small. Joseph Drury faced severe censure from his meeting after he whipped his wife: “for a husband to beat his wife, we judge to be a practice contrary to scripture and reason . . . not to be tolerated in the church of Christ, on any pretense whatever.” Despite this harsh condemnation, Drury was only excluded from communion for his behavior; he was restored to full membership four months later. When David Jones admitted “he had bin provokt to beat his wife,” his confession was found sufficient and he suffered no punishment.27 Like white men, white women suffered accusations for social misconduct, such as going to balls, attending the theatre, wearing sumptuous clothing, playing musical instruments, singing secular songs, and drinking too much. In addition, the church brought women before the court for gossiping, telling tales, and the “sin of anger.” The mental and physical disorder brought on by anger was a charge peculiar to women because of their weaker minds and bodies; they were more susceptible to losing control of their emotions.28 White women were cited for violating the rules of proper female conduct, such as ridiculing fathers-in-law, running away from husbands, and challenging male authority. Verbal misconduct was a sin committed primarily by female members. For example, Winifred and Susannah Pitts were brought before the church court in 1778 for “speaking evil of each other.” Women who spoke in “unbecoming language,” especially to male church members or to male relatives, were cited for disorderly conduct. Lydia Mount of Middletown found this out when she was chastised for making “reproachful sayings” against members and, in particular, for sending a letter to the church that was “full of malice and scandalous language.” The Welsh Tract church cited Elizabeth Pritchard for “swearing and cursing, being bitter[,] malicious [and] not bridling her tongue.” Scotch Plains excommunicated Mary Cubby for “lavish speaking and scandalous conduct.” The church soundly condemned and punished women who engaged in volatile and strident speech. The Waterlick church accused Jane Williams of the following transgressions: “speaking and writing falsely,” “libeling her husband and her brother,” “abusing her fatherin-law by calling him a rogue hypocrite,” and for “being a person of bad or immoral character, as a scold and abusive woman.” While male members were brought before the court for using “bad language,” they were rarely accused of relating gossip, telling spurious tales, or verbally harassing their relations.29

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Leveling charges of lewdness, uncleanness, fornication, adultery, and illegitimacy, church courts punished female members for the sexual misuse of their bodies. Female sexuality, if not contained by parental authority, marriage, slavery, and racial barriers, was disorderly, deviant, and outside the bounds of saintly (and gendered) prescriptions. Women, both black and white, were accused of the majority of sexual sins in eighteenth-century Baptist churches. In particular, illegitimacy was overwhelmingly the fault of women. In 1736, the Welsh Tract meeting excluded Rachel Bemish from communion for being single and pregnant. Shoulder’s Hill excommunicated Kiziah Allmand, a white woman, and Peggy, an enslaved black woman, for “having a base begotten child.” “Sister Hannah” of South Quay was charged with having “white bastard child” as well as other instances of “loose and disorderly conduct.” Sally Grace, a free black, was accused with “playing the harlot” for having a child by one of the black brethren. When the church discovered she had other illegitimate children, whom she had attempted “to conceal or destroy,” she was excommunicated. Female members found themselves before the court for fornication. An Isle of Wight County church reprimanded “Great Bett” for the “sin of uncleanness” as well as not telling her husband at the time of their wedding that she was pregnant. Eleanor Griffith was cited for having a child less than nine months after her marriage, “a scandalous sin both against the law of God and man and a hateful sin in the sight of all sober Christians.” The church court also charged women for sexual misconduct and interracial mixing—such as Pegg, a member of the Racoon Swamp meeting, who was excommunicated for living with a white man as her husband “unlawfully.” Susannah Sethrage was excommunicated for bringing “publick scandal on our holy profession by committing fornication by co-habiting with a negro.” Mary Cole, a free black woman, suffered the same punishment by the Chappawamsic church for living with a white man and refusing to reform her behavior after being admonished. Franky was cited not only for leaving her husband and pursuing a sexual relationship with her master’s son-in-law but also for conducting herself in “such a manner” that her husband was “severely beat and moved to such extremes as to threaten life.”30 The church meeting regulated the sexual activity of African Americans, both enslaved and free. Familial and sexual issues pervade the accusations against black church members. Control of black sexuality was a key component of the coercive system of enslavement. Baptists and non-Baptists alike ascribed to a racial code that frowned upon interracial mixing, though the means of punishment differed between the two groups. The church deemed

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extramarital sexual relations among African Americans as irregular marriage practice, even though they were most often the result of forced separation. Both male and female black church members found themselves cited for sexual misconduct; for example, Charles, a slave and a member of a Virginia church, who was excommunicated for adultery in 1791. Moses was excommunicated for “bedding with another man’s wife” as well as denying the act and disobeying his master. Some bondsmen were punished for merely attempting to engage in unsanctioned sex, as in the case of Lummers, who was excommunicated for “wanting to commit adultery.” Cyrus suffered a similar fate for “offering to commit fornication,” while Ben was excommunicated for “attempting to bed with a white woman.” The Burruss church excommunicated Ben and Angelica for an adulterous relationship. Milly Smith, a free woman was excommunicated for “living in fornication.” Church leaders encouraged free blacks to follow the white model of heterosexual relations; Benjamin and Milly Blackhead, a newly freed couple, were strongly advised to “comply with the form of marriage” approved by the white members. Enslaved Baptists, both male and female, were cited for sins very similar to those they faced in the secular world: running away, stealing, lying, and being disobedient toward their masters. Criminal behavior by slave members, such as theft, whether prosecuted by the secular or church court, was a violation of proper conduct in both worlds. One of the most common charges against enslaved Baptists was running away—that is, stealing their own bodies. Nero, a slave in Virginia, confronted accusations not only of disobeying his master but also “threatening to leave him and to deprive him of more of his negroes and other things too devious to mention.” Besides running away, slaves were brought before the church court for theft and dishonesty. The Upper Goose Creek church excluded Lucy for stealing, while Letty and Milly faced charges of theft and insubordination toward their master when they stole some of his cotton. Lemon was excommunicated in 1782 for “lying and disobedience to his master.” The Albemarle church cited Caban for not obeying his overseer; he confessed his fault and promised to do better. Church courts punished black members for being bad slaves and backsliding Christians, as in the case of Jacob, who faced charges of being “a quarrelsom[e], troublesom[e] deposition” and “for depart[ing] from the truth”; Sabra was excommunicated for “speaking lies”; Lucy was barred from communion for having a “revengeful disposition”; and Pompey for disobeying his master. One accusation could beget others. Though Cesar was initially accused of adultery by the Piscataway church, he was excommunicated for intoxication and theft.31

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Table 1. Church Discipline in the Racoon Swamp Baptist Church, 1772–1820

Members

Cases

White men White women Black men Black women Total

95 55 67 26 243

Discipline type Discipline rate (%) Exclusion Excommunication 53 45 64 62 53

32 13 14 4 63

18 12 29 12 71

Restored (%) 16 28 26 38 24

Source: Racoon Swamp Baptist Church, VBHS.

The racial and gendered patterns of the church court are exemplified in the disciplinary practice of one Virginia Baptist meeting. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the Racoon Swamp church punished black members far more often than their white counterparts. When the church was founded, white members outnumbered black members by about 6 to 1 (a ratio that would even out and reverse itself), yet disciplinary cases involving whites occurred only about one and a quarter times more frequently than those involving blacks. Black members were thus disciplined at a higher rate than white members. In 64 percent of the cases involving black men and 62 percent of those involving black women, the church court ordered punishment. The corresponding percentages for white men and women were 53 and 45 respectively. Although white members faced the greatest number of accusations, they enjoyed the lowest conviction rate. Most convicted white men experienced the lesser punishment of exclusion rather than excommunication; the opposite is true for black men and especially black women. Even white women were excommunicated as often as they were excluded. In disciplinary proceedings, white male members of Racoon Swamp enjoyed the most lenient treatment (see Table 1).32 The church also accorded white men under exclusion more time to reform their behavior. The period between a first citation for misconduct and eventual excommunication was generally much longer for white male members than for black members. For example, the church court first suspended Thomas Gilliam, Sr., from communion in May 1789, then charged him with misconduct in February the following year; it again barred him from communion in December 1795, but did not excommunicate him until May 1796. Accused of misconduct in November 1791, and again in April 1792, James Cornet was not excommunicated until June 1793. Conversely, black men and women met almost instantaneous punishment. Charged with misconduct one

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month, “John Rivers’ Betty” was excommunicated the next. The first appearance of “Brother Webb’s Cooper” and “Moor’s Bess” in the minutes of the church—in August 1779 and May 1782 respectively—was the occasion of their excommunications. In May 1783, a previously excommunicated black member, “Parker’s Daniel,” was restored to membership, only to be excommunicated three months later. During this same period, white men faced progressively fewer disciplinary cases, and, if excommunicated, they were likely to be restored to membership. The Lower Dublin church of Pennsylvania displayed exclusion rates among white members based on gender difference. The discipline rates for this church cover the period of 1687 to 1810. While the conviction rate of white male members was higher, their rate of restoration was also higher relative to white female members. Similar to Racoon Swamp, white men at Pennepek were more likely to be excluded from membership than excommunicated. While white men were disciplined at a higher rate than white women (74 versus 55 percent), they were much more likely to be restored. Of the 64 men disciplined (36 excluded and 28 excommunicated), 16 men (25 percent) were restored to full membership. Though white women were a majority of the church and faced fewer accusations than white men, they were just as likely to be excommunicated as excluded (14 versus 13). Once excommunicated, few were restored to membership, only two women out of 27 (7 percent) were reinstated as church members.33 The all black Gillfield meeting of Petersburg followed a similar pattern in the accusations against male and female members in the early nineteenth century. While only 29 black men were accused of sexual sins, 60 black women faced several charges of sexual disorder, including irregular marriage, adultery, and desertion. Like white women, black women were more likely to be accused of sexual sins. Conversely, black men were often accused of religious misconduct (63 men versus 29 women) for preaching bad doctrine, disobeying church leaders, and missing meeting. Slightly more men than women were accused of social sins, such as going to the races, drunkenness, fighting, and stealing. Once cited, more men than women were disciplined (186 versus 175). This black church also meted out harsh punishment; while 37 men and 24 women were excluded, 81 men and 99 women were excommunicated. Among those disciplined, more men than women were restored to membership (69 versus 55). The gendered outcomes of discipline at this black church resembled that of white churches.34 The rate of citation for discipline differed by church. Not all church courts adjudicated cases quickly or acted on accusations of misconduct

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Discipline rate/year

Cases

Years

0.49 0.85 2.11 1.98

35 34 95 95

72 40 48 45

Source: Records of the Welsh Tract Meeting, DHS; Lower Dublin Church Book, ABHS; Racoon Swamp Baptist Church, VBHS; and South Quay Church (Nansemond County, Va.), Minute Book, 1775–1825, CRC, LV.

immediately. Some were more lax than others in following up on accusations and recording them in the church book. The congregational nature of Baptist churches is evident in their practice. Looking at the discipline rates of four Baptist churches, two from Pennsylvania and two from Virginia, we see variance. The rate of discipline cases per year was higher in Virginia churches than in Pennsylvania ones. The Welsh Tract and Pennepek churches had low rates of discipline per year, 0.49 and 0.85 cases respectively. At the two Virginia churches, Racoon Swamp and South Quay, however, the yearly rate of discipline cases more than doubled, ranging from 1.98 to 2.11 per year (see Table 2). This difference may be due less to laxity in the prosecution of cases and more to when they occurred. If we analyze the rates for the South Quay church during the first forty-five years of its existence to that of the Pennepek church during the same length of time, the rates are comparable, 2.1 for South Quay versus 2.0 for Pennepek. Strict adherence to disciplinary policies by church leaders seemed to have fallen off over time, or the laity became more orthodox in their behavior. Strict congregationalism also resulted in a variety of discipline styles. Welsh Tract differed from others in the number of cases it brought to the court. For a period of more than seventy years, 1714–86, the Welsh Tract church court heard only 35 cases. Of those 35 cases, 91 percent ended in discipline, with most members facing the harsher charge of excommunication, rather than exclusion. While only three white men received a sentence of exclusion, thirteen were excommunicated. The same holds true for female members; four white women were excluded but twelve excommunicated. Welsh Tract allowed more time to elapse before it accused a member of misconduct but once convicted, punishment was harsh. Welsh Tract elders were hesitant to accuse members of wrongdoing and only brought forth cases in which the member was accused of multiple crimes. In 1714, Magdalen

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Morgan was excommunicated based on three charges: she wore “unseemly dress”; she neglected meeting and worship; and she ignored the court’s reproaches when cited for misconduct. Similarly, Jonathan Davis faced seven different charges, including marrying in a disorderly fashion, neglecting meeting, telling lies about the church, and behaving in a disrespectful manner toward his father.35 The Baptist body set the parameters of Christian morality, in which bodily performance was equated with spiritual belief and inner feeling. The body as “a variable boundary” served as a threshold between sin and salvation, between the religious community and the unbelieving world. The regulation, control, and internalization of sin accentuated the meaning of the body to evangelical Christianity. This link between spiritual belief, moral sense, and personal behavior had been made before; however, with the Baptists the connection became more pervasive and public. The visual spectacle of Baptist conversion, ritual, and discipline emphasized the significance of witnessing the practice of lived religion and the importance of the church’s public reputation. In addition, the management of corporeal sin became a primary trope in evangelical discourse of the eighteenth century; personal piety, bodily control, and social order converged to develop new, internalized notions of individual conduct. The persistence of church discipline linked spiritual decorum to emerging concepts of difference in American society. In the end, bodily management as a religious and cultural practice in American Baptist churches enhanced the naturalization of racial and gender distinctions. Through the manifestation of an embodied faith based in conversion, ritual, and discipline, Baptists advocated a theology of “democratic” religion that welcomed all true believers. At the same time, church members and their bodies were disciplined based on gendered and racial identities, which coalesced with the dominant hierarchies of secular society.

Chapter 6

Sisters in Christ: Gender and Spirituality

In May 1808, Abigail Harris outlined a plan to create a women’s meeting in southern New Jersey. Only “single sisters of the Church” who were “serious or under serious impressions” could join. The group would meet to sing and pray together as well as read from the Bible and recite sermons. Besides religious worship, the women would “comfort, encourage & strength[en] one another . . . provoke one another to good works as in the fear of the Lord, . . . having sisterly affection for one another.” All women who agreed to join would “bear their part as members of the same body” and take responsibility for leading prayer, singing, and recitation. The meeting Harris envisioned and would later participate in was one of many pious practices of Baptist women in early America.1 Household-based, womenonly meetings provided female Baptists with an important outlet for spiritual expression as well as religious relationships and activities outside the meetinghouse. As church members, women attended worship services, participated in rituals, provided spiritual and financial support, intervened in disputes, and housed and fed itinerant preachers. They expected to fully participate in all aspects of church polity. Beginning in the mid-eighteenth century, however, American Baptist congregations began to ponder the role of women in church governance and how “equal” women were as spiritual members of the godly community. While the enduring debate about women’s place in the church reveals their ambiguous position within the denomination, it did not deter Baptist women from pursuing a domesticated piety based in family, friendship, and community. A woman seeking to become a Baptist appeared in the church records when she applied for baptism and admission to a meeting. The potential communicant had to relate her conversion before the members who were responsible for judging the sincerity and probity of her faith. The process of becoming a member of a Baptist church was the same for white women and men. Unlike New England churches, where women could relate their experience privately to a minister or to a quorum of the male leaders, no separate procedure existed for women in the majority of Baptist churches in

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Pennsylvania and Virginia. Becoming a part of the church was a singular and individual experience; for white women, acceptance into or rejection from a Baptist meeting did not depend on status in the secular world, whether married, single, or widowed. Nor was a woman’s affinity to a male member relevant to her spiritual ranking. Application for membership took serious consideration, and women acted alone when seeking admission to a church. In 1715, Margery Martin, an English-born Quaker, became a founding member of the Brandywine church, even though her siblings and children all remained Friends. After hearing a Baptist sermon in 1757, another Quaker, Mary Barrot, became a member of a meeting in Frederick County. Barrot repented a history of “immoral acts” to be accepted into membership. Many black women also sought out membership individually. In August of 1743, Mary Parry “made a large confession of the work of grace upon her soul” and was admitted to the Pennepek church. At Linville’s Creek, Sucky was accepted into the church by unanimous consent in 1794 after relating “a very agreeable and satisfactory” experience. Black women became members based on their conversion; however, if enslaved, their owner’s permission was often required before membership was conferred. Compared to enslaved women, the religious experience of free black women and white women was less encumbered by their secular status. Ideally, Baptist women entered fellowship as individuals and on an equivalent basis with other members. This conception of women as religious equals to men—and blacks as religious equals to whites—had powerful implications for the ways in which female piety and black spirituality was shaped and experienced. Slavery limited the ability of black women to be fully active in the church; African Americans generally did not become members of Baptist churches in large numbers until after the American Revolution. Once members, blacks were often absent at worship and business meetings because slavery made the most basic requirement of membership—attendance—difficult, though not impossible, to fulfill. Sukey and Kezia, members of the Zoar church, were able to attend business meetings, along with their white brethren and sisters. Though sale or forced removal could deprive enslaved Baptist women of their chosen affiliation, many were able to obtain membership in a new church. In May 1818, Patty joined the Upper King and Queen County church by letter from an Essex County meeting. When her master sold her away from the Montgomery County church where she had been baptized, Dianna Freeman presented her baptismal certificate and a letter signed by three respectable citizens attesting to her “sober, steady behavior.” After running away from her master, Margaret attended the Baptist meeting in Providence.2

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Black women sought formal dismissal from the church to maintain their membership and comply with covenant rules. In 1820, two slave women requested dismission letters from their meeting at Occoquan in Prince William County, and then joined the Broad Run Church in Fauquier County after being relocated by their master. Free black women enjoyed greater stability as church members compared to their enslaved sisters. Emancipation allowed black women the freedom to pursue their own devotional life, not only to join churches but also to engage in other religious activities. Free women in the city of Philadelphia attended sermons and met with the evangelist George Whitefield during his visits in the 1740s. In the early nineteenth century, a family of six black women—sisters and free—participated in a service of prayer and singing at the home of Judith Lomax, a white woman in Port Royal, Virginia, known for her evangelical interests.3 Some black and white women joined and left churches together. Hannah Hatchet and her slave woman, Daphney, became members of the Beulah church in 1819. Lyle’s meetinghouse granted letters of dismission to “Sister Fanny Johnson and her negro woman” upon their request. Women persisted in their religion of choice despite meddling by others. Esther began attending meetings with her mistress, Rebeckah Johnson, at the Meherrin church in 1772. When Joseph Johnson, the master of Esther and husband of Rebeckah, refused to allow the two women to go to Sunday worship, they successfully sought assistance from their church. Black and white women participated in rituals together; “Sister Susannah Walton and Sister Isbel . . . called for the elders of the church to prayer over them, anointing them with oil.”4 The pursuit of evangelical religion placed some white women in jeopardy. Despite her desire for a new faith, one woman was prevented from being baptized for four months because of spousal interference. She eventually became a Baptist. Another woman had her clothes torn off by her husband to prohibit her attendance at a Sunday service. The woman deserted her spouse so she could attend meeting. Still other women prevailed in their beliefs despite opposition from husbands and clerics. When the wife of William Hickman converted to the Baptist faith, Hickman asked “a zealous Episcopalian minister to convince her that infant baptism was the right mode.” She replied that she “was fond to hear him preach, but she could not pin her faith on his sleeve.” Hannah Lee Corbin, one of the earliest members of the Virginia gentry to become a Baptist, faced social uncertainty because of her spiritual choice. When a dissenting minister solemnized her second marriage in 1761, this union, and the children it produced, went unrecognized by the local court.5

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Upon becoming full-fledged members, Baptist women supported their churches and religious institutions in numerous ways. Women exerted influence in hiring clerics. When the Philadelphia church needed a new minister in 1759, Elizabeth Biles wrote to Samuel Stillman urging him to answer the call. When he had accepted the pastorate at a Boston church, she lamented his choice: “I should esteemed it a blessing of providence to have set under your ministry in this place.” Similarly, women intervened at the Albemarle church in 1777 to renew the temporary contract of their minister, Andrew Trible. The sisters of the church made a special plea on his behalf, “expressing themselves in meekness, and tears, and accent of speech, [showing] their distress at the appearance of being separated from him.” The church agreed to issue Trible a formal call. Female members also found ways to challenge unseemly behavior by church officers; Massy Cox did not attend communion to protest the elders’ mistreatment of the minister.6 Women opened their homes for religious meetings to accommodate itinerant clergy or when their own churches did not possess meetinghouses. In 1778, Hannah Lee Corbin welcomed two Baptist ministers for services at her Woodberry plantation on the Rappahannock River. “Sister Whitelock” regularly hosted Baptist preachers in her Upper King and Queen County household. The Widow Watts of Southampton invited David Jones to hold a service at her residence. Similarly, Jones preached in the homes of Hannah Shields and Phebe Hughes in Chester County. Some Baptist women traveled for their religion. Ministers’ wives and their female relatives journeyed with itinerant preachers on their rounds and combined church activity with social visiting.7 Monetary gifts were another way for women to support the cause of religion. These contributions covered building costs, ministers’ salaries, education funds, repair bills, and pew fees. In August 1787, four female members of the Waterlick church gave money to a voluntary subscription. Some women at Lower Dublin pledged funds to enlarge the meetinghouse in 1774, including Eleanor Northrop who made one of the largest donations. These same women contributed to the minister’s salary as well as paid for pews. Donations from women, though not as plentiful as men’s, contributed to sustained growth. In 1815, twenty women gave money to a subscription for a new meetinghouse in Montgomery County. Their contributions ranged from $100.00 to $5.00. Nancy Darby raised $27.00 among female members of the Scotch Plains church to decorate the altar. Some Baptist women promised material support to their churches after death. In her will of 1760, Mary James presented her large English Bible to the pastor of Great Valley. Elizabeth Steptoe endowed an annuity of £10 to Henry Toler, the minister of her Westmoreland

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County church. Small bequests were given for particular reasons, such as when Lettice Evans left £5 for the deacon to repair the graveyard fence. Women also supported Baptist causes by giving to institutions outside their local church. In the 1820s, Sarah Cornog, member of a Chester County church, awarded $50 to the education fund of the Philadelphia congregation. An unnamed “woman of color” from Cumberland County gave a modest sum to start a Baptist college in Virginia, while Elizabeth Anderson donated $28.00 to a missionary on behalf of the Female Seminary Society of Winchester. When Elizabeth Hobbs of Hopewell, New Jersey, died in 1763, she bequeathed a large portion of her estate to the church. First, she left £6 and two volumes of Pool’s Annotations to her local congregation for ministerial use. Second, she ordered that 300 copies of Cotton Mather’s The Gospel of Justification be reprinted and given out to clergy and laity in New Jersey and New York. After debts, her remaining estate was to go toward educating young clerics as supervised by the Philadelphia Baptist Association.8 Female members remained faithful to Baptist practices in the face of controversy. At the Pittsgrove meetinghouse in Salem County, New Jersey, female members persisted as Baptists despite the heretical snare of Universalism. Originally part of the Pennepek church, the Pittsgrove meeting was founded in 1743 as a branch of the Cohansey church. Pittsgrove became an independent church by 1771 and flourished until the late 1780s when its minister, William Worth, introduced Universalism into the meeting: “The aged pastor was insidiously instilling the poison of his own corrupt faith into his hearers and blindly leading them into skepticism [and] heresy.” In response, some members left to attend the Cohansey meeting, while others joined the local Presbyterian church. The remaining male membership embraced Universalism and supported Worth and by “imbibing his spirit and sentiments, sustained him in holding the meetinghouse, to the entire exclusion of all Baptists, for many years.” Among the members who did not embrace Universalism were thirteen women who met faithfully for worship during this period; they occasionally enjoyed the services of a preacher. Initially, the women were allowed to use the meetinghouse for services when a Baptist minister was in attendance. However, Worth made it a point to occupy the church any time this occurred. In response, the women were forced “to hold worship in private houses or some contiguous grove,” and, on one occasion in a field where they heard a minister preach from a wagon. After ten years of controversy, Worth and his followers were excluded for heresy and the church was reconstituted. The first members inducted into the resurrected meeting included some of these women.

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Baptist women were both stalwarts and innovators. While some women resolutely defended the faith, others took an innovative approach to their spirituality and even sought out other religions. The Morattico meeting reproved Elizabeth McClanahan for allowing her newborn, Peter, to be baptized in the Anglican Church. Though a professed Baptist, “Mrs. Williamson” admitted to taking communion at a Presbyterian church. Ann Gardener took her children to a Methodist minister to be “sprinkled” despite Baptist prohibition against such practice. In these cases, laywomen hedged their bets while the church complained of irregular behavior. After the American Revolution, some Baptist women began to favor other theologies, such as Methodism and Univeralism. When Deborah Tucker left the Scotch Plains church to join the Methodists she “utterly disclaimed the doctrine of election.” Thanking God for showing her the right path, Tucker informed the meeting that she wanted no further connection with them. Although “Sister Line” of the same church was also drawn to the Methodists, she was granted time to reflect on her choice. Sally Harrison was known for “fellowshipping the principles of the Methodists,” while Abigail and Ruth Roads were excommunicated for supporting “the unsound doctrine” of Universalism.9 Baptist women practiced piety not only to support their religion but also to form relationships with other female communicants. These occurred at home, church, and yearly meetings. Though an assembly of clergy and male laity, association meetings served as sites of female activity. Barred from the official conferences where the male leaders debated issues and made policy, women attended to hear sermons, meet friends, and discuss the latest news. As communal gatherings, they attracted large numbers of women for spiritual and social interaction. Abigail Harris combined religious activities and socializing with other believers, both Baptists and Methodists. One day in November 1816 she attended Sunday services at the Salem Baptist church in the morning; in the afternoon she traveled with her minister, Henry Smalley, to Bridgetown, where she heard him preach at the courthouse. She later took tea with some fellow believers and together they went to the evening service at a Methodist meetinghouse.10 Such assiduousness went beyond the usual support given to a church by its members, whether male or female, such as attending association meetings, providing financial assistance, soliciting ministerial candidates, opening their homes to itinerants, or defending the church from doctrinal disputes. The activity described above occurred within the confines of an institution where male dominance and female subordination was the rule—even when women’s membership and support were essential to the church’s survival. Female spirituality was expressed not

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only through traditional avenues of piety, such as worship services, church rites, and night gatherings, but also outside the meetinghouse. A primary focus of female devotional culture, especially for literate, white women, was reading and writing about spirituality. Baptist women copied sermons, Bible passages, and personal reflections into journals and commonplace books. Susan Ustick took notes as her father preached. Once finished, she often forwarded copies to a young cleric. Abigail Harris not only took notes from the regular Sunday sermon but also critiqued those she heard at night services and association meetings. An astute observer of ministerial performance and doctrinal orthodoxy, Harris communicated her views to friends. In one letter, she described a meeting in Roadstown, where the minister “made a good discourse from 1 John 5 and 10”; however, she found his sermon “pretty rambling.” She particularly disagreed with his conclusion that faith is “as manifest to every real Christian as the book in which he held his hand was to the eye of the spectator.” As Harris explained, “on this particular I could not agree with him, for I believe that there is many a child of God that has not that visible witness—given to them.” Elizabeth Biles and Esther Foster commented on ministerial preaching in their letters. Foster conveyed her approval of the “doctrine” of “Mr. Rice,” but she found him to be “far less pleasing and edifying than Dr. Holcomb.” She also enjoyed the discourses of Joseph Shepphard because he spoke to “her heart and experience.” Another preacher pleased her for the same reason; however, she thought his sermon would have been “as useful and evangelical” had he not taken time to criticize other denominations.11 Baptist women read pious literature as a means of spiritual support. Women at the Pennepek church had access to more than fifty volumes in the early 1710s. By the 1760s, female members of the same church used the personal library of their minister, Samuel Jones. Jones loaned books to members, among them Elizabeth Powell who he lent the first volume of Harvey’s Meditations. Hannah Sullivan of Berkeley County borrowed a copy of Whitefield’s sermons from her pastor, Christopher Collins. At the same time, a number of female members read his copy of Pilgrim’s Progress. Collins also loaned Jonathan Edwards’s Religious Affectation to a female member, who passed it on to her daughter. Baptist women read secular works of denominational import. In June 1798, Catherine Thomas borrowed Collins’s copy of The History of New England Baptists by Isaac Backus, while Ann Moore read John Rippon’s Annual Register in October 1802. After reading Romaine’s letters, Abigail Harris recommended them to a friend, remarking that they “were the most evangelical of any thing” she had ever read; she speculated

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that “if our preachers were more like him . . . , we should have better preaching & less trifling conversation.” Women also read to one another from religious publications. While boarding at the Stillman household, Joanna Brown and the daughters in the family took turns reading out loud.12 White women wrote letters to family and friends to counsel others about their faith. Elizabeth Biles regularly inquired about the spiritual health of her correspondents. To one friend, Anna Potts, Biles quoted Scripture and wrote religious poetry. Biles hoped that God’s goodness would convince Anna of the “need of a savior” and that he would “apply his blessed promises unto your distressed heart.” Letter writing became a means for Baptist women to exhort others about their souls as much as to maintain contact with family and friends. Judith Lomax agreed to correspond “with a dear sister in Christ” as a means for the two women to admonish one another, “keeping alive the heavenly flame in their hearts.” As activities conducive to spiritual interaction, reading and writing enhanced female devotional culture.13 Whether or not they were literate, white women conversed with others on religious matters as a way to witness to one another and encourage godly community. Women counseled each other as well in the midst of their spiritual quests. Margaret Macay informed a group of young women what Christ had done for her soul. Such conversation occurred between men and women as well as within female relationships. Sarah Howley told Robert “Councillor” Carter about a sermon she heard when she was nine years old, from Matthew 11:13, “my yoke is easy and my burden is light,” which awakened her faith. Frances Carter had many conversations about religion conveying her “very extensive knowledge” to her children’s tutor. “Mrs. Leet” discussed “vital religion” with the Hezekiah Smith during a visit in 1762.14 Some men who converted to the Baptist faith cited a woman as the pivotal agent in their quest for salvation. Women interceded on the behalf of male friends when in the throes of conversion. “Mrs. Tyler,” a “well bred and well informed” Baptist, corrected one man’s religious views, recommended “useful books,” and often related her own experience to guide him in his spiritual quest. Martha Powell persuaded Norvell Robertson to hear Silas Mercer preach. Avis Binney wrote to Nicholas Brown, Jr., recommending some reading after the death of his mother and his recovery from illness: “I have been so delighted myself with reading Dr. Blair’s celebrated sermons, I most heartily wish you could have them and read them . . . , they contain important truth in such elegant language as would at once improve your taste and mend your heart.”15

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Kin relations served as a focal point for female spiritual activity and women used their familial influence to convert others. Patty and Peggy Pierce of the Northern Neck eventually succeeded in bringing their brother to Christ. Upon his conversion, Ransdell Pierce commented to Henry Toler that “tho’ he used to dislike his sisters for being religious . . . , he now lov’d them better than ever.” In the face of opposition, some women used deathbed entreaties to sway recalcitrant men. Sarah Pierce converted to the Baptist faith and became a founding member of the Nomini church in 1783. Before her death, she successfully persuaded her unbelieving husband to open their home to itinerant preachers. By their own spiritual questioning, women brought men to the Baptist faith. After the birth of their first child in 1734, “Mrs. Heaton” persuaded her husband that infant baptism was unscriptural. Refusing this ritual, she exhorted her husband to show her “a text that warrants christening a child”; if he could do that, she would agree to have their son baptized. Samuel Heaton tried but his wife was not persuaded. He consulted his Presbyterian minister, who could not recommend a text to justify infant baptism either. The child remained unbaptized, and shortly thereafter Samuel Heaton joined a Baptist meeting. The familial role of white women necessitated a domestic framework for their religious faith and practice. Often confined to the home by work and child care responsibilities, the household served as a site of female piety. Domestic duties often meant female Baptists (especially married ones) were frequently cited for disorder because of prolonged absence from meeting; family and household obligations kept them from attending services. When the Southampton meeting cited Susanna Thomas for nonattendance in 1749, her explanation proved satisfactory: she could not leave her sickly mother-in-law.16 White, married women carried out their religious duty to children, servants, and slaves through household devotions. As a traditional domain of women, the home became a place to meet for temporal as well as spiritual concerns, including the women’s meetings, which were held in private households at night and during the weekend. Single women were more likely to attend these meetings because they had more time to devote to spiritual activities. The women’s meetings were a significant locus of female piety among Baptists. These meetings were first formed during the Great Awakening, when the laity sought out religion on their own terms. In 1741, white and black women participated in spontaneous meetings during Whitefield’s stay in Philadelphia. Before leaving the city, the evangelist helped to organize “a society of young women” who he hoped would “prove to be wise virgins” in

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their pursuit of spiritual sustenance. Women took the initiative to organize their own societies to gather for prayer and worship. Their meetings were held in private homes, occasionally with clergy present. Abigail Harris attended two different women’s meetings in Salem County; the one held in New Canton met every Wednesday and Saturday. According to Harris, “they are attended very well & several of them say they are the most useful meetings they find, indeed I think they are quite so to me. There appear to be a great deal of harmony or love amongst them.” Female Baptists in Boston frequented a women’s meeting that Hezekiah Smith sometimes attended when visiting the city. Through these meetings, women played an active role in their own religious life and interacted with other like-minded women.17 For a short time, some white women among the Separate Baptists of Virginia and North Carolina gained access to leadership roles. According to Morgan Edwards, nine Separate churches in Virginia instituted the office of deaconess in the 1770s; how many may have served is not noted in the church records. Traditionally, to be a deaconess a female member had to be at least sixty years of age and widowed or single. A deaconess complemented the work of the deacon by assisting female members during baptism, counseling female converts, and tending the sick. Defined as a “helpful service,” the female deacon was to serve the needs of ill and dying members through physical and spiritual support. Female members of the black church in Petersburg served as deaconesses in the early nineteenth century and took on similar activities as deacons, including citing errant members and monitoring the “lives and conduct” of former believers.18 Separate Baptists allowed some white women to exhort in public. Martha Marshall, a Separate originally from Connecticut, prayed in meeting during the 1750s. Despite her piety, Marshall’s preaching met with complaints from Virginians. Margaret Meuse Clay of Chesterfield County also faced opposition. In the 1770s, she was accused of unlicensed preaching and sentenced to a public whipping, a punishment she escaped when an unknown man paid her fine. Both women were from families with husbands and fathers who were ministers, which may have influenced their behavior. Despite objections to female preachers, informal religious activities by women still occurred. When a group of ministers lodged at her home overnight, Kitty Clark greeted them the next morning with song and prayer. Susannah Gano Price wrote religious poetry, some of which appeared in Baptist hymnbooks. At a night meeting, Abigail Harris was asked by the minister’s wife to pray before the assembled crowd. Baptist women also helped carry out church rituals. Deaconesses at the Petersburg African church

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assisted “candidates at the water,” and female members helped women converts with their baptismal clothing at the Scotch Plains meeting.19 Within Separate and Regular churches, some women served in an official capacity as representatives appointed to cite members for wrongdoing. A handful of cases exist in which a woman or group of women were sent to investigate charges against a fellow member; in all of them, the accused was female. Edith Hough and Mary Yuerkes were appointed to investigate “the marriage and conduct” of Lucretia Kerrill. At the Gillfield African meeting, Lucy Perry and Judith Perry were appointed to cite Agga Potter for irregular behavior. The Coan meeting appointed two women to look into the moral character of Molly Winsted. When Nancy Hathaway decided to join the Methodists, “Sisters Kidd and Carter” were sent to visit her and find out why. In cases involving men and women, the church sometimes appointed teams of men and women to speak to the member of their own sex. This was especially true in cases of adultery, fornication, or illegitimacy. Male leaders often followed up the work of women’s committees assigned to investigate charges of sexual misconduct. When the First Baptist church of Philadelphia accused Sarah Clark of fornication, Catharine Loxley and Mary Bright were appointed to meet with her in October. By November, John Peckworth and John McLeod had elicited a confession from Clark. At the Linville’s Creek church in August 1774, Hannah Harrison was appointed, along with John Alderson, Jr., to look into the adulterous affair of Susannah Ray and John Conner. Compared to the majority of churches, female members were visible in the business meetings at Linville’s Creek. Although women in this church were appointed to cite other women for misconduct, the incidence of their activity was relatively minor compared to male participation. From 1757 until 1810, this church appointed women on five occasions to investigate charges of misconduct against female members, compared to male members who served in this capacity twenty-six times during the same period. In general, white women were rarely appointed to cite men to appear at meeting or to investigate charges against a male member. Black female members in biracial congregations never enjoyed this privilege. At times, women were called upon to corroborate accusations against an errant member. Church books record few cases of female members entering complaints against male members. One exception concerns a ruling elder in the Philadelphia church, Samuel Ashmead, who was accused by “Mrs. Morton” of bedding with a single woman while visiting Newcastle. Ashmead denied the charge and challenged Mrs. Morton’s story; he relented when one man and two women confirmed her accusation. Similarly, a charge brought by Sarah

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Wheelor against Richard Woodfork for “the sin of drunkenness” was put on hold by the Albemarle church until it heard other testimony corroborating her claim. Churches were not always sure if women could give testimony. When a dispute broke out between two male members at the Pittstown church, it asked the PBA if their wives, who were members, could testify in the case; the association answered in the affirmative.20 Women could exercise specific rights as members, but they were denied other privileges. White and black women rarely submitted grievances in meeting despite the fact that many churches guaranteed this right. Women were not always permitted to vote in church business, especially when it concerned secular issues. While female members enjoyed individual rights as full communicants, these liberties did not translate to temporal society, in which the ability of women to act as individuals was profoundly restrained by their marital, familial, or enslaved status. White women’s secular role as wives and mothers thus permeated church doctrine regarding the proper exercise of female power in church government. Even though the ideal white female character was synonymous with the traits of a good Christian, this did not authorize the participation of white women in church government. Such ideals did not even apply to black women, free or enslaved. Despite their dedication, the earthly bondage of slave women inhibited their religious freedom. Free black women experienced more choice and mobility than their enslaved sisters. Yet the limitations placed on Baptist women by their religious institutions due to gender, race, and status did not reduce their exercise of piety. Women occupied two realms: one was the institutional church led by male leaders who they supported and interacted with to maintain the godly order. The second realm was their own religious community. In the face of male-dominated meetings that restricted female participation, women pursued their faith through a female network of spiritual activity. This network was carried out in the household and at women’s meetings and maintained by interpersonal relations through writing, reading, and conversation.21 Women cooperated at these sites to support one another in femaledefined practices of spirituality. The role of female members in the church was circumscribed, notwithstanding women’s vigorous pursuit of piety outside the meetinghouse. As full communicants, female members ostensibly enjoyed the same rights as male members; as women, they were barred from assuming formal positions of church officeholding. White male dominance was evident in the hierarchical structure of churches; only men served as clerks, deacons, elders, treasurers, and ministers. Membership promised spiritual parity but not temporal

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equality; women were denied access to equal participation in church business. Baptist women did not enjoy the power that Quaker women employed.22 Informally, some women (particularly elite white women) could have a considerable impact on church affairs (especially over members of lesser status, such as black slaves), however, their lack of formal, institutionalized power and of the franchise impaired the ability of female members to exercise authority consistently within church government. Churches differed in the rights granted to female members. As autonomous entities, Baptist meetings approached church government with varying degrees of inclusion. Some carefully defined specific tasks for female members, such as calling a minister. Others permitted women to participate in the selection of a new clergyman and approval or rejection of new members. At Burruss’s meetinghouse, women had the right to enter complaints, give evidence in a case before the church court, and choose a preacher. Baptists were careful to delineate between episodic exercises of power by female members, such as the selection of a minister, versus more general forms of authority, such as officeholding or the formulation of policy. The Canoebrook church agreed that women could vote on spiritual matters but not on temporal ones. At some meetings, female members were not allowed to “speak in the church” on matters of discipline.23 Of particular concern to many meetings was women’s access to voting. Some churches denied white women and black men and women the right to vote on business, as did Waller’s meetinghouse, where only “free born male members” could exercise the franchise. At Racoon Swamp, female members could not vote but they were allowed “to express their satisfaction or objection to the declaration of any who may apply for fellowship, present their grievance, [and] offer their assistance in the choice of officers.” Some meetings held discussions to define women’s status in church government. The Mill Swamp church specified women’s role in 1776 when it prohibited female members from voting on matters “not essential to communion.” By 1800, this same church would declare, “no woman shall speak in conference but when called upon to give advice in a matter or ask a question”; women needed permission to contribute to discussions. The Chappawamsic church entertained the idea of women voting in church government; a month later, it reconsidered and decided that female members are “entitled to the privileges of the church agreeable to Dr. Gill’s exposition of the word of God by Paul’s gospel to the Corinthians”; in other words, women should remain silent in meeting. The aptly named Difficult church pondered the place of female members in church government relative to male members. It decided that “according to the tenure of god’s

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word & the superior nature” of men, women “have not equal power.” Yet the meeting went on to argue that because “man is not without the woman in the Lord, their evidence is to be received as valid, and all their grievances listened to by the men.”24 These debates over women’s access to the franchise would recur throughout the eighteenth century. A lengthy discussion about female suffrage occurred in Pennsylvania in the aftermath of the Great Awakening. During the 1740s, Baptist women participated in prayer meetings, testified about the good news to fellow believers, and protested the condemnation of revivalism from the Philadelphia pulpit. Women’s voices could be heard during the Great Awakening.25 As a time of unprecedented upheaval in religious practice and social relations, the revivalism of this period brought about the exercise of spiritual authority by some women, while it also instigated a debate about women’s status in church government. In 1746, the PBA took up the issue of women voting in church government at their annual meeting. What began as a discussion over the right of female members to vote on church affairs quickly devolved into an argument over how to allow female participation while preserving Paul’s dictum that women keep silent and not usurp power from men in church polity. The association leaders wondered how business could be conducted if women remained silent; conversely, if women participated how could their silence be maintained? The PBA attempted to reconcile the scriptural directive of female silence with the realities of ecclesiastical government when women might have to speak. The solution reached by the PBA leaders was meant to solve the problem of female suffrage: “If then silence enjoined on women be taken so absolute, as that they must keep entire silence in all respects. . . . ; it is to be hoped that they may have, as members of the body of the church, liberty to give a mute voice, by standing or lifting up of hands, or the contrary, to signify their assent or dissent to the things proposed and so augment the number on the one side or both sides of the question.” Voting with “a mute voice” allowed female members to be active without being verbal. By standing up or raising their hands to vote, women could participate in discussions and yet remain silent as required by biblical directive.26 The decision for women to be mute but active participants in church government did not solve this dilemma. The argument grew more complicated when association leaders realized that there was a practical necessity for women to speak in church: “Therefore there must be times and ways in and by which women, as members of the body, may discharge their conscience and duty towards God and men.” If women were to become members,

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they had to relate their conversion before admission to membership. It was unrealistic to enforce silence on women for “how shall a woman make a confession of her faith to the satisfaction of the whole church? Or how shall the church judge whether a woman be in the faith or not?” A woman might have to speak in church if she had information in a particular case or when she had a dispute with another member. Last, the association acknowledged that a female member might need to speak to defend herself against unwarranted accusations: “Again, how shall a woman defend herself if wrongfully accused, if she must not speak? This is a privilege of all human creatures by the laws of nature, not abrogated by the law of God.” In practical terms, female members could and should speak at monthly meetings. The problem was how to continue male authority in church affairs and still allow women vocal participation in the proceedings. The PBA recommended various remedies. First, it suggested, “a woman may make a brother a mouth to ask leave to speak,” that is, a female member would ask a male member to request permission for her to speak. Another possibility considered was for women themselves to speak directly to the meeting without male intervention. A third option, which was practiced in some churches, was a variation of the first. A female member would ask an officer to raise a particular issue for her during the meeting. In this way, the subject would be broached without the woman having to speak. The PBA advised setting aside “a time of hearing” especially for female members. The associational leaders felt this proposal was “not inconsistent with the silence and subjection enjoined on them by the law of God and nature.” The voices of women could be heard in church under specified conditions. The PBA concluded that “absolute silence in all respects cannot have been intended” for female members. Still, the association tempered its message with a cautionary note that the vocal participation of women must be controlled so as not to open the “floodgate of speech in [an] imperious, tumultuous, masterly manner.” If not clarified and limited, female speech could conceivably dominate church business and women would become “masterly,” domineering, and contentious. Church leaders hoped to guard against such self-assertion by female members. Vocalizing in meeting beyond minimal requirements was not deemed appropriate for the sisters, as the act of speaking took on gendered components. Clergymen and male laity, whether officeholders or not, had access to speech in the church meeting within guidelines of appropriate behavior. The practice of women speaking in the church, however, required surveillance; more than the usual procedures were necessary to control female speech.27

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The debate over women’s suffrage would continue in the Philadelphia church. On a Saturday in March 1764, a female member of the Philadelphia church asked Samuel Davies, one of the deacons, to raise the issue of female suffrage for discussion before the business meeting. Davis complied with the request; the subject was considered by the members present and entered into the church book. First noting that “the rights of Christians are not subject to our determinations,” the entry distinguished between voting privileges for women in church government versus the nonexistence of female suffrage in the secular world: “In civil affairs they [women] have no such right; but whether they have, or have not in the church, can only be determined by the Gospel, to which we refer them.” The entry went on to state that even if voting by women appeared “to be a mere custom,” the church saw “no necessity for breaking it, except the custom should at any time, be stretched to subvert the subordination which the gospel hath established in the churches of the saints.” The male leaders tacitly affirmed the right of female members to vote in church business while simultaneously cautioning the sisters with Scripture not to “usurp authority.” The unknown female member who initiated this discussion about suffrage did so because women had recently been denied the right to vote in meeting, what the clerk described as “a neglect on a late occasion.” The brethren claimed that they had done nothing “to deprive the sisters” of this right and asked the women to attend meetings where “their suffrage or disapprobation shall have their proper influence.” In the event the women did not attend the meeting, the male members assuredly proposed “to invite them when any thing is to be transacted which touches the interest of their souls.” Those who opposed female suffrage found an ally in the new minister, Morgan Edwards. A recent immigrant from England, Edwards was intent on regulating church practice in the Philadelphia meetinghouse and his leadership played a pivotal role in this conflict. Unused to women voting in church government, Edwards claimed that female members exercising the franchise was “a novel thing,” and “supposed never to be.” He disagreed with the careful reasoning of the PBA and inveigled against the practice of female suffrage whether based on Scripture or custom. If women voted and “if their votes are not authoritative they determine nothing”; on the other hand, if their votes counted, then “women cease to be in subjection and usurp authority.” For Edwards, the threat of female domination was real: “The vote of a woman is equally decisive of that of man, and the women, who are always the most numerous, have it in their power any time to decide every thing against men.”28 Edwards’s ruminations on female suffrage provide one version of this controversy in the Philadelphia church.

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A very different story appears in a letter sent to the church by Joanna Anthony in September 1764.29 Writing “on behalf of the sisters,” Anthony opened her letter by referring to recent discussions in the church meeting over female suffrage by male members and directly challenged their conclusions. She assured the brethren that the female members had already reached a decision on women voting in church matters. Well aware of the rights they enjoyed, the women stated that they would have “separated themselves” from the men “had they thought their privilege or their practices contrary to the word of God.” Anthony went on to state that the query discussed at the March meeting was not what was originally requested. The question the women had intended to ask presupposed their right to vote as full communicants. While the men had debated whether or not women had a right to the franchise in church business, the female members wanted to know what right male members had in depriving them of their customary right to suffrage: “We know our former rights and we beg to know who had a right to deprive us of them as you say in your minute, ‘nor do we know that this church or any of us have done any thing to deprive the sisters of such a practice be it right or custom except omission on a late occasion’. ” While the brethren vaguely noted some incident “on a late occasion” when the sisters were barred from full participation, Anthony asserted a much more particular understanding of the same episode. Confessing ignorance of the words “on a late occasion,” Anthony specified that it was “now about two and half years since our brothers Westcott, Davis, and Levering were chosen deacons, and you may remember, contrary to all our common rules of voting in that church.” The new minister, Edwards, had asked all the brothers present to vote for deacons “without seeming to distinguish the sisters then present from the most senseless of beings.” According to Anthony, this was the first time “the sisters [were] . . . treated with such contempt in that church.” Since that time, the sisters have “heard of many particulars” in which women were “totally omitted” from proceedings. Anthony noted the traditional practice that existed before Edwards’s arrival, arguing that based on those rules the “sisters had a right of giving their suffrage or disapprobation.” What was portrayed by the male members as an isolated incident of little import (one they could not name), the female members took to be a significant erosion in their power, beginning two years earlier when choosing candidates for deacon. A deep fissure existed between the men’s understanding of one event versus the women’s mounting concern over a series of incidents in which their rights were systemically denied. The less powerful position of the women in the church is evident in their more specific account

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of the origin of this controversy. As subordinates within church government, female members remembered pertinent details with more clarity than male members. Anthony and the sisters reassured the brethren that they had no intention of violating scriptural direction by attempting to usurp male authority. At the same time, the letter informed the male laity that the women would not let go of their rights without a fight: “Neither would we be so ignorant as to close our minds at all times, when our rights, which we never did any thing to forfeit, are denied us.” In closing, Anthony asked for clarification of one point in the church record, which stated, “we purpose to invite them [female members] when any thing is to be transacted which touches the interest of their souls.” Anthony underlined this phrase and asked for an explanation on behalf of the sisters: “We hope you will be so kind as to explain these sentences unto us, who confess we do not know your meaning by them.” Politely, though ironically, Anthony questioned the male assumption that female members had little interest in the church beyond what “touches” their souls. This suggests a gendered difference in the experience of membership for women and men, as identified by the male laity.30 In the end, the women won the argument when the meeting agreed to allow them to exercise their former right of voting on church business. At the next meeting, the question of female suffrage was posed as follows: “Whether the women should be allowed to give their suffrage as heretofore or in some other manner.” The debate now concerned the proper form that women should follow when voting. Twelve men voted for the new policy but four voted against it, noting that their opposition was not to “the thing but the manner” of it, meaning women should raise their voices rather than their hands to exercise the franchise. These twelve brethren who prevailed wished female congregants to be active but silent contributors. Women retained their right to vote in church matters. As mute participants, they submitted to religious authority. However, female acquiescence did not mean passivity; female members looked to men, particularly clergymen, to lead church government. These women were aware of church proceedings even when absent from monthly meetings. Their collective memory leading up to this controversy attests to their engagement; their ability to be successful depended in part on the female devotional culture that existed outside the meetinghouse, where the sisters met in a private household to discuss and write a letter documenting their grievances. Though they balked at this form of communication (“we are now under the disagreeable necessity of informing our brethren in this publick manner”), they felt obliged to put their complaint into words to

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protect their rights. An association of female Baptists coexisted alongside the male leaders as a subset of the meeting, where women pursued religious activity despite the lack of formal power within church government.31 Female suffrage became an issue for Virginia churches two decades later. In 1784, the Kehukee Association fielded a query about this issue and agreed that women had no right to speak in meeting about matters of discipline unless they were called upon or the matter concerned themselves. A similar debate broke out in 1798 when the Roanoke District Association met at its annual meeting. One of the queries addressed was “what is the duty and privilege of a female member in church discipline?” The answer prohibited female suffrage but allowed female participation. Women were told “fill up their seats in meetings for business as well as for worship that they may be acquainted with the proceedings of the church.” They were to be witnesses when called upon and “their approbation or disapprobation in the reception or rejection and their objections to be strictly attended to by the male members.” These duties stipulated that Baptist women attend meetings, give evidence if relevant, and be listened to by the brethren. They could do all this and still not vote. When voting occurred, it “should be decided by a majority of the voice of the male members and the females [are] to be silent.” The association leaders cited the Pauline tradition of women’s silence in church to justify their decision.32 Individual meetings struggled with the issue of female suffrage and found various solutions that permitted women to participate yet not dominate. Virginia churches specified issues upon which women could vote, such as the admission of new members or selection of a new cleric. Other churches outlawed female suffrage altogether. When it was founded in 1787, the High Hills church gave women the right to choose officers and delegates to association meetings as well as receive or reject new members. Nonetheless, the church felt compelled to assert that female members “shall not have the government in their power.” This same congregation reiterated this policy in 1820 when it declared that women were “not so immediately concerned in church government.” Other Virginia churches followed suit. At Black Creek, one third of all free male members had to be present for the meeting to conduct business. Though no women could talk in meeting, a male member could speak for her if she had relevant information. Despite their silence, male laity wanted female members to be knowledgeable about church business. In 1802, male members at Mill Creek unanimously agreed to invite the female members “to visit” the business meeting at times to keep them informed of its activities.33 Most Virginia churches limited voting to white men

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only; white women were prohibited from exercising the franchise in church government at the same time they dominated church membership. The numerical dominance of female members within Protestant congregations is a recurring theme in American religious history. Whether seventeenth-century Puritans or nineteenth-century evangelicals, most Protestant churches underwent a feminization process in membership. The feminization of Baptist meetings in Pennsylvania and Virginia began during the latter half of the eighteenth century. This progression is evident in membership at the Great Valley church. In 1711, this church was constituted with eight male members and six female members. Membership rose slightly to 11 men and 14 women members in 1748. By 1770, this meeting had 40 male members and 53 female members. When some members left the Great Valley church to found a separate meeting at Vincent, 33 women and 17 men constituted the new church. Even in churches that suffered a decline, women dominated numerically. Between 1702 and 1774, 71 women and 54 men became members at the Southampton church. From the time of the American Revolution until the turn of the nineteenth century, there were 64 female members and 41 male members in this church. Though Southampton lost members through death, attrition, and migration, women still outnumbered men. Lower Dublin had more female members by 1746. This trend continued throughout the colony and by mid-century, women made up more than 50 percent of all Pennsylvania Baptists.34 In Virginia, Baptist women outnumbered Baptist men in the late eighteenth century. During the first decade of widespread activity by Baptists in the 1770s, female members were a significant portion of Baptist meetings in Virginia. At the Morattico church in the Northern Neck, female members outnumbered male members from the beginning. When the meeting was organized in 1778, 85 women and 55 men, 132 whites and 8 blacks, joined. 35 white men and 29 white women organized the Goose Creek church in Fauquier County in 1775. By 1796, the number of white female members had risen to 78, while the number of white male members had only increased to 44. At the same time, 28 black men and 29 black women became members of the church. By 1808, this meeting had 145 female members compared to 78 male members. The Buckingham meeting was constituted in 1772 with 19 white men and 13 white women. By the 1780s, 22 white men, 46 white women, 32 black men, and 34 black women were members of this church; while women dominated this meeting, whites and blacks were evenly represented. Among the 24 meetings in existence in Virginia in the 1770s, 12 had fairly balanced ratios between men and women (within six digits); three had

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male majorities, while nine had female majorities. By the 1780s, this had grown to 28 churches, 17 of which were dominated by female members, while only five had a preponderance of male members.35 A second difference between the two regions was the presence of black members. In Pennsylvania, black membership was low throughout the eighteenth century. This was also true in Virginia; only a small number of black men and women joined eight Virginia meetings by 1770. While most churches had close percentages of male to female members, whites predominated. In the 1770s, a few churches had black membership into the double digits (only four of twenty-four). Black membership would slowly grow during the 1780s. Over time, the increased presence of black members changed the racial and gender makeup of Baptist meetings. The sex ratio of black members was closer in a majority of these churches compared to white members, and the participation of black men counteracted the female dominance of these churches. In the case of Racoon Swamp, black men and women joined in equal numbers, which indicates that the feminization of Baptist churches was a white phenomenon until the nineteenth century. During the 1780s, 38 black men and 32 black women joined Racoon Swamp. By 1813, there were 134 female members (80 black, 54 white) and only 70 male members (56 black and 14 white). This biracial church, where 65 percent of the church was female and 67 percent was black, had not only experienced feminization but also Africanization. The Wicomico church experienced a similar increase in the early nineteenth century, with 53 women and 30 men, 74 blacks and 9 whites; by 1805, the meeting was 89 percent black and 63 percent female. Female domination in church membership did not translate into greater influence within church government. Though women dominated numerically, they possessed little formal power. This inversion is evident at the Morattico church. Though women were a majority of members (65 white women to 36 white men, 44 black men to 42 black women), few women were active in church proceedings; 24 men and 4 women attended a business meeting in 1783. This tradition continued with the organization of new churches. When it was founded in 1812, the Beulah church covenant clearly gave free men the definitive role in church polity: “The authority, discipline and government of the Church is in the hands of the free male members, the other members may assist as witnesses, and in preparing, and explaining matters of discipline.” Women could give testimony in cases before the court but could not supervise trials. The feminization of membership in Pennsylvania and Virginia congregations would continue into the nineteenth century. Like other Protestant

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denominations, female members became a mainstay of Baptist churches. Though they would exercise power through new organizations (Bible, missionary, and educational societies) in the early nineteenth century, their place within the religious polity remained the same in most churches. New religious groups would emerge, such as the Disciples of Christ and Freewill Baptists, which allowed women to preach and participate in church government. With time, they, too, would become increasingly concerned about female encroachment on male authority.36 Redoubtable members, Baptist women would provide financial and emotional support to their churches and ministers as well as sustain a spiritual community outside the meetinghouse. Female members were protective of their church’s privacy and strove to maintain harmonious relations as specified in the church rules. However, in one instance, they were willing to challenge the male leadership when their rightful place in the church was compromised.

Chapter 7

Free People in the Lord: Race and Religion

When Samuel, a slave member of the Middletown meeting, died in 1796, his prodigious faith was noted in the church record: “this man was a example of real piety—he hath been a member of this church for near forty years—without ever a complaint.” This is the only evidence that Samuel attended this church. His presence at monthly meetings was not chronicled, nor was he accused of disorderly behavior. Likewise, Mary Parry appeared in the Southampton church book three times: when she was baptized, when her membership was transferred, and when she died.1 The pious but shadowy presence of Samuel and Mary is emblematic of the secondary status African Americans held in early Baptist communities. Blacks were a minority in a denomination that was primarily white for most of the eighteenth century. Membership in a Baptist church did not initially appeal to most blacks. Though African Americans were drawn to the egalitarian message of evangelical religion, few joined Baptist churches until after the American Revolution. In 1770, the majority of Baptists in these two colonies were Euro-American women; in Virginia, the church was 90 percent white and 54 percent female; in Pennsylvania, it was 98 percent white and 70 percent female. Attendance at meeting did not always end with formal entry into membership. At any Sunday service, 200 people may have turned out but only 30 would be members. This was the initial practice of African Americans attracted to the Baptist faith. Evangelical meetings frequently had biracial audiences, but this did not translate into biracial churches. Though large numbers of blacks attended Baptist meetings in the Northern Neck of Virginia, their interest was not reflected in membership. When the Yeocomico church was organized in 1789, all 33 members were white.2 Many African Americans remained among the “hearers” in a congregation, because their masters prohibited their membership, they were unwilling to meet religious obligations, or they were satisfied with attending but not joining the church. Historical records give little indication that blacks were even present at meetings during most of the eighteenth century. Contemporary religious histories, such as Morgan Edwards’s series on colonial Baptists or Isaac

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Backus’s book on New England, were published before there were substantial numbers of black members. When they were included, African American Baptists appear as a distinct category. In his Annual Baptist Register, John Asplund segregated black and Indian Baptists into separate columns; his summary of North American Baptists for the years 1790–93 did not include black or Indian churches or ministers.3 Baptist histories of the early nineteenth century were more inclusive. Robert Semple’s history of Baptists in Virginia listed black churches with white ones of the same association and made passing reference to at least one African American minister. David Benedict’s two-volume opus dedicated a chapter to black Baptists, primarily in Georgia and the West Indies. He treated them as a discrete entity with their own churches and leaders.4 Pennsylvania meeting minutes show little evidence of black participation. Though Pennsylvania had a smaller black population compared to Virginia in the eighteenth century, this difference does not completely account for their absence.5 The few clues that exist offer an understanding, albeit incomplete, of the African American religious experience. One example is Harry, a member of the Southampton church, who in June 1784 was suspended for disorderly behavior. After an enquiry, Harry admitted that he was guilty of drunkenness and “promised reformation.” The church continued his suspension. At some point, Harry regained membership because in 1790 he was accused of “drinking to excess and behaving in an unbecoming manner” and suspended again. In 1791, Harry was admonished for “suspicion of drunkenness” but restored to membership. Two years later, Harry was suspended for buying liquor and being intoxicated. In 1795, after ten years of being suspended at various times, no improper behavior had been reported about Harry; because he was “truly penitent for past offences,” he was restored to full communion. Harry’s presence in the record occurred in the 1780s, when black members began to appear in Pennsylvania churches. Before 1775, blacks constituted less than 1 percent of Baptist membership in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. White Baptists of the Delaware Valley were mostly indifferent to the spiritual needs of the enslaved and free people of color in their midst; only the Anglican Church showed interest in proselytizing black Philadelphians. When blacks begin to appear in Baptist church records of the Mid-Atlantic, their numbers were relatively small. During the 1780s and 1790s, seven blacks joined the Middletown church, while the Southampton meeting had five African American members. Black church attendance increased in Philadelphia during the early nineteenth century when 27 blacks (16 women and 11 men) were members of the city meeting.

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One of these was Moses Johnson, a Virginia slave, who escaped north during the American Revolution only to find himself reenslaved when the war ended. He secured his freedom with the help of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society in 1781. Moses was a member of the Free Africa Society and active in the Baptist church.6 Black interest in the Baptist faith in Virginia did not turn initially into membership. In the first three decades of activism, whites made up 90 percent of the church. It was not until the 1780s that blacks (29 percent) began to constitute a significant portion of members compared to whites (71 percent). By the 1780s, white men were a minority in Virginia churches, white women, black men, and black women constituted 80 percent of the members. The Great Revival brought many new converts, particularly black men and women. As in Pennsylvania, there was a significant increase in black Baptists after the war. When it began in the 1770s, the Morattico church had 161 white members and 24 black members. By 1808, black membership had risen to 96 and the white membership had fallen to 72. Despite the difference in timing and trajectory of the Baptist religion in Pennsylvania and Virginia, blacks entered the Baptist church in both regions in substantial numbers only after the American Revolution.7 Membership in a biracial church constituted the norm for black Baptists during the eighteenth century. Biracial congregations tended to be lopsided; the founding members of the Scotch Plains meeting in 1747 included 37 white men, 79 white women, two black men, and no black women. Similarly, the Upper King and Queen County church had 19 white male members, 25 white female members, seven black male members, and five black female members. This church grew substantially by the early 1800s but whites still predominated (423 whites and 307 blacks; the church would eventually divide into two). In most churches, either whites or blacks were the majority; comparable numbers of both races was uncommon. At some Virginia meetings, black members outstripped whites by two to one in the late eighteenth century. The opposite also occurred, as white membership rose, black membership declined. In 1796, there were 122 white members and 57 blacks in the Upperville church; by 1808, white membership had risen to 191, while black membership had fallen to 32. In many churches, blacks remained a minority into the nineteenth century.8 When African American members became a significant presence, the dynamics of church order and discipline often came under debate. White leaders wondered about the extent of black participation in church government. After discussing whether black members should be present at business

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meetings, the Linville’s Creek church voted to include them. Churches were sensitive to the realities of slavery and scheduled business meetings when enslaved members could attend. The Board Swamp meeting passed a resolution in 1793 appointing the last Sunday of May, June, July, and August as a time “to hear experience and to exercise discipline with black members who have it not in their power to attend on Saturday.” Lyle’s church agreed to set aside a specific Sunday to discipline black members. Sometimes special meetings were arranged after an increase in black membership or an outbreak of disorderly behavior. Waller’s meetinghouse adopted this practice after misconduct escalated among the black brethren and sisters. Black attendance at meetings was often sparse, particularly for enslaved members who had to obtain their master’s permission. South Quay dealt with absenteeism by requiring the clerk to keep a list of all black members and to call roll at the start of each meeting; those not in attendance were cited for absence.9 Baptist meetings vacillated between enforcing religious orthodoxy and appropriate conduct on all members, black and white, and tailoring their approach to particular individuals. Social divisions based on status and race affected church polity. In 1777, a preacher at Mill Swamp refused to baptize a slave because he lacked his master’s consent. This was the practice in at least one church by the 1760s. Though an informal custom in the eighteenth century, this became standard procedure by the early nineteenth century. In 1806, a slave named Jim was received as a member in the Buck Mountain church after his master, who was present, gave his permission. On the same day, two slave women, Cate and Tamar, were baptized after submitting notes from their owners. Churches passed resolutions stipulating that slaves needed their owner’s consent to join a Baptist church. In 1806, the Boar Swamp meeting determined that “no servant” could be received or baptized without their owner’s written permission. In the same year, Pergoe’s meetinghouse sent the following query to the Strawberry Association: could they “hold a person in full fellowship whose master will not let them be baptized?” The association answered negatively.10 Substantial increases in black members changed racial relations in churches. Oversight by black brethren, particularly in terms of discipline, became formally structured as the number of black members rose. Waller’s meetinghouse devised such a plan in August 1808 when it assigned two black men to supervise the African American members during communion. This church found it expedient to form a standing committee to oversee their black brothers and sisters. Membership fluctuations within a biracial congregation had consequences for church relations. At the Wicomico church, a

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sharp rise in black members was accompanied by an increase in white complaints about black misconduct. This spike in membership resulted from a revival that swept through the Northern Neck in the early nineteenth century. In 1804, 41 whites and 5 blacks constituted this meeting. By the following year, black membership rose by 74 (45 women and 29 men), while white members increased by only 9 (8 women and 1 man). Within two years, this biracial church had a black majority. At the same time, white fears intensified as black members began to hold separate meetings of discipline. White leaders renounced this practice in 1807 and set a new policy for black members. When cited for misconduct, miscreants had to come “before the church in a public way, for them to decide thereupon according to gospel rules.” The “church,” that is, the white male leaders, recognized the right of black members to settle matters “of a trivial nature,” but they would regulate the behavior of all members. This policy had an adverse effect; by 1808, black membership dropped by more than half. Many of the accusations lodged against African American members concerned conduct that whites found problematic in both the sacred and secular world, such as the “sins” of stealing and running away. When the Boar Swamp meeting accused Bob of breaking into a smokehouse, two elders were appointed to talk to him. He denied the charges, and because there was no proof the case was dismissed. Ben and James, members of the Chappawamsic church, were excommunicated for taking some wheat from Ben’s master. When Joe ran away, he was cited for misconduct; because he had absconded many times in the past, he was suspended from communion.11 The dominance of white men in church meeting provided a new mechanism to punish disorderly blacks. James Downing harnessed both the power of the church court of the Morattico meeting and the civil court in Northumberland County to punish his slave Isaac for stealing; he was excommunicated by the church and whipped by the county court. Similarly, Major was brought before the secular and church courts for “giving or preparing poison” for fellow slaves. Despite inconclusive evidence, he was excommunicated for lying. “Brother Lawrence,” a white member of South Quay, used the church court to charge two of his slaves, Ned and Nero, with disobedience; both men were censured. Likewise, Jordan Edwards charged his bondswoman, Rose, with theft. A member, he was requested to cite her to appear at the next meeting. When Mildred Strange, a member of Lyle’s church “professed to be aggrieved with a black sister” named Ony (the slave of a family member), the church sent a white elder to investigate. When Ony failed to appear, she was excommunicated for “disobeying the call of the church and her disorderly conduct.”12

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As masters, white men acted on behalf of their slaves; as church members, they were also called to account for their own misconduct. Stronger Jones presented a note to the Waterlick meeting from one of his slaves, who was a member and had a complaint against his wife. When Daniel was accused of selling stolen bacon, his master, Peter Catlett, defended him. After hearing Catlett’s testimony, the church leaders restored Daniel to full communion. Citations were issued against white men for not maintaining proper order in their households. Benjamin Millin was excommunicated “for giving a certain negro man nam’d Philip belong[ing] to Mr. George Wells too much liberty amongst his family . . . sorely wounding the cause of religion and [for] not exercising what authority that was incumbent on him as a parent.” Jacob Brookfield was cited for denying that holding family prayer was his duty. Some members did not welcome interference. After being cited for mistreating one of his slaves, “Brother Talbot” denied the charge, stating that “he did not hold himself answerable to any one for his conduct towards his own people and that he should treat them as he thought proper.”13 African American members used the church courts to respond to the disorderly behavior of other members, both black and white. Milley, a member of Burrus’s meeting, reported that John Overton, an enslaved man, had made “improper solicitations and advances” toward her. John was suspended from communion. Black members took whites to task for their behavior, though not always successfully. In 1789, “Black Joe” complained to the church that John Richardson tried to “remove from his seat and set among the black people.” Rather than admonishing Richardson, the church rebuked Joe for his “blamable” conduct. In 1772, two black brethren accused Rebekah Johnson of “the sin of anger and unchristian language” and for separating her slave, Esther, from her husband. Johnson denied part of the allegations and no resolution was recorded. Church elders gave credence to testimony by black members. When Margaret Harrison complained that Joe was spreading a “scandalous report” about someone in her family, the Linville’s Creek church censored him. After hearing Joe’s testimony the following month, a majority decided “there was as much cause for her being suspended as him.” The church court also adjudicated existing difficulties between slaves and masters. When Humphrey, a member of the Black Creek church, shot his master’s dog, the elders sent him to see his master and acknowledge his guilt.14 As black membership rose, whites’ anxieties increased. When it was founded in 1766, the Chappawamsic church was primarily white. By the early nineteenth century, the percentage of African American members had risen significantly. Becoming a biracial church dominated by blacks troubled elder

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George Segwick, who suggested that the total number of black members be deleted from their association report, masking the church’s racial composition. The black members successfully challenged Sedgewick’s proposal. In future reports, they would be included but would be separated from the white members. Segwick’s concerns also spread to church government. He suggested that the meeting appoint some of the black brethren “to take the oversight of them to keep order amongst them and to allow them to commune with us so long as they conduct orderly.” Despite this arrangement, Sedgwick continued to inform the meeting about disorderly black members, specifically Sam Blue, “who indulged in the lust of drinking to excess” and dealt in stolen property. For these sins, the church ordered that Blue be whipped. This case occurred in 1819, the same year a revival brought 35 blacks and 9 whites into the church. This change impacted blacks, whose attempts to join the meeting were thwarted by white interference. After Rebecca related her conversion experience, the church refused to baptize her because of some dishonesty “detected” by Lucy Grimes. Similarly, Isaac’s application was denied because the same white member claimed “that his moral character was unconstant with a profession of religion.” The church books reveal assertions of power by individual black members to use the church court as legal recourse in a society that did not confer rights on African Americans. Two black male members of the Waterlick meeting accused a black man named John Jones of “forcibly committing fornication with a black female member.” Jones admitted his crime before a number of black members, who recommended that the white leaders excommunicate him. In this case, blacks utilized the church court to punish another black for sexual misconduct. Dinah, a member of the Albemarle church, accused York for “attempting her chastity (or something of that kind).” The charge was proven and York was excommunicated. Though the white leaders were unsure that a crime had been committed, they investigated and punished the guilty member, and Dinah was able to gain a measure of justice denied black women in secular society. Yet the influence accessed by blacks within the church had to be negotiated and renegotiated, and it differed by time and place. African Americans who did not agree with court decisions sometimes deserted the church. This occurred when Jacob pleaded self-defense for stabbing a white man. After the white leaders found him guilty of murder and excluded him, a number of blacks left the meeting. The vulnerable status of black members and shifting balance of power within meetings demonstrates the insecure position of African American Baptists in their own churches.15

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White opposition also stalled the entry of blacks into the Baptist church. Most white southerners opposed converting enslaved blacks to Christianity in the early eighteenth century. Planters obstructed the efforts of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel to missionize among southern slaves, believing it would lead to insurrection. Opposition resurfaced when New Light preachers began plying their trade; slaveholders complained about the malevolent effects of dissenting religion on enslaved blacks. Landon Carter grumbled that slaves had “grown so much worse” because of evangelicals. William Lee griped that these clerics “have put most of my negroes crazy with their new Light and their new Jerusalem.” He encouraged his slaves to attend the parish church and bribed those “who are the most constant attendants” with extra food and clothing. Some owners scoffed at the newfound faith of black converts. One master claimed that his slave Nat “pretends to be very religious and is a Baptist teacher.” For some whites, interest in evangelical religion masked sinister motivations. Jupiter, “a great New Light preacher,” was whipped in Sussex County for allegedly “stirring up the Negroes to an insurrection.” The House of Burgesses attempted to contain the influence of dissenting Christians, in part to “guard against the corruption of our slaves.”16 Christianizing slaves was part of the evangelical mission, and white ministers made note of blacks’ spirituality; William Rogers lamented that his preaching had little impact on white inhabitants but found many attentive blacks. Layman also showed interest in enslaved believers. John Wright requested that his funeral be held on a Sunday so that slaves could hear a sermon. Masters were advised to give their “slaves liberty to attend the worship of God in his family; and likewise it is his duty to exhort them to it, and endeavour to convince them of their duty.” Ministerial service was meant to enhance the lives of enslaved members. Clerical concern for black souls, however, did not include emancipation of black bodies. Instead, white Baptists endeavored to soften the harsh conditions of slavery. Individual churches and associations discussed the dissolution of slave families and some proposed punishing white members who separated enslaved spouses. In 1777, the Kehukee Association recommended that churches not have fellowship with members who split up slave couples. Other associations wondered whether married slaves who had been sold away from each other were still married or single and could remarry. Though many meetings struggled with this issue, most disciplined black members for irregular marriage. The F.T. church declared that it could not have fellowship with a black brother who had wedded a second wife when his first remained alive. Evangelicals also

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attempted to monitor the physical punishment of slaves by masters. The Philadelphia church suspended David Parry for “abusing a negro on the Lord’s day.” In 1772, the Meherrin church suspended Charles Cook for burning one of his slaves. In the same year, this church debated whether it was lawful for a “brother or sister to whip or beat one of their servants” and decided it was not valid. This policy of humane treatment toward slaves persisted among white Baptists. In 1790, the Roanoke Baptist Association agreed “it is the indispensable duty of masters to forbear and suppress cruelty, and do that which is just and equal to their servants.”17 Baptist resistance to slavery emerged in the 1770s with a campaign against the slave trade. In February 1775, the Philadelphia church agreed to discuss the “impropriety of the slave trade.” Elhanan Winchester preached a sermon on the evils of trafficking in slaves. As an institution, the slave trade employed “every vice that degrades human nature,” including deception, theft, plunder, murder, and “the most savage and unexampled barbarity.” Condemning this trade grew into full-scale opposition to slavery for some Baptists at the end of the Revolutionary War. During the intervening period, the American Revolution had a profound effect on white attitudes toward racial slavery. The message of equality and freedom, which pervaded political rhetoric, influenced believers and nonbelievers alike; many came to view slavery as a social evil. Agitation for ending slavery emerged with the founding of the first abolition society in Philadelphia, and some local Baptists signed a petition against the slave trade. William Rogers, minister of the Philadelphia meeting, served as vice president of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Gradual Emancipation of Slavery. James Manning and Samuel Stillman joined Providence’s abolition society. In the 1780s, the PBA recommended that Baptists either form or join societies for the gradual abolition of slavery in the United States. Still, individual congregations struggled with the issue of slave ownership. In November 1786, the Black Creek church asked: “is it a righteous thing for a Christian to hold or cause any of the human race to be held in slavery?” The members answered no by a majority vote; however, the debate did not end there. In February of the following year, members were asked whether a “person who hires slaves be considered as one who holds or causes any part of mankind to be held in slavery?” A resolution was postponed three times and the query was finally withdrawn. These whites were not sure how to define freedom in a society based on slave labor. Baptist concerns about slavery reached the associational level in the last two decades of the eighteenth century. In 1787, the Ketocton Association determined that hereditary slavery was “a transgression of the divine

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law.” Member churches, however, did not always comply with their association’s directives. When the Greenbrier church was asked by its association to debate slavery, they asserted that it was an “evil” to keep blacks in bondage for life, but because they had few black members, they preferred to remain neutral.18 In 1789, John Leland introduced an antislavery resolution to the General Committee of Virginia in an attempt to force Baptists to set policy and seek legislative action on slaveholding, calling it “a violent deprivation of the rights of nature, and inconsistent with a republican government.” Though the resolution passed, it was not well received by associations or their member churches. Many questioned the General Committee’s right to dictate policy; some associations believed the committee had exceeded its authority. In 1790, the Roanoke Association declared that it would be unwise “to emancipate our slaves promiscuously without means or visible prospects of their support.” The subject was “so very abstruse and such a set of complex circumstances attending the same,” that it decided not to formulate a policy. This association stressed that neither “the General Committee nor any other religious society whatever has the least right to concern” themselves in this debate. The following year, the Strawberry Association reiterated this position and disparaged the General Committee for meddling in civil matters. By 1793, faced with growing criticism and indifference from member churches and associations, the General Committee revoked the resolution on abolition and concluded that the state government should deal with slavery.19 Churches continued to pester their associations about slavery. In 1796, a church in the Ketocton Association of Virginia sent the following query: “can the present practice of holding negroes in slavery be supported by Scripture and the true principles of republican government?” The association refused to answer this question, maintaining it was an “improper subject” for a religious organization. One year later, another church asked for help in formulating an abolition plan. Noting the “variety of circumstances attending to the situation of those distressed people and the perplexing circumstances of their holders, respecting themselves, their connexions, and in many instances, their just creditors,” the association agreed that “gradual abolition of slavery would be the most eligible mode.” This plan would emancipate slaves gradually over a period of five to twenty-two years depending on the slave’s age. When the plan was published, member churches challenged it, and it was withdrawn. The association determined that only the legislature could tackle an issue of this “magnitude.” While white Baptists agreed that racial slavery was a transgression of divine law, this did not translate into support for

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emancipation. Sylvia Frey argues that the readiness of Virginia Baptists to place slavery in the hands of civil government was a political consideration; to gain support for the establishment of religious freedom, Baptists deserted the antislavery cause.20 Individuals persisted in seeking solutions to the problem of black enslavement. When David Barrow determined that slavery was contrary to the laws of God and inconsistent with a republican form of government in 1784, he freed his slaves. However, Barrow found it difficult to support his family, educate his twelve children, or continue his ministry in Virginia “without . . . holding slaves.” Barrow and his family later migrated to Kentucky, where antislavery sentiment was strong. He, along with Carter Tarrant and other former Virginians, founded the Friends to Humanity, a Baptist association that denied communion to slaveholders. John Leland also left Virginia. Before moving, he made one last attempt to convince others that slavery was “destructive of every humane and benevolent passion of the soul, and subversive to that liberty absolutely necessary to ennoble the human mind.” Leland had remained silent on this issue for a number of reasons. First, as a non-Virginian, he did not want to “meddle with the customs of the country.” Second, as a non-slaveholder, he believed slave owners would misconstrue his views. Third, he could offer no real solution. Lastly, he chose silence because he was afraid his opinions would only “make those in misery more miserable.”21 Robert “Councilor” Carter deemed slavery an inherent evil. Affected by revolutionary ideology and evangelical religion (he converted to the Baptist faith in 1778), he became convinced that “tolerating slavery indicates a great depravity of mind.” Carter’s had his sons educated outside of Virginia because he believed slavery “to be very destructive to the morals and advancement of youth.” Although Virginia residents could manumit their slaves beginning in 1782, he did not devise a plan of gradual emancipation until 1791.22 During this period, Carter corresponded with Samuel Jones about slavery. Jones relayed his concerns with black enslavement, a topic that had laid heavily on his mind for twenty-five years; during which time he held at least three African Americans in bondage. Jones was adamantly opposed to the slave trade as “abominable and iniquitous; inconsistent with and reproachful to the principles of justice and humanity, and still more so to that of Christianity.” He believed that the state should reimburse slaveholders for the financial losses incurred by gradual emancipation. But Jones denied white responsibility for ending slavery, arguing “that those who have slaves are perfectly innocent in holding them, and [are] under no manner of obligation to set them free.” He believed that it was incumbent on the community at

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large, not the individual slave owner, to free enslaved blacks. Jones had freed one of his slaves and intended to free another at his own expense; he manumitted them not out of “motives of conscience, but those of good will.” Edmund Botsford, a minister in South Carolina, asserted that slave owning was lawful practice and that he treated his slaves well. He wished that the peculiar institution did not exist, but “as I cannot do as I would, I do as I can.” Unable to do anything about the earthly status of slaves, Botsford sought to address black spirituality by instructing slaves and fighting the prejudices of “unfeeling masters.” Individuals continued to broach the issue of slavery. Virginia church member Noel Vick decided to absent himself from communion in 1793 “on account of slaves being held by some of the brethren.” His behavior did not change any minds. Vick’s protest was tolerated but he eventually left the church. Eleazar Clay also bemoaned the institution of slavery and feared it was responsible for the spiritual indifference of Baptists after the American Revolution.23 The controversy over slavery never led to a widespread denunciation of black bondage by the white-dominated Baptist church in the eighteenth century. Although some individuals freed their slaves, the church could not agree upon a definitive policy regarding slaveholding. For Pennsylvania Baptists, the dilemma of slavery was settled by the state through a policy of gradual emancipation. Individual manumissions occurred in Virginia, but the institution persisted as Baptists looked to the state government to resolve this issue. With the establishment of religious freedom and the separation of church and state after the Revolutionary War, Virginia Baptists were able to insist that slavery was solely a civil affair. A mixed response to slavery continued into the nineteenth century. As an early Baptist historian, wrote: “many let it alone altogether; some remonstrate against it in gentle terms; others oppose it vehemently; while far the greater part of them hold slaves, and justify themselves the best way they can.”24 Without a single standard, individuals and congregations were left to their own devices and, in most cases, acquiesced to secular norms. As the Baptist church gained institutional legitimacy and grew increasingly large in the late eighteenth century, especially in the South, it affirmed rather than challenged the social order and replicated prevailing racial practices. Still, biracial churches continued to maintain order. They not only had a white minister, who officially directed church services and business meetings, but also a black preacher, who unofficially led the black brethren and held prayer meetings. Norvell Robertson, Green Borden, and Peter preached for their church. African American men also served as elders who investigated

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charges of misconduct against black members and reported back to the (white) leadership. Brother Frank and Brother Joe met periodically with Thomas Goodman, Sr., to discuss the behavior of black members. Brother Stephen served as an elder to the black brethren and sisters at Ablemarle and exercised power within the black community. In one case, he attempted to bar a nonmember from preaching at meetings. Black elders mediated between the white leaders and the black brothers and sisters. They used their position to intervene in disputes and assist fellow believers.25 Black male preachers and elders exercised episodic power in the church. This conferred some agency but their participation was liable to white intervention. Black elders and ministers serviced both biracial churches and blackonly informal gatherings. Black exhorters held meetings outside of the whitedominated church at night, with or without permission. Churches attempted to control this activity to ensure that these men were qualified. The Waterlick meeting reprimanded black brethren who engaged in preaching without the oversight of the white leadership. Aaron and George, members of the Upper King and Queen church, were expelled for preaching without a license. This meeting took time to remind other black congregants not “to attempt to take a text to preach from, unless they first obtain liberty from the church.” Preaching was not the only activity white church leaders attempted to regulate. The Buck Marsh church court warned black male members that they must gain permission to officiate at funerals in the local community. The Goshen Association recommended that white ministers scrutinize the abilities of black men before allowing them to preach in public. Meetings followed suit by forming committees to assess the abilities of black brethren who wished to become “preachers and teachers.” Black men who took on leadership roles that exceeded white directives came under scrutiny. David Newby, a free man, and Pompey, a slave, were both excommunicated for holding separate meetings and “proceeding to discipline contrary to the rules of this church.” Lyle’s meeting resolved that black members were not “at liberty to carry on what decorum they please without the concurrence of the church.” Even informal religious activity caused concern. Wapping, a member of the Greenbrier church, avoided censure by gaining permission to “praise God on his way after meeting.”26 Many black ministers in the late eighteenth century became well known for their piety and oratory. Lewis preached to a mixed gathering of 400 people to great effect; as one white observer noted, “his gift exceeded many white preachers.”“Uncle Jack” gave “very affecting” exhortations to black and white audiences, while Amos Cubit’s preaching was well liked by local Baptists.

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Exhorters officiated at Sunday services, night meetings, and funerals, preached, sang, and prayed before black-only as well as biracial assemblies. Black Baptists made personal sacrifices to advance the cause of religion. Some African American preachers who were enslaved paid physically for their service, such as Moses, who suffered repeated beatings by his owner for exhorting among his own people. The number and impact of black preachers is difficult to discern from the extant records. As David Benedict noted in the early nineteenth century, “among the African Baptists in the southern states, there are a multitude of preachers and exhorters, whose names do not appear on the minutes of Associations.”27 A religious vocation provided some black men the means not only to do God’s work but also to improve their earthly condition. Thomas Allen was an able but enslaved preacher in the black church of Richmond who had dreams of becoming a missionary in Africa. With his church’s financial support, Allen gained his freedom and became a pastor in Massachusetts. John served as a licensed preacher to the Williamsburg meeting. His spiritual activities gained him the name “John Dipper,” which he adopted after manumission. Highly valued, Dipper was licensed to preach not only within the boundaries of his own meetinghouse but in the surrounding area: “wherever it may appear that the way is open before him.” When Dipper was emancipated, he bought his wife’s freedom and moved to New Jersey. Some black preachers were able to attain leadership positions. William Lemon, known as a “lively and affecting” speaker, represented his biracial church at the Dover Association. Despite being enslaved, Jacob (later Jacob Bishop) traveled with a white minister as a licensed itinerant throughout the Northern Neck in the 1780s. He eventually gained his freedom and became a full-fledged minister. Known as “a most wonderful preacher,” Bishop led a biracial congregation and served as its delegate to the Portsmouth Association. Some member churches, however, questioned this practice. In 1794, the Portsmouth Association debated whether it “was agreeable to the word of God” and in line with the “rules of decency,” to send a free black man as a delegate to the annual meeting. While the Association answered that churches could send any male member they chose, that the question was even asked demonstrates the vulnerable status of black ministers and the ambivalent attitude of white Baptists toward black leaders.28 While the presence of black preachers in biracial churches was a common practice during the late eighteenth century, their activity became problematic for some whites in the early nineteenth century. The South Quay church questioned the “propriety” of allowing black men to preach. When

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queried about what to do with a “slave who appears to be useful to the ministry,” one association counseled that “such a person should be encouraged but not ordained.” In 1815, the Piney Branch meeting dissuaded black brethren who wanted to exercise “a publick gift.” Abraham regained membership on the condition that he no longer preach. In 1826, Phil was restored to fellowship when he agreed “not to preach again without permission from the church.” Tom, a licensed minister, was forbidden to preach “in a publick way.” At the same time, he was instructed to maintain order among the black members, in particular, to admonish others who preached without authorization. In the late eighteenth century, the black members of the Mt. Poney meeting enjoyed the preaching of “old Bro. Janny.” When they asked for a replacement in 1826, the white leaders decided that none of the black brethren was capable of explaining the scriptures, and “that prayer and exhortation is as great privilege” as they were willing “to allow” black male members. Black ministers sought to balance the needs of other African Americans with the strictures of white society. These men counseled and led their brothers and sisters, at the same time they assuaged white fears about blacks congregating together. The black preacher George Liele never admitted slaves into membership without their master’s consent. He had a bell installed in his meetinghouse not only to call members to services but also to let owners know when their slaves would be returning to the plantation.29 Free and enslaved blacks developed their own version of Christianity during the colonial period. Mechal Sobel has described the “Afro-Baptist” faith of colonial America as a syncretic religion, built upon a distinctive mix of West African traditions and Christian beliefs. Black Baptists believed in magic and a spirit world at the same time they endorsed traditional Christian tenets of conversion and salvation. The Baptist faith was particularly attractive to African Americans because it replicated traditional coming-of-age rituals common in West Africa. They were drawn to a religion that emphasized spiritual rebirth, water rituals, visionary trances, and ecstatic dancing, singing, and prayer. Black Baptists created their own spiritual beliefs and practices by integrating their African heritage with their American experience to form a new cultural identity as African Christians.30 The physical demonstrations and egalitarian theology of Baptists attracted people from all ranks of society. The liminal space created at these assemblies momentarily suspended the secular differences between potential converts, whether male or female, black or white. African Americans attended meetings, became church members, and participated in Sunday services and rituals. Some read religious books. African American church members also devised their own

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pious practices. Secret prayer meetings served as safe havens for blacks to express their spiritual identity. At night gatherings, enslaved blacks, whether church members or not, worshiped together. Black Baptists engaged in religious activity outside the meetinghouse; cemeteries were favored sites for gatherings. Slaves and free people of color congregated at the black burial ground in Philadelphia on Sundays and holidays. Black exhorters led these activities, some of which were sanctioned by a local church, although many were not authorized to speak publicly. Ben Colley preached in Albemarle County, while “Preaching-Dick” was active in Philadelphia; neither was affiliated with a Baptist congregation. “Brother Daniel” held public meetings among the black community; most who attended were not members of the local church.31 Blacks embraced a new persona in converting to the Baptist faith. The new birth brought inward and outward changes that even masters noticed. When Gilbert ran away in 1774, his owner remarked that “he is a Baptist, and I expect he will show a little of it in company.” Conversion provided some African Americans access to new ideology and authority. When Samuel Templeman overheard Cupid, “a Christian negro” of his, express “his sense of the evil of his master’s selling liquor on the Sabbath,” he became angry and planned to beat him. As Templeman approached, Cupid “very humbly asked liberty to speak.” Templeman agreed and Cupid gave “a relation of his experiences, which was followed with such an exhortation to his master, as not only made him forget his cruel design, but also proved a means of his conversion.” This slave took a risk in questioning his master’s morality. Through evocation of his personal conversion, he escaped punishment and played a role in bringing Templeman to the Baptist faith. Cupid’s ability to manipulate the situation through religion opened up a new arena of negotiation in the slave-master relationship. Evangelicalism could potentially provide blacks the means to greater control over their lives and communities.32 The adoption of the Baptist religion by enslaved and free blacks did not mean their full acceptance in biracial congregations. Even as white ministers sought out the conversion of slaves, they wondered about the racial dynamics of mixed churches. The inclusion of African Americans into whitedominated meetings often strained relations. As a site where black and white worlds converged, the Baptist church exhibited both the benign and malevolent nature of interracial mixing in a society based on white supremacy and black subservience. Racial segregation emerged as the answer to this awkward relationship, and by the nineteenth century, meetings began to parrot the racial norms of secular society. Some church buildings had separate

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doors and seating for black and white congregants. A dispute between the white and black members at the Wicomico meeting illustrates this practice. In 1812, the church members met to discuss the construction of a new meetinghouse. The building plan included a partition in the middle of the house that would physically separate white and black communicants. Though some black members objected to the partition, the plan was approved as originally drawn. A few black members continued to oppose the plan, including a free mulatto named Spencer Thomas. In response, the white leaders worked out a compromise whereby a passageway would be cut in the partition to allow access between the two sections. This concession did not satisfy Thomas, who still resisted the racial segregation. Once the new church was built, he showed his disdain by refusing to “come into the part of the meetinghouse assigned to the blacks.” Thomas’s protest persisted for almost a year before he was excommunicated for disorderly conduct.33 Segregation also extended to church polity. White members established formal procedures regarding the role of black members in church business based on secular practices of white domination. Lyle’s church decided that a black member’s testimony was not valid against a white member accused of misconduct. At the Greenbrier meeting, prospective black communicants were told that if they joined the church, whether by letter or experience, “they must expect to be treated as in the character of servants.” In 1801, the Dover Association echoed this sentiment and argued that the social hierarchy of the temporal world affected the ability of black church members to demonstrate spiritual leadership: “No person is entitled to exercise authority in the church, whose situation in social life, renders it his duty to be under obedience to the authority of another, such as minor sons, and servants.” Due to increasing numbers and a desire to escape white paternalism, black Baptists chose to form discrete congregations in the early nineteenth century. Organizing their own churches provided African Americans with the literal and figurative space to assert their religious identity. This segregation at times was prompted by the reluctance of whites to worship with black coreligionists or be led by black ministers. Thomas Paul was told he could not preach to a biracial meeting because it “did not mix colors.” Soon after, Paul led an effort to create a black church.34 Separate churches appeared in the late eighteenth century as enslaved and free men and women increasingly embraced the Baptist religion. In some cases, black churches were offshoots of white ones; when black members reached a critical mass, they petitioned to organize an independent meeting.35 A precipitous rise in black membership signaled the onset of a

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separate institution, as in the King and Queen County Baptist meeting, a biracial church with a black majority, which eventually became a black church. The Sandy Beach church of Petersburg followed this progression as well. Black Baptists isolated themselves from their white co-religionists to create their own churches even when they were the majority of members. In the 1780s, what would become the Sandy Beach meeting was part of the Davenports Church of Prince George County, a biracial meeting with a preponderance of black members. By the 1790s, the black members had left the original church to found their own meeting in Petersburg. Conversely, the black Baptist church of Philadelphia was established when it broke away from the city’s white majority meeting in 1809.36 The ability to organize a black church depended on a number of factors, including membership, location, leadership, money, and freedom. Congregations made up solely of enslaved members had difficulty surviving as separate institutions. The first black meeting in Virginia, the Bluestone church founded in 1758, consisted entirely of slaves owned by William Byrd III. These Baptists held services in a meetinghouse on one of Byrd’s plantations; however, the church was dissolved when the enslaved members were moved or sold away. Independent black congregations depended on free members, who enjoyed greater religious freedom than enslaved men and women. Many of the members of the Gillfield church in Petersburg were free blacks, some of them propertied, who helped purchase land for a new meetinghouse. Free black brethren of the First Baptist church in Philadelphia served as trustees and procured a deed of conveyance to build a church and purchase a burial ground. Meetings with large numbers of enslaved members required white support. A free man named Cato Gardiner helped raised funds for the African Baptist church in Boston, but most contributions came from white residents. When black Baptists planned to erect a new church in Kingston, the minister relied on white donors because most of his members were poor and enslaved. Many black churches were urban phenomena, whether in Boston, Philadelphia, Richmond, Savannah, or Kingston. In the North, urban centers became a nexus for African Americans, as they gained their freedom following the American Revolution.37 In the South, free blacks congregated together in cities and became ready-made audiences. At the same time, black churches drew members from outlying areas; the two black churches in Petersburg pulled in followers from surrounding counties. Black meetings were much slower to develop in the North than the South. By 1830, there were only twelve formally constituted black churches in the North compared to thirtyfive in the South.38

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Leadership was another pivotal factor in the success of a black church. Many black churches began with the help of white ministers and elders. When black male and female members of the Philadelphia Baptist church petitioned to separate from the main meeting, white officers helped them draw up a constitution. White men ministered to black churches that lacked preachers. White itinerants preached at the First African Baptist Church of Philadelphia until they hired a black minister, Henry Cunningham, in 1812. Because Cunningham was not ordained, the PBA sent white clerics to assist him once a month. In addition, the presence of black leaders ensured the persistence of a congregation. Israel Decoundry oversaw the Davenports church and served as its delegate to the Portsmouth Association in 1800 and 1801. The African churches of Petersburg and Williamsburg survived in part because of the leadership of black preachers. John Benn, a free man, ministered to the Sandy Beach church in the 1810s, while Moses, an enslaved preacher, serviced the black church in Williamsburg. Gowan Pamphlet’s freedom allowed him to exercise able guidance, which contributed to his church’s vitality. Black preachers often served in restricted roles because of slavery. Henry Francis was a slave preacher for fifteen years before his emancipation. Once free, he took over the pastorate at the third Baptist church in Savannah, Georgia. Samuel and James Bivins, both free men, took out a bond on their own bodies to secure the freedom of James Burrows, a slave of Northampton, whose owner forbade him to preach. This enabled Burrows to move to Philadelphia and minister to the black church.39 African Americans created separate institutions with their own clergy by the early nineteenth century. However, the development of distinct meetings did not end interactions among black and white Baptists. When Philadelphia blacks created the African church, not all of them left the white-dominated meeting. Moses Johnson was among those who signed the petition to found the black congregation. However, when he died in 1816, he left the original church half interest in some real estate and a bond to support the poor. When Baptists in southern New Jersey held a yearly meeting in 1817, one of the events was held in the Salem African meetinghouse. White Baptists also continued to aid their black co-religionists. On a Sunday in the 1820s, the Philadelphia church collected $22.71 to help David Noflet buy his daughter’s freedom. These interracial connections persisted as white and black Baptists coexisted in separate congregations in the early nineteenth century.40 Many black Baptists from Virginia moved to Philadelphia, escaping slavery or relocating after emancipation. Their arrival increased the number of blacks in the Delaware Valley at the same time they presented thorny

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issues for Philadelphia Baptists. In the early nineteenth century, a controversy arose that would cause a major rift among blacks, whites, and the PBA, which demonstrated the evolving nature of race relations in the early republic. The dispute emerged when the African church in Philadelphia began accepting new members from Virginia who had “eloped” (run way from slavery) to the North. At the same time, the black meeting gained the ministerial services of Thomas Billings, a white member of the Sansom Street church. When some members protested the acceptance of runaways as church members without dismissal letters, division, debate, and violence ensued. Conflict led to more rancor when the new minister and his followers “pitched” a female member out of the meetinghouse because “she would not hold her tongue.” The intimidation continued when some of the black members threatened bodily harm to anyone who referred to them as slaves. Edward Simmons, the deacon and a founding member, led one faction of mostly original members of the African church, about 23 people. The opposing group, led by Billings, included three original members, 17 runaways, and 30 others who had never made a confession of faith or had been excommunicated. When the church split, the PBA was called in to decide whether the African church could accept new members from the South without evidence of good standing. The PBA was divided over this issue. Though Simmons’s party held the charter of incorporation for the black church, Billings’s party was in possession of the meetinghouse and other property. The association decided in favor of Billings’s group as the true church and agreed they could accept new members from the South without written dismissals. According to one critic, William Staughton, minister of the Sansom Street church and a Billings supporter, was able to push this decision through the association.41 Henry Holcombe, a rival of Staughton’s and his successor at the First Baptist church, disputed the PBA’s assessment of this controversy. Supported by his members, Holcombe published a formal protest claiming that the PBA’s pronouncement was incorrect and the institution had become “farcical.” The African church was disorderly for accepting Virginia slaves into Pennsylvania churches without proper credentials; according to him, this action “would destroy every vestige of our discipline and harmony.” In addition, the PBA and local Baptists were in violation of federal law by allowing runaways to become church members (that Holcombe was a southerner most certainly influenced his position). As this controversy brewed, many original members were leaving the African meeting and Deacon Simmons was tried and excommunicated for an unspecified crime. Holcombe protested

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his treatment by the African church. When the PBA reviewed his case, they found no legitimate cause for discharge. This decision inflamed more violence and soon after Simmons was shot at twice; the first missed his head by inches, the second hit him in the thigh. One critic claimed that Billings and Staughton were behind these attempts, which were meant to teach Simmons with “greater efficiency, how to conduct himself toward his superiors.” For opposing Billings and his followers, Simmons lost his position in the African meeting and almost lost his life.42 This incident highlights several issues Baptists struggled with in the early nineteenth century. First was how to deal with runaway slaves who traveled north and wished to join a Baptist meeting. Without dismissal letters, some Philadelphia Baptists, both black and white, questioned the entry of ex-slaves into the African church. Second was the difficulty of sustaining a united religious community among blacks of varied experience. Newly arrived former slaves found resistance from some of their co-religionists, many of whom had been free for decades. Third was the proper decorum of blacks toward whites and each other. Though it is not known who threatened injury to anyone calling free members of the black church slaves, it does demonstrate the fierce determination of some African Americans to maintain their freedom and escape their past. This threat and the attacks on Simmons, illustrate divisions among black Baptists as well as an attempt to keep them in a subordinate position despite their status as free people. A fourth factor was the evolving nature of race relations between whites and blacks. Were white and black Baptists coequals in meeting? Despite Billings’s championing of runaway slaves as legitimate church members, he was castigated by one critic because he spoke to members of the African church “like that of a master to his slaves.” Was Billings’s leadership of the exslaves based on his desire to support their right to church membership, or a way to gain mastery over a formerly dependent people? A final concern was the role of the white leadership. The wrangling that ensued in the PBA played upon preexisting tensions among local ministers, notably between Staughton and Holcombe, who were rivals and differed on issues of church policy, such as leadership and missions. According to one of Holcombe’s church members, Staughton had gone out of his way to alienate Holcombe because of professional jealousy. Some of Staughton’s followers accused Holcombe of harboring Universalist and Swedenborgian beliefs. These competitive differences were played out in the African church controversy and exposed the difficulties of grappling with the meanings of black freedom and the complex relationship of black brethren and sisters to their white counterparts. Though the conundrum of

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slavery had allegedly been solved in Pennsylvania by gradual emancipation, northerners still had to address the confounding nature of race relations in the early national period.43 The specter of slavery would continue to haunt northern Baptists even as it faded from local practice. In 1820, the Vincent church sent a query to the PBA asking them to call a national meeting for the emancipation of slaves. Though sympathetic, the PBA leadership deferred action: “The Association would cheerfully unite with any other Associations, to aid in the emancipation of the sons of Africa from the wretched state in which they are held by their fellow creatures, but think it inexpedient to enter on such business at this time.” The PBA’s refusal to deal with this issue did not stop local Baptists. Despite this proclamation, they continued to raise the issue of black enslavement. Individual meetings demonstrated a growing commitment to the abolition movement in the 1830s. When the PBA refused to take a stronger stand on abolition, several churches, including the Pennepek, left in protest. Divided over slavery, northern Baptists more often chose silence and segregation rather than protest and inclusion. Black and white Baptists would continue to coexist in distinct congregations in the North and South. As black northerners struggled to support their ministers and maintain their churches and civil freedom when possible, black southerners faced indifference and resistance to ending racial slavery, as personal interest among most of their white co-religionists militated against outright opposition. The failure of the church’s institutions to address the issue of slavery and abolition led to impasse and inaction. Aquiescence to the dominant social order and tacit acceptance of black enslavement was the choice of most white Baptists in the early nineteenth century.

Chapter 8

The Manly Christian: Evangelical White Manhood

To prove the excesses of evangelical religion to the Philadelphia meeting in 1740, Ebenezer Kinnersley offered as evidence the sermon of a New Light Presbyterian minister, whose ranting proceeded not from the spirit of God but from “a spirit of confusion.” Kinnersley noted that this cleric’s “preaching of terror, in order to convince prophane, impenitent sinners of their awful and tremendous danger” was imprudent and irresponsible. For his critique of the Presbyterian’s performance and the impact of evangelicalism, Kinnersley confronted “a censorious uncharitable spirit” in the congregation, and he was denounced as a “carnal unconverted Pharisee.” When he appealed to Jenkin Jones (the church’s minister) for support, he faced more censure. Though Jones agreed with Kinnersley in private about the Presbyterian’s style, he refused to condemn it in public. Instead, he preached against anyone who opposed the revivalism that had blossomed in the Philadelphia meeting. Kinnersley took Jones’s acquiescence as an insult, one engineered by some female congregants who had stepped out of their subordinate position to use Jones as “an instrument of their revenge” to “vent their envenomed malice and spleen” against him. In response, Jones lumped Kinnersley among the “pretty, witty gentlemen” who scoffed at New Light religion. While Kinnersley questioned Jones’s leadership, Jones claimed Kinnersley cared more for his physical and verbal attributes than his spiritual faith and ministerial calling. Both arguments were posited in gendered terms. Jones lost status by yielding to meddling women, while Kinnersley sinned by embracing the manliness of secular society. For Kinnersley, Jones had failed a test of clerical and male camaraderie; for Jones, Kinnersley was the wrong kind of man to preach the gospel. White men’s involvement with evangelical religion was complex and contextual. The gendered experience of white men who became Baptists in Virginia was substantially different from those in Pennsylvania. This was due in part to the onset of the faith in each colony. The later arrival of the

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Baptists in Virginia and their hostile reception by the Anglican hegemony was markedly dissimilar from the early and relatively easy institution of the Baptist church in Pennsylvania. Virginia Baptists faced hostility and aggression from a state church, as well as from nonbelievers who felt that evangelical religion threatened the traditional order of colonial society. This led to a short but intensive period of persecution in which Baptist preachers were harassed, beaten, and jailed by hostile men. As I have argued elsewhere, gender became a salient factor in the reception of evangelical religion among white men in revolutionary Virginia.1 The religious experience of Pennsylvania Baptists diverged considerably because of a disparate social context. A policy of religious freedom allowed Baptists in the Delaware Valley to pursue their faith without state interference. Another component of their experience was the “gender frontier” of the colony, which was significantly impacted by the radical Protestantism of the Society of Friends. The Quakers dominated government and society in early Pennsylvania, and their faith practice was gendered in radical ways. They embraced gender parity through a theology that valued both male and female believers. Females as well as males served as ministers, and the Quakers instituted separate women’s and men’s meetings. When Quaker women felt called to go on preaching tours, they left their husbands behind to care for children and households. Friends’ family life was more equitable when compared to other religious societies. Quaker beliefs also shaped the enactment of white masculinity in local society. For example, their pacifism forestalled the adoption of any military defense for Pennsylvania until the mid-eighteenth century. When the colonial assembly finally expended funds to support a militia in the 1750s, many male Friends opted out of politics instead of supporting state-sponsored militarism. Despite their withdrawal from the political sector, Quaker men were among the most influential and wealthiest in Pennsylvania at the end of the colonial period.2 The Friendly ethos of white society affected Baptists of the Delaware Valley when they adopted marriage practices similar to the Quakers. Some replicated the religious and social practices of their Quaker neighbors in church policy, conversation, and dress. They inhabited a colony that contained a multiplicity of religious groups who challenged the traditional gender order, most notably the Moravians.3 The influence of the Friends and other radical Protestants engendered a society built around the meetinghouse, household, and community. In this context, Baptist men pursued their faith, led their churches and associations, and endorsed the Baptist model of “holy walking and conversation.” White men in the Delaware Valley, like

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those in the Chesapeake, enjoyed traditional masculine authority as property owners, heads of households, and fathers, husbands, and masters, but, as Baptists, they also subscribed to a faith that valued constrained behavior and prohibited worldly diversions. White men in both Pennsylvania and Virginia endeavored to follow the Baptist idea of embodied piety, but they inhabited dissimilar social milieus, which affected their religious experience. In Virginia, Baptist men lived amid a gentry culture that judged white men on how well they could fight, gamble, ride, dance, and drink to excess. Though not all ranks of men aspired to these activities, the gentry set a model for manly behavior that affected the gender relations of white society. Virginia Baptists also lived among many unbelievers who were antagonistic to evangelical religion. These factors, combined with an established church that valued rational religion, decorous behavior, and the private pursuit of piety, created a different set of gendered expectations for white men in the Chesapeake.4 Despite persecution, Virginia Baptists, along with their northern counterparts, became part of a religious movement that challenged societal norms. Evangelicalism wrought changes in the perception and practice of spirituality and gender that affected not only religious belief and behavior but also the social meanings of individuality and community. The potential of evangelicalism to reconfigure the interconnected hierarchies of race, gender, and status challenged the ability of white men to maintain their traditional power as independent masters.5 During the Great Awakening, this occurred in Virginia much more forcefully than in Pennsylvania. Whereas Jenkin Jones questioned Kinnersley’s adherence to pious manhood because he did not accept evangelicalism, Virginia Baptists were castigated for rejecting traditional masculinity. In both places, evangelical religion had the potential to embolden women, slaves, and servants to defy their superiors. For white men, it held the possibility of losing control over one’s self and becoming subordinate to others. Rather than managing the bodies of others, evangelical men subjected their own bodies to a religion that demanded corporeal evidence of spiritual transformation and adherence to a strict code of personal conduct. In addition, by becoming a member of an evangelical meeting, converts voluntarily agreed to place themselves under the supervision of others—some of whom may be below them in the social hierarchy—as the church covenant obligated members to watch over and counsel one another on orderly behavior. This surrender of power ignited reluctance, fear, and violence among many unbelievers in colonial Virginia.6 Evangelicals were not afraid to resist when violence erupted in Virginia in the 1770s. Clergymen depended on their own strength as well as that of

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their followers to protect them from nonbelieving hecklers. Some men willingly served as ministerial bodyguards to ensure that no one interfered with evangelical meetings. Such was the case of Richard Major when he preached in Loudon County, Virginia. The Davis brothers, who were nicknamed “the giants” because of their imposing statures, initially opposed Major, but after hearing him preach, “they became well affected toward him, and threatened to chastise any that should disturb him.” Endangered by a mob, David Thomas enlisted the help of fellow minister Amos Thompson, who was known for his large size and prodigious strength. When “a company armed with bludgeons” entered the meetinghouse and saw “the brawny arm and undaunted appearance of Thompson,” they let the service continue. Thomas asserted that their activities were unlawful, that he had the legal right to preach; if fined, he planned to “spend all the little property he possessed in seeing that justice was done.” Thompson concurred but also stated “that although he was a preacher, and a man of peace, he held it to be right, when attacked, to defend himself, which he was ready and able to do.” Thompson took things further when he followed the mob’s leader out of the meetinghouse after services: A stout, bold-looking man walked off with him toward the wood, on entering which he appeared to be panic-struck, stopped and raised his club. Thompson said, “Fie, man, what can you do with that?” and in a moment wrested it out of his hand, adding that he intended no violence, but that if so disposed, he could hurl him to the earth in a moment. The ruffian was completely overawed, and was glad to escape from so powerful an antagonist.7

In most cases, Baptists were content to retreat rather than engage with a hostile crowd. After “twenty rugged young fellows” showed up “armed with instruments of death” at an outdoor meeting in Hampshire County, John Taylor and James Reading agreed to retire from the scene. Noting that few of the people present were of “a religious cast,” and that the snow was too deep to hold services, the two men departed; the meeting quickly devolved “into a great Christmas frolic.”8 Anti-evangelicals also met resistance through supernatural means. In 1769, James Roberts, who had been a “grievous thorn” in the side of Baptists in Pittsylvania County, planned to arrest some of them. On their way, however, Roberts and another man found themselves amid “a strong glare of light shone round them on a sudden, in so much that the horses fell squat on the ground as hares are wont to do; this glare was succeeded by such thick darkness that they could no more see anything than if they had been blind.”

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Rather than completing their journey, Roberts and his companion returned home and “agreed that this strange event was a warning to them; and those who heard of it were of the same mind, which procured quietness to the poor baptists.”9 Baptist ministers drew strength from their refusal to respond to the taunts of nonbelievers and usually turned the other cheek when facing violent opposition. The Christian ideal of the suffering saint became a means to endure all for the glory of God. Violence against evangelicals served the interests of dissenting Christians who used this harassment to publicize their cause. The rising number of violent encounters at religious meetings in Virginia during the early 1770s proved the merit and righteousness of revival religion to believers and outsiders alike. When imprisoned for breaking the law against unlicensed clergy, evangelical preachers stoically bore this torment. When the Middlesex County Court locked up John Waller and three other preachers in 1771, the men found “the Lord gracious and kind to us beyond expression in our affliction.” Waller, who had experienced physical punishment both in and out of prison, garnered praise from another cleric, who declared, “truly he bears in his body the marks of the Lord Jesus!” Evangelical men supported one another in their dedication to this ideal of sacrifice. David Thomas wrote such sentiments to Nathaniel Saunders in 1773 when the latter was jailed for unlicensed preaching: “O, let it never be said that a Baptist minister of Virginia ever wronged his conscience to get liberty, not to please God, but himself.”10 Evangelicals fought nonbelieving men not with fists but with words. Instead of relying on himself to combat his patron’s attempt to bring him back into gentry society, James Ireland “lifted [his] heart to the Lord,” and asked him to “direct some word or other, that might be for his benefit.” When John Pickett evangelized in Frederick County he found himself in a battle of words with a local parson, who used a “dogmatical manner” to explain the erroneous views of the Baptists. John Taylor remarked upon the substantial rhetorical power of a fellow preacher: “the weapons of his warfare were wielded with such power, no man knew better than he how to reprove, rebuke, and exhort . . . when he used the rod of correction; all were made to tremble.” By turning words into weapons, evangelicals enacted their own version of manly self-assertion and contentious display that could be as strenuous and challenging as traditional masculine behavior. As a manly Christian, the preacher served as a model of the embattled and battling believer. As a suffering saint and a Christian soldier, the minister by example and leadership defined evangelical masculinity. John Waller

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embodied this ideal after he was beaten so badly at a religious meeting that he was “in a gore of blood.” The assault failed to intimidate: “Waller sore and bloody as he was, remounted the stage and preached a most extraordinary sermon.” The minister as manly Christian opposed the ignorance and disorder of the unregenerate and enacted evangelical masculinity through his stalwart spirituality, undaunted conviction, and Christian courage. He adopted a new set of religious principles and demonstrated his faith through a public conversion and reformed behavior. This ideal, as pious and dependent on God’s will in all things, required separating one’s self from the evils of secular society. This detachment enhanced the ability of evangelical men to adopt new models of male behavior, even in the face of criticism and persecution. This new role of the manly Christian attracted men who could not compete with elites in traditional modes of masculinity.11 White men who accepted evangelical religion endorsed new spiritual beliefs and behaviors and subsequently underwent a visible change. When James Ireland converted to the Baptist faith in the 1760s, he radically altered his behavior. A schoolmaster, Ireland had once aspired to a gentry lifestyle in Virginia. Instead, he quit his job, ignored his friends, eschewed social engagements, and spent long hours alone praying in the woods contemplating his damned status. This withdrawal from local society attracted the notice of his friends. Confounded by his behavior, they first tried cajoling him out of his depressive mood and ignoring his gloomy conversation. One friend warned Ireland that he would “forfeit all publick esteem by becoming a fool.” When this did not work, they tried more persuasive means. One friend planned to build a special harness in which to place Ireland until his mania had passed. Another vowed to forfeit £500 if Ireland would return to his former self. Similarly, the Anglican friends of Jeremiah Moore viewed him with pity and contempt when he converted to the Baptist faith. John Taylor watched with “awful wonder” when his childhood friend, Thomas Buck, broke “out in a flood of tears and a loud cry of mercy” after hearing a Baptist minister preach. When Taylor came under the influence of evangelical religion, he, too, gave up “all my old comrades, and with them all my external vices and read the scriptures a great deal.”12 Many newly converted men feared to publicize their faith to nonbelievers. John Taylor wanted “to roar out loud” after a religious meeting, but “to prevent my comrades from seeing the effect was upon me, would abruptly leave the company” to be alone. He tried to hide his feelings and decided “to try to enjoy myself, or at least please my companions the best way I could; and though perhaps I please them, yet, God help me, sin was a bitter cup to me, though I practiced it for fear they

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would laugh at me, for being sanctimonious.” Enoch Edwards consciously avoided his friends so as not to be drawn into sinful behavior, for he “feared them shockingly.” Norvell Robertson prayed in secret for six months before his conversion; John Leland did as well, afraid that others might overhear and ridicule him. It took confidence to become an evangelical in the Virginia context; spiritual rebirth came at a high price. White men combated the conversion of their friends and family members because they shunned the practices of traditional manhood. James Ireland conceived of his struggle for salvation specifically in terms of masculinity. To find out whether he was saved, he opened his Bible at random and read from Revelation 21:6: “It is done.” This caused him to fall down in prayer, as he believed God spoke to him. Ireland immediately felt doubtful about what he had read and heard and found himself in a physical struggle with the Devil: “never two men who turned out to wrestle in the presence of others, exhibited more active endeavours, in their conflict of manhood together than Satan and myself did that evening.” In “their conflict of manhood,” Ireland inscribed the Devil as a man against whom he had to physically fight for the possession of God’s word: “Myself with my weak and feeble faith grasping at the words, believing and hanging to them as directed from God to me; whilst my grand adversary on the other hand, exerted all his devices in order to wrest the words from me and lead me to discredit them.”13 Philip Mulkey’s meeting with the Devil initiated the onset of his conversion, while contact with another man confirmed his spiritual transformation. After spending an evening playing the fiddle for some dancers, Mulkey was about to leave the house when “a hideous specter [the Devil grinning at him with fiery eyes] presented itself before me.” He fainted and when he came to ten minutes later, he “found an uncommon dread on my spirits, from an apprehension that the shocking figure, I had seen, was the Devil, and that he would have me.” Mulkey went home in a daze and spent several days unable to eat or sleep, constantly aware that he was bound for hell: “All this while my heart was murmuring against God for making me to no other purpose than to burn me.” He tried to please God by “reformation and obedience,” but found himself still “a wretched man.” Mulkey’s spiritual anxiety was relieved when John Newton came to his house to pray. This event deeply affected him and he realized that Christ had died for his sins. From this, he “found an inclination to adore the stranger, and to question whether he was an angel or man?” When Newton left Mulkey’s house the next day, he feared that fire would come down from the sky to burn him and his family. Mulkey

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ran after Newton but, unable to catch him, fell to the ground “expecting fire and brimstone.” When none appeared he began to hope, but his agony and distress returned, and he repeated, “O that John Newton had stayed! O that I were as good as John Newton!” Soon thereafter the text, “The spirit of Elijah doth rest on Elisha” came to mind and he wondered if it meant that the “spirit of John Newton shall rest on Philip Mulkey?” He decided it did mean this and soon “the spirit of God came whom I found to be a spirit of liberty, of comfort, and of adoption.” Once converted, manly Christians strove to avoid social pursuits of the sinful world and enact their own definition of courteous behavior. John Gano demonstrated this manly demeanor while traveling in Virginia. Gano, along with two ministers and a layman, stopped at a tavern near the Potomac. They requested a separate room away from a noisy crowd of people and asked the landlord to quiet them. The inn’s other inhabitants were so offended they burst into the men’s room and “demanded, with some imprecations, if we were new-lights.” Gano answered that they were “civil travelers, and neither wished to disturb them, nor be disturbed ourselves.” One man raised a fist over Gano’s head and pointing to a comrade asserted, “that man can beat any one in the room.” Gano castigated the man’s manner as ungentlemanly by replying, “that he looked much more like a man, than he acted, . . . and the rest of the gentlemen were ashamed of his company and conduct.”14 Evangelical men gained access to new leadership roles as elders, deacons, clerks, and ministers. Merit alone determined whether one would be elected to a place in church government, which potentially opened up new positions for white men, especially those of middling or lower status. Participation in the church offered some the opportunity for social mobility. Henry Toler gained access to a secondary education and profession as a minister through the patronage of fellow Baptist Robert “Councillor” Carter. Similarly, after conversion and the start of a preaching career, Elijah Baker learned how to read and write at the same time he increased his social and financial standing. Though poorly educated, Lewis Lunsford pursued the ministry and trained himself to be a doctor, offering his services free of charge to his congregants. John Pitman became a preacher and made a living as a rope maker. William Hickman, orphaned at an early age, was apprenticed to a tradesman and then became a tenant farmer before his entry into the clergy. Ministers also looked to others for further education; John Gibbons learned to read the New Testament in Greek with the help of a fellow cleric. Peter Wilson served as a pastor at the Hightstown church, worked part time as a tailor, and studied at Burgess Allison’s academy.15

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White men exchanged the competition and camaraderie of traditional manhood for the fellowship and comfort of the meeting and the manly strength and spiritual power gained by service and adversity. Through education, itinerancy, and associational ties, white men serving as clergymen and church officers forged close bonds with other believers. These devoted relationships, based on “fraternal love,” fashioned male networks that engendered intimacy among ministers. Henry Toler represents this new brand of white, evangelical manliness. As a minister, he sang himself hoarse at religious meetings, cried and prayed in male company, journeyed long roads and slept on the ground with groups of men, avoided preaching in places where the people were unruly and godless, and even questioned the simple pleasure of an afternoon’s fishing when he could spend his time in “better employment.”16 Evangelical men not only drew strength from their access to positions of leadership but also from their bonds of collective fellowship with likeminded men. James Ireland was part of a community of evangelical men, and he rejoiced to witness the conversion of his most obstinate friends. Robert “Councillor” Carter attended religious meetings with other gentry of the Northern Neck, including men from the Lee, Cox, and Lane families. At the same time, spiritual relationships among men of different ranks and races took place at meetings. Carter converted to the Baptist faith in community with other men on his plantations; one of his slaves, “Daddy Gumby,” and one of his overseers, Richard Dozier, became active in evangelical religion before him. Carter’s relationships with and power over men of lesser status resulted not only from his role as a planter, slave owner, and employer, but also through his participation in church governance as an elder.17 The church became a new vehicle to strengthen male dominance and deepen white supremacy. The institutional power white men gained through the churches and their enhanced familial role as spiritual patriarchs bolstered the gender and racial privilege they enjoyed in traditional society.18 The egalitarian message of evangelical religion initially drew many women but they failed to gain a structured role within the church; they dominated meetings only numerically. Similarly, African American members were increasingly relegated to a secondary status in the church and chose separate churches to escape white interference. Many black churches continued to be supervised by white leaders. The Baptist church became racially segregated by the early nineteenth century. Evangelical religion and its ideals of spiritual parity would ultimately complement, rather than undermine, the gender and racial divisions of early America.

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The alliances created among evangelical men, particularly within the church hierarchy, afforded access to new leadership roles in society. Through religious authority, white men heightened their connections to one another, while simultaneously validating the existing hierarchies of male dominance and female dependency, white supremacy and black subordination. Evangelicalism captivated white men because of the promise of religious salvation and ideals of equality, as well as for the leadership roles and the prospect of upward mobility it offered. The establishment of new meetinghouses and associations fortified Christian brotherhood and the institutional ascendancy of men in the church. White men controlled leadership positions in ecclesiastical government while no comparable roles existed for white women, black women, and the majority of black men. Furthermore, by undercutting the radical potential of spiritual egalitarianism and limiting the franchise and office-holding in the church, white men replicated the power of traditional masculinity, thereby entrenching white, male ascendance in their godly community. By cultivating strong denominational relations among white men, Baptists built a colonial and transatlantic network that expanded their denominational ties with one another.19 One result of this connection was the founding of Rhode Island College in 1764. This school was the culmination of efforts by Baptist men to create their own educational institution to train ministers. Before the college was founded, during the first half of the eighteenth century, the education of Baptist ministers was done on an ad hoc basis. Typically, a young man interested in the ministry would board with an established clergyman to be instructed in the rudiments of Baptist theology and the classics. Home schools continued at the same time that formal institutions were founded. One of the first Baptist schools organized was the Hopewell Academy in New Jersey. Isaac Eaton, minister to the Hopewell meeting, founded the school in 1756 and provided a classical education to young men of the Baptist faith. The school accepted non-Baptists and prepared young men for other professions, such as law and medicine. Many of the men who attended Hopewell would later go on to college at Providence, Princeton, and Philadelphia. Though financially supported by the PBA, the school closed in 1767. During its short life span, the Hopewell Academy educated Baptist men who would become denominational leaders. One of these was Samuel Jones of Berks County, who attended Hopewell in the late 1750s. He was part of a cohort of young men who would become prominent clergymen, including James Manning, David Jones, David Thomas, and Charles Thompson. These men were followed by others (such as Isaac Skillman, Hezekiah Smith, David Sutton,

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James Talbot, and Stephen Watts), who would go on to be part of a clerical network stretching from New England to the Lower South.20 Not all Baptists advocated ministerial education, but the majority of men who would dominate the regional and transatlantic Baptist community attended educational institutions. Hopewell Academy provided a classical and religious education to future ministers and modeled Baptist ideals of evangelical masculinity. Isaac Eaton taught traditional subjects at the same time he strove to inculcate a particular religious ethos based on personal courage and spiritual gravity, patterned after the apostles. During a Greek class in 1758, Eaton offered Paul as a role model for these future clerics: “Paul was the noble specimen of manhood. His character is well-deserving the careful study of all who propose to preach the gospel.” Eaton described the honor Paul felt to be persecuted on behalf of Christ as well as his penchant for preaching to “all classes of society, the ignorant and the learned.” After outlining his attributes, Eaton prayed that his students would emulate Paul to be “as brave and earnest and as true in every calling in life.” This combination of traditional masculine attributes, bravery and honor, with conventional Christian (and female) traits, subservience and suffering, made Paul an exemplar of ministerial service. Yet subservience had to be combined with strength to withstand earthly enticements. In a sermon to young men, one minister noted that some of them may have converted due to social pressure. He warned them to be vigilant Christians “because you carry about with you a body of sin, have warm passions, and are surrounded with numberless temptations.” He hoped they would “endeavour to set your faces like a flint, to be steadfast, immoveable, always abounding in the work of the LORD.”21 The educational experience at Hopewell provided young men with personal and professional relationships that lasted a lifetime. During this formative experience, Samuel Jones became friends with James Manning of Middletown, New Jersey. After graduation, the two men continued their friendship. While Jones attended Philadelphia College and eventually took over a joint pastorate at the Pennepek and Southampton churches, Manning went to New Jersey College and taught at Hopewell before becoming, in 1765, the first president of Rhode Island College.22 Manning and Jones built an intimate relationship through correspondence about personal and professional concerns. In an early letter to Jones, Manning wrote: “Permit my pen to relate, and inform you, of that which my heart can no longer retain, which is a fresh assurance of my almost inviolable affection for you.” This closeness was evident when three of Jones’s four children died in the 1770s. Manning

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offered his condolences: “I think I have born a part of your sorrows; but this will not alleviate your pungent grief.” The two men discussed their occupations as ministers of the gospel—a vocation they were not always sure they were equipped to carry out. In 1761, Manning admitted he had often ruminated about his usefulness as a clergyman, “thoughts of which I frequently recoil, and am altogether confounded.” He hoped that had not mistaken “mere enthusiasm and blind zeal” for the “real emotion of the spirit of God.” Once established, Jones and Manning hoped to be of service to their generation by modeling pious behavior and bringing sinners to Christ. They also educated the sons of Baptist clergy and laity. In the early 1770s, Jones sent Evan Edwards, son of an elder in his church, to the Baptist college in Providence. Manning kept Jones and Evan’s father apprised of his academic progress. Conversely, Jones offered to teach the son of a Middleborough man recommended by Manning at his school in Lower Dublin. Connections between Baptist ministers and lay people throughout the colonies provided the means for many young men to gain an education. Colleagues of Manning and Jones—Hezekiah Smith, David Howell, and Oliver Hart—all sent their sons to Rhode Island College. George and John Carter, the offspring of Robert “Councillor” Carter, attended Rhode Island College for a time in the 1780s. William Rogers closely supervised John, the less diligent of the Carter sons, until he was sent to Philadelphia to learn about farming from Samuel Jones.23 Manning and Jones helped young clerics who sought counsel from older colleagues. John Stancliff, a new minister living in Cape May, wrote to Samuel Jones for advice and comfort in his lonely life on the Jersey shore: “I am here alone on a large tract of land, with no ministering brother near, to advise, to encourage, or to bear part of the burden.” Collegial guidance as well as a supportive community was an important component of denominational success. Reflecting on his long career as a clergyman, Edmund Botsford believed his service in South Carolina—a hostile place where he “ranted like a wild man”—was unsuccessful because he lacked support. Botsford recommended new clerics to see his example as “a monument of folly” and counseled them to be conscientious lest they also “become useless old men.” Young clergy looked to established ministers to help find a settled position. Bereft churches petitioned associations to fill their pulpits and pastors relayed information to one another about new ministers and their service to the church. The reputation of Hezekiah Smith as an able preacher was well known throughout New England as well as the Mid-Atlantic and South. John Bedgegood of South Carolina, on the other hand, was purported to be a “vastly imprudent” minister. Philip Mulkey caused even greater concern

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when he fathered an illegitimate child with a widowed member of his congregation. Clergy and laity worked hard to find only gifted preachers to lead their churches but also to safeguard their professional reputation. On behalf of the PBA and Rhode Island College, Manning and Jones constantly looked for young men to groom for the ministry. Associational leaders were keenly aware of the financial and physical state of individual meetings and offered support when they could. Neighboring ministers filled in when a church lost its pastor. When William Van Horn gave up his position at the Southampton church, Samuel Jones, David Jones, Oliver Hart, and William Rogers all agreed to tend the church one Sunday a month.24 The ability of young men to become clergy often relied on contacts made through this religious network. Henry Toler became a minister through the patronage of local Baptists. Born in 1761, Toler was the son of middling farmers in King and Queen County, Virginia. As a teenager, Henry was sent to live with his grandparents to labor on their farm in King William County. During this period, he converted to the Baptist faith and considered pursuing a ministerial career. John Clay, a cleric in Hanover County, recommended Toler to Robert “Councillor” Carter, a sponsor of evangelicals. After hearing Toler preach, Carter agreed to subsidize his education for three years. To replace Henry, Carter sent a nineteen-year-old slave named Ralph; all the profits from three years of his labor were bestowed on Henry’s grandparents. In return, Toler began his studies at John Clay’s academy in Hanover. Carter paid his tuition and furnished him with books. In March 1782, he moved to Philadelphia to study with Samuel Jones, but he stayed less than a year, anxious to commence preaching. Carter provided Toler with a horse and other supplies to begin his ministry in Northern Virginia.25 Toler’s first stop upon reaching Virginia was his parents’ home, where he felt some trepidation about the task before him. Meeting his family and friends again, he was aware of his new status: “The people (both saints and sinners) are supposing I cannot be so humble now as I used to be; and if that I do not visit them all, they must believe it.” At the same time, he was conscious that people were talking of his former behavior in light of his new vocation: “Several others things I have heard of in the county respecting my relations and some of my former procedures, [which] have a tendency to plague my mind.” Though doubts periodically nagged Toler, he relied on other ministers for professional advice. Fellow cleric and friend James Greenwood advised Toler to actively “preach the simple truths of the Gospel” if he wanted to influence local Christians. Toler’s preaching companion, John Leland, also provided reassurance when Henry doubted his ministerial

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gifts. With such support, Henry Toler embarked upon a successful preaching career.26 Baptist clergy pursued itinerant ministry to spread the gospel and devised networks with brethren outside their local communities, which, in turn, affirmed their spiritual relations. This activity built community among Baptists within the same county, colony, and region. Unlike Methodists, who privileged itinerant ministers over stationary ones, Baptist pastors pursued both a settled and an itinerant ministry. Itinerants preached anywhere it was convenient, gathering large crowds who came to hear a sermon and to witness or participate in mass baptisms. These gatherings lasted more than a day and, as Robert Semple reports, “It was not uncommon at their great meetings for many hundreds of men to camp on the ground, in order to be present the next day.” Semple documented one gathering held by James Read and Samuel Harris, in which seventy-five people were baptized at one time, and, in the space of several weeks of preaching, two hundred converts had undergone baptism. The itinerant journeys of Baptist ministers at times went far afield, though they often remained within range of their home church and were influenced by family ties and patronage. Henry Toler’s territory ran from the Northern Neck down to York County, west to Fluvanna County and north to Orange County. A Regular Baptist, he confined his ministry to this area, focusing particularly on Hanover, King and Queen, and King William Counties, where he had family. He also preached throughout the Northern Neck, especially at the meetings surrounding the domain of Robert Carter, in the counties Richmond, Westmoreland, and Northumberland. Baptist ministers often combined a permanent position at a specific church with itinerancy. One example is Samuel Jones, pastor of the Lower Dublin church. During the early years of his ministry, Jones oversaw two churches, the Pennepek and Southampton, while engaging in itinerancy. Between 1763 and 1766, Jones traveled to Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New York, as well as places closer to home, such as Philadelphia, New Britain, and Montgomery. During this time, he was absent from his home church for a total of two months a year. Later in life, Jones would repeat this process by journeying southward to assist newly founded meetings in Kentucky. James Manning itinerated during the American Revolution traveling for five months from New England to New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Manning stayed with fellow Baptists and preached in Baptist, Seventh Day Baptist, and Congregational churches.27 The ministry demanded manly endurance for the long hours and arduous journeys of both settled and itinerant ministers. For example, David

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Jones pursued active itinerancy while holding pastorates at four different Baptist churches in the Delaware Valley. During his tenure as pastor at the Southampton and Great Valley churches, Jones kept a diary of his ministerial travels from the 1780s into the 1810s. In the 1780s, Jones led services at his home church every Sunday while routinely visiting the Great Valley and New Britain meetings. He frequently traveled to New Jersey to serve Baptists at Freehold, Piscataway, and Middletown. In some cases, Jones arranged for a minister to supply his church while he was absent; in others, he exchanged pulpits with fellow clergymen. Over time, Jones’s ministerial service stretched outward from the Delaware Valley; he journeyed to Maryland, Virginia, New York, Ohio, and Kentucky. After the American Revolution, he traveled to nine different states and preached at seventy-six different sites. These trips lasted from one week to six months. Some of these lengthier trips included his service as a chaplain in the Continental Army or his missionizing activities among Delaware Indians. Jones also combined itinerant travel with family business. During one trip to the Ohio frontier, he engaged in a preaching tour and helped one of his sons set up a household on a newly settled farm. Itinerant travels by Baptist ministers can be attributed to a shortage of clergy as well as the rapid growth of the Baptist denomination following the American Revolution. The ministerial networks created by itinerancy not only formed relationships between Baptists in different regions of the country, it also created uniformity in doctrine, reinforcing core beliefs of Baptists. While David Jones rarely preached the same discourse to his home church, he frequently repeated sermons when traveling elsewhere. In 1791, Jones journeyed to Baltimore, Richmond, and Alexandria, where he delivered the same sermon at three locations in the space of two weeks. Convenience was an important factor in this repetition, but in the process, Jones helped instill uniform religious ideals among Baptists from Pennsylvania to Virginia, and from New York to Ohio.28 Baptist clergymen visited one another, exchanged pulpits, and traveled together on preaching tours. Hezekiah Smith of Boston and John Gano of New York City preached in each other’s churches during trips to their respective cities. Smith also filled in for Samuel Stillman of Boston and James Manning of Providence. This arrangement was built on preexisting relationships from their school days. When Smith was ordained in November 1766, the officiating ministers included former classmates John Gano, James Manning, and Samuel Stillman. David Jones visited his school friend Smith in Boston for two weeks of preaching and exhorting. Preaching tours also created bonds of friendship among clergymen. Henry Toler and James Greenwood

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became friends while itinerating together throughout the Northern Neck, while James Manning and Hezekiah Smith took short trips through New England. In some cases, ministers began their careers by traveling together. As young clerics, Jeremiah Jeter and Daniel Witt teamed up to tour southwestern Virginia in the early nineteenth century.29 Ministerial companionship is evident in the preaching career of Henry Toler. Toler’s sphere of activity was much smaller than David Jones’s but it allowed for more frequent trips of shorter duration. In one month, he was absent from his home in King William County for sixteen days; he spent five days in York County, three days each in James City and Henrico Counties, and two days at Charles City County. Other trips covered less territory but lasted longer. During September 1783, Toler spent twenty-three days away from home visiting Baptists at Port Royal and in King George, Westmoreland, and Hanover Counties. Toler rarely traveled alone. He was usually in the company of other ministers or laymen sharing responsibility for leading services, sermonizing, and exhorting. In the early 1780s, Toler came into contact with more than twenty-five different Baptist ministers, both Separate and Regular. Toler’s interactions with other clergymen created a ministerial network that effectively served local needs. One trip during a week in March 1783 illustrates Toler’s itinerancy. On Monday, Toler sermonized at his father’s plantation in King and Queen County and the day after “Brother Young” followed suit. By Wednesday, Toler had traveled to Essex County to stay with his friend James Greenwood; the two men rode to Brother Goodloe’s near Fredericksburg, where they met “the brethren Leland, Thomas, Waller, and Dudley.” On Saturday, this group of clergymen was in Caroline County at the Guinea’s Bridge meetinghouse, where four of the men preached over the course of two days.30 During a single week’s travel, Henry Toler was in six different counties in the company of seven other clergymen, and he preached, or heard preaching, usually twice a day every day of the week. This activity is indicative of revivalism, which rekindled after the war, but it also demonstrates the frenetic activity of Baptist clergymen. Through itinerancy, clerics manifested ministerial masculinity at the same time it engendered male relationships. It allowed ministers to make contacts with fellow preachers in distant places. In 1762 and 1763, Hezekiah Smith journeyed from New England through Virginia and the Carolinas. While traveling in Virginia, Smith visited David Thomas, a fellow graduate of Hopewell Academy and minister of the Broad Run meeting in Fauquier County. Smith moved on to North Carolina where he met with Shubal Stearns, patriarch of the Separate Baptists. Finally, he arrived in Charleston

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and stayed with Oliver Hart. Along the way, clergy and laity accompanied Smith, providing him shelter, guidance, and friendship. Itinerancy fostered close relationships among clergymen. Ministers rode many miles on preaching tours with one another, and slept outside or lodged in the homes of local laity. Constantly together, these men often formed intimate friendships with one another. Such attachments meant an “affecting parting” once they separated. When Henry Toler took leave of his friend and fellow preacher James Greenwood, he remarked upon his emotional response to this event: “I could not think my heart was harder than his, since he shed tears at parting, and I did not. But yet felt quite tender in separating.” Toler parted from Jeremiah Walker with “tears of grief,” after the latter was accused of sexual misconduct with a young woman. After preaching all day, two clergymen found shelter and “retired to prayer” together. Their “sweet company” was a balm: “I found tears in mine eyes, but peace in my soul.” Affecting displays by Baptist ministers had a counterpart in their professional work. The hallmark of a good sermon by an evangelical preacher was to evoke an emotional response from the auditory. David George was so “overjoyed” to begin preaching that he could not “speak for tears.” An outburst of “tender feelings” was considered a sign of godliness among the clergy and laity alike. After hearing a sermon, a group of people were “tender in parting, cried, [and] wanted to be prayed for” by the minister.31 Baptist men used correspondence to maintain friendships and personal relationships and as a means of pastoral care, to counsel one another in their faith. Ministers, and to a lesser extent laymen, created close bonds with others through these various activities. In the sex-segregated profession of the ministry, brethren enjoyed homosocial relations with men of their denomination to demonstrate a new type of manhood. Through congregational, associational, and itinerant activity, Baptist men created a fraternity of spiritual and personal connection. The evangelical ideal of white manhood was based on tenderness, sensitivity, earnestness, and self-sacrifice. In addition, moral strength and physical endurance were hallmarks of an evangelical preacher. Through their ties as clergy and laity, Baptist men shaped a “masculine community,” in which a new model of evangelical manhood combined with white male domination of church government.32 One defining activity of Baptist men, especially ministers, was the right to speak in public. Preaching the word of God was the primary occupation of Baptist ministers in the eighteenth century. Though church ritual remained an essential practice in the Baptist church, it was not a weekly event.33 The Baptist liturgy was focused around preaching a sermon that was

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instructive and engaging. Though Baptists preferred sermons that appeared to be spontaneous outbursts of religious expression, clergy prepared their sermons ahead of time. They worked hard to craft homilies that were organized yet appeared extemporaneous. Many ministers sketched out their thoughts in notes they used when preaching. Samuel Jones wrote outlines on small pieces of paper, which he slipped into his Bible. Thomas Ustick and John Stanford followed the same practice. Morgan Edwards advised fellow clerics to write out sermons in large letters, so they could see the whole page in one glance. Norvell Robertson read part of a chapter from the Bible and then gave his views on the reading “by way of comment.” Samuel Jones divided his sermons into parts, including explication, confirmation, and application of both text and doctrine. Robert Kelsay advised young ministers to study “as if all depended on their own endeavors,” and to preach as of they had not studied at all. He counseled them to be concise when preaching, to conclude when finishing, and to pray “for a blessing on their labors immediately after preaching.” Church members censored ministers who read, or appeared to read, their sermons. Men who preached with spirit, and were able to do so with clarity for lengthy periods, were greatly appreciated. The laity particularly liked prolonged discourses that made them feel they were being addressed personally by the preacher. As John Leland stated, “It is a long prayer that reaches heaven, and a long sermon that reaches the heart of the sinner.”34 Baptist clergymen were admired for their combination of masculine and Christian attributes. William Webber displayed “simplicity and frank sincerity” in his preaching, while he also embodied the ideals of evangelical manhood by being “dignified and manly, gentle, affectionate, and engaging.” Baptist ministers were to possess grave manners, a strong theological foundation, and “a manly zeal for the glory of God.” Descriptions of preaching by evangelical ministers emphasized their powers of empathy and persuasion. Oliver Hart strove to embody God’s spirit when preaching before his flock. On one Sunday, he believed “The lord in mercy gave me great freedom both in the fore and afternoon. I am sure I spoke from the heart and firmly believe I felt what the apostle did when he said, ‘I travail in birth till Christ be formed in you.’” One cleric recalled the preaching skills of Hezekiah Smith. After beginning with a prayer, Smith proceeded to his sermon: “He then announced his text; and, after a brief introduction, passed on to the exposition, which was clear, concise and full, while his illustrations were uncommonly natural and appropriate. His composition was chaste and manly, and his delivery earnest and impassioned.” After the sermon, Smith went into a

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ten-minute exhortation, followed by prayer. Smith was “a model preacher,” one who “labored to keep his own heart imbued with the spirit of his master.” He was proficient in feeding “his flock with the sincere milk of the word; [but] not exhausting his subject, nor yet the patience of his hearers.”35 The ideal Baptist sermon was Bible-based, evangelical, and emotive. John Leland followed this model when he led a service at a Philadelphia church in the early nineteenth century. He opened with prayer and asked Jehovah for “his condescension to sinful, mortal worms” and spoke of the importance and efficacy of “fervent, humble prayer.” He then began to his sermon, which was based Isaiah 10:27: “And the yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing.” Leland proceeded to discuss the various meanings of the word yoke in the Old Testament, focusing on how the Jews were afflicted by “the yoke of bondage” under Nebuchadnezzar and the kings of Babylon and Chaldea. Eventually, the leadership of Cyrus broke this yoke and delivered the Jews from captivity. To develop his thesis, Leland “put an evangelical culture” on this subject by comparing the role of Cyrus in the ancient world to Jesus in the modern one. By the ineffable presence of the Spirit, sinners are turned into saints as Christ rode “forth majestically in the gospel chariot.” Leland’s sermon linked Old Testament history with contemporary evangelizing to invoke an inevitable response: “when the gospel is preached in its purity, sinners are converted, and turn to the Lord.”36 Extemporaneous preaching was highly valued by clergy and laity alike, making it necessary for ministers to be educated without losing their evangelical zeal and emotional appeal. Yet many early Baptists were hostile to formal education, believing it would dampen the spontaneous nature of evangelical sermons. Others argued that education would improve the effectiveness of gospel ministers. Morgan Edwards, a well-educated clergyman and early supporter of Rhode Island College, was intent on raising the level of education among Baptist ministers in British North America. He bemoaned clergy of little intellect or educational training, such as John Boggs, who, though a popular speaker among hearers, could improve his reputation by “finding out the fixed meaning of words, the right way of pronouncing, accenting and tacking them together.” Boggs’s homespun style did not reap many benefits among his listeners because “he grates their ears so with barbarisms as to check their attention and hurt their feelings.” Education was an important means of building denominational strength and a positive public image. The Roanoke District Association recommended founding two seminaries for ministerial education in Virginia, in part, to improve their reputation so other denominations would not “curse” them for “not knowing the

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law, or discard or reprobate a great deal of our teaching for not knowing our mother tongue, much less the original languages.” By the end of the eighteenth century, many leading Baptist ministers were learned clerics who pursued a ministerial career that provided some monetary support.37 Regional relations between Baptists intensified during the Revolutionary era as Baptists in most parts of the United States gained political legitimacy. Baptist leaders discussed the possibility of founding a “continental association” to end religious persecution. Samuel Jones and James Manning were architects of this plan. Jones hoped that churches united into regional associations would be joined into one large organization that would increase the strength of the denomination and “make good that a threefold cord is not easily broken.” Though this “continental association” did not emerge at this time, Baptists continued the fight for religious freedom during and after the war. The PBA set up a special fund to support their “suffering brethren in New England,” and Samuel Jones sent a copy of the Virginia statute on religious freedom to Isaac Backus in Massachusetts to aid his efforts toward disestablishment. In 1785, Hezekiah Smith represented the Warren Association at a meeting of the PBA, where he relayed information about the persecution of Boston Baptists. Some ministers became involved in politics. John Leland spoke before the General Assembly in Massachusetts asking for the right of liberty of conscience. He also published pamphlets on religious freedom and served as a representative in the state legislature. Though Massachusetts and Connecticut Baptists would continue to suffer under established churches, the Baptist denomination kept up the pressure on state governments to enact religious freedom.38 At the same time that American Baptists created connections with each other, they also sought out their English counterparts to promote the religion. This domestic and transatlantic community became an effective means to spread the gospel, to bolster the faithful, and to advance the denomination. Though the imperial crisis and outbreak of war in 1775 disrupted this relationship momentarily, it did not stop institutionalization. Efforts by the ministry and laity to build alliances with co-religionists in other counties, colonies, and Britain began in the 1760s, through a multifaceted network based on correspondence, publishing, commercial relations, pulpit exchanges, and associational ties. It would cease during the war, only to recur in the early 1780s. The leadership and participation of Baptist men broadened this network, which, in turn, stimulated growth and linked believers on both sides of the Atlantic. Letter writing, pamphlet distribution, and book publishing fueled this association. This activity was part of a much larger

176

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effort by European Protestants to defend and expand Protestant interests worldwide. The dissemination of Baptist publications throughout England and North America became a means of institution building, uniting believers in a transatlantic community. This system benefited from the growth of the book trade in the eighteenth century, allowing Baptists to expand their domain among believers and nonbelievers alike. Ministers were the main conduits, as they corresponded with each other not only to swap religious news but also to send and solicit books and manuscripts and to exchange associational letters. Benjamin Wallin, a London minister, sent a box of books, including copies of his own work, to James Manning. John Leland and Henry Toler sent books and pamphlets to “British friends.” John Gano, James Manning, and Samuel Stillman all corresponded with English counterparts. Samuel Jones exchanged information with a clergyman in Wales who was writing a history of Welsh Baptists in North America.39 American Baptists used their contacts in this community to raise funds, exchange histories, and compare denominational practice. A Welsh clergyman pondered the preaching of Joseph Priestley in his letters to James Manning and inquired after the state of religion in Kentucky. Clergymen informed one another about revivals in their neighborhoods, activities by rival denominations, and theological controversies between themselves and others. David Barrow told Thomas Ustick of the “happy times” in Virginia since the end of the war, while Isaac Backus informed Ustick about a revival in Plymouth, wherein a number of young people had rejected “infant sprinkling.” John Stanford let Samuel Jones know that a Presbyterian minister and eighteen of his congregants had become Baptists. William Richards, an English minister, notified American brethren of a local pamphlet war over infant baptism between Baptists and Independents in Norfolk: “the Paedobaptist scheme” proved untenable when many Independents joined the Baptist cause.40 Pastoral correspondence not only kept ministers up to date on theological controversies, it also lifted clerical spirits and enhanced fraternal connections. Benjamin Wallin expressed his gratitude to James Manning for sharing an account “of the heavenly visitation” on the church in Rhode Island, which he relayed to other clergymen. This news was like “cold waters to a thirsty soul” for one who wished “to spread abroad the salvation of God that all who love it may have continual occasion to glorify his Name.” Thomas Mackaness and James Manning exchanged details about their own spiritual struggles. Thomas Ustick counseled Richard Clegg to read the PBA minutes to find answers to his religious questions. These men traded more than just information; they utilized their network to maintain the Baptist ethos of familial

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relation. John Rippon alluded to this when he wrote to James Manning in 1784: “Of this I am certain that there are brethren in your country whom having not seen I love.”41 While Baptist relations were served by ministerial correspondence and the exchange of publications, merchants friendly to the Baptist cause used their economic ties to foster this network. Nicholas Brown, a wealthy merchant and member of the Providence church, oversaw an extensive commercial empire trading a variety of goods from Rhode Island to the Middle Colonies, the Upper and Lower South, and the Caribbean. Baptists made use of Brown’s economic connections to correspond with their counterparts in other places. Captain Josiah Hewes, an agent for Nicholas Brown and Company, carried letters for Baptist ministers in Rhode Island and Pennsylvania in the 1770s and 1780s. Hewes, acting on behalf of Nicholas Brown, offered money on credit to the young minister David Howells. Stephen Anthony, an elder in the Philadelphia church and a ship’s captain, routinely sailed from Pennsylvania to Rhode Island carrying goods for Nicholas Brown. Daniel Gano of New York served as an agent for Brown and Co. and sold agricultural produce and dry goods at the same time he exchanged news with fellow Baptists.42 The Baptist network also had practical functions; clergymen used it to find work for fellow preachers and students. In 1770, Samuel Stennett recommended William Gordon, a London minister, to New England Baptists. Gordon was leaving England to settle in the United States because of “his political speculations in favor of America and some little misunderstanding with his people.” James Manning asked for John Rippon’s help on behalf of Solomon Drown, a medical doctor and graduate of Rhode Island College, who was traveling to England for further training. Baptists utilized their contacts in this transatlantic community to ferret out errant ministers. When cleric John Stanford migrated to the United States in 1788 and began plying his trade in Rhode Island, London ministers quickly informed James Manning of his criminal past; Stanford had fled England to avoid imprisonment after being convicted of “sodomitical practices.” This transatlantic connection between England and America reflected the joint interests of Baptists. British ministers used their association to advertise religious activities in North America. When Benjamin Wallin received an account of revival in New England, he sent to a Bristol clergyman, who, in turn, reprinted it in a copy of the Western Baptist Association of England. Some Englishmen aided the activities of young clerics in frontier settlements. John Rippon sent publishers’ ads of John Gill’s book of sermons and

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offered to buy them at a cheaper price for American ministers, especially those of the poorer sort. The publication of religious works became a means to solidify relationships between Baptists in Britain and the United States. Rippon, who was putting together a book of hymns with six other Baptist clergy in England, solicited one from James Manning as a way to demonstrate the they were “yet brethren.”43 The Baptist religion grew significantly at the end of the eighteenth century through a male network that was facilitated by ministerial education, itinerancy, and friendship. Through such contacts, Baptist clerics gained spiritual advice, ministerial support, and male companionship as well as opportunities for travel and leadership. The singular right of Baptist men to become ministers and to publicly preach to others of their faith provided the means to attain traditional male authority at the same time they displayed an evangelical manhood based on sacrifice, endurance, and circumspection. Through these relationships and activities, Baptist men modeled an alternate form of masculinity that reconciled the radical implications of evangelical religion with the persistent hierarchies of traditional society.

Conclusion: Baptists in the Early Republic

During the summer of 1821, Jeremiah Jeter attended meetings, witnessed rituals, and heard sermons by Baptists and Methodists. He prayed, wept, and went without sleep searching for saving grace. Amid his spiritual struggle, he went to the funeral of a young man who had died of drunkenness and dissipation. Because the body had traveled far to be interned, the casket was opened to identify the occupant. Jeter was present at the viewing: “such a sight I have never elsewhere seen. The eyes and mouth of the corpse were stretched wide open, and neither force nor skill could close them. The unfortunate death of the young man and the horrid appearance of his ghastly face made a deep impression on my nervous system that had been weakened by anxiety and sleeplessness.” This shock to his body and spirit bolstered Jeter’s attempts to undergo conversion. It was one of many corporeal experiences that renewed his commitment to be saved: “I forsook all known sins, did not indulge myself in a smile, withdrew from all society except religious, thought of nothing but my salvation, and mingled prayer with almost every waking breath. My aim was to become good enough for Christ to receive me.” He succeeded: soon after he was baptized and began preaching the gospel. His spiritual determination, coupled with viewing another’s body, reignited his desire for salvation. Anxious and overwrought, Jeter compared his own affliction to the final end of this young man, who, through intemperance and debauchery, suffered an early death. A teenager at the time, Jeter may have glimpsed his future by looking in the casket. He became keenly aware of human weakness and mortality. His visceral encounter with death, as mirrored in another’s experience, became a catalyst for conversion. He adopted a serious demeanor that impacted his bodily behavior; he not only avoided social activity, he even stopped smiling. By embracing evangelical religion, he chose an alternate path to adulthood. After finding “the road to heaven,” Jeremiah Jeter would live a long life as a sanctified believer and gospel minister.1 Jeter’s bodily encounters on his way to spiritual salvation were customary among evangelical Protestants in early America. His individual conversion demonstrates common tropes found in many conversion narratives: an

180

Conclusion

irreligious childhood, youthful skepticism of evangelical preachers, growing interest accompanied by confusion and discomfort, followed by emotional turmoil, spiritual doubt, physical suffering, fear and inertia, finally ending in joy and release with the onset of conversion and administration of baptism. Though these narratives were often formulaic, they demonstrate the significance of corporeality in evangelical religion and the primary place of the body in Baptist history. Through conversion, ritual, and discipline, bodies served as emblems of faith as potential converts struggled to realize the emotional, physical, and spiritual transformations required for the “new birth.” This intense experience literally drew converts into the church through bodily movement and spiritual regeneration. They became part of a family of believers to gain a strong sense of personal and communal identity. There was an ocular component to this corporeal experience; observing sinful bodies, as Jeter did, or seeing others attain saving grace through physical and spiritual alterations, was instructive for nonbelievers. The body served as an instrument of spiritual rebirth, sacred performance, and physical restraint that engendered Baptist selfhood. It was a nexus for believers to embrace God’s word, sustain their faith, and regulate themselves—and be regulated by others—to remain orderly and pious. Attaining the ideal Baptist body proved elusive for some believers, as worldly hierarchies impacted individual spirituality through communal interaction. How evangelical bodies were seen and understood differed by social context, and locality was a significant factor in the experience of evangelical religion. While Pennsylvania Baptists enjoyed the freedom to practice their faith as they saw fit, Virginia Baptists were ridiculed and persecuted for their corporeal religion. The Baptist body took on different meaning in each place relative to its spiritual context. Pennsylvania Baptists lived amid a number of religious groups who followed various traditions of radical Protestantism. Several Protestant faiths and practices intermixed in this open and often competitive environment. Conversely, in Virginia, the loud, public, and bodily expression of Baptist religion differed significantly from the decorum and privacy typical of Anglican piety. The colonial establishment found the embodied faith of evangelicals as threatening as their desire to preach without state oversight. Religious culture as much as political circumstance was fundamental to the reception of the Baptist body in both locales. Gender and race played a crucial part to the story of American evangelicalism. Although men and women experienced religious conversion in similar ways, their reception and participation in the church varied significantly. Baptist women, both white and black, pursued a domesticated piety that

Baptists in the Early Republic

181

encompassed many activities outside the meetinghouse. For white men in the hostile setting of Anglican Virginia, conversion turned on gendered concepts of normative male behavior; the manliness of many was impugned by adopting the Baptist religion, at the same time an ideal of white evangelical masculinity bloomed under persecution. On the other hand, white men in the Delaware Valley strove to be pious believers, as the gender constructs of their Quaker-dominated society, along with religious freedom, allowed for easier coexistence of their spirituality and the wider world. For black men, both slave and free, access to leadership roles as preachers and elders conferred a modicum of male authority denied them by secular society. Black men and women exercised some control over their communities by forming separate churches. Race became a critical factor in church relations, especially in Virginia, due to a substantial black population and a preponderance of biracial meetings. The slavery debate would be a sincere though doomed attempt to solve the moral and political quandaries posed by the peculiar institution. Baptist Christianity acknowledged blacks and women as equals in the spiritual realm. In molding their evangelical ideal to the boundaries of the institutional church, Baptists grappled with how to incorporate a corporeal and egalitarian spirituality into a society based on unequal relations. A paradox of piety transpired; spiritual parity and social inequity coexisted within Baptist communities. Though individual meetings were the ultimate authority concerning issues of power, governance, and participation, inclusive and exclusive elements of the Baptist religion occurred in concert with one another. This tension persisted over time as the denomination matured and became more complex. These conservative and liberating forces would clash at specific points in denominational development, such as when blacks became a sizable portion of the membership and the Baptist ideal of spiritual egalitarianism met the realities of racial inequality. Such moments impacted communal interactions, as churches addressed issues of black disorder through queries, attempting to uphold the godly order within a particular situation. The pendulum of change swung both ways as believers struggled to live their religion in a society that was not always attuned to the subtleties of being in the world but not of the world. Internal debates over who could participate in church polity contributed to the growth and denominational success of Baptists as much as increased contact with and adaptation to secular society. Greater institutionalization by the early nineteenth century resulted in growing numbers of educated clergymen, the establishment of theological seminaries, and the formation of a national missionary organization. The

182

Conclusion

Baptist General Convention for Foreign Missions, founded in Philadelphia in 1814, was a triumph of “the Philadelphia tradition.”2 Despite its adherence to foreign missions, the white men who crafted this new convention had more in mind than converting “heathens,” they also wanted to encourage uniformity among all believers and to gain social acceptance nationwide. They wished to “be knit together by love, and coalesce in unity.”3 American Baptists enhanced their amity through other organizations and activities, such as mite, Bible, and tract societies, as well as magazines and newspapers, Sunday schools and colleges. But with national union came separation and difference. Segregated endeavors arose, as white women formed distinct “female” organizations and blacks found separate “African” churches.4 This separation and difference is also evident in a circular letter issued in the same year by a Virginia association enumerating the necessary components of “family happiness.” The list detailed the reciprocal relationships between husbands and wives, parents and children, and masters and slaves. While husbands were to love their wives as Christ loved the church, wives were to submit to their husbands just as they would to the Lord. Children were to obey their parents because this was as pleasing to God, while parents were to guard against getting angry with their children “lest they be discouraged.” Lastly, servants were to mind their masters not “as men pleasers” but in fear of God. Masters, conversely, were to give their servants “that which is just and equal knowing you have a master in heaven.”5 This schema of familial bliss advocated a model of household relations based on respect, submission, and deference. While dependents were to acquiesce to those above them in faithfulness to God, husbands, parents, and masters were to be loving, kind, and just in return. Husbands were to love but also govern their wives, while masters were to treat their slaves evenhandedly. This prescription for contentment may have softened the harsher aspects of male dominance and white supremacy, but it did not displace these intertwined hierarchies for gender and racial equality. Baptist communities used this ideal of family happiness to join their religious ideals with the social order, and American Baptists emerged as a mainline denomination in the early nineteenth century. This framework for happy families and orderly households is emblematic of how the Baptist church developed in early America. The brethren and sisters worked to be loving and kind to one another at the same time white male leaders, both as clergy and laity, directed polity and designated specific rights to women and arranged special meetings for blacks. In addition, status determined the nature of sin within the church courts, as blacks and whites, women and men, received differential sentences. In some meetings, white

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183

women faced fewer citations than white men but often suffered harsher punishment. This lower incidence for women may mean that female Baptists were better Christians than their male counterparts, but it also reflects the larger context; they lived in a society that did not readily tolerate transgressions by women. White men adapted evangelical religion to fit their role as leaders, masters, and heads of household, as they institutionalized their power within the church. The feminization of membership meant that it became even more imperative to perpetuate male dominance. As Morgan Edwards stressed, when women have the majority of votes in church government, they have they ability to “decide every thing against men.” A similar dynamic transpired in biracial churches. As black members became numerous, white leaders found ways to restrict their participation. Black members were cited for offenses related to their secular status as enslaved human beings. Black Baptists left mixed congregations to form their own churches when they had the means to do so. Racial segregation was the preferred choice as black believers pursued the faith on their terms. They created a black institution physically separate from white society but not always free from white interference.6 Baptist community, simultaneously cathartic and confining, ebbed and flowed over time, with great variance between and among churches. The process of forming and maintaining a religious community was fluid, as members endeavored to be a “true church of Christ.”7 In addition, Baptist congregationalism allowed for incongruities in power dynamics. White women had more say in some meetings than in others. For example, four New Jersey churches permitted women the right to vote in the antebellum period. This happened at the same time that many other meetings had already prohibited female suffrage in church government. These concurrent and divergent events demonstrate a continuum of religious practice among Baptists. It also reveals the nature of localized religion and the range of possibility in defining who could exercise power in the church. The fact that only men served as church leaders gave them the authority to either include or exclude women. While membership became feminized, church government did not. Some black men gained access to the ministry and leadership. In churches where blacks predominated, a separate meeting was usually formed, though often under the direction of white leaders. White oversight was deemed necessary even in black churches with their own ordained ministers. Although membership among white men declined in many congregations in the early nineteenth century, only men could be ministers and officers in church government. Their presence, even when a minority, maintained male dominance.8

184

Conclusion

The Baptist model of an evangelical body pervaded local practice; despite differences in timing, theology, and ritual, the requirement to present a sinless and soulful body after baptism, and to nourish it through worship, rite, and discipline, defined the Baptist faith. The embodiment of religious subjectivity joined Baptists across theological and regional boundaries to be a godly community gathered together as members of Christ’s body. Concomitantly, racial and gender differences affected the Baptist ideal of spiritual egalitarianism as religious identities were formed and enacted. The corporeality of evangelical spirituality—of faith, rite, and discipline experienced through and in the body—persisted among believers, and physical performances would continue to constitute authentic piety among American evangelicals. At the Great Revival in Kentucky, participants rolled like logs, barked like dogs, and jerked their bodies, “twitching and jolting in every direction.”9 As the nineteenth century progressed, Baptists would walk the path of righteousness with pure hearts and sanctified bodies, optimistically inured to earthly temptations and yet fatally tied to the divisions and identities of human society.

Appendix. Partial List of Baptist Ministers in the Mid-Atlantic and Chesapeake, 1689–1830

Birth and death dates

Place of birth

Education

Other occupations

Churches

John Alderson, Sr.

1719–1780

England

Unknown

Laborer Farmer Merchant

New Britain, Pa. Smith’s, Va. Linville’s Creek,Va.

John Alderson, Jr.

1738–1821

Pa.

Unknown

Farmer

Linville’s Creek, Va. Greenbrier, Va.

Burgiss Allison

1753–1827

N.J.

Classical

Educator Inventor Chaplain

Burlington, N.J.

Isaac Backus

1724–1806

Mass.

Informal

Farmer Author Const. Delegate

Middleboro, Mass.

Elijah Baker

1742–1798

Va.

Illiterate Adult study

Unknown

Meherrin, Va. Accomack, Va.

David Barrow

1753–1819

Va.

Some

Farmer Author Soldier

Mill Swamp, Va. South Quay, Va. Black Creek, Va. Mt. Sterling, Ky. Goshen, Ky. Lulbegrud, Ky.

John Benn

17??–183?

Va.

Unknown

Slave

Bluestone, Va. Petersburg, Va.

Jacob Bishop

17??–18??

Va.

Unknown

Slave

Portsmouth, Va. Norfolk, Va. Abyssinian, N.Y.

Edmund Botsford

1745–1819

England

Unknown

Sailor Carpenter Painter Groom Chaplain

Welsh Neck, S.C. Georgetown, S.C.

Name

186

Appendix Birth and death dates

Place of birth

Education

Other occupations

Andrew Broaddus

1770–1848

Va.

Little

Author

Caroline, Va. Richmond, Va.

Rane Chastain

1741–1825

Va.

“Neglected”

Farmer

Buckingham, Va.

Eleazar Clay

1744–1836

Va.

Unknown

Author

Chesterfield, Va.

John Clay

1742–1781

Va.

Unknown

Educator

Winn’s, Va.

Christopher Collins

1740–1808

Va.

Unknown

Educator

Zoar, Va.

John Corbley

1733–1803

Ireland

Unknown

Indentured Servt Soldier Coroner, JP Chaplain

Buck Marsh, Va. Goshen, Pa. Forts of Cheat,Va.

John Courtney

1744–1824

Va.

Little

Carpenter Soldier

King and Queen Co., Va. Richmond, Va.

Elijah Craig

1745–1808

Va.

Little

Millowner Land speculator

Rapidann, Va.

Lewis Craig

1738–1825

Va.

Little

Farmer Chaplain

Spotsylvania, Va.

Hugh Davis

1665–1753

Wales

Unknown

Farmer

Great Valley, Pa.

John Davis

1737–1772

Del.

B.A.

Farmer

Welsh Tract, Del. Boston, Mass.

Israel Decoudry

17??–18??

West Indies

Unknown

Slave

Gillfield, Va.

John Dipper

178?–1838

Va.

Literate

Slave Farmer

Williamsburg, Va. N.J.

Ambrose Dudley

1750–1823

Va.

Unknown

Soldier

Spotsylvania, Va. Lexington, Ky

Isaac Eaton

1725–1772

Pa.

B.A.; M.A.

Educator

Hopewell, N.J.

Morgan Edwards

1722–1795

Wales

B.A.; M.A.

Author Historian Lecturer

Philadelphia, Pa.

Daniel Fristoe

1738–1774

Va.

Little

Farmer

Chappawamsic, Va. Buck Marsh, Va. Brentown, Va.

Name

Churches

Appendix

187

Birth and death dates

Place of birth

Education

Other occupations Churches

William Fristoe

1742–1828

Va.

Little

Farmer

Chappawamsic, Va. Brentown, Va. Hartwood, Va. Grove, Va. Bethel, Va. Zion, Va.

Richard Furman

1755–1825

N.Y.

M.A., D.D.

Doctor

Charleston. S.C.

John Gano

1727–1804

N.J.

Adult study

Farmer Chaplain Professor

Morristown, N.J. New York City, N.Y. Town Fork, Ky.

Stephen Gano

1762–1828

N.Y.

M.A.

Doctor Author

Hudson, N.Y. Providence, R.I.

David George

1742–18??

Va.

Unknown

Slave

Savannah, Ga. Nova Scotia

James Greenwood

1749–1813

Va.

Unknown

Farmer

Spotsylvania Co., Va. Essex Co., Va.

Benjamin Griffith

1688–1768

Wales

Classical

Author Farmer

Montgomery, Pa.

Samuel Harris

1724–1795

Va.

Classical

Planter Soldier JP, sheriff Burgess Chaplain

Fall Creek, Va.

Oliver Hart

1723–1795

Pa.

B.A.; M.A.

Educator

Charleston, S.C. Hopewell, N.J.

William Hickman, Jr.

1747–1834

Va.

Little

Tenant farmer

Amelia Co., Va. Chesterfield Co., Va. Franklin Co., Ky.

Henry Holcombe

1756–1824

Va.

D.D.

Soldier Author

Beaufort, S.C. Savannah, Ga. Philadelphia, Pa.

James Ireland

1745–1806

Scotland

Classical

Educator Chaplain

South River, Va. Waterlick, Va. Buck Marsh, Va.

Elias Keach

1670–1701

England

Classical

Author

Pennepek, Pa. London

Ebenezer Kinnersley

1711–1778

England

B.A.; M.A.

Professor Scientist Author

Philadelphia, Pa.

Name

188

Appendix Birth and death dates

Place of birth

Education

Other occupations

Nathaniel Jenkins

1678–1754

Wales

“Fair”

Farmer

Cape May, N.J. Cohansey, N.J.

Jeremiah Jeter

1802–1880

Va.

Limited

Farmer Author College president

Morattico, Va. Wicomico, Va. Richmond, Va.

David Jones

1736–1820

Del.

Classical; M.A.

Farmer Chaplain

Freehold, N.J. Southampton, Pa. Great Valley, Pa.

Jenkin Jones

1690–1761

Wales

Classical

Unknown

Pennepek, Pa. Southampton, Pa. Philadelphia, Pa.

Samuel Jones

1657–1722

Wales

Unknown

Farmer

Pennepek, Pa.

Samuel Jones

1735–1811

Wales

B.A., M.A., D.D.

Farmer Educator

Pennepek, Pa. Southampton, Pa.

Name

Churches

Thomas Jones

1708–1788

Wales

Unknown

Farmer

Tulpehocken, Pa.

John Leland

1754–1841

Mass.

formal

Shoemaker

Mt. Poney, Va. Thomson’s Crk, Va. Black Walnut, Va. Cheshire, Mass.

William Lemon 17??–1802?

Va.

Unknown

Slave

Gloucester, Va.

George Liele

175?–18??

Va.

Unknown

Slave

Savannah, Ga. Kingston, Jamaica

Henry Loveall

170?–177?

England Little

Indentured servant

Providence, R.I. Piscataway, N.J. Chestnut Ridge, Md. Opequon, Mill Creek, Va.

Lewis Lunsford

1753–1793

Va.

None

Doctor

Morattico, Va. Nomini, Va. Wicomico, Va.

James Manning 1738–1791

N.J.

B.A.

College president Professor

Morristown, N.J. Warren, R.I. Providence, R.I.

Daniel Marshall 1706–1784

Conn.

Informal

Farmer Chaplain

Sandy Creek, N.C.

Benjamin Miller 1715–1781

N.J.

Adult study Unknown

Scotch Plains, N.J.

Appendix Birth and Place of death dates birth

Education

1746–1815

Va.

Some

Millowner Author Soldier

Little River, Va. Difficult Run, Va. Back Lick, Va. Frying Pan, Va. Alexandria, Va.

Abel Morgan, Sr. 1637–1722

Wales

Classical

Author

Pennepek, Pa.

Abel Morgan, Jr. 1713–1785

Del.

Classical

Author

Middleton, N.J.

Theodorick Noel

1753–1813

Va.

Little

Farmer

Upper Essex, Va. King and Queen Co., Va Salem, Va.

Robert Nordin

16??–1725

England

Unknown

Farmer

Burleigh, Va.

Gowan Pamphlet

17??–1810

Va.

Unknown

Slave

Williamsburg, Va.

Thomas Paul

17??–18??

Mass.

Unknown

Slave

Boston, Mass.

John Pitman

1751–1822

Mass.

Some

Ropemaker Philadelphia, Pa. Clerk Pawtuxet, R.I. Soldier Salem, Mass. Factory owner

James Reading

1750–1815

Va.

Little

Unknown

Fauquier Co., Va. South Carolina Kentucky

Norvell Robertson

1765–1855

Va.

Sporadic

Soldier Blacksmith Farmer Educator

Providence, Ga.

William Rogers

1751–1824

R.I.

B.A., M.A., Head master Newport, R.I. D.D. Chaplain Philadelphia, Pa. Professor Assemblyman

Nathaniel Saunders

1734–1808

Va.

Some

Carpenter Joiner

Mountain Run, Va. Mt. Poney, Va. Zoar, Va.

Robert B. Semple

1769–1831

Va.

Classical M.A. D.D.

Farmer Educator Author

Bruington, Va. King & Queen Co., Va. King Wm. Co., Va.

Henry Smalley

1765–1839

N.J.

B.A.

Farmer

Cohansey, N.J.

Name Jeremiah Moore

Other occupations

189

Churches

190

Appendix Birth and death dates

Place of birth

Education

Hezekiah Smith

1737–1805

N.Y.

B.A., M.A.

Farmer Chaplain Author

Cashaway, S.C. Haverhill, Mass.

William Staughton

1770–1829

England

B.A., D.D.

Educator Head master College president

Georgetown, S.C. Bordentown, N.J. Burlington, N.J. Philadelphia, Pa. Sansom St, Pa.

Shubal Stearns 1706–1771

Mass.

Informal

Farmer

Sandy Creek, N.C.

Isaac Skillman

1740–1799

N.J.

B.A., M.A., D.D.

Unknown

Boston, Mass. Salem, N.J.

Samuel Stillman

1737–1807

Pa.

Classical M.A., D.D.

Colllege Trustee Author Chaplain

Charleston, S.C. Bordentown, N.J. Boston, Mass.

John Taylor

1752–1835

Va.

Little

Farmer

Lunie’s Creek. Va. Happy Creek, Va.

Samuel Templeman

1764–1847

Va.

Some

Merchant Soldier

Farnham, Va. Nomini, Va.

David Thomas 1732–1816

Pa.

B.A., M.A.

Farmer

Broad Run, Va. Chappawamsic, Va. Occoquan, Va. Mountain Run, Va.

Owen Thomas 1691–1760

Wales

Unknown

Farmer

Welsh Tract, Del.

Charles Thompson

1748–1804

N.J.

B.A.

Chaplain Educator

Warren, R.I. Swansea, Mass.

Henry Toler

1761–1842

Va.

Partial Classical

Farmer

Nomini, Va. Coan, Va.

Thomas Ustick 1753–1803

N.Y.

B.A., M.A.

Hardware dealer Educator Bookseller

Ashford, Conn. Grafton, Mass. Philadelphia, Pa.

“Uncle Jack”

17??–1843

Va.

Unknown

Slave Farmer

Nottoway Co., Va.

Peter Van Horn 1719–17??

Pa.

Unknown

Farmer

Pennepek, Pa. Newmills, N.J.

William Van Horn

Pa.

Classical, M.A.

Farmer Chaplain

Southampton, Pa. Scotch Plains, N.J.

Name

1747–1807

Other occupations

Churches

Appendix Birth and death dates

Place of birth

Education

Joshua Vaughan

1749–1808

Pa.

Little

Blacksmith Brandywine, Pa. Sheriff/jailor

Jeremiah Walker

1746–1792

Va.

Little

Farmer Nottoway, Va. JP, Register Bute Co., Ga. of probates, State court justice

John Waller

1741–1802

Va.

Partial Classical

Farmer Chaplain

Spotsylvania, Va. Waller’s, Va. Burrus’, Va.

John Watts

166?–170?

England

Unknown

Farmer

Pennepek, Pa.

William Webber

1747–1808

Va.

3 years

Joiner

Goochland, Va. Dover, Va. Chickahominy, Va. Hungry, Va.

John Williams

1747–1795

Va.

“liberal”

Farmer Sheriff Chaplain

Meherrin, Va. Sandy Creek, N.C. Mossingford, Va. Bluestone, Va.

Elhanan Winchester

1751–1797

Mass.

Little

Author

Canterbury, Conn. Welsh Neck, S.C. Philadelphia, Pa.

Daniel Witt

1801–1871

Va.

Little

Farmer

Prince Edward Co., Va.

Name

Other occupations

191

Churches

Sources: William Cathcart, The Baptist Encyclopedia, 2. vols. (Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1881); William S. Simpson, Jr., Virginia Baptist Ministers, 1760–1790: A Biographical Survey, vol. 1 (Richmond, Va.: W.S. Simpson, Jr., 1990); William B. Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit, Baptists, vol. 6 (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1860); James B. Taylor, Lives of Virginia Baptist Ministers (Richmond, Va.: Yale and Wyatt, 1838).

Abbreviations

ABHS ABQ AHR APS AQ BHH BUA CCA CCHS CH CHKBA

CRC DHS GHBDA

GSP HRL HRPBV HSP JCBL JAH JER JMP JNH JRH JSH KJV LC

American Baptist Historical Society, Mercer University, Atlanta American Baptist Quarterly American Historical Review American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia American Quarterly Baptist History and Heritage Brown University Archives, John Hay Library, Providence, R.I. Chester County Archives, West Chester, Pa. Cumberland County Historical Society, Greenwich, N.J. Church History Lemuel Burkitt and Jesse Read, A Concise History of the Kehukee Baptist Association from Its Original Rise Down to 1803 (New York: Arno Press, 1980). Church Records Collection, LV Delaware Historical Society, Newark, Del. David Benedict, A General History of the Baptist Denomination in America and Other Parts of the World, 2 vols. (Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1813; 1971). Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Handley Regional Library, Winchester, Va. Robert Semple, A History of the Rise and Progress of the Baptists in Virginia (Richmond, Va.: Pitt & Dickinson, 1894). Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia John Carter Brown Library, Brown University, Providence, R.I. Journal of American History Journal of the Early Republic James Manning Papers, 1761–1827, BUA Journal of Negro History Journal of Religious History Journal of Southern History King James Version, Holy Bible Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

194

Abbreviations

LCP LV MDAH MHS MIFMC MEMTHB

Library Company of Philadelphia, Philadelphia Library of Virginia, Richmond Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Jackson Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore Mrs. Irving F. McKesson Collection, HSP Eve B. Weeks and Mary B. Warren, comps., Morgan Edwards’ Materials Toward a History of Baptists (Danielsville, Ga.: Heritage Papers, 1984). NEQ New England Quarterly NJHS New Jersey Historical Society, Newark PEC Protestant Episcopal Church of the U.S.A., Diocese of Virginia Papers, VHS PBA Philadelphia Baptist Association PH Pennsylvania History PMHB Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography RIHS Rhode Island Historical Society, Providence SBHC Southern Baptist Historical Commission, Nashville, Tenn. SPG Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts VBR Virginia Baptist Register VBHS Virginia Baptist Historical Society, Richmond VHS Virginia Historical Society, Richmond VMHB Virginia Magazine of History and Biography WMQ William and Mary Quarterly Taylor, History of the Baptist Churches John Taylor, A History of the Baptist Churches, of Which the Author Has Been Alternately a Member (Frankfort, Ky., 1823) Young, Baptists on the American Frontier Raymond Chester Young’s edited volume, Baptists on the American Frontier: A History of Ten Baptist Churches of Which the Author Has Been Alternately a Member by John Taylor (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1995) (consolidated 1823 and 1827 editions of Taylor)

Notes

Introduction: A New People of God 1. John Taylor’s two-year ordeal concluded with his baptism in May 1772. Young, Baptists on the American Frontier, 94–95, 98, 102. 2. Baptist history has generated numerous works, primarily on New England and the South. On New England, see C. C. Goen, Revivalism and Separatism in New England, 1740–1800: Strict Congregationalists and Separate Baptists in the Great Awakening (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1962); William Gerald McLoughlin, New England Dissent, 1630–1833: The Baptists and the Separation of Church and State, 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971); McLoughlin, Soul Liberty: The Baptists’ Struggle in New England, 1630–1833 (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1991); Steven Marini, Radical Sects in Revolutionary New England (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982); Harry Stout, The New England Soul: Preaching and Religious Culture in Colonial New England (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); Carla Gardina Pestana, Quakers and Baptists in Colonial Massachusetts (Oxford: Cambridge University Press, 1991); Daniel Jones, The Economic and Social Transformation of Rural Rhode Island, 1780–1850 (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1992); Susan Juster, Disorderly Women: Sexual Politics and Evangelicalism in Revolutionary New England (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1994). On the South, see Donald G. Matthews, Religion in the Old South (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970); Leah Townsend, South Carolina Baptists, 1670–1805 (Baltimore: General Publication, 1978); Anne Loveland, Southern Evangelicals and the Social Order, 1800–1860 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1980); Rhys Isaac, The Transformation of Virginia, 1740–1790 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982); Richard Beeman, The Evolution of the Southern Backcountry: A Case Study of Lunenberg County, Virginia, 1746–1832 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984); Robert Calhoon, Evangelicals and Conservatives in the Early South, 1740–1861 (Columbia: University of South Carolina, 1988); Albert H. Tillson, Jr., Gentry and Common Folk: Political Culture on the Virginia Frontier, 1740–1789 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1991); Randy Sparks, On Jordan’s Stormy Banks: Evangelicalism in Mississippi, 1773–1876 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1994); Christine Leigh Heyrman, Southern Cross: The Beginnings of the Bible Belt (New York: Knopf, 1997); Gregory A. Wills, Democratic Religion: Freedom, Authority, and Church Discipline in the Baptist South, 1758–1900 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); Jewel Spangler, Virginians Reborn: Anglican Monopoly, Evangelical Dissent, and the Rise of Baptists in the Late Eighteenth Century (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2008). On evangelicalism, see Mark A. Noll, The Rise of Evangelicalism: The Age of Edwards, Whitefield, and Wesley (Nottingham: IVP, 2004); Mark A. Noll, David W. Bebbington,

196

Notes to Pages 3–5

and George R. Rawlyk, eds., Evangelicalism: Comparative Studies of Popular Protestantism in North America, the British Isles, and Beyond, 1700–1900 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994); Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1989); John B. Boles, “Evangelical Protestantism in the Old South: From Religious Dissent to Cultural Dominance,” in Charles Reagan Wilson, ed., Religion in the South (Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1985); Leonard I. Sweet, ed., The Evangelical Tradition in America (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1984). 3. The most recent book length work on Baptists in the Delaware Valley is Norman Maring, Baptists in New Jersey: A Study in Transition (Valley Forge, Pa.: Judson Press, 1964). Jon Butler’s Power, Authority, and the Origins of American Denominational Order: The English Churches of the Delaware Valley, 1680–1730, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 68, Part 2 (Philadelphia: APS, 1978), is based on his dissertation, “The Christian Experience in the Delaware Valley: The English Churches on the Eve of the Great Awakening” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Minnesota, 1972). Also see David Spencer, The Early Baptists in Philadelphia (Philadelphia: William Sycklemoore, 1877); Richard Cook, The Early and Later Delaware Baptists (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1880); Henry C. Vedder, A History of the Baptists in the Middle States (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1898); William W. Keen, 1698, The Bicentennial Celebration of the Founding of the First Baptist Church of the City of Philadelphia, 1898 (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1899); Charles H. Brooks, Official History of the First African Baptist Church, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1922); Robert G. Torbet, A Social History of the Philadelphia Baptist Association, 1707–1840 (Philadelphia: Westbrook, 1944). 4. Quote from Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1989), 139. On bodies and theory, see Peter Stallybrass, “Patriarchal Territories: The Body Enclosed,” in Margaret W. Ferguson, Maureen Quilligan, and Nancy T. Vickers, eds., Rewriting the Renaissance: The Discourses of Sexual Difference in Early Modern Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986); Roy Porter, “History of the Body,” in Peter Burke, ed., New Perspectives on Historical Writing (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991); Bryan Turner, The Body and Society: Explorations in Social Theory (London: Sage, 1996); Kathleen Canning, “The Body as Method? Reflections on the Place of the Body in Gender History,” Gender & History 11, 2 (1999): 499–513; Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, vol. 1, An Introduction, trans. Robert Hurley (New York: Vintage, 1980); and Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: Pantheon, 1977). Feminist scholars have developed significant theoretical work on the body: see Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter: The Discursive Limits of Sex (New York: Routledge, 1993); Susan Bordo, Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture and the Body (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993); Elizabeth Grosz, Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994); Robin Wiegman, American Anatomies: Theorizing Race and Gender (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1995); Janet Price and Margrit Shildrik, eds., Feminist Theory and the Body: A Reader (New York: Routledge, 1999); Londa Schiebinger, ed., Feminism and the Body (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); Deborah Orr et al.,

Notes to Pages 5–6

197

eds., Belief, Bodies, and Being: Feminist Reflections on Embodiment (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006); Kathleen Canning, Gender History in Practice: Historical Perspectives on Bodies, Class, and Citizenship (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2006). 5. For ritual practice in early American religion, see Charles Hambrick-Stowe, The Practice of Piety: Puritan Devotion Disciplines in Seventeenth-Century New England (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982); David D. Hall, Worlds of Wonders, Days of Judgment: Popular Religious Belief in Early New England (New York: Knopf, 1989); Richard Rabinowitz, Spiritual Self in Everyday Life: The Transformation of Personal Religious Experience in Nineteenth-Century New England (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1989); Philip R. Vandermeer and Robert P. Swierenga, eds., Belief and Behavior: Essays in the New Religious History (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1991); Erik R. Seeman, Pious Persuasions: Laity and Clergy in Eighteenth Century New England (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999). 6. Ritual yields a “ritualized, social body.” Through consistent participation in ritual, believers gain “ritual mastery,” as expertise in church rite becomes “embodied knowing.” See Catherine Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 107–9. Also see Jonathan Z. Smith, Imaging Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982); John D. Kelly and Martha Kaplan, “History, Structure, and Ritual,” Annual Review of Anthropology 19 (1990): 119–50; Ronald L. Grimes, Ritual Criticism: Case Studies in Its Practice, Essays on Its Theory (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1990); Roy A. Rappaport, Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999). 7. Thomas Laqueur, Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990); Catherine Gallagher and Thomas Laqueur, eds., The Making of the Modern Body: Sexuality and Society in the Nineteenth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987); Ludmilla Jordanova, Sexual Visions: Images of Gender in Science and Medicine Between the Eighteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989); Londa Schiebinger, The Mind Has No Sex? Women and the Origins of Modern Science (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989). On the body in early America, see Joyce Chaplin, Subject Matter: Technology, the Body, and Science on the Anglo-American Frontier, 1500–1676 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001); Janet Moore Lindman and Michele Lise Tarter, eds., A Centre of Wonders: The Body in Early America (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2001); Simon Newman, Embodied History: The Lives of the Poor in Early Philadelphia (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003); Tony Ballantyne and Antoinette Burton, eds., Bodies in Contact: Rethinking Colonial Encounters in World History (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2005); Jennifer Putzi, Identifying Marks: Race, Gender, and the Marked Body in Nineteenth-Century America (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2006); Sara Gronim, Everyday Nature: Knowledge of the Natural World in Colonial New York (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2007). For the body in early modern England, see Gail Kern Paster, The Body Embarrassed: Drama and Disciplines of Shame in Early Modern England (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1993); Richard Burt and John Michael Archer, eds., Enclosure Acts: Sexuality, Property, and Culture in Early Modern England (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell

198

Notes to Pages 6–8

University Press, 1994); Darryl Grantley and Nina Taunton, eds., The Body in Late Medieval and Early Modern Culture (Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2000); Laura Gowing, Common Bodies: Women, Touch, and Power in Seventeenth-Century England (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003); Mary Fissell, Vernacular Bodies: The Politics of Reproduction in Early Modern England (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004). 8. One manifestation of status appeared in the church books. During the eighteenth century, many clerks kept membership lists, usually based on social relationship and status. Male members came first, then female members, with married couples often placed together. When blacks became a significant presence in a church, they were listed separately from whites. If black members were enslaved, their master’s name was included, notating their ownership by another, such as “Howel Rose’s Henry” or “Grace and Esther, William Downings Estate.” Social identities were evident in the record when new members joined. At the Scotch Plains church, the status of three candidates for baptism was apparent in the clerk’s description: “Sarah Manning, dau. of Isaac Manning, Jr., Phillip, an Ethopian belonging to James Brown, Margaret Webster, wife of Charles Webster, a free woman of colour.” 1802 Membership List, High Hills Church (Sussex County, Va.), Minute Book, 1787–1845, and 1778 Membership List, Morattico Church (Lancaster County, Va.), Minute Book, 1778–1844, CRC, LV; September 28, 1808, Scotch Plains Baptist Church, Scotch Plains, New Jersey, ABHS. 9. This study refers to ministers who served Baptist congregations during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This group is not inclusive; many men were left out because of space constraints and lack of information. See the Appendix to this volume. 10. Staunchly opposed to “sprinkling” children as an unscriptural practice, Baptists were labeled both “Anabaptists” and “antipedobaptists” for their stance against infant baptism. The word “anabaptist” was a general term of derision used against all sorts of dissenters in seventeenth-century England. Stephen Wright, The Early English Baptists, 1603–1649 (Rochester, N.Y.: Boydell Press, 2006), 6. 11. As one Baptist noted, the New Testament does not state, “in those days came John the Churchman, nor John the Presbyterian, nor John the Methodist, nor John the Quaker, but John the Baptist,” CHKBA, xiii. On early Baptists, Francis W. Sacks, The Philadelphia Baptist Tradition of Church and Church Authority, 1707–1814: An Ecumenical Analysis and Theological Interpretation, Series in American Religion 48 (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen, 1989), 39; Wright, The Early English Baptists, 13, 18, 40, 156; B. R. White, The English Baptists of the Seventeenth Century (London: Baptist Historical Society, 1983), 7–9, 25. 12. David A. Copeland, Benjamin Keach and the Development of Baptist Traditions in Seventeenth-Century England (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen, 2001), 43–44. On debated issues, see Wright, Early English Baptists, 22, 25, 27–29, 99–100; White, English Baptists, 9, 27, 42, 46, 62. Benjamin Keach (1640–1704) was born an Anglican and converted to the Baptist faith in 1655; he became the minister of a Particular Baptist church in London. Sidney Lee, ed., Dictionary of National Biography (London: Smith, Elder, 1892), 30: 54. 13. The Levellers emerged as political radicals during the English Civil War. They advocated natural rights and parliamentary reform; many were members of

Notes to Pages 8–10

199

Cromwell’s army. The doctrine of the fifth monarchy comes from Daniel 2:44, which prophesies a kingdom that would last forever. Fifth Monarchists believed Charles I’s reign was the fourth monarchy; the one following would usher in the millennium. Some Fifth Monarchy men became revolutionary activists and participated in two failed uprisings in 1657 and 1661. See White, English Baptists, 85, 96. 14. For one example, see “History of the origins and tenets of the Sect of the ANABAPTISTS from Dr. Robertson’s History, lately published, of the Reign of the Emperor Charles V,” October 4, 1774, Virginia Gazette (Purdie & Dixon), 1. Morgan Edwards challenged the claim that Baptists were central actors in the North Carolina Regulator Movement, fearing that it would be known as “another Munster tragedy,” MEMTHB, 172; Copeland, Benjamin Keach, 85–87, 93. 15. Baptists first appeared in New England in the 1630s. See McLoughlin, New England Dissent; Carl Bridenbaugh, Fat Mutton and Liberty of Conscience: Society in Rhode Island, 1636–1690 (Providence, R.I: Brown University Press, 1974); Sydney V. James, Colonial Rhode Island: A History (New York: Scribner, 1975); Edwin S. Gaustad, Roger Williams (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). Rhode Island Baptists moved into New Jersey in the 1660s but did not establish a church until the 1680s. Maring, Baptists in New Jersey, 13–15. 16. Article 1 of the Pennsylvania Charter guaranteed religious freedom to all inhabitants who “confess and acknowledge one almighty God, the creator, upholder, and ruler of the world.” Pennsylvania Charter of Privileges, 1701, HSP.

Chapter 1. “Little Tabernacles in the Wilderness”: Baptists in Colonial Pennsylvania 1. Morgan Evan, October 30, 1714, letter, “Notes and Queries,” PMHB 42, 1 (1918): 176–77. On religious toleration in Pennsylvania, see Michael Zuckerman, “Introduction: Puritans, Cavaliers, and the Motley Middle,” in Michael Zuckerman, ed., Friends and Neighbors: Group Life in America’s First Plural Society (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1982), 14; Sally Schwartz, “A Mixed Multitude”: The Struggle for Toleration in Colonial Pennsylvania (New York: New York University Press, 1982), 2; Jon Butler, Power, Authority, and the Origins of the American Denominational Order: The English Churches in the Delaware Valley, 1680–1730, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 68, Part 2 (Philadelphia: APS, 1978), 6–7. Also see J. William Frost, A Perfect Freedom: Religious Liberty in Pennsylvania (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990). 2. On German immigrants, see A. G. Roeber, Palatines, Liberty, and Property: German Lutherans in Colonial British America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993); Aaron Fogelman, Hopeful Journeys: German Immigration, Settlement, and Political Culture in Colonial America, 1717–1775 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996). Also see Jeff Bach, Voices of Turtledoves: The Sacred World of Ephrata (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003), 41–42, 101, 174–75; W. R. Ward, The Protestant Evangelical Awakening (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 252; “Account of Such as Have Formerly Frequented Friends Meetings

200

Notes to Pages 11–13

and Have Since Followed George Keith or Others,” in J. William Frost, comp., The Keithian Controversy in Early Pennsylvania (Norwood, Pa.: Norwood Editions, 1980), 371. On Klepius, see Elizabeth W. Fisher, “ ‘Prophecies and Revelations’: German Cabbalists in Early Pennsylvania,” PMHB 109 (1985): 299–333; on communitarian groups, see “An Account of the Gathering, Settling, Order, and Continuance of the Church of Baptized Believers Inhabiting in the Countys of Philadelphia and Bucks, in the Province of Pensilvania, and in the town and County of Burlington, in the Province of West New Jersey” (hereafter Pennepek Church Book), 25, ABHS; Jon Butler, “Into Pennsylvania’s Spiritual Abyss: The Rise and Fall of the Later Keithians, 1693–1703,” PMHB 101 (April 1977): 159–60, 162–63. The Philadelphia Society and Muggletonians were radical sects in seventeenth-century England. 3. Pennepek Church Book, 3–4. Thomas Dungan, an Irish immigrant, organized the first Baptist meeting in 1684 at Cold Spring in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. This meeting merged with Pennepek in 1702. Morgan Edwards, Materials Toward a History of Baptists in Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: Crukshank and Collins, 1770), 1: 6–8. 4. Pennepek Church Book, 5, 6. Pages 7 and 8, missing from the church book, may have detailed this controversy. Elias Keach remained friends with John Watts after he returned to England in 1692; see Edwards, Materials . . . Pennsylvania, 111; David Spencer, The Early Baptists of Philadelphia (Philadelphia: William Syckelmore, 1877), 30. 5. This story has been repeated in numerous publications since the nineteenth century. Edwards, one of the first Baptist ministers turned historians in British North America, conducted extensive research and wrote Baptist histories of each colony. Pennepek Church Book, 6. Edwards, Materials . . . Pennsylvania, 9. Butler claims that Thomas Dungan ordained Keach in 1687 or 1688. Butler, Power, Authority, 46. 6. Butler argues “these newly settled Baptists were caught in the dilemma of transition . . . between old and new concepts of church and congregation.” Butler, Power, Authority, 44–45. Elias Keach offered to ordain Watts before he returned to England, but the brethren decided that Watts should remain a “pastor only by election.” Pennepek Church Book, 9–10. The Indian word for the creek was “Pennepeka.” The meeting was also referred to as “the church of Christ in Dublin.” When the congregation was incorporated in 1787, it became officially known as the Lower Dublin church for the township in which it was situated. See undated letter, Samuel Jones to Joshua Thomas, MIFMC, HSP. One New Jersey church held two separate meetings for more than twenty years due to differences over singing psalms and laying on of hands. Robert Kelsay, History of the Cohansey Baptist Church, N.Y., 67, HSP. 7. For population rates by ethnicity and religion, see James Lemon, Best Poor Man’s Country: A Geographical Study of Early Southeastern Pennsylvania (New York: Norton, 1976), 14, 18. For Quakers in the Delaware Valley, see Frederick B. Tolles, Quakers and the Atlantic Culture (New York: Macmillan, 1960); Gary Nash, Quakers and Politics: Pennsylvania, 1681–1726 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1968); Jack Marietta, The Reformation of American Quakerism, 1748–1783 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984, 2007); Barry Levy, Quakerism and the American Family: British Settlement in the Delaware Valley (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988); Jean Soderlund, Quakers and Slavery: A Divided Spirit (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988). Frost asserts that a “noncoercive Quaker establishment” existed in early Pennsylvania. Frost, A Perfect Freedom, 27.

Notes to Pages 13–16

201

8. Scholars have noted the commonalties among Baptists and Quakers in early seventeenth-century England including shared beliefs, such as a stance against oaths, pacifism, and numbering the days and months of the year. See R. E. E. Harkness, “Early Relations of Baptists and Quakers,” CH 2 (December 1933): 231–33, 241; T. L. Underwood, Primitivism, Radicalism, and the Lamb’s War: The Baptist-Quaker Conflict in Seventeenth-Century England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 4. 9. Schwartz, “A Mixed Multitude”, 42–54, 63–65, 72–75. Lodge argues that the traditional religious beliefs of early Pennsylvania Protestants were undermined by close cultural contact with other sects via intermarriage, indentured servitude, and daily interaction. Martin E. Lodge, “The Crisis of the Churches in the Middle Colonies, 1720–1750,” PMHB 95 (April 1971): 214. On the Keithian schism, see Nash, Quakers and Politics, 179. Also see Levy, Quakerism and the American Family; Frost, The Keithian Controversy; Frost, “Unlikely Controversialists: Caleb Pusey and George Keith,” Quaker History 64 (1975–76):16–36; Edward J. Cody, “The Price of Perfection: The Irony of George Keith,” PH 19 (1972): 1–19; J. Jon Butler, “Gospel Order Improved: The Keithian Schism and the Exercise of Quaker Ministerial Authority,” WMQ 3rd ser. 31 (July 1974): 431–52; Butler, “Into Pennsylvania’s Spiritual Abyss”; John Smolenski, “Friends and Strangers: Religion, Diversity, and the Ordering of Public Life in Colonial Pennsylvania, 1681–1764” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 2001). 10. This overview is based on Butler’s, “Gospel Order Improved,” 433–37, 447. Also see Frost, The Keithian Controversy, 371. The number of Philadelphia Keithians dwindled, and by 1707 keeping a meetinghouse was no longer feasible. The remaining members offered it to the city’s Baptists and joined their meeting. See Spencer, The Early Baptists of Philadelphia, 43. 11. Pennepek Church Book, 11. Benjamin Keach described Quakers and Catholics as heretics. David A. Copeland, Benjamin Keach and the Development of Baptist Traditions in Seventeenth-Century England (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen, 2001), 67–69. Thomas Rutter, originally a Mennonite, became a Keithian and then a Baptist. Of the thirty-three Keithians in Upper Providence, two-thirds became Baptists: fifteen joined the Seventh Day Baptists and eight the First Day Baptists. Two returned to the Society of Friends and another became an Anglican. The remaining seven either died or their status is unknown. See Frost, The Keithian Controversy, 371–74. In 1697, the Keithian society at Upper Providence incorporated into a Seventh Day Baptist church but was soon split over sabbatarianism. The Keithian meeting at Lower Dublin was also divided on this issue; those who supported the first day practice joined the Pennepek church. Those who advocated seventh day worship became a separate society and built a meetinghouse in Oxford Township, Chester County. Edwards, Materials . . . Pennsyvlania, 58–62. Butler, “Into Pennsylvania’s Spiritual Abyss,” 156–57; Pennepek Church Book, 25, 26. 12. James 1:17 states: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” Pennepek Church Book, 15. On Keith’s religious beliefs, see Nash, Quakers and Politics, 145; Levy, Quakerism and the American Family, 159–60. One heresy Davis accused the Pennepek members of was Sabellianism, the belief that God the Father and God the Son are not two different divinities but merely different

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forms of the same entity. On this and Arianism, see F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone, eds., The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974), 83, 929. 13. Pennepek Church Book, 22. By the end of 1699, the Keithian/Baptist meeting in Chester County admitted Davis into membership because most of the church accepted “his doctrine of devils,” according to the church book. Butler asserts that Davis destroyed the Keithian meeting at Chester County and what remained of the Keithian movement. Davis eventually became a Seventh Day Baptist and moved to Rhode Island. Butler, “Into Pennsylvania’s Spiritual Abyss,” 166–67. Interdominational personnel also settled other disputes. When the Philadelphia Reform church split over a ministerial appointment, both sides asked for help from five Quakers and one Anglican. Frost, A Perfect Freedom, 46. 14. Pennepek Church Book, 28, 35–36. John Watts wrote an unpublished manuscript about this controversy, entitled Davis Disabled. Edwards, Materials . . . Pennsylvania, 12. See John Smolenski’s account of the Keithian schism for these commonalities, “Friends and Strangers,” chap. 4. 15. Butler argues that the Davis affair “helped destroy the diffusion of ministerial responsibilities among the membership and strengthened John Watts’s position in the congregation,” Butler, Power, Authority, 48. Smolenski concludes that the Keithian schism resulted in “the formation of a creole Quaker identity” and a political culture dominated by Friends, “Friends and Strangers,” 206, 215. 16. It was a common practice in the colonial period for religious groups to share meeting space. Hilltown Baptists in Bucks County allowed Presbyterians and Independents to use their meetinghouse if they agreed to the Westminister Confession of Faith; Catholics and Moravians were banned from the building. December 11, 1753, William Thomas, Bucks County Wills, HSP. Thomas Clayton, the first Anglican priest in Philadelphia, also opposed this arrangement and accused Andrews of “cherishing a schism.” See Schwartz, “A Mixed Multitude”, 63. For Baptist/Presbyterian affiliation, see Spencer, The Early Baptists of Philadelphia, 33–36; Robert G. Torbet, A History of the Baptists (Philadelphia: Judson Press, 1950), 229. 17. Clayton also sent a letter to the city’s “Keithian Quakers.” This was part of a comprehensive plan to bring dissenting congregations back into the established fold. See Deborah Mathias Gough, Christ Church, Philadelphia: The Nation’s Church in a Changing City (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), 14. Pennepek letter reprinted in Spencer, The Early Baptists of Philadelphia, 28, 35–36; Pennepek Church Book, 28–30. 18. Pennepek Church Book, 41; Henry Graham Ashmead, History of Delaware County, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: L.H. Everts, 1884), 643; and Brandywine Baptist Church, Chester County, Pennsylvania, 1692–1762, HSP. On the Upper Providence meeting, see “Things transacted by a Congregation usually met at Powel’s house in upper Providence,” in Brandywine Baptist Church, HSP. Thomas Jones and Oliver Hart used “thee” in their correspondence. March 27, 1758, Thomas Jones to Samuel Jones, MIFMC; April 17, 1761, Oliver Hart to James Manning, in Reuben Aldrich Guild, Early History of Brown University, Including the Life, Times, and Correspondence of James Manning, 1756–1791 (Providence: Snow & Farham, 1897), 27; Records of

Notes to Pages 19–22

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the Great Valley Baptist Church, Collections of the GSP, vol. 23 (Philadelphia, 1896), HSP, and Pennepek Church Book, 45–46. 19. Pennepek Church Book, 52, 69–71. New Jersey Quakers experienced a similar increase in discipline cases after the Keithian crisis. See Valerie G. Gladfelter, “Power Challenged: Rising Individualism in the Burlington, New Jersey, Friends Meeting, 1678–1720,” in Zuckerman, Friends and Neighbors, 123–25. 20. Morgan Edwards, “History of the Baptists in Delaware,” mss. copy, HSP, 9–10. Welsh Tract Baptists agreed to separate in part to end public ridicule of their religion: “they without were taking occasion to mock because of so much variance among the Baptists.” Welsh Tract Baptist Meeting, DHS, 9. Records of the Great Valley Baptist Church. 21. Records of the Great Valley Baptist Church; Kinnersley in Edwards, Materials . . . Pennsylvania, 116. 22. See Charles H. Browning, Welsh Settlement of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: William J. Campbell, 1912); Thomas Allen Glenn, Merion in the Welsh Tract (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing, 1970); Wayland F. Dunaway, “Early Welsh Settlers of Pennsylvania,” PH 12 (October 1945): 251–69. On religion and ethnicity in the middle colonies, see Ned Landsman, Scotland and Its First America Colony, 1683–1760 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985); Schwartz, “A Mixed Multitude”; Fogelman, Hopeful Journeys; Roeber, Palatines, Liberty, and Property; Randall Balmer, A Perfect Babel of Confusion: Dutch Religion and English Culture in the Middle Colonies (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); and John Fea, “Rural Religion: Protestant Community and the Moral Improvement of the South Jersey Countryside, 1676–1800” (Ph.D. dissertation, State University of New York at Stony Brook, 1999). 23. Some of the original Pennepek members, including John Watts, had been baptized prior to immigration at Henry Gregory’s church in Radnorshire, Wales. See A. D. Gillette, ed., Minutes of the Philadelphia Baptist Association, 1707–1807: Being the First One Hundred Years of Its Existence (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1851), 11. Some founders of the Great Valley church were members of a Welsh meeting before immigrating. Register of the Baptist Church at Rhydwilyn, Carmarthenshire, Wales, 1667–1745, HSP. Less than 10 percent of the white population in early Pennsylvania was Welsh. Boyd Stanley Schlenther, “ ‘The English Is Swallowing up Their Language’: Welsh Ethnic Ambivalence in Colonial Pennsylvania and the Experience of David Evans,” PMHB 114 (April 1990): 202. 24. Of the 47 ministers who served Delaware Valley Baptists between 1687 and 1770, 20 were born in Wales, 5 came from England, and the rest were native to the colonies. Data compiled from Edwards, Materials . . . Pennsylvania, and William B. Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit, vol. 6 (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1860). See Henry C. Conrad, intro., Records of the Welsh Tract Baptist Meeting, 10–11, DHS; and Edwards, “Materials Towards a History of the Baptists in Delaware,” HSP. The First Welsh Tract had been a plan to consolidate landholdings of 40,000 acres into a semi-autonomous settlement in Philadelphia and Chester Counties. Levy, Quakerism and the American Family, 118. Welsh ministers authored early Baptist publications. Enoch Morgan published The Welsh Concordance, and Abel Morgan wrote The Alphabetical Concordance of the Scriptures and Brief Instruction in the Principles of

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the Christian Religion. In 1716, Abel Morgan translated The London Confession of Faith into Welsh, and the Philadelphia Baptist Association formally adopted an English version of his Confession in 1742. Morgan copied the Century Confession of London Baptists with two additions: singing of psalms and laying on of hands. Records of the Great Valley Church, HSP; Records of the Welsh Tract Baptist Meeting; Edwards, “History of the Baptists in Delaware,” HSP. 25. The Middletown church of Monmouth County, East Jersey, was founded in 1688; Piscataway, in Middlesex County, East Jersey, was organized in 1689; and the Cohansey of Cumberland County, West Jersey, was constituted in 1690. Griffith wrote an article on the functions of an association for the PBA, taking the rules of governance from the London Association and the New Testament. Benjamin Griffith, “Essay on the Power and Duty of an Association” in Gillette, Minutes, 13–15, 61–63. Delaware Valley Baptists had been meeting on a yearly basis prior to the PBA’s founding. British associations, first formed in the 1640s, were most active in Wales and the West Country of England. See Joshua Thomas, A History of the Baptist Association in Wales, From the Year 1650, to the Year 1790 (London: Dilly, Button & Thomas, 1795), 6–8. On joining an association, a congregation was required to send representatives to the yearly meeting with an annual report detailing current membership and the state of religion in their church. See Gillette, Minutes, 39; Spencer, The Early Baptists of Philadelphia, 29. 26. Gillette, Minutes, 27, 31, 35, 47–48, 56, 58, 60, 74. Delaware Valley Baptists corresponded with their English counterparts early in the eighteenth century. “Letter sent to churches in London,” January 4, 1716/1717, Pennepek Church Register, HSP. 27. Pennepek Church Book, 16; Gillette, Minutes, 27, 70, 72–73. The Pennepek meeting continued to suffer from poor ministerial leadership. In 1712, the church dismissed Thomas Selby, a newly arrived Irish minister. Pennepek Church Book, 47. For more on this topic, see Butler, Power, Authority, 50. 28. Diary of John Comer, 1729–32, RIHS. Also cited in Butler, Power, Authority, 52; Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit, 69. Edwards commented that Loveall “was unhappy proof that ministerial gifts and a good life and conversation did not always go together,” Weeks and Warren, MEMTHB, 13–14, 26. By the end of the century, the PBA was using newspaper ads to warn the public about irregular ministers: “Whereas a certain DAVID BRANSON goes about the country preaching under the character of a BAPTIST MINISTER: NOTICE is hereby given that he said BRANSON was excommunicated by the Baptist Church, at the New Mills, in New Jersey, for IMMORTALITY. By order of the Association. Samuel Jones, Moderator,” November 28, 1781, Pennsylvania Gazette; also see Gillette, Minutes, 173. 29. The PBA sent John Gano, David Thomas, and Benjamin Miller to the Opekon church when its members appealed for help after Loveall’s departure. John Gano, Biographical Memoir of the Late Rev. John Gano (New York: Southwick & Hardcastle, 1806), 40. PBA ministers went to the Carolinas in the 1750s to organize new meetings or regulate old ones. See Leah Townsend, South Carolina Baptists, 1670–1805 (Baltimore: General Publication, 1978); G. W. Paschal, History of North Carolina Baptists, vol. 1 (Raleigh: General Board of North Carolina Baptist State Convention, 1930). Associations patterned after the PBA include the Charleston (South Carolina, 1729), the Ketocton (Virginia, 1765), the Warren (Rhode Island, 1767), and

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the Elkhorn (Kentucky, 1785). See John Asplund, The Annual Register of the Baptist Denomination, in North America; to the First of November, 1790, 49–51, LCP. 30. On Manning, see Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit, 89–96; on Thomas, see C. Douglas Weaver, “David Thomas and the Regular Baptists of Virginia,” BHH 28, 1 (October 1983): 3–19; on Hart, see Records of the Southampton Baptist Church, 1687–1842, HSP; on Morgan, see Sermon Notes of Abel Morgan, 1743–1745, ABHS; on Jones, see Diary of Samuel Jones, 1763–65, MIFMC, HSP, and Hywel M. Davies, Transatlantic Brethren: Rev. Samuel Jones (1735–1814) and His Friends (Bethlehem, Pa.: Lehigh University Press, 1995). 31. July 22, 1767, James Manning to Samuel Jones, JMP, BUA; June 3, 1782, Henry Toler to Robert Carter, Carter Family Papers, VHS; David Benedict, Fifty Years Among the Baptists (New York: Sheldon, 1860), 47; Gillette, Minutes, 84. Many associations adopted the 1742 Philadelphia Confession of Faith, including the Warren (Rhode Island, 1767), the Charleston (South Carolina, 1767), the Elkhorn (Tennessee, 1785), and the Holston (Tennessee, 1788). William L. Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith (Philadelphia: Judson Press, 1959), 352. 32. On the Great Awakening in the Mid-Atlantic and Chesapeake, see Charles Hartshorn Maxson, The Great Awakening in the Middle Colonies (Gloucester, Mass.: P. Smith, 1957); Marilyn Westerkamp, Triumph of the Laity: Scots-Irish Piety and the Great Awakening (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988); Leigh Eric Schmidt, Holy Fairs: Scottish Communion and American Revivals in the Early Modern Period (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989); Wesley Gewehr, The Great Awakening in Virginia, 1740–1790 (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1930); Rhys Isaac, The Transformation of Virginia, 1740–1790 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982). 33. Whitefield asserted that Jones preached “the truth as it is in Jesus.” See A Continuation of the Reverend George Whitefield’s Journal, from His Embarking After the Embargo to His Arrival at Savannah in Georgia, 2nd ed. (London: Straham & Hutton, 1740), 32, 35, 36, 38, LCP. 34. Kinnersley’s family immigrated to Pennsylvania from England soon after his birth in 1711. He became a minister and was active in the Southampton and Pennepek churches. See Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit, 45; 1733, Records of Southampton Baptist Church, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Baptisms, Marriages, Burials, 1687–1842, Collections of the GSP, vol. 14 (Philadelphia, 1895), HSP. Also see Leo Lemay, Ebenezer Kinnersley, Franklin’s Friend (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1964). 35. This incident was reported in a postscript written by Kinnersley for Benjamin Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette on July 24, 1740. He left the Philadelphia congregation in the 1740s and became an apprentice to Franklin; he later obtained a teaching position at the Philadelphia Academy. One scholar argues that Kinnersley used scientific experiments “to repair the damage wrought by enthusiasts, enlightening their minds that the preaching of 1740 had cast into darkness.” Nina Reid-Maroney, Philadelphia’s Enlightenment, 1740–1800: Kingdom of Christ, Empire of Reason (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2001), 53, 59. 36. Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit, 6: 33, 47, 62–63. Sermon Notes of Abel Morgan, 1743–1745, ABHS; Norman H. Maring, Baptists in New Jersey: A Study in

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Notes to Pages 29–31

Transition (Valley Forge, Pa.: Judson Press, 1964), 48–49. Morgan engaged in a pamphlet war with a Presbyterian minister, who issued “A Charitable Plea for the Speechless,” which attacked the rite of adult baptism by immersion. See John Fea, “Samuel Finley v. Abel Morgan: Revivalism, Ethnicity, and Denominational Identity in Colonial New Jersey,” New Jersey History 117 (Fall–Winter 1999): 3–4; Ward, The Protestant Evangelical Awakening, 245, 253; Maxson, The Great Awakening in the Middle Colonies, 133; Benedict, GHBDA 2: 576; Schwartz, “A Mixed Multitude”, 147. 37. “Minutes of the meeting of business held by the church of Philadelphia from August 11, 1760” (hereafter Philadelphia Church Book), AHBS, 2–6, 10–11. The first entry of this book is February 4, 1757, despite its title. The contentious reputation of the Philadelphia meeting continued after the American Revolution when James Manning lambasted the city’s church: “those wrong-headed people in Phila. seem to have been formed for a scourge for ministers, . . . may I never be caught in their clutches!” July 18, 1788, James Manning to Samuel Jones, MIFMC, HSP. On the changing nature of church ritual, see Chapter 5. 38. Gano, Biographical Memoir, 86. Morgan Edwards was born an Anglican in 1722 in Trevethin Parish, Monmouthshire, Wales. He converted to the Baptist faith at the age of sixteen, joined the Penygarn church, and was educated at dissenting academies. Before immigrating, he served churches in Cork, Ireland, and Lincolnshire and Sussex, England. Thomas R. McKibben, Jr., and Kenneth L. Smith, The Life and Works of Morgan Edwards (New York: Arno Press, 1980), 3–4, 9–12. 39. June 4, 1763, April 1, 1765, December 31, 1768, Philadelphia Church Book. 40. To offset expenses in the early 1760s, George Westcott donated £83, Samuel Miles, Samuel Davis, and Joseph Watkins provided £50 each, while Joshua Moore and Morgan Edwards gave £15 and £10 respectively. June 4, 1763, July 2, 1763, August 6, 1763, April 20, 1763, Philadelphia Church Book. Of the 105 men listed in the Philadelphia Church Book during the 1760s and 1770s, 68 have identifiable occupations. More than half the identified male members (44) were skilled tradesmen. One-third or 24 of the 68 men were listed as gentlemen, merchants, doctors, ministers, shopkeepers, or college professors. Occupational status of male church members derived from “Proprietary, Supply & State Tax Lists of the City and County of Philadelphia for the Years 1769, 1774 and 1779,” in William Henry Engle, M.D., ed, Pennsylvania Archives, 3rd ser. 14 (Harrisburg: William Stanley Ray, 1897); 1775 Constable Returns, Philadelphia City Archives; Record of Indentures, 1771–1773, APS; Philadelphia County Will Books, HSP. 41. Philadelphia Church Book, 66, 72, 74–75, 78; Gillette, Minutes, 86. In 1767, the church granted Edwards a leave of absence to raise funds for the newly founded Rhode Island College. He was fulfilling the role of an evangelist, a position instituted by General Baptists in England. See B. R. White, The English Baptists of the Seventeenth Century (London: Baptist Historical Society, 1983), 35. Edwards resigned his position in the 1770s and preached at vacant churches. He was accused of drunkenness and excommunicated some time in the 1780s. Considered a Tory during the war, Edward was also suspected of being a Universalist for defending Elhanan Winchester. John Rippon, The Baptist Annual Register, 1794, 1795, 1796–97 (London: Dilly, 1797), 309–10, VBHS; William Henry Brackney, The Baptists (New York: Greenwood Press, 1988), 159.

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Chapter 2. “Sons and Daughters of Zion”: Baptists in Colonial Virginia 1. A. D. Gillette, ed., Minutes of the Philadelphia Baptist Association, 1707–1807: Being the First One Hundred Years of Its Existence (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1851), 120. 2. Early Virginia contained pockets of religious diversity despite the presence of the established Church of England. Roman Catholics and Brownists immigrated in the 1610s, Puritans in the 1640s, Quakers in the 1650s, and Presbyterians in the 1680s; their impact was limited and localized. French Huguenots, German Reformed, and Lutherans arrived in the early eighteenth century and created ethnic enclaves. Edward L. Bond, Spreading the Gospel in Colonial Virginia: Sermons and Devotional Writings (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2004), 8. On Puritans, see Babette M. Levy, “Early Puritanism in the Southern and Island Colonies,” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 70 (1960): 93–107. On Quakers, Jay Worrall, Jr., The Friendly Virginians: America’s First Quakers (Athens, Ga.: Iberian Publishing, 1992). On Presbyterians, Ernest Trice Thompson, Presbyterianism in the South, vol. 1, 1607–1861 (Richmond, Va.: John Knox Press, 1963). On Huguenots, Joan Rezner Gundersen, “The Huguenot Church at Manakin in Virginia, 1700–1750,” Goochland County Historical Society Magazine 23 (1991): 19–40; Jon Butler, The Huguenots in America (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983). On Germans, A. G. Roeber, Palatines, Liberty, and Property: German Lutherans in Colonial British America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993); William Edward Eisenberg, The Lutheran Church in Virginia, 1717–1962 (Roanoke, Va.: Virginia Synod, Lutheran Church in America, 1967); and Harry Anthony Brunk, History of Mennonites in Virginia, 1727–1900 (Staunton, Va.: McClure, 1959). 3. The first mention of Baptists can be found in the journal of a Quaker minister, who in 1699 visited the home of “one Thomas Bonger, a preacher among the General Baptists.” See Extracts from the Journal of Thomas Story, VHS. “Report on Virginia Baptists, 1741/2,” VBR 5 (1966): 237–40; Certificates Issued for the Establishment of Baptist Churches, Surry County, Virginia, 1717, VHS. Descendants of these General Baptists would become members of two Sussex County churches. December 27, 1756, letter in Benedict, GHBDA, 1: 25. On church reorganization, see Weeks and Warren, MEMTHB, 33; Mill Swamp Church (Isle of Wight County, Va.), Minute Book, 1774–1790; High Hills Church (Sussex County, Va.), Minute Book, 1787–1845, CRC, LV. Samuel Kercheval, History of the Valley of Virginia (Woodstock, Va.: John Gatewood, 1850), 50–53; Semple, HRPBV, 1: 375–76; Robert G. Gardner, Baptists of Early America: A Statistical History, 1639–1790 (Atlanta: Georgia Baptist Historical Society, 1983), 37. 4. Wesley Gewehr, The Great Awakening in Virginia, 1740–1790 (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1930), 108–9; Semple, HRPBV, 13–14; Benedict, GHBDA, 2: 350–52; Robert G. Torbet, A History of the Baptists (Philadelphia: Judson Press, 1950), 246. John Leland, “The Virginia Chronicle,” in Edward L. Bond, ed., Spreading the Gospel in Colonial Virginia: Sermons and Devotional Writings (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2004), 452. John Frantz, “The Religious Development of the Early Settlers into ‘Greater Pennsylvania’: The Shenandoah Valley of Virginia,” PH 68 (Winter 2001): 66–100. Linville’s Creek was the original name of Brock’s Gap church. “Abstract of

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Church Records, Linville Creek, Smith Creek, and Brock’s Gap, 1756 to 1844,” in John W. Wayland, ed., Virginia Valley Records (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing, 1965); Hopewell Friends History, 1734–1934, Frederick Co., Virginia: Records of Hopewell Monthly Meetings and Meetings Report to Hopewell (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing, 1975), 65, 186. A similar process occurred in the Carolinas after the PBA sent John Gano on a southern tour of General Baptists. His report urged the PBA to send more ministers. Peter Peterson Van Horn and Benjamin Miller went to North Carolina where they converted General Baptist meetings into Regular ones. By the end of the 1750s, ten churches in the colony had become Calvinist. William L. Lumpkin, Baptist Foundations in the South: Tracing Through the Separates the Influence of the Great Awakening, 1754–1787 (Nashville, Tenn.: Broadman Press, 1961), 65. 5. Semple, HRPBV, 21, 28, 233, 386. Thomas attended the Hopewell Academy in New Jersey. In 1769, he received a master’s degree from Rhode Island College and in 1774 published his own edited version of the Philadelphia Confession of Faith. “Daddy Thomas” in William S. Simpson, Jr., ed., “The Journal of Henry Toler, Part I, 1782–1783,” VBR 31 (1992): 1572–73. The term “spiritual father” was used to describe Thomas’s relationship to William Fristoe. Weeks and Warren, MEMTHB, 40. Ministers influenced by Thomas include William and Daniel Fristoe, Nathaniel Saunders, Richard Major, Jeremiah Moore, and John Creel. Also see Garnett Ryland, The Baptists of Virginia, 1699–1926 (Richmond: Virginia Baptist Board of Missions and Education, 1955), 21–23; and C. Douglas Weaver, “David Thomas and the Regular Baptists of Virginia,” BHH 28 (October 1983): 6. 6. Brock’s Gap Baptist Church, Frederick County, Virginia, 1757, HSP; Fristoe in Benedict, GHBDA, 2: 642; Gewehr, Great Awakening, 118; May 10, 1769, George Maclaren Brydon, ed., Extracts from the Journals of the Virginia House of Burgesses Dealing with Religion, From July 1619 to June 1779, 195–196, VHS. 7. Gewehr, Great Awakening, 65. When the Quakers first entered the colony in the 1650s, Governor Berkeley labeled them a “pestilent” sect; see Edward Bond, Damned Souls in a Tobacco Colony: Religion in Seventeenth Century Virginia (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 2000), 165. They were also denounced for “seducing” and “misleading” the people as well as trying to “destroy religion, laws, communities and all bonds of civil society.” Philip Alexander Bruce, Institutional History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century (Gloucester, Mass.: P. Smith, 1964), 229–30. Anglican ministers railed against the Friends as “deceivers” and “devils”; Story, Extracts, 53, 63. Presbyterians in Bond, Spreading the Gospel, 33–34; Methodists in Dee E. Andrews, The Methodists and Revolutionary America, 1760–1800: The Shaping of an Evangelical Culture (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000), 57, 15. October 6, 1770, William Bradley to Nathaniel Saunders, Nathaniel Saunders Papers, 1767–1773, VBHS; William Hickman, A Short Account of My Life and Travels, For More Than Fifty Years, a Professed Servant of Jesus Christ (c. 1826), 2–3; September 8, 1759, and November 4, 1759, James Craig to William Dawson, Dawson Manuscript, LC; December 17, 1770, Thomas Barton to Daniel Burton, Letters of the SPG, 1732–1779, HSP; Hannah Lee Corbin letter in Ethel Armes, Stratford Hall: The Great House of the Lees (Richmond, Va.: Garrett and Massie, 1936), 205. 8. June 5, 1771, James Manning to Samuel Stennett, JMP, JHL; June 23, 1772, John S. Moore, ed., “Richard Dozier’s Historical Notes, 1771–1818,” VBR 28 (1989): 1391;

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“ADDRESS to the ANABAPTISTS Imprisoned in Caroline County, August 8, 1771,” February 20, 1772, Virginia Gazette (Purdie & Dixon), 1; comments by “Major W.” in Weeks and Warren, MEMTHB , 63; Autobiography of Norvell Robertson, 1765–1846, 23, MDAH. A vestryman in York opposed his wife’s baptism because he said “I know nothing about this heart-work.” John Leland, The Writings of the Elder John Leland, ed. L. F. Greene (New York: Arno Press, 1969), 21. 9. Leland, The Writings of John Leland, 25; Weeks and Warren, MEMTHB, 97; The Journal of Nicholas Cresswell, 1774–1777 (Fort Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1924, 1968), 133; October 6, 1770, William Bradley to Nathaniel Saunders, Nathaniel Saunders Papers, VBHS. 10. May 23, 1786, William S. Simpson, Jr., ed., “The Journal of Henry Toler, Part II, 1783–1786,” VBR 32 (1993): 1642; Autobiography of Norvell Robertson, 22, 24, MDAH. 11. Leland, Writings of John Leland, 25. Craig in James Barnett Taylor, Virginia Baptist Ministers (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1859), 1: 85–91; Ireland in Samuel Kercheval, History of the Valley of Virginia (Woodstock, Va.: John Gatewood, 1850), 56; Waddell in Henry Howe, Historical Collections of Virginia (Charleston, S.C.: Babcock, 1845), 420; September 13, 1783, Journal of Henry Toler, Part II, 1635. 12. Chester Raymond Young, ed., Westward into Kentucky: The Narrative of Daniel Trabue (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1981), 128; Taylor, History of the Baptist Churches, 288; Hickman, A Short Account, 2–3; Weeks and Warren, MEMTHB, 96; Autobiography of Norvell Robertson, 22, MDAH; Leland, Virginia Chronicle, 453. 13. Weeks and Warren, MEMTHB, 46, 54; Young, Baptists on the American Frontier, 95;Young, Westward into Kentucky, 128; The Life of the Rev. James Ireland, Who Was for Many Years Pastor of the Baptist Church at Buck Marsh, Waterlick, and Happy Creek, in Frederick and Shenandoah Counties, Virginia (Winchester, Pa., 1819), 71. 14. Philip Vickers Fithian first heard about Baptist activity in 1774 when he reported that Loudoun County “Anabaptists” were “growing very numerous.” Journal and Letters of Philip Vickers Fithian, 1773–1774: A Plantation Tutor of the Old Dominion, ed. Hunter Dickinson Farish (Williamsburg, Va.: Colonial Williamsburg, 1957), 72; William Fristoe, History of the Ketocton Baptist Association (Staunton, Va., 1808), 79. David Barrow and Edward Mintz were the two men “dipped.” Semple, HRPBV, 460; Benedict, GHBDA, 1: 249. Opponents of English Baptists broke into their meetinghouses, drank their communion wine, and destroyed their altars. B. R. White, The English Baptists of the Seventeenth Century (London: Baptist Historical Society, 1983), 98. Puritans destroyed Anglican objects to defuse their spiritual power, see Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, c. 1400–c. 1580 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1992). Resistance to evangelicalism was particularly strong in the Piedmont region where the gentry had yet to fully institute their social and political dominance. See Philip Morgan, “Slave Life in Piedmont Virginia,” in Lois Green Carr, Philip D. Morgan, and Jean B. Russo, eds., Colonial Chesapeake Society (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988), 476–80. 15. Bond, Damned Souls, 296; Autobiography of Norvell Robertson, 1765–1846, 23, MDAH. See the autobiographies of John Taylor and Benjamin Hickman for similar reactions. 16. Little documents 154 incidents of 78 Baptists who were harassed, beaten, and jailed in 28 counties from 1771 to 1778; 56 of these men were jailed, some for a

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few days, others for months at a time. Lewis Peyton Little, Imprisoned Preachers and Religious Liberty in Virginia (Lynchburg: Virginia Historical Society, 1938), 516–20. Methodists gained from Baptist resistance; Philip Gatch noted “the Baptists, who had preceded us, had encountered and rolled back the wave of persecution.” John McLean, Sketch of Rev. Philip Gatch (Cincinnati: Swormstedt & Poe, 1854), 50–51. Presbyterians faced similar challenges when they arrived in the 1740s. See Donald Mathews, Religion in the Old South (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977); Gewehr, Great Awakening; Jewel Spangler, “Presbyterians, Baptists, and the Making of a Slave Society in Virginia, 1740–1820” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of San Diego, 1996), 43–48; Semple, HRPBV, 180, 181. Chesterfield County Record in Little, Imprisoned Preachers, 441; Typescript of Fauquier County Records, VBHS. 17. Initially the General Court interpreted the Toleration Act in its strictest sense; licensed dissenting ministers were to preach in only one county. See Gewehr, Great Awakening, 126–27; Lumpkin, Baptist Foundations in the South, 110; September 20, 1771, John Waller to James Mills; August 12, 1771, John Waller to unknown, in Little, Imprisoned Preachers, 262, 275–76, 285. Baptists in Richmond County were denied a license for a meetinghouse because a Presbyterian church had already been built in the area. Fristoe, History of the Ketocton Baptist Association, 71–73. 18. A similar strategy had been used to harass Quakers in the 1660s; Charles City County invoked antivagrancy laws to prosecute Friends who crossed county lines to attend meetings. Bond, Damned Souls, 166. January 1777, Chesterfield County Order Book, in William L. Lumpkin, Colonial Baptists and Southern Revivals (New York: Arno Press, 1980), 66. Waller in Little, Imprisoned Preachers 269; Nathaniel Saunders Papers, 1767–1775, VBHS; Semple, HRPBV, 400. Benjamin Waller, clerk of the General Court, informed the government that itinerant preachers were “bound to their good behaviour & treated as vagabonds by a Justice of the Peace.” January 30, 1744/45, Benjamin Waller to William Dawson, Dawson Papers, 18–20, LC; Little, Imprisoned Preachers, 42; Weeks and Warren, MEMTHB, 48. William Lee, a prominent Anglican planter, complained about “wandering” and “vagabond preachers.” May 22, 1771, William Lee to Cary Wilkinson, letter book of William Lee, 1769–1772, Lee Family Papers, 1742–1795, VHS. While visiting Philadelphia, George Whitefield was called a “strolling preacher” by Anglican opponents. See Sally Schwartz, “A Mixed Multitude”: The Struggle for Toleration in Colonial Pennsylvania (New York: New York University Press, 1982), 123. 19. March 4, 1774, Chesterfield Court Record in Little, Imprisoned Preachers, 442; Archibald Cary in Young, Westward to Kentucky, 129. Other citations are in the order books of Caroline, Cumberland, Essex, Fauquier, Frederick, and Middlesex Counties, see John K. Nelson, A Blessed Company: Parishes, Parsons, and Parishioners in Anglican Virginia, 1690–1776 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 454 n26; Semple, HRPBV, 120. Petitions from Sussex County, 1771, and Amelia County, 1772, in Little, Imprisoned Preachers, 268, 283–84, 310–11, 363. 20. January 24, 1774, James Madison to William Bradford, Jr., Little, Imprisoned Preachers, 418–19; Henry from Rhys Isaac, The Transformation of Virginia, 1740–1790 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982), 219. On Anglican numbers, see Nancy Rhoden, Revolutionary Anglicanism: The Colonial Church of England

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Clergy During the American Revolution (New York: New York University Press, 1999), 24. 21. “A Letter to the Irregular BAPTISTS of Virginia,” December 22, 1768, Virginia Gazette (Rind), 2. 22. “An ADDRESS to the ANABAPTISTS imprisoned in Caroline County, August 8, 1771,” February 22, 1772, Virginia Gazette (Purdie & Dixon), 1. This was most likely written by the colony’s attorney general, John Randolph, Jr. This view of Baptists as politically dangerous was current in England during the early eighteenth century. White, English Baptists, 14. 23. One article took the form of “A Recipe to Make an AnaBaptist Preacher in Two Days Time.” After combining “herbs of hypocrisy and ambition,” with “the seed of dissension and discord,” and “the roots of stubbornness and obstinacy,” among other ingredients, “the dissenting brother” was to take the mixture “morning and evening before exercise.” The result would “make the schismastick endeavour to maintain his doctrine, wound the church, delude the people, justify their proceedings of illusions, foment rebellion, and call it by the name of liberty of conscience.” October 31, 1771, Virginia Gazette (Purdie & Dixon), 2; Minutes of the Proceedings of the Roanoak District Association, Virginia (Hillsborough, Va.: R. Ferguson, 1789), VBHS. One of these poisonous pens was Charles Chauncy, who claimed the same “wandering spirit” that possessed “the enthusiasts of Münster” also infected New Light Protestants. Charles Chauncy, The Wonderful Narrative (1742) cited in W. R. Ward, The Protestant Evangelical Awakening (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 241. One Baptist maintained that the Münster rebellion was caused by a quarrel over feudalism. Benedict, GHBDA, 1: 263–64. 24. David Thomas, The Virginian Baptist, Or a View and Defence of the Christian Religion, as it is Professed by the Baptists of Virginia, in Three Parts (Baltimore: Enoch Story, 1774), 6, 33, 39, 63, VBHS. 25. Journal and Letters of Philip Vickers Fithian, 96; Giberne in Little, Imprisoned Preachers, 377–379. Isaac Giberne to William Lee, July 8, 1773, The Letters of William Lee, 1766–1783, ed. Worthington Chauncey Ford, vol. 1 (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Historical Printing Club, 1891), 1: 74; McRoberts in Joan Gundersen, Anglican Ministry in Virginia, 1723–1776: A Study of a Social Class (New York: Garland, 1989), 191–92; McLean, Sketch of Rev. Philip Gatch, 34; April 5, 1778, Robert Carter Papers, vol. 15, extracts from Duke University Papers, VBHS; James Maury, To Christians of Every Denomination Among Us, Especially Those of the Established Church, an Addressing Enforcing an Inquiry into the Grounds of the Pretensions of the Preachers, Called Anabaptists, to an Extraordinary Mission from Heaven to Preach the Gospel (Annapolis, Md., 1771), MHS. 26. Anglican and Quaker ministers debated each other in the early eighteenth century. Bond, Damned Souls, 237; Ireland, Life of the Rev. James Ireland, 130–31; “Dozier’s Historical Notes,” 1398; October 6, 1770, William Bradley to Nathaniel Saunders, VBHS; April 9, 1775, N. Grant to Nathaniel Saunders in Little, Imprisoned Preachers, 376; Weeks and Warren, MEMTHB, 52, February 7, 1767, William Green to Nathaniel Saunders in George Maclaren Brydon, Virginia’s Mother Church and the Political Conditions Under Which It Grew (Philadelphia: Church Historical Society, 1952), 2: 187–88. Anglicans attempted to answer dissenters’ criticism of their version of Christianity. See PEC Papers, VHS; Semple, HRPBV, 13.

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27. Gillette, Minutes, 120; November 27, 1773, Christ Church Vestry Book, Frederick Parish, Frederick County, 1738–1885, VHS; Morattico Church (Lancaster County, Va.), Minute Book, 1778–1844, CRC, LV; Morton in Little, Imprisoned Preachers, 519; Nicholas Cresswell used the phrase “the new faith” in conversation with a Loudon County parson. Rhoden, Revolutionary Anglicanism, 42. 28. The five points of Calvinism are total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and the perseverance of the saints. Scholars used the acronym TULIP as shorthand for this doctrine. See White, The English Baptists, 65. 29. Leland, “Virginia Chronicle,” 453. On New England Separates, see C. C. Goen, Revivalism and Separatism in New England, 1640–1800 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1962); Young, Baptists on the American Frontier, 91–92, 128–29; Weeks and Warren, MEMTHB, 43; June 23, 1787, August 25, 1787, Waterlick Baptist Church, 1787–1817, VBHS; Semple, HRPBV, 19–20; 65–66; August 1769 Ketocton Association letter in Gillette, Minutes, 102. 30. Separate Theodorick Noel and Regular Lewis Lunsford went on a preaching tour of the Northern Neck in 1773. Barbara M. Filling, “Early Years of the Wicomico Baptist Church (Renamed Coan in 1847),” Bulletin of the Northumberland Historical Society 29 (1992): 43. Semple, HRPBV, 67–68. Young asserts that “Taylor drew from the deep wells of Separate ardor and Regular order,” Baptists on the American Frontier, 33. 31. Separate ministers attended the 1769 Ketocton Association meeting. August 1769 letter in Robert G. Gardner, “The Ketocton and Philadelphia Associations in the 18th Century,” VBR 27 (1988): 1369; Fristoe, History of the Ketocton Baptist Association, 21. 32. Burkitt and Read, CHKBA, 38–42. May 1775 debate in Semple, HRPBV, 83–84. A group of Separate Baptists broke away from a Berkeley County church in 1792 to organize their own meeting. A Declaration, or, List of Grievances, and Transactions, lately Occurring in the Regular Baptist Church of our Lord Jesus Christ, at Mill-Creek, in Berkeley County, in Virginia, VHS; Mill Creek Church (Frederick and Berkeley Counties, Va.), Minute Book, 1757–1828, CRC, LV. 33. McLean, Sketch of Rev. Philip Gatch, 50–51, 53, 56–57, 94; Journals of John Littlejohn, 1773–1832, ABHS; Diary of John Early, 1808–1814, bk. 3, 25, VHS; March 25, April 9, 15, 16, and 17, 1778, Robert Carter Papers, vol. 15, VBHS; Morgan Edwards, “History of the Baptists in Delaware,” HSP, 21. 34. Weeks and Warren, MEMTHB, 35, 41, 47; Devereaux Jarratt, “An Argument Between an Anabaptist and a Methodist on the Subject and Mode of Baptism,” 1814, VBHS. South Carolina Baptists, who shared an Edisto Island meetinghouse with Presbyterians, were turned out in 1722 and “forbad the further use of it, by their intolerant brethren, the Presbyterians” (131). 35. The Linville’s Creek church had once been a Quaker meetinghouse. Some Pennsylvania Friends who moved into the Shenandoah Valley joined this church. See Records of Hopewell Monthly Meetings, 186. Methodist minister Francis Asbury lamented the influence of Baptists, who “like ghosts . . . haunt us from place to place.” Francis Asbury, The Journal and Letters of Francis Asbury, in Three Volumes, ed. Elmer T. Clark (London: Epworth, 1958), 176. 36. Brock’s Gap church, HSP. An Anglican minister noted the competitive antipathy between North Carolina Presbyterians and Baptists. Lumpkin, Colonial Baptists, 51.

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Chapter 3. “A Heaven-Born Stroke”: Evangelical Conversion 1. “Helltown” was a frontier settlement of the Blue Ridge Mountains located in Frederick County near the Shenandoah River. Taylor and his family lived in a religiously diverse region; Presbyterians, Quakers, and German Pietists organized churches before the Anglican Church had a presence in the valley. George McClaren Brydon, Virginia’s Mother Church and the Political Conditions Under Which It Grew (Philadelphia: Church Historical Society, 1952), 2: 117–18; John Taylor, A History of the Baptist Churches, of Which the Author Has Been Alternately a Member (Frankfort, Ky., 1823), 13–14. Similar conversion narratives recorded by George Whitefield; see A Continuation of the Reverend George Whitefield’s Journal, From His Embarking After the Embargo to His Arrival at Savannah in Georgia, 2nd ed. (London: W. Strahan & James Hutton, 1740), LCP. 2. Clarke Garrett, Spiritual Possession and Popular Religion: From the Camisards to the Shakers (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987); David S. Lovejoy, Religious Enthusiasm and the Great Awakening (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1969); and Michael Crawford, Seasons of Grace: Colonial New England’s Revival Tradition in Its British Context (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991). 3. See Mechal Sobel, Trabelin’ On: The Slave Journey to an Afro-Baptist Faith (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985), 98; Ann Taves, Fits, Trances, and Visions: Experiencing Religion and Explaining Experience from Wesley to James (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999), 80. According to Frey and Wood, “European American Christianity unconsciously borrowed from African American patterns.” Sylvia R. Frey and Betty Wood, Come Shouting to Zion: African American Protestantism in the American South and British Caribbean to 1830 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 111, 120. Morgan argues that Methodist ministers relied on the visceral responses of black believers to instigate similar outbursts in white congregants. Philip D. Morgan, Slave Counterpoint: Black Culture in the Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake and Lowcountry (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 428–29. 4. Church Covenant, the Coan (Wicomico) Church (Northumberland County, Va.), Minute Book, 1805–1923, CRC, LV. For similar sentiments, see Records of the Southampton Baptist Church, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Baptisms, Marriage, and Burials, 1687–1842, Collections of the GSP, vol.14 (Philadelphia, 1895), 24, HSP, and October 2, 1785, Great Valley Baptist Church to the Philadelphia Baptist Association, 1706–1794, MIFMC, HSP. In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul devised multiple meanings of Christian corporeality including the body of Jesus; the church as the body of Christ; the Eucharist as the body of Christ; and the body of the individual Christian believer. See Dale B. Martin, The Corinthian Body (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1995). Also see Sarah Coakley, ed., Religion and the Body (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997); Carolyn Bynum, Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion (New York: Zone Books, 1991); and Lawrence Sullivan, “Body Works: Knowledge of the Body in the Study of Religion,” History of Religion 30 (August 1990): 86–99; quote from 1 Corinthians 10:17. Also see 1 Corinthians 10:13: “By one spirit we are all baptized into one body.” According to church father Tertullian (a source cited by Baptists), the body and soul were inextricably linked. The soul attained unity with God through the body, as

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sexual restraint and bodily control provided spiritual clarity. Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), 77–78. 5. Records of the Southampton Baptist Church, 24, HSP; Burkitt and Read, CHKBA, xix; August 12, 1804, Diary of Christopher Collins, November 20, 1803– December 9, 1804, Algernon Sydney Sullivan Collection, Stewart Bell, Jr., Archives, HRL. 6. The High Hills Church (Sussex County, Va.), Minute Book, 1787–1845, CRC, LV; May 7, 1779, Racoon Swamp Baptist Church, 1772–1837, VBHS; Undated Church Covenant, Hepzibah Baptist Church, ABHS; George W. Beale, “Early Church Yeocomico Forerunner of Wicomico (Coan),” Bulletin of the Northumberland Historical Society 6 (1969): 51, and October 1807, the Coan Church (Northumberland County, Va.), Minute Book, 1805–1851, CRC, LV; A. D. Gillette, ed., Minutes of the Philadelphia Baptist Association, 1707–1807: Being the First One Hundred Years of Its Existence (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1851), 55. This phrase is from the Song of Solomon 4:12 and appeared in many eighteenth-century church books, such as the Mill Swamp Church and the Isle of Wight Church, both of Virginia. On encapsulation theory, see Lewis S. Rambo, Understanding Religious Conversion (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1993), 104–5. 7. Weeks and Warren, MEMTHB, 48, 97; Young, Baptists on the American Frontier, 124; Sarah in April 23, 1778, Robert Carter Papers, vol. 15, extracts of the Duke University Papers, VBHS; August 27, 1754, A Fragment of the Diary of Oliver Hart, 1754, ABHS; John Leland, “The Virginia Chronicle,” in The Writings of the Elder John Leland, ed. L. F. Greene (New York: Arno Press, 1969), 115; John Leland, A Budget of Scraps (Pittsfield, Mass.: Phineas Allen, 1810), 15, 35. 8. Weeks and Warren, MEMTHB, 55, 57, 93; William S. White, The African Preacher: An Authentic Narrative (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1849), 10; Cook in John Rippon, The Baptist Annual Register for 1790, 1971, 1972, and Part of 1793 (London, 1793), 506; Harris in Sandra Rennie, “The Role of the Preacher: Index to the Consolidation of the Baptist Movement in Virginia from 1760 to 1790,” WMQ 3rd ser. 88 (October 1980): 431. 9. John Leland called evangelicalism “the falling religion” because attendees often collapsed during meetings. Leland, “A Budget of Scraps,” The Writings of John Leland, 15. The choreography of evangelical conversion fit New Testament prescriptions telling Christians to “come near to God, and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.” James 4:7–10. 10. John S. Moore, ed., “John Williams’ Journal, 1771,” VBR 17 (1978): 803–5; Morgan Edwards, Materials Toward a History of Baptists in Virginia, 1772 (hereafter Furman Manuscript), 30–31, VBHS. 11. Weeks and Warren, MEMTHB, 93; Dereveux Jarratt, A Brief Narrative of the Revival of Religion in Virginia, in a Letter to a Friend (London: R. Hawes, 1778), 12; August 30, 1754, A Fragment of the Oliver Hart Diary, 1754, ABHS. On demonology and Christian ritual, see Henry Ansgar Kelly, The Devil at Baptism: Ritual, Theology, and

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Drama (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1985). Christine Heyrman argues that Methodists and Baptists excised the devil and other superstitions from their practice to gain greater respectability. Christine Leigh Heyrman, Southern Cross: The Beginnings of the Bible Belt (New York: Knopf, 1998), 73. “Deceive” used by Taylor, A History, 219. As one theorist argues, “in religious systems, the body is a vehicle for the transformation of holiness and a major symbol of evil as ‘flesh’; it is the means by which the soul is educated and the obstacle of our salvation.” Bryan Turner, Religion and Social Theory (London: Sage Publications, 1983; 1991), 1. 12. On conversion, see William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (New York: Modern Library, 1929); Anthony F. C. Wallace, “Revitalization Movements,” American Anthropologist 58 (1956): 264–81; William G. McLoughlin, Revivals, Awakenings, and Reforms (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978); Norman Pettit, The Heart Prepared: Grace and Conversion in Puritan Spiritual Life (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1966); Charles Lloyd Cohen, God’s Caress: The Psychology of Puritan Religious Experience (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); Taves, Fits, Trances, and Visions; September 8, 1783; William S. Simpson, Jr., ed., “The Journal of Henry Toler, Part II, 1783–1786,” VBR 32 (1993): 1634; June 1794, Rebecca Moulder to Thomas Ustick, Thomas Ustick Papers, 1773–1800, JHL; Chester Raymond Young, ed., Westward into Kentucky: The Narrative of Daniel Trabue (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1981), 130–31; Young, Baptists on the American Frontier, 95, 103, 136–37, 294; Jeremiah Bell Jeter, The Recollections of a Long Life (Richmond, Va.: Religious Herald, 1891), VHS, 44; Weeks and Warren, MEMTHB, 97. 13. Semple, HRPBV, Weeks and Warren, MEMTHB, 97. 14. This conception is informed by Rambo’s definition of conversion as “a process over time,” that is “influenced by a matrix of relationships, expectations, and situations.” He also argues that “factors in the conversion process are multiple, interactive, and cumulative.” The Greek word used in the Bible for conversion means to turn or return. See Rambo, Understanding Religious Conversion, 3, 5–7; Weeks and Warren, MEMTHB, 48; James Ireland, The Life of Rev. James Ireland, Who Was, for Many Years, Pastor of the Baptist Church at Buck Marsh, Waterlick and Happy Creek, in Frederick and Shenandoah Counties, Virginia (Winchester, Va., 1819), 92; Young, Baptists on the American Frontier, 97–98. 15. Young, Baptists on the American Frontier, 102–3; Jeter, Recollections of a Long Life; undated document, Abigail Harris Papers, CCHS; Leland, Writings of John Leland, 11. 16. John Gano, Biographical Memoirs of the Late Rev. John Gano (New York: Southwick & Hardcastle, 1806), 18–20. 17. Enoch Edwards, “A short narrative of the miraculous working of gods spirit upon my mind in the year 1772 beginning in April and lasting till July,” MIFMC, HSP; The Autobiography of Norvell Robertson, 1765–1846, 30. MDAH; and William Hickman, A Short Account of My Life and Travels, for More Than Fifty Years, a Professed Servant of Jesus Christ (n.p., 1826), 6, VHS. 18. Anglicans believed that “Christian edification” would only occur when public devotions “sink” into the heart through repetition. Edward L. Bond, Damned Souls in a Tobacco Colony (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 2000), 266. See preamble,

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Records of the Great Valley Baptist Church, Collections of the GSP Vol. 23 (Philadelphia, 1896), 10; William Fristoe, History of Ketocton Baptist Association (Staunton, Va., 1808), 28; August 26, 1754, September 22, 1754, A Fragment of the Diary of Oliver Hart, 1754, AHBS; February 19, 1783; May 2, 1759; May 12, 1771, John S. Moore, ed., “John Williams’ Journal, with Edited Comments,” VBR 17 (1978): 799. May 25, 1759, Byles to “Mrs. Potts,” Elizabeth Byles Letterbook, 1757–1783, Dupuy Papers, HSP; August 30, 1778, Robert Carter Papers, VHS. 19. March 19, 1783, William S. Simpson, ed., “The Journal of Henry Toler, Part I, 1782–1783,” VBR 31 (1992): 1574; Sarah Baldwin to Abigail Harris, Abigail Harris Papers, CCHS; “Uncle Jack” in White, African Preacher, 10; Ann Hart to John Stanford, Ann Hart Papers, 1804–11, NJHS; Leland, Writings of John Leland, 12; Articles of Faith, the High Hills Church (Sussex County, Va.), Minute Book, 1787–1845, CRC, LV. 20. The OED’s sixth definition of the heart is as the “seat of one’s inmost thoughts and secret feelings; one’s inmost being; the depths of the soul; the soul, the spirit.” The first reference to “heart-religion” was published in an English book of sermons in 1758. James A. H. Murray, ed., Oxford English Dictionary, Part 1, H (London: Clarendon Press, 1901), 5: 159, 162. On Puritans, see Pettit, The Heart Prepared, 1; the Methodist citation in Bruce Hindmarsh, The Evangelical Conversion Narrative (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 190–91. Edwards in Philip F. Gura, Jonathan Edwards: America’s Evangelical (New York: Hill & Wang, 2005), 130. On heart religion, Dee E. Andrews, The Methodists and Revolutionary America, 1760–1800: The Shaping of an Evangelical Culture (Princeton University Press, 2000), 77–78; Richard B. Steele, “Heart Religion” in the Methodist Tradition and Related Movements (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2001); and Brad Walton, Jonathan Edwards, Religious Affections, and the Puritan Analysis of True Piety, Spiritual Sensations, and Heart Religion (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen, 2002). 21. Jonathan Edwards came to the same conclusion: “Tis no wonder that when the thoughts are so fixed, and the affections are so strong, and the whole soul so engaged and ravished and swallowed up, and all other parts of the body are so affected as to be deprived of their strength, and the whole frame ready to dissolve.” See Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, ed. John E. Smith (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1959), 4: 237; Corbin in Ethel Armes, Stratford Hall: The Great House of the Lees (Richmond, Va.: Garrett and Massie, 1936), 214. Young, Westward into Kentucky, 131; Benjamin Loxley, “Account of his ancestors of his parents and of himself, Dated June 20, 1789,” HSP, 8; Jeter, Recollections of a Long Life, 54; Leland, Writings of John Leland, 12. 22. Enoch Edwards, “A short narrative,” MIFMC, HSP; August 26, 1754, Fragment of the Diary of Oliver Hart, 1754, ABHS. 23. David Thomas, The Virginian Baptist, Or a View and Defence of the Christian Religion As It Is Professed by Baptists in Virginia (Baltimore: Enoch Story, 1774), 12. 24. George Whitefield reflected on his “inner man” during his voyage to the colonies. See A Continuation of the Reverend Mr. Whitefield’s Journal, From his Embarking After the Embargo to His Arrival at Savannah in Georgia, 2nd ed. (London: W. Straham & James Hutton, 1740), 24, LCP. September 4 and September 11, 1754, A Fragment of the Oliver Hart Diary, 1754; “vile bodies” in Benedict, GHBDA, 1: 277; High Hills Church, LV.

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25. Young, Baptists on the American Frontier, 104, 225; The Autobiography of Norvell Robertson, 1765–1846, 30, MDAH; August 17, 1791; John S. Moore, ed., “Richard Dozier’s Historical Notes, 1771–1818,” VBR 28 (1989): 1419; 1714 letter to the Philadelphia Baptist Association, Middletown Baptist Church, 1712–1741, ABHS. The bodily performance of faith was not peculiar to Baptists. New England Puritans experienced religion in an intensely physical, erotic manner. See Richard Godbeer, “ ‘Love Raptures’: Marital, Romantic, and Erotic Images of Jesus Christ in Puritan New England, 1670–1730,” NEQ 68 (1995): 355–84. 26. Fristoe, History of the Ketocton Baptist Association, 51; Thomas, The Virginian Baptist, 12; Taves, Fits, Traces, and Visions, 47–48. Jonathan Edwards distinguished the passions from “holy affections,” which were an essential part of “true religion.” See Gura, Jonathan Edwards, 129. One Anglican priest claimed that Baptists “apply to the passions, not the understanding of the people.” Richard J. Hooker, ed., The Carolina Backcountry on the Eve of the Revolution: The Journal and Writings of Charles Woodmason, Anglican Itinerant (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1953), 117. On religion and the embodiment of emotion, see John Corrigan, The Business of the Heart: Religion and Emotion in the Nineteenth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002). 27. Susan Juster, “Mystical Pregnancy and Holy Bleeding: Visionary Experience in Early Modern Britain and America,” WMQ 3rd ser. 57 (April 2000): 264, 267–68. On the Enlightenment, see Roy Porter, The Enlightenment (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1990); and Dorinda Outram, The Enlightenment (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995). 28. David Thomas described evangelical religion as fire, while Dereveux Jaratt employed the flame metaphor. Thomas, The Virginian Baptist, 63; Fristoe, History of the Ketocton Baptist Association, 51; Jarratt, A Brief Narrative, 10; Jeter, Recollections of a Long Life, 56. 29. “Melting time” from Jeremiah Norman Diary, Stephen B. Weeks Papers, SBHC (thanks to Charles Irons for this citation); May 11, 1771, June 20, 1771, “John Williams’ Journal,” 798–99; “purified” in Robert G. Gardner, “The Ketocton and Philadelphia Association in the Eighteenth Century,” VBR 27 (1988): 1374; “flames of lightning” from “A Letter from Ebenezer Kinnersley to a Friend in the Country,” Pennsylvania Gazette, July 24, 1770. Puritan Thomas Hooker used the image of “spiritual heat” to invoke heart religion in potential converts. Pettit, The Heart Prepared, 100. For Edwards, true piety occurred when an individual’s religious affections were engaged and their heart gained divine understanding through “spiritual knowledge.” Walton, Jonathan Edwards, Religious Affections, and the Puritan Analysis of True Piety, 164; “Lyons Farms Church Baptist Records,” Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society 3rd ser. 2, 2 (1897): 128; Pennepek Church Account Book, MIFMC, HSP. Edwards quoted Rev. 3:16. 30. Taylor, History of the Baptist Churches, 286. 31. November 11, 1764, Thomas Barton to Daniel Burton, Letters of the SPG, 1732–1779, HSP; July 24, 1740, Pennsylvania Gazette. For the genderless ideal of evangelical religion, see Susan Juster, Disorderly Women: Sexual Politics and Evangelicalism in Revolutionary New England (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1995), 21; 50–53, and Blair Pogue, “ ‘I Cannot Believe the Gospel That Is So Much Preached’: Belief and

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Behavior Among Kentucky Baptist Women, 1780–1860,” in Craig Friend, ed., The Buzzel About Kentuck: Settling the Promised Land (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1999). 32. See Ludmilla Jordanova, Sexual Visions: Images of Gender in Science and Medicine Between the Eighteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989), 58; and Thomas Laqueur, Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990), 4–5. This bifurcation between the female and the male body, the black and the white body, is similar to Bakhtin’s classical body that is enclosed, static, and complete in contrast to the grotesque body that is open, fluid, and porous. See Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, trans. Hélène Iswolsky (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1984), 317–22. 33. The body is a specific set of “bodily gestures, movements, and enactments of various kinds constitute the illusion of an abiding gendered self,” according to Foucault. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan (1977; New York: Vintage, 1979), 26. Also see Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter: The Discursive Limits of “Sex” (New York: Routledge, 1993); and Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process, trans. Edmund Jephcott (New York: Blackwell, 1978). Peter Stallybrass and Allon White, The Politics and Poetics of Transgression (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1986), show how bodily integrity and control was built into the identity of civilized white men, 89–90. 34. Leland, “A Budget of Scraps” in Leland, Writings of John Leland, 15; Young, Baptists on the American Frontier, 102–3. For other conversions, see Hickman, A Short Account; and Life of the Rev. James Ireland. For the relationship between emotionality and godliness, see David D. Hall, Worlds of Wonders, Days of Judgment: Popular Religious Belief in Early New England (New York: Knopf, 1989), 66. 35. Davis in Weeks and Warren, MEMTHB, 97; on Ireland, see Heyrman, Southern Cross, 211–12. William Byrd associated emotionality and superstition with women to “stand secure in a masculinized, enlightened rationality.” Kenneth A. Lockridge, On The Sources of Patriarchal Rage: The Commonplace Books of William Byrd and Thomas Jefferson and the Gendering of Power in the Eighteenth Century (New York: New York University Press, 1992), 41. On female piety, see Juster, Disorderly Women; Amy Schrager Lang, Prophetic Woman: Anne Hutchinson and the Problem of Dissent in the Literature of New England (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987); Amanda Porterfield, Female Piety in Puritan New England: The Emergence of Religious Humanism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992); Phyllis Mack, Visionary Women: Ecstatic Prophecy in Seventeenth-Century England (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992); Marilyn Westerkamp, Women and Religion in Early America, 1600–1850: The Puritan and Evangelical Traditions (New York: Routledge, 1999); Catherine Brekus, ed., The Religious History of American Women: Reimaging the Past (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007). 36. George Whitefield, Three Letters from the Reverend Mr. George Whitefield (Philadelphia, 1740); Samuel Davies, Letters from the Rev. Samuel Davies, Shewing the State of Religion in Virginia, Particularly Among the Negroes (London, 1757), 10, 16; Leland, “Virginia Chronicle,” Writings of John Leland, 98; Journal of Col. James Gordon, 1759–1761 in Sobel, The World They Made Together: Black and White Values in

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Eighteenth-Century Virginia (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1987), 186; and Sobel, Trabelin’ On, 98. Lyerly asserts that new converts were “unmanned” by the Methodist religion. See Cynthia Lynn Lyerly, Methodism and the Southern Mind, 1779–1810 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 154. 37. Jeter, Recollections of a Long Life, 44; 49; Life of the Rev. James Ireland, 57; September 8, 1783, and May 2, 1786, Simpson, “Journal of Henry Toler, Part II,” 1634, 1640; James Alexander, The Life of Archibald Alexander (New York: Scribner, 1856), 34–41. 38. September 8, 1759, James Craig to William Dawson, Dawson Papers, 217, cited in Rhys Isaac, The Transformation of Virginia, 1740–1790 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982), 382; David George and Cyrus in Benedict, GHBDA, 1: 288; “George Schools, 1759–1836,” by John A. Schools, VHS; Jeter and Witt in Jeter, Recollections of a Long Life, 47; Young, Westward to Kentucky, 191 n25; Young, Baptists on the American Frontier, 89, 135, 141, 193; Weeks and Warren, MEMTHB, 142–43. 39. Edwards, “A short narrative”; Thomas Jones to Samuel Jones; March 27, 1758, and July 30, 1773, Evan Edwards to Samuel Jones, MIFMC, HSP. 40. July 3, 1783, Simpson, “The Journal of Henry Toler, Part I,” 1585; August 5, 1754, A Fragment of the Oliver Hart Diary, 1754; October 7, 1804, Diary of Christopher Collins; September 5, 1816, Abigail Harris to Sarah Baldwin, Papers of Abigail Harris, CCHS; Jeter, Recollections of a Long Life, 54–55; Gillette, Minutes, 55. 41. Jeremy R. Carrette, Foucault and Religion: Spiritual Corporality and Political Spirituality (Routledge: London, 2000), 42.

Chapter 4. “Putting on Christianity”: Ritual Practice 1. November 3, 1792, Records of the Brandywine Baptist Church, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, 1715–1848, HSP. The specifics of Elizabeth’s sinful behavior are not detailed in the church book, nor is it known what her relationship was to Joseph and Mary. 2. As David Hall argues, “the religious inheres in what people practice or perform.” David D. Hall, “ ‘Between the Times’: Popular Religion in Eighteenth-Century British North America,” in Michael V. Kennedy and William G. Shade, eds., The World Turned Upside Down: The State of Eighteenth-Century American Studies at the Beginning of the Twenty-First Century (Bethlehem, Pa.: Lehigh University Press, 2001), 145. 3. “Holy walking and conversation” taken from William Hubbard, The Benefit of Well-Ordered Conversation (Boston: Samuel Green, 1684), cited in Jane Kamensky, Governing the Tongue: The Politics of Speech in Early New England (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 5. According to one association, “conversation” referred to “the whole conduct and deportment of a person in the walk of life.” Christian conversation was to be innocent, purposeful, and possess “a spiritual or religious cast.” Minutes of the Baptist Association in the District of Goshen, Held at Waller’s Meetinghouse, Spotsylvania County, Virginia, Meeting on the First Saturday in October 1819 (Fredericksburg, Va.: Wm. F. Gray, 1819), 7; October 10, 1773, Evan Edwards to Alexander Edwards, MIFMC, HSP; Church Covenant, Church Book of the Middletown Baptist Church, New Jersey, 1712–1741, ABHS. The verb “to walk” is used in the Bible

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to connote faithfulness: “O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord” (Isaiah 2:5); and “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). September 5, 1816, Abigail Harris to Sarah Baldwin, Abigail Harris Papers, CCHS. 4. David Hall defines ritual as “a formalized procedure, a patterned means of connecting the natural and the social worlds to supernatural power.” David D. Hall, Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgment: Popular Religious Belief in Early New England (New York: Knopf, 1989), 168. For ritual connections between English Baptists and German Pietists, see William T. Whitley, A History of British Baptists (London: Charles Griffon, 1923); and Alfred C. Underwood, A History of the English Baptists (London: Baptist Union Publications, 1947). Methodists adapted some of their church rites from Moravians, including love feasts, watch nights, and band meetings. Dee E. Andrews, The Methodists and Revolutionary America, 1760–1800: The Shaping of an Evangelical Culture (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000), 26. Articles of Faith, Scattered Records of the Shippen Township Baptist Church, Worden Family Papers, HSP. Also see Janet Moore Lindman, “ ‘Know How Thou Oughtest to Behave Thyself in the House of God’: The Creation of Ritual Orthodoxy by EighteenthCentury Baptists,” Mid-America 78 (1996): 237–57. Pennsylvania Keithians and Seventh Day Baptists used the same rituals as Baptists except for dry christening. Morgan Edwards, History Toward a History of Baptists in Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: Crukshank and Collins, 1770), 1: 57, 66. 5. The 1757 covenant of the Sandy Creek Church in North Carolina (Shubal Stearns’s congregation) adhered to believers’ baptism and the laying on of hands. Abbott’s Creek Separate Baptist Church also included this latter rite in its 1783 covenant. Covenants in William L. Lumpkin, Colonial Baptists and Southern Revivals (New York: Arno Press, 1980), 62–63. Weeks and Warren, MEMTHB, 46–51, 132; Morgan Edwards, “Materials Toward a History of Baptists in Virginia, 1772” (hereafter Furman Manuscript), 42–43, VBHS; Morgan Edwards, “Materials Toward a History of the American Baptists: Maryland” (n.d., typescript), 3; David Benedict, Fifty Years Among the Baptists (New York: Sheldon, 1860), 163–64. In 1772, the Separate Baptists of Virginia referred the matter of this ritual back to the churches. Minutes of Baptist Association meeting of September 1772 in Semple, HRPBV, 76–77. 6. Weeks and Warren, MEMTHB, 52, 56, 129, 132; Brock Gap’s Church, HSP; and Benedict, Fifty Years Among the Baptists, 163–64; John S. Moore, ed., “Morgan Edwards’ 1772 Virginia Notebook,” VBR 18 (1979): 859; Morgan Edwards, Materials Toward a History of the Baptists in New Jersey, Distinguished into First Day Baptists, Seventh Day Baptists, Tunker Baptists, Rogerene Baptists (Philadelphia: Thomas Dobron, 1772), 2: 20, LCP. 7. The birth and death imagery of the baptismal rite is from Saint Paul, see Romans 6:3–4: “Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him by baptism into death.” The centrality of the baptismal rite among Anglo-American Baptists aligned them closely to the German Reformed. German Reformed, also known as “Dunkers,” practiced “trine immersion” in which the initiate knelt in the water and clergy administered baptism, the laying on of hands, and prayer all at one time. See Edwards,

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Materials . . . Pennsylvania, 67, 97. Edwards, Customs of the Primitive Church, Or a Set of Propositions Relative to the Name, Materials, Constitution, Power, Offices, Ordinances, Business, Worship, Discipline, Government, Etc of a Church (Philadelphia, 1768), 80, LCP; John Leland, “The Virginia Chronicle,” in John Leland, The Writings of Elder John Leland, ed. L. F. Greene (New York: Arno Press, 1969), 102–3; Young, Baptists on the American Frontier, 159. Some Virginians debated whether converts should be dipped backward or forward during the baptismal rite. Those who supported the forward position claimed that no one went to “heavens backwards,” while those opposing endorsed the backward position because “the Scriptures call baptism a burial” and “it is not customary to bury people with their faces downward.” Burkitt and Read, CHKBA, 172. 8. Edwards, Customs of the Primitive Church, 80. The catechism of ancient Christians used the terms “putting off ” and “putting on” to connote the rite of baptism; see Romans 13.12: “Let us put aside the deeds of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.” Also see Henry Ansgar Kelly, The Devil at Baptism: Ritual, Theology, and Drama (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1985), 31. 9. Burkitt and Read, CHKBA, 147, 172–173; October 21, 1786, Diary of Henry Toler, 1783–1786, VBHS. 10. This is based on data from two congregations in Pennsylvania and one in New Jersey. Between 1715 and 1792, the Brandywine church carried out 129 baptisms, over half (57 percent) occurred in the months of June, July, or August; 89 percent took place between May and October. At the Southampton church, 216 baptisms were executed between 1702 and 1808. Of those 216, 115 (53 percent) transpired in the months of August, September, or October. Between May and October, 73 percent of baptisms were performed. The Cohansey church recorded 519 baptisms from 1791 to 1838, most of which, 315 (61 percent), were carried out from May through September; from April to November, 83 percent (431) of all baptisms were conducted. Records of the Brandywine Baptist Church, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, Baptisms and Deaths, 1715–1848; Records of the Southampton Baptist Church, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Baptisms, Marriage, and Burials, 1687–1842, Collections of the GSP, vol.14 (Philadelphia, 1895); and Cohansey Baptist Church, Pastor’s Book, 1757–1857, HSP. 11. John Taylor concurred with Leland’s assessment: “though my clothes freezed before I got on dry ones, I know I speak safely when I say I suffered no inconvenience.” Young, Baptists on the American Frontier, 201; Leland, Writings of the Elder John Leland, 116; Memorandum Book of Stephen Gano, 1813–1814, RIHS; David George in Benedict, GHBDA, 1: 289; David Thomas, The Virginian Baptist, Or, a View and Defence of the Christian Religion as it is Professed by the Baptists of Virginia in Three Parts (Baltimore: Enoch Story, 1774), 51, VBHS. 12. Diary of Henry Toler, 1786, VBHS; John S. Moore, ed., “John Williams’ Journal, 1771,” VBR 17 (1978): 807–9. On sacralizing the landscape, see John Butler, Awash in a Sea of Faith: Christianizing the American People (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990), 13–14. The Southampton church agreed to create such sacred space “at the church’s expence.” September 6, 1766, and November 8, 1766, “Memorandum of Proceedings at the Meetings of Business and Preparation at Southampton, from Jan. 1766 to June 1770,” MIFMC, HSP.

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13. For converts using their own clothes, see Young, Baptists on the American Frontier, 202. Both the Scotch Plains and Middletown churches of New Jersey supplied special clothing for baptism during the late eighteenth century. January 30, 1779, Deacon’s Minutes, Scotch Plains Baptist Church, 1747–1837, and April 1786, Middletown Baptist Church, 1712–1741, ABHS. The Canoebrook church of New Jersey bought “suitable dress” for baptism in 1800. January 4, 1800, Church Book of Canoebrook in Records of Northfield Baptist Church, Livingston, New Jersey, NJHS. The Chappawamsic church agreed to purchase “a dress for the preacher and two for females for the convenience of baptizing” in 1819. The Chappawamsic Church (Stafford County, Va.), Minute Book, 1766–1860, CRC, LV. 14. In the early nineteenth century, the Philadelphia church would build a much grander two story baptismal house, made of brick and measuring thirty-six feet by eighteen feet. David Benedict described it as follows: “The lower story is fitted up in the form of a vestry, with a pulpit and seats, in which the minister discourses previous to baptism. The upper story is divided into two rooms for the convenience of candidates.” Benedict, GHBDA, 2: 590–91. Edwards, Customs of the Primitive Church, 80. The concept of the door as a metaphor of faith comes from the Bible, see Acts 14:27 (“On arriving there, they gathered the church together and reported all that God had done through them, and how he had opened the door”); 2 Corinthians 2:12 (“and found the Lord had opened a door for me”); and Revelation 3:8 (“See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut”). For an example, see October 7, 1809, the North Fork Church (Loudoun County, Va.), Minute Book, 1784–1930, CRC, LV. 15. David Thomas asserts that Baptists “do freely permit all sober persons, to attend our public devotions,” including the Eucharist. He did not believe that communion should be practiced under “a veil of secrecy.” Thomas, The Virginian Baptist, 35. March 17, 1764, Journal no. 1, October 2, 1762, to April 19, 1764, Journals of Hezekiah Smith, 1762–1805, ABHS; June 12, 1789, the Middletown Baptist Church, ABHS. Edwards, Furman Manuscript, 30, 31, VBHS; John Leland, The Virginia Chronicle (1790) in Edward L. Bond, Spreading the Gospel in Colonial Virginia: Sermons and Devotional Writings (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2004), 465. 16. Reprint of the diary of Isaac Backus in “An 18th Century Yankee Baptist Tours Virginia on Horseback,” VBR 2 (1963): 71–72; Edwards, “Materials . . . Maryland,” 10; Diary of Henry Toler, 1783–1786, VBHS; November 17, 1816, Miscellaneous Items, Abigail Harris Papers, 1801–1827, CCHS; January 22, 1764, Journal no. 1, Journals of Hezekiah Smith, ABHS. John Taylor noted that on one occasion, after baptism had been administered, “prayers for the newly baptized continued one hour more.” Young, Baptists on the American Frontier, 94. 17. Baptists likely celebrated communion from their seats, which maintained segregation among black and white communicants. For racial segregation at Presbyterian communion, see Leigh Eric Schmidt, Holy Fairs: Scottish Communion and American Revivals in the Early Modern Period (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989). Edwards, Customs of the Primitive Church, 83. Edwards recommended that communion be held every Sunday evening. In 1762, the Philadelphia church purchased a silver chalice for communion. “Minutes of the Meeting of Business Held by the Church of Philadelphia from August 11, 1760,” ABHS.

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18. Edwards, Customs of the Primitive Church, 90; Weeks and Warren, MEMTHB, 47. 19. Williams’s Journal, 806. The love feast signifies “a spiritual cleansing and a celebration of unity in Christ and the faith community” among the Brethren. Carl Bowman, Brethren Society: The Cultural Transformation of a “Peculiar People” (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), 59. Old Order River Brethren currently practice love feasts three times a year. As two-day events, they include foot washing and communion as well as ritual bread making by women. See Margaret C. Reynolds, Plain Women: Gender and Ritual in the Old Order River Brethren (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001), 47, 143. 20. Albemarle Church (Albemarle County, Va.), Minute Book, 1773–1811, CRC, LV. This ritual had other functions; after “Sister Bottom” and “Sister Barbour” reconciled a conflict between them, they “gave each other the right hand of fellowship.” March and April 1815, the Boar Swamp Church (Henrico County, Va.), Minute Book, 1787–1828, CRC, LV. Block quote in Young, Baptists on the American Frontier, 91. 21. Third-century Christians used oil to protect baptizands from evil and error as well as for exorcistic and apotropaic purposes. See Kelly, The Devil at Baptism, 89–90; 138–39. Thomas cited in Benedict, GHBDA, 2: 628; Henry C. Vedder, A History of the Baptists in the Middle States (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1898), 66–67. William Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1860), 23; Edwards, Furman Manuscript, 84, VBHS; Edwards, Materials . . . New Jersey, 20; Robert G. Gardner, Baptists of Early America: A Statistical History, 1639–1790 (Atlanta: Georgia Baptist Historical Society, 1983), 49–51. 22. Edwards, Materials . . . Pennsylvania, 111, 118–20. One church queried their association whether elders, when called to pray over the sick, should “literally” anoint an ailing member with oil as specified in the New Testament. The association replied in the affirmative. September 1816 minutes, Records of the Washington District Baptist Association, 1811–1844, VBHS. Baptists would debate faith healing in the late nineteenth century; see Heather D. Curtis, “Acting Faith: Practices of Religious Healing in Late Nineteenth-Century Protestantism,” in Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp, Leigh E. Schmidt, and Mark Valeri, eds., Practicing Protestants: Histories of Christian Life in America, 1630–1965 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006). 23. Pennepek Church Book, 35–36; 73; 1780 Preamble, the Upper King and Queen County Church (King and Queen County, Va.), Minute Book, 1774–1816; and June 4, 1791, Ketocton Church (Loudoun County, Va.), Minute Book, 1776–1890, CRC, LV. On ritual, see Barbara Myerhoff, Number Our Days (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978), 32. 24. Pennepek Church Book, 94; November 10, 1792, John Stancliff to Thomas Ustick, Thomas Ustick Papers, 1773–1800, BUA; June 9, 1758, Minutes of the meeting of business held by the church of Philadelphia from August 11, 1760, ABHS. 25. Whites and blacks most likely carried out this ritual in a segregated manner; this still did not assuage white concerns about the ritual. Benedict, Fifty Years, 192; Edwards, Customs of the Primitive Church, 93; Williams’ Journal, 803; May 1783 meeting, Burkitt and Read, CHKBA, 66; August 17, 1771, Ketocton Association in Robert G. Gardner, “The Ketocton and Philadelphia Associations in the 18th Century,” VBR 27

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(1988): 1372. A postwar revival may have affected this ritual decision. See Wesley Gewehr, The Great Awakening in Virginia, 1740–1790 (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1930), 173. The Saylor Creek Church (Prince Edward County, Va.), Minute Book, 1801–1849; the Goose Creek Church (Bedford County, Va.), Minute Book, 1775–1860; and the South Quay Church (Nansemond County, Va.), Minute Book, 1775–1827, CRC, LV. Separate congregations in North Carolina were divided over the practice of washing the saints’ feet. Weeks and Warren, MEMTHB, 94. Several churches appealed to the PBA for a definitive policy on this ritual. A. D. Gillette, ed., Minutes of the Philadelphia Baptist Association, 1707–1807: Being the First One Hundred Years of Its Existence (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Baptist Association, 1851), 104, 119, 130, 283; James A. Davidson, “‘Baptist Beginnings in Western Pennsylvania,’ Preprint of an Abstract of Doctor’s Dissertation,” University of Pittsburgh Bulletin 38, 2 (January 10, 1942): 11. John Leland noted the variations in this ritual among Virginia Baptists. Leland, Writings of John Leland, 120. 26. September 12, 1772, November 12, 1791, and August 8, 1795, Brock’s Gap Church, HSP. 27. Jesus laid on hands to cure illness and to drive out evil spirits (Luke 13:10–13 and Luke 4:40–41). Among ancient Christians, the imposition of hands was used to exorcise demons and “unclean spirits.” See Kelly, The Devil at Baptism, 64–65; Edwards, Customs of the Primitive Church, 89–90. Edwards cited biblical references for this ritual, including Matthew 19:13 (“Then were there brought unto him little children, that he should put his hands on them, and pray”); Mark 10:16 (“And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them”); and Hebrews 6:1, 2 (“Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying against the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God; of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment”). John Taylor described this rite: “we went to a field and making a circle in the center, there laid hands on the persons baptized.” Young, Baptists on the American Frontier, 91; Fristoe in John S. Moore, ed., “Morgan Edwards’ 1772 Virginia Notebook,” VBR 18 (1979): 864. A Newport, Rhode Island, church dismissed a minister because of a disagreement over this ritual. C. Edwin Barrows, ed., The Diary of John Comer (Providence: Rhode Island Historical Society Collections, 1893), 118. 28. Controversy over this ritual arose among South Carolina Baptists in 1746. Members of the Welsh Neck church agreed “that those who may desire to have hands laid on them shall be indulged; and that those who are against it shall be received into communion without it.” Weeks and Warren, MEMTHB, 127. Baptists in Providence, Rhode Island, debated this rite in 1791 and agreed to admit new members who did not support it. Benedict, GHBDA, 2: 487. The Roxborough church of Philadelphia practiced this ritual into the nineteenth century; it was discontinued in the 1830s, only to be revived in the 1860s. Horatio Gates Jones, History of the Roxborough Baptist Church (Philadelphia: Printed for the Church by the National Baptist Board, 1890), 30. 29. Van Horn admitted that he had carried out this rite the past “rather as a servant of the Church than as a gospel ordinance.” See December 1782, March 1783, and June 12, 1773, Records of Southampton Baptist Church, GSP. Stephen Gano survived a

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church vote to dismiss him for refusing to perform this ritual. See Record Book, First Church of Providence in Juster, Disorderly Women, 125. Samuel Jones, D.D., “A History of the Imposition of Hands on Baptized Believers,” Miscellaneous Papers, MIFMC, HSP. David Jones, “A True History of Laying on of Hands Upon Baptized Believers as Such in Answer to a Hand-bill, Intitled ‘A History of the Imposition of Hands on Baptized Believers,’ by Samuel Jones, D.D., Wherein His Mistakes are Attempted to be Corrected” (Burlington, N.J.: S.C. Ustick, 1805), LCP. Isaac Backus responded to David Jones’s piece and refuted this ritual as one of “doubtful disputation.” New England Baptists debated this rite at a conference in 1764. William G. McLoughlin, New England Dissent, 1630–1883: The Baptists and the Separation of Church and State (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971), 704–5. David Jones continued to perform this ritual. When George Bartfield applied for membership in Jones’s church, his admission was delayed because he did not agree with its use. The church leaders exhorted him to read the Philadelphia Confession of Faith and Jones’s pamphlet. One month later he was admitted with the laying on of hands. April 26, 1794, Records of the Great Valley Baptist Church, HSP. 30. Semple, HRPBV, 289; Records of the Strawberry Association, 1787–1882, VBHS. The Waterlick Baptist Church disagreed; they believed that ministerial ordination without the imposition of hands was illegitimate. June 12, 1787, Waterlick Baptist Church Book, VBHS. Rhode Island Baptists discarded the practice of imposition of hands to attain respectability. Daniel Jones, The Economic and Social Transformation of Rural Rhode Island, 1780–1850 (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1992), chap. 3. 31. In 1787, Separate and Regular Baptists merged through a “plan of union.” With this unification, most Separate Baptists became Regular Baptists; by 1790, there were 203 Regular Baptist churches with 20,398 members and only three Separate churches with fifty-eight members. As part of this union, the Separate Baptists agreed to adhere by the Philadelphia Confession of Faith and discard radical practices, such as the office of deaconess. At the same time, this plan stipulated that members would not be “bound to the strict observance” of all components of the agreement. Baptist clergy and laity only needed to believe in the doctrine of salvation by Christ and “free unmerited grace alone.” Robert G. Gardner, Baptists of Early America: A Statistical History, 1639–1790 (Atlanta: Georgia Baptist Historical Society, 1983), 57. Plan of Union in PBA minutes for 1787, Gillette, Minutes, 233; Semple, HRPBV, 106, 178. 32. On the Anglican church and disestablishment, see Joan R. Gundersen, “Like a Phoenix from the Ashes: The Reinvention of the Church in Virginia, 1760–1840,” special anniversary issue, “The Episcopal Church in Virginia,” 1607–2007, VMHB 115 (2007): 200–241; Peter M. Doll, Revolution, Religion, and National Identity: Imperial Anglicanism in British North America, 1745–1795 (Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2000); Nancy Rhoden, Revolutionary Anglicanism: The Colonial Church of England Clergy During the American Revolution (New York: New York University Press, 1999); and Charles F. Irons, “The Spiritual Fruits of Revolution: Disestablishment and the Rise of the Virginia Baptists, VMHB 109 (2001): 159–86.

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Chapter 5. “Holy Walking and Conversation”: Church Discipline 1. Entries from March 1813, April 1813, and May 1813, Boar Swamp Church (Henrico County, Va.), Minute Book, 1787–1872, CRC, LV; and Rules of Discipline, Goose Creek Baptist Church, 1775–1860 (Fauquier County, Va.), ABHS; Brock’s Gap Church, 1757, HSP; William Fristoe, History of the Ketocton Baptist Association (Staunton, Va., 1808), 70. 2. Gospel Rules, 1712, Church Book of the Middletown Baptist Church, 1712–1741; Church Covenant, Records of the Upper Freehold Baptist Church, 1766–1841, 8; and September 28, 1743, Sermon Notes of Abel Morgan, 1743–1745, ABHS; David Thomas, The Virginian Baptist, Or a View and Defence of the Christian Religion, as it is Professed by the Baptists of Virginia, in Three Parts (Baltimore: Enoch Story, 1774), 12, VBHS. 3. “Evil standing” is from Thumb Run Church (Fauquier County, Va.), Minute Book, 1771–1890, CRC, LV; Minutes of the North Carolina Chowan Baptist Association, Holden at Salem Meetinghouse, on New Biggin, in Pasquotank City, North Carolina, May 16–18, 1806, 6. 4. On the use of bodily language by church clerks, see Excommunication Papers, 1787–1847, Scotch Plains Baptist Church, ABHS, and the Pennepek Church Book, 91, HSP. For nineteenth-century church courts, see Jean E. Friedman, The Enclosed Garden: Women and Community in the Evangelical South, 1830–1900 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985); Randy Sparks, On Jordan’s Stormy Banks: Evangelicalism in Mississippi, 1773–1876 (Athens, Ga.: University of Georgia Press, 1994); Gregory A. Wills, Democratic Religion: Freedom, Authority, and Church Discipline in the Baptist South, 1785–1900 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); and Christopher Waldrep, “ ‘So Much Sin’: The Decline of Religious Discipline and the ‘Tidal Wave of Crime,’” JAH 23 (1990): 535–52. 5. American Quakers, Methodists, and Presbyterians held meetings to admonish members and published their own “book of rules” to define their standards of church discipline. One example is A Draught of the Form of Government and Discipline of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (New York: S & J.T. Loudoun, 1796), LCP. 1780 Preamble, Upper King and Queen County Church (King and Queen County, Va.), Minute Book, 1774–1816, CRC, LV; Records of the Great Valley Baptist Church, Collections of the GSP, vol. 23 (Philadelphia, 1896); Scattered Records of the Shippen Township Baptist Church, Worden Family Papers, HSP; The Circular Letter of the Charleston Baptist Association (Kennebunk, Me.: For Andrew Sherburne by James K. Remich, 1812), 7; and November 18, 1744, Sermon Notes of Abel Morgan, 1743–1745, ABHS. Also see the Rules of Regulation, Burruss’s Baptist Church, 1799–1935, VBHS; South Quay Church (Nansemond County, Va.), Minute Book, 1775–1827, CRC, LV. 6. Church Book of Canoebrook, 1786–1801, in Records of the Northfield Baptist Church, NJHS; Records of the Welsh Tract Baptist Meeting, 1701–1838 (Wilmington, Del.: John M. Rogers Press, 1904), 7, 9–10, DHS. The Black Baptist church of Kingston, Jamaica, was so large that it held several simultaneous meetings on Monday nights to enquire into members’ conduct. May 1, 1802, Thomas Nicolas Swigle to John Rippon in Benedict, GHBDA 1: 204. After choosing a new minister, an elder at the Hilltown church read six chapters on church discipline to the assembled members. February 18,

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1792, Minutes of Hilltown Baptist Church, 1781–1871, HSP. See Excommunication Papers and Requests for Exclusion, 1787–1847, Scotch Plains Baptist Church, ABHS. “Gospel duties” taken from the Welsh Tract Meeting. Henry C. Conrad, intro., Records of the Welsh Tract Baptist Meeting, DHS. “Wounding” from June 3, 1795, Chappawamsic Church (Stafford County, Va.), Minute Book, 1766–1860, CRC, LV. 7. August 1, 1801, and November 3, 1801, Waller’s Baptist Church, 1799–1818, VBHS. 8. Samuel Jones, A Treatise on Church Discipline, and a Directory Done by Appointment of the Philadelphia Baptist Association (Philadelphia: S.C. Ustick, 1798), LCP. 9. Brock’s Gap Church, HSP; Waterlick Baptist Church, 1787–1817, and Thomas, The Virginian Baptist, 32, VBHS. The Baltimore church listed a set of questions on the back cover of their church book to ask candidates upon admission: “1st, will you give, as well as take reproof when you see your brethren overtaken in a fault, or yourself overtaken and endeavoured to keep the secrets of the church; 2nd, attend the stated meetings as much as in you can, 3dly, According as the Lord may prosper you to support the cause of Christ; 4thly, not to remove from the city without a letter of recommendation or dismission.” Second Baltimore Baptist Church, 1797–1820, ABHS. Baptists were suspicious of testimony from nonbelievers. The South Quay queried its association whether it was right to excommunicate a member based solely on the testimony of a “worldling.” Burkitt and Read, CHKBA, 91. 10. April 4, 1799, Tomahawk Church (Chesterfield County, Va.), Minute Book, 1787–1842; and January 1813, Boar Swamp Church, CRC, LV; David D. Hall, Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgment: Popular Religious Belief in Early New England (New York: Knopf), 175. 11. Some Baptist churches specified their policy when publicizing excommunications. The Goose Creek meeting chose to exercise discretion when announcing excommunications, depending on the “nature of the crime.” Other churches differentiated between “public” and “private” sins in deciding whether to declare excommunications publicly. See December 1808, Goose Creek Church (Bedford County, Va.), Minute Book, 1787–1821, CRC, LV. 12. February 9, 1787, Excommunication Papers and Requests for Exclusion, 1787–1847, Scotch Plains Baptist Church, ABHS. For other “bills of excommunication,” see the Pennepek Church Book, 46, 54. For Taylor, October 2, 1762, “Minutes of the meeting of business held by the church of Philadelphia from August 11, 1760” (hereafter Philadelphia Church Book), 24, ABHS. When Jonathan Wade was excommunicated from the Lyons Farms church, the elders cited 2 Thessalonians 3:6: “Now I command you, Brethren, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourself from every Brother that walketh disorderly,” as well as 1 Corinthians 5:11: “Now I have wrote to you not to keep company with such an one, no, not as much as to eat.” “Lyons Farms Baptist Church Records,” Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society 3rd ser. 2, 2 (1897): 121. 13. August 31, 1762, Philadelphia Church Book, ABHS; John Williams letter, High Hills Church (Sussex County, Va.), Minute Book, 1787–1845, CRC, LV. Baptist church courts followed the format of English ecclesiastical courts that monitored religious and social misconduct through local dioceses. See Christopher Hill, Puritanism

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and Society in Pre-Revolutionary England (New York: Schocken, 1964); J. A. Sharpe, Defamation and Sexual Slander in Early Modern England, Paper 58 (York: Borthwick Institute of Historical Research, 1980); and John Addy, Sin and Society in the Seventeenth Century (London: Routledge, 1989). For New England, see Emil Oberholzer, Jr., Delinquent Saints: Disciplinary Action in the Early Congregational Churches of Massachusetts (New York: Columbia University Press, 1956). 14. Biographical Memoirs of the Late Rev. John Gano (New York: Southwick & Hardcastle, 1806), 50–51. 15. Church Covenant, the Goose Creek Church (Fauquier County, Va.), Minute Book, 1775–1860, and October 1793, the Goose Creek Church (Bedford County, Va.), Minute Book, 1787–1821, CRC, LV; The Church Book of the Upper Freehold Baptist Church, 1766–1805, Collections of the GSP (Philadelphia, n.d.), HSP; November 12, 1791, Brock’s Gap Church, HSP; September 22, 1735, September 9, 1735, Middletown Baptist Church, 1712–1741, ABHS. 16. June 4, 1789, Deacon’s Minutes, 1747–1837, Scotch Plains Baptist Church, ABHS; Conrad, Records of the Welsh Tract Baptist Meeting, 18, DHS. 17. Boar Swamp formed a special committee to motivate “free male members” to attend meeting. March 1792; Hamblett’s case in October 1793, November 1793, February 1794, and March 1794, Boar Swamp Church; Lee’s case in September 5, 1801, December 5, 1801, November 5, 1803, and September 1, 1804, South Quay Church, CRC, LV. Also see the Mill Swamp Church (Isle of Wight County, Va.), Minute Book, 1791–1811; the Upper King and Queen County Church; the Black Creek Church (Southampton County, Va.), Minute Book, 1776–1804, CRC, LV; and the Brock’s Gap Church, HSP. Lyerly found Methodist men were much more likely to be cited for discipline than Methodist women. See Cynthia Lynn Lyerly, Methodism and the Southern Mind, 1770–1810 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 99–100. 18. August 31, 1811 to February 27, 1819, the South Quay Church, LV. 19. The Waterlick Baptist Church, 1787–1817, VBHS; March 3, 1786 and July 1, 1786, the South Quay Church, LV; June 3, 1794, Hepzibah Baptist Church, 1792 by John Powell; and December 28, 1791, First Baptist Church of Piscataway, Shelton, New Jersey, Church Records, 1781–1855, ABHS. 20. Conrad, Welsh Tract Baptist Meeting, 31; Rules and Regulations, Burruss’ Baptist Church, VBHS; Church Articles, June 18, 1801, Upper King and Queen County Church, CRC, LV. 21. Undated letter, John Locust to John Dipper, Papers of John Dipper, 1816–1835, NJHS; August 1, 1781, Excommunication Papers, Scotch Plains Church, HSP. The Dover Association discouraged playing instrumental music at home because it was “invariably used for carnal and idolatrous purposes.” The association also ruled against queries about lottery tickets and dancing instruction for children. Queries of 1801, 1806, and 1813, J. S. Bosher, History of the Dover Baptist Association (Richmond, Va., 1936), IV-1–IV-3, LV. The Charleston Association warned believers against the sins of “excess in eating, drinking, and sleeping; indulgence in ease effeminacy and indolence; vain amusements, idle diversion and follies among the lovers of pleasures.” The Circular Letter of the Charleston Baptist Association, 6;

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August 1, 1789, Excommunication Papers, Scotch Plains Baptist Church, ABHS; South Quay Church, LV. 22. Pennepek Church Book, 10; 79, ABHS; April 21, 1754, October 14, 1754, January 18, 1755, and February 15, 1755, Records of the Southampton Baptist Church, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, 1687–1942, Collections of the GSP, vol. 14 (Philadelphia, 1895), HSP. The Southampton church rescinded its marriage policy due to growing discontent in the congregation, and Hannah Burns was restored to membership in November 1758. 23. Isaac Backus, “An 18th Century Yankee Baptist Tours Virginia on Horseback,” VBR 2 (1963): 75; Semple, HRPBV, 122; Minutes of the Virginia Portsmouth Baptist Association, holden at Black-Creek Meetinghouse, Southampton County, May 25, etc., 1793, 4; and Minutes of the Virginia Portsmouth Baptist Association, holden at Black-Creek Meeting-house, Princess Anne County, May 24th, 25th, and 26th, 1794 (Richmond, Va.: Thomas Nicholson, 1794), 5, VBHS. When “Black Nancy” applied for membership in the Hepzibah church, she was turned down for keeping “company with a married man.” June 2, 1794, Hepzibah Church, 1792 by John Powell, ABHS. 24. Wills found that women faced higher levels of excommunication in Georgia churches than men and the same double standard in the church discipline of blacks. Wills, Democratic Religion, 55, 60. 25. Quote from Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, ed. William Peden (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1955, 1982), 143. On scientific theories, see Ludmilla Jordanova, Sexual Visions: Images of Gender in Science and Medicine Between the Eighteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989), 58; Thomas Laqueur, Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990), 4–5, 108–9, 155; Jennifer Morgan, “ ‘Some Could Suckle over Their Shoulder’: Male Travelers, Female Bodies, and the Gendering of Racial Ideology, 1500–1700,” WMQ 3rd ser. 54 (January 1997): 167–92. These “natural” hierarchies of race and sex were based on cranium and pelvis size to link racial and sexual inferiority not to social causes but to “nature’s truth.” See Londa Schiebinger, The Mind Has No Sex? Women and the Origins of Modern Science (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989), 211–13. Also see Bruce Dain, A Hideous Monster of the Mind: American Race Theory in the Early Republic (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002); Audrey Smedley, Race in North America: Origin and Evolution of a Worldview (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1993); and “Constructing Race,” special issue, WMQ 3rd ser. 54 (January 1997). 26. Conrad, Welsh Tract Baptist Meeting, 28; July 6, 1799, Church Book of Canoebrook, 1786–1801, NJHS; June 19 and August 16, 1783, Pittsgrove Baptist Church, Daretown, Salem County, New Jersey, Fragmentary Records, 1771–1841, HSP; January 26, 1776, Hartwood Church (Stafford County, Va.), Minute Book, 1771–1871, CRC, LV. 27. June 6, 1773, and July 16, 1802, Chappawamsic Church (Stafford County, Va.), Minute Book, 1766–1860; March 1787, Mill Swamp Church; February 14, 1777, Meherrin Church (Lunenburg County, Va.), Minute Book, 1771–1837; June 24, 1785, the Broad Run Church (Fauquier County, Va.), Minute Book, 1762–1872, CRC, LV; December 5, 1795, Shoulder’s Hill Baptist Church, 1785–?, VBHS.

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28. The four humors medical theory asserted that women’s colder temper increased their likelihood of being overtaken by the “disease” of anger. Helkiah Crooke, Microcosmographia: A Description of the Body of Man (London, 1615), 276. 29. July 7, 1799, and January 5, 1800, Waller’s Baptist Church, 1799–1818, VBHS. On speech, see Jane Kamensky, Governing the Tongue: The Politics of Speech in Early New England (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); Mary Beth Norton, “Gender and Defamation in Seventeenth-Century Maryland,” WMQ 44 (January 1987): 3–39; Roger Thompson, “ ‘Holy Watchfulness’ and Communal Conformism: The Functions of Defamation in Early New England,” NEQ 56 (1983): 504–22; and Clara Ann Bowler, “Carted Whores and White Shrouded Apologies: Slander in the County Courts of Seventeenth-Century Virginia,” VMHB 85 (1977): 411–26. April 4, 1778, Upper King and Queen County Church, LV; August 20, 1806, Middletown Baptist Church Book, ABHS; February 6, 1773, Conrad, Welsh Tract Meeting, 80; September 29, 1762, Deacon’s Minutes, Scotch Plains Baptist Church, ABHS; October 25, 1793, Waterlick Baptist Church, VHBS. For “the feminization of sin” among New England Baptists, see Susan Juster, Disorderly Women: Sexual Politics and Evangelicalism in Revolutionary New England (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1994), 169–79. As Catherine Brekus notes, “women were both archetypal saints and archetypal sinners.” Catherine A. Brekus, Strangers and Pilgrims: Female Preaching in America, 1740–1845 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 41. 30. See Kathleen M. Brown, Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs: Gender, Race, and Power in Colonial Virginia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996); and Cornelia Dayton, Women Before the Bar: Gender, Law, and Society in Connecticut, 1639–1789 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995), for women’s increasing legal and social responsibility for illegitimacy during the eighteenth century. January 31, 1736, April 3, 1736, Conrad, Welsh Tract Baptist Meeting, 75; March 4, 1797, June 3, 1797, Shoulder’s Hill Church; March 3, 1810, South Quay Church; September 13, 1792, Mill Swamp Church, 1791–1811; May 10, 1794, Racoon Swamp Church, 1772–1892; June 25, 1785, Hartwood Church; July 6, 1816, and July 13, 1817, Chappawamsic Church; June 1798, Buckmarsh Church, 1785–1841, VBHS and LV. 31. June 2, 1791, Shoulder’s Hill Church (Charles and Lummers); May 21, 1790, August 22, 1788, and April 1799, Black Creek Church (Moses; Benjamin and Milly Blackhead; and Pompey); June 1809, Coan Church, 1804–1851 (Cyrus); May 28, 1791, Tussekiah Church, 1784–1826 (Ben); November 1813, Burrus’s Church, 1799–1935 (Ben and Angelica); October 24, 1807, and January 4, 1806, Upper Goose Creek Church (Milly Smith and Lucy); April 1791, South Quay Church (Nero); Hartwood Church (Letty and Milly); August 24, 1782, Broad Run Church (Lemon); July 1803, Buck Mountain Church (Albemarle County, Va.), Minute Book, 1792–1811 (Caban); March 3, 1775, Upper King and Queen County Church (Sabra); June 13, 1788, and September 17, 1788, Mill Swamp Church (Lucy and Jacob), CRC, LV and VBHS; August 29, 1792, and September 25, 1793, First Baptist Church of Piscataway, 1781–1855 (Cesar), ABHS. 32. The Raccoon Swamp church, later known as the Antioch church, was located in the southeastern county of Sussex. As a less severe punishment, exclusion allowed the accused to remain a member, however, they were barred from communion until they had reformed their behavior. The Racoon Swamp meeting had 45

Notes to Pages 108–114

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white men, 14 white women, 7 black men, and 5 black women as members in 1774. In 1789, there were 57 white male members, 78 white female members, 38 black male members, and 32 black female members. By 1813, the black members dominated the church numerically with 136 blacks and 68 whites. Raccoon Swamp Baptist Church, ABHS. 33. Totaling the number of cases noted in the church book and dividing it by the number of years calculated the rate of citation. The resolution of cases was not always recorded in the church book. Black members have been omitted because of their extremely low numbers. The Pennepek church only had two black members, who joined in the later period, and only one was cited for misconduct. One factor in this difference is that women were more likely than white men to be accused of religious misconduct, such as joining the Quakers, Anglicans, or Methodists. Lynn Lyerly and Randy Sparks also found that white women faced fewer charges than men in church courts. Sparks, On Jordan’s Stormy Banks, 160; Lyerly, Methodism and the Southern Mind, 98–100. 34. The specific accusation is unknown in 44 cases; 63 men and 49 women suffered no recorded punishment. The Gillfield Church (Petersburg, Va.), Minute Book, 1815–1842, CRC, LV. For more on blacks and church discipline, see Betty Wood, “‘For Their Satisfaction or Redress’: African Americans and Church Discipline in the Early South,” in Catherine Clinton and Michele Gillespie, eds., The Devil’s Lane: Sex and Race in the Early South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 109–123. 35. Gregory Wills asserts that Georgia Baptists had an excommunication rate of 1.86 per year during the nineteenth century. This is comparable to a North Carolina study, in which Baptists had yearly exclusion rates of 1.43 during the same period. See Wills, Democratic Religion, 22 n 36, 145; and Cortland Smith, “Church Organization as an Agency of Social Control: Church Discipline in North Carolina, 1800–1860” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina, 1967), 204. April 4, 1714, February 3, 1744/45, Conrad, Welsh Tract Meeting, 28, 77.

Chapter 6. Sisters in Christ: Gender and Spirituality 1. Papers of Abigail Harris, 1801–1827, CCHS. Thanks to John Fea for directing me to this source. 2. Margery Martin immigrated to Pennsylvania from Wiltshire, England, in 1685 with her husband, Thomas, and her siblings. She was likely a Keithian before she joined the Baptists. See Henry Hart Beeson, The Mendenhalls: A Genealogy (Houston: n.p., 1969), CCHS; August 1743, Pennepek Baptist Register, HSP; Brock’s Gap Baptist Church, Frederick County, Virginia, 1757, HSP; June 1, 1799, Zoar Baptist Church, 1792–1801, VBHS; Upper King and Queen County Church (King and Queen County, Va.), Minute Book, 1774–1816, CRC, LV; July 13, 1805, Records of Southampton Baptist Church, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, 1687–1842, Collections of the GSP, vol. 14 (Philadelphia, 1895), HSP; September 7, 1793, Diary of John Pitman, 1751–1822, mss. 622, RIHS. 3. May 14, 1820, Broad Run Baptist Church, 1762–1872, VBHS; Judith Lomax Diary, 1820–1827, VHS. Sarah Osborn, a New Light of New England, played a similar

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role for female and black co-religionists. See Mary Beth Norton, “ ‘My Resting Reaping Times’: Sarah Osborn’s Defense of Her ‘Unfeminine’ Activities, 1767,” Signs 2 (Winter 1976): 515–529. 4. April 24, 1819, Records of the Beulah Baptist Church, 1812–1832, Gwathmey Family Papers, 1790–1982, VHS; December 1807, Lyle’s Church (Fluvanna County, Va.), Minute Book, 1800–35; May 30, 1772, Meherrin Church (Lunenburg County, Va.), Minute Book, 1771–1784, CRC, LV; July 23, 1771, John S. Moore, ed., “John Williams’ Journal, with Edited Comments,” VBR 17 (1978): 807. 5. May 25, 1783, William S. Simpson, Jr., ed., “The Journal of Henry Toler, Part I, 1782–1783,” VBR 31 (1992); 1582; William Hickman, “A Short Account of My Life and Travels, for More Than Fifty Years, a Professed Servant of Jesus Christ” (n.p., 1826), 4, VHS; Rees Watkins, “Hannah Lee Corbin Hall—A Baptist,” VBR 28 (1989): 1443–1451. When Corbin’s first husband died in 1759 leaving a will that she felt restricted her unfairly, she delayed the division of the estate and, though she remarried, did not relinquish the family plantation to its rightful heir until 1769. 6. See Janet Moore Lindman, “Wise Virgins and Pious Mothers: Spiritual Community Among Baptist Women in the Delaware Valley,” in Larry D. Eldridge, ed., Women and Freedom in Early America (New York: New York University Press, 1997): 127–43. December 2, 1759, Elizabeth Biles to Samuel Stillman, Elizabeth Biles Letterbook, Ball Estate, Dupuy Papers, HSP; February 1777, Minute Book of Ablemarle Baptist Church, 1773–1779, VBHS; Records of the Upper Freehold Baptist Church, 1766–1841, ABHS. 7. Simpson, ed., January 6, 1783, “Journal of Henry Toler, Part I,” 1568; March 14 and 24, 1778, Dozier Notebook, Records of Southampton Baptist Church, HSP. For itinerant visiting, see Register and Diary of David Jones, 1786–1918, HSP; Journals of Hezekiah Smith, 1764–1777, ABHS; and Diary of Christopher Collins, November 20, 1803–December 9, 1804, Algernon Sydney Sullivan Collection, Stewart Bell, Jr., Archives, HRL. Francis Asbury, the Methodist preacher, relied on widows for physical and spiritual sustenance during his itinerant ministry. Donald Matthews, Religion in the Old South (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), 102–3. The wives of Henry Toler and John Leland accompanied their husbands on their ministerial travels throughout Virginia. John Williams’s spouse accompanied him to an association meeting in 1771. See “John Williams’ Journal,” 806. 8. August 25, 1787, Waterlick Church, 1787–1817, VBHS; Church and Religious Items, MIFMC, and Account Book of Peter Evans, 1767–1878, HSP; December 1817, Subscription Lists, 1815–1844, Scotch Plains Baptist Church, Scotch Plains, New Jersey, ABHS; Will of Sarah Cornog, February 14, 1825, and Will of Lettice Evans, August 27, 1786, CCA; August 24, 1819, and November 20, 1819, Journal of Luther Rice, 1819–1820, VBHS; Semple, HRPBV, 177; Papers of Samuel Jones, MIFMC, HSP; Records of Great Valley Baptist Church, Collections of the GSP, vol. 23 (Philadelphia, 1896), HSP; Edwards Correspondence, 1761–1786, MIFMC, HSP. 9. “Historical Sketch of the Pittsgrove Church by E. L. Shepphard, Esq.,” Fragmentary Records, 1771–1842, Pittsgrove Baptist Church, Salem County, New Jersey, GSP. By 1788, the church had 43 female members and 36 male members. May 5, 1776, Racoon Swamp Baptist Church, 1772–1837, VBHS; July 6, 1782, Morattico Church (Lancaster County, Va.), Minute Book, 1778–1844; February 1808, Goose Creek Church

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(Loudoun County, Va.), Minute Book, 1775–1860; November 1799, Ablemarle Church (Ablemarle County, Va.), Minute Book, 1792–1811, CRC, LV; September 29, 1802, and January 26, 1803, Scotch Plain Baptist Church; June 20, 1789, George’s Hill Baptist Church, 1784–1814, ABHS. Methodism may have drawn Baptist women because of the leadership opportunities, such as public praying and speaking. Cynthia Lynn Lyerly, Methodism and the Southern Mind, 1770–1810 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 104–6. 10. Undated, March 29–30, 1817, August 13, 1809, and November 17, 1816, Miscellaneous Items, Abigail Harris Papers, CCHS. 11. Ustick numbered and dated her sermon notes and listed the speaker and place. Sermon copies of Susan Ustick, Correspondence of Thomas Ustick, ABHS; Undated document, August 8, 1814, Abigail Harris to Esther Foster; and June 17, 1820, Esther Foster to Emma Mulford, Abigail Harris Papers, CCHS. 12. Pennepek Baptist Register and Miscellaneous Church Books, MIFMC, HSP; Diary of Christopher Collins, HRL. See Richard D. Brown, Knowledge Is Power: The Diffusion of Information in Early America, 1700–1865 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), for more on clergy who disseminated news to their parishioners, esp. chap. 3. July 17, 1818, Abigail Harris to H. Mulford, Abigail Harris Letters, CCHS; November 27, 1780, Joanna Brown to Nicholas Brown, Nicholas Brown and Co. Papers, JCBL. 13. See letters of June 22, 1759, July 19, 1759, September 11, 1759, and May 26, 1760, Letterbook of Elizabeth Biles, Ball Estate, Dupuy Papers, HSP; Laura Hobgood-Oster, ed., The Sabbath Journal of Judith Lomax (1774–1828) (Athens, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1999), 50. Also see Janet Moore Lindman, “Beyond the Meetinghouse: Gender and Spirituality in Early America,” in Catherine Brekus, ed., The Religious History of American Women: Reimaging the Past (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007), 142–60. 14. August 30, 1778, Robert Carter Papers, vol. 15, Extracts from Duke University Papers, VBHS, 92; Philip Vickers Fithian, Journal and Letters of Philip Vickers Fithian, 1773–1774: A Plantation Tutor of the Old Dominion, ed. Hunter Dickinson Farish (Williamsburg, Va.: Colonial Williamsburg, 1943), 83–84; November 4, 1762, Journal 1, Papers of Hezekiah Smith, ABHS; August 26, 1754, A Fragment of the Oliver Hart Diary, 1754, ABHS. For “domestic religion” among Methodists, see Jean Miller Schmidt, “Denominational History When Gender Is the Focus: Women in American Methodism,” in Robert Bruce Mullin and Russell E. Richey, eds., Reimaging Denominationalism: Interpretive Essays (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 203–21; Dee E. Andrews, The Methodists and Revolutionary America, 1760–1800: The Shaping of an Evangelical Culture (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000), 118–222; Lyerly, Methodism and the Southern Mind. On women and religion, see Ann Braude, “Women’s History Is Religious History,” in Thomas A. Tweed, ed., Retelling U.S. Religious History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 87–107; Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks, “Women, Gender, and Church History,” Church History 71, 3 (September 2002): 600–620. 15. Simpson, ed., September 8, 1783, and May 2, 1786, “Diary of Henry Toler, Part II, 1783–1786,” VBR 32 (1993): 1634, 1640; Morgan Edwards, Materials Toward a History of Baptists in Jersey, Distinguished into First Day Baptists, Seventh Day Baptists, Tunker

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Baptists, Rogerene Baptists (Philadelphia: Thomas Dobron, 1772), 94–95, LCP; Semple, HRPBV, 174; James W. Alexander, The Life of Archibald Alexander, D.D. (New York: Scribner, 1856), 32; Autobiography of Norvell Robertson, 1765–1846, 23, MDAH; November 20, 1784, Avis Binney to Nicholas Brown, Jr., Nicholas Brown and Co. Papers, JCBL. A Presbyterian woman revealed the wonders of evangelical religion to Devereux Jarratt; see The Life of the Reverend Devereux Jarratt (Baltimore: Warner & Hanna, 1806), LV. For more on the role of women in male conversions, see Cynthia A. Kierner, Beyond the Household: Women’s Place in the Early South, 1700–1865 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1998), 183–84; and Mary P. Ryan, Cradle of the Middle Class: The Family in Oneida County, New York, 1790–1865 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 94–95. For gender differences in conversion, see Susan Juster, “ ‘In a Different Voice’: Male and Female Narratives of Religious Conversion in Post-Revolutionary America,” AQ 41, 1 (March 1989): 34–62. 16. December 12, 1749, Records of the Southampton Baptist Church, HSP. 17. July 17, 1818, Abigail Harris to H. Mulford, Abigail Harris Papers, CCHS; June 10, 1764, March 13, 1765, October 9 and November 8, 1767, Papers of Hezekiah Smith, ABHS. For women’s meetings among Puritans, see Mary Maples Dunn, “Saints and Sinners: Congregational and Quaker Women in the Early Colonial Period,” in Janet Wilson James, ed., Women in American Religion (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1980); Charles Hambrick-Stowe, The Practice of Piety: Puritan Devotional Disciplines in Seventeenth-Century New England (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982), 140–41; and Mary McManus Ramsbottom, “Religious Society and the Family in Charlestown, Massachusetts, 1630–1640” (Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, 1987), 212. Whitefield organized a society of young men at the Baptist church in Lower Dublin Township. He planned to establish a society for black men and black women upon his return to Philadelphia. A Continuation of the Reverend George Whitefield’s Journal, From His Embarking After the Embargo to His Arrival at Savannah in Georgia, 2nd ed. (London: Strahan & Hutton, 1740), 32, 38, 40, 42, LCP. Baptist women in seventeenth-century England also held separate meetings. See Richard L. Greaves, “Foundation Builders: The Role of Women in Early English Nonconformity,” in Richard L. Greaves ed., Triumph over Silence: Women in Protestant History (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Greenwood Press, 1985), 96, 107; B. R. White, The English Baptists of the Seventeenth Century (London: Baptist Historical Society, 1996), 151. 18. Edwards describes this office in his Customs of the Primitive Church, Or a Set of Propositions Relative to the Name, Materials, Constitution, Power, Offices, Ordinances, Business, Worship, Discipline, Government, Etc of a Church (Philadelphia, 1768), 41–43, LCP. Charles W. DeWeese, “Deaconesses in Baptist History: A Preliminary Study,” BHH 12, 1 (January 1977): 53, and DeWeese, Women Deacons and Deaconnesses: 400 Years of Baptist Service (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 2005), 56–61. Mennonites and Anabaptists of sixteenth-century Europe and Baptists in seventeenthcentury England practiced the office of deaconess. See Keith L. Sprunger, “God’s Powerful Army of the Weak: Anabaptist Women of the Radical Reformation,” in Greaves, Triumph over Silence, 51, 55. John Taylor believed women should be allowed to pray and prophesy in Baptist meetings: “it is a pity a church should lose any gift that is among them merely because it is found in a female.” Young, Baptists on the

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American Frontier, 456; June 17 and September 2, 1827, Gillfield Church (Petersburg, Va.), Minute Book, 1815–1842, CRC, LV. German Dunkers also employed deaconesses. Edwards, Materials Toward a History of Baptists in Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: Crukshank and Collins, 1770), 1: 67, LCP. 19. On Martha Marshall, see Semple, HRPBV, 374; on Margaret Meuse Clay, see William L. Lumpkin, “The Role of Women in Eighteenth-Century Virginia Baptist Life,” BHH 8 (1973): 164–65; Susannah Gano Price in Young, Baptists on the American Frontier, 355–56; Abigail Harris Papers, 1801–1820, CCHS; September 16, 1827, Gillfield Church, LV; January 30, 1779, Scotch Plains Baptist Church, ABHS. These four women may have been deaconesses. 20. Marriage complicated women’s status within this church. October 11, 1783, Records of Southampton Church, HSP; January 6, 1816, Gillfield Church; August 1810, Coan (Wicomico) Church (Northumberland County, Va.), Minute Book, 1804–1851; and May and July 1815, Morattico Church (Lancaster County, Va.), Minute Book, 1788–1844, CRC, LV; Minutes for the First Baptist Church of Philadelphia, 1806–1813; and October 15, 1785, Pittsgrove Baptist Church, Daretown, Salem Country, New Jersey, Fragmentary Records, 1771–1842, HSP. Two New Jersey churches recorded the presence of female members at business meetings; see Scotch Plains Baptist Church, ABHS; and “Lyons Farms Baptist Church Records,” Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society 3rd ser. 2, 2 (1897): 120–22. Brock’s Gap (Linville’s Creek) Baptist Church, HSP; May 10, 1760, the Baptist Church of Philadelphia, 1760, ABHS; November 1773, Albemarle Church, LV; A. D. Gillette, ed., Minutes of the Philadelphia Baptist Association, 1707–1807: Being the First One Hundred Years of Its Existence (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1851), 283. For women’s corroboration, see February 8 and 9, 1772, Meherrin Church, LV. 21. For the link of traditional feminine traits with the ideal Christian character, see Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, “Vertuous Women Found: New England Ministerial Literature, 1668–1735,” in Janet Wilson James, ed., Women in American Religion (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1980); Margaret T. Masson, “The Typology of the Female as a Model for the Regenerate: Puritan Preaching, 1690–1740,” Signs 2 (Winter 1976): 304–15; and Amanda Porterfield, “Beames of Wrathe and Brides of Christ: Anger and Female Piety in Puritan New England,” Connecticut Review 11 (Summer 1989): 1–12. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich calls this female devotionalism “domesticated spirituality,” in Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650–1750 (New York: Knopf, 1982), 113–17. 22. Jean R. Soderlund, “Women’s Authority in Pennsylvania and New Jersey Quaker Meetings, 1680–1760,” WMQ 3rd ser. 44 (October 1987): 722–49; Dunn, “Saints and Sinners”; Elisabeth Potts Brown and Susan Mosher Stuart, eds., Witnesses for Change: Quaker Women over Three Centuries (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1989); Phyllis Mack, Visionary Women: Ecstatic Prophecy in SeventeenthCentury England (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992); Rebecca Larson, Daughters of Light: Quaker Women Preaching and Prophesying in the Colonies and Abroad, 1700–1775 (New York: Knopf, 1999). 23. This debate over women’s role in church governance began early. In 1610, Englishman John Robinson wrote a treatise entitled “A Justification of Separation,” which delineated the specific circumstances in which female members could speak in

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church. B. R. White, The English Baptists of the Seventeenth Century (London: Baptist Historical Society, 1996), 137. Baptist women exercised influence during the English Civil War. See Deborah L. Parish, “The Power of Female Pietism: Women as Spiritual Authorities and Religious Role Models in Seventeenth-Century England,” JRH 17 (June 1992): 33. Rules, Burruss’s Baptist Church, 1799–1935, VBHS; July 2, 1799, Church Book of Canoebrook, 1786–1801, in Records of the Northfield Baptist Church, NJHS; October 1785 meeting, Burkitt and Read, CHKBA, 76. 24. Rules of Decorum and Government, Waller’s Baptist Church, 1799–1818; Rules and Regulations, Burruss’s Baptist Church; Rules, Racoon Swamp Baptist Church, April 12, 1776, and August 14, 1800, Mill Swamp Baptist Church, VBHS; April 26 and May 24, 1823, Chappawamsic Church (Stafford County, Va.), Minute Book, 1766–1860, CRC, LV; Roanoke District Association, meeting October 6–8, 1798, at Emerson’s meetinghouse, Pittsylvania County, Virginia, VHS; “Minutes of the Ketocton Baptist Association held at Brent Town the 13th of August 1784,” in Robert G. Gardner, “The Ketocton and Philadelphia Associations, Part II in the 18th Century,” VBR 29 (1990): 1487. 25. On gender, speech, and religion, see Jane Kamensky, Governing the Tongue: The Politics of Speech in Early New England (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); Sandra Gustafson, Eloquence Is Power: Oratory and Performance in Early America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000); Richard Bauman, Let Your Words Be Few: Symbolism of Speaking and Silence Among Seventeenth-Century Quakers (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983); and Catherine Brekus, Strangers and Pilgrims: Female Preaching in America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 26, 48–49. 26. The PBA echoed the concerns of Charles Chauncy, who criticized evangelicals for “encouraging women, yea, girls to speak in the assemblies for religious worship.” Chauncy, Enthusiasm Described and Caution’d Against (Boston, 1742), 13. Meeting in 1746, Gillette, Minutes, 53. English Baptists also struggled with the issue of female suffrage. In the 1683, Anne Harriman, a London Baptist, asked permission to speak in meeting. One of the elders asserted that he could not “walk with such as give liberty to women to speak in the churches,” Harriman replied, she could not “walk where she had no liberty to speak.” White, The English Baptists of the Seventeenth Century, 148. 27. The 1746 deliberations about female participation occurred the same year that the Philadelphia meeting separated from Lower Dublin. By this time, the church had a new minister, a new meetinghouse, and a small cohort of members with a female majority (23 men, 31 women). 28. “Minutes of the meeting of business held by the church of Philadelphia from August 11, 1760” (hereafter Philadelphia Church Book), 46–48, ABHS; Edwards, Customs of the Primitive Churches, 102, LCP. 29. Joanna Anthony became a member of the Philadelphia church upon her baptism on September 12, 1761. Her husband, Stephen, was a trustee of the church until his death in 1763. Philadelphia Church Book, 46–48, ABHS. Elizabeth Biles, an active member, was baptized on the same day as Anthony and may have been consulted by her for the letter. Elizabeth Biles Letterbook, 1757–1783, Dupuy Papers, HSP. 30. A debate over female participation in the church broke out in 1762 at Southampton when members met to call a new pastor. Some insisted that all those

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present, whether church members or not, male or female, should vote on the matter. Both motions were overruled and only the male members voted on the minister’s hiring. Records of Southampton Baptist Church, 1687–1842, GSP. Susan Juster dates the exclusion of New England Baptist women from exercising the franchise to select ministers to the 1790s. Susan Juster, Disorderly Women: Sexual Politics and Evangelicalism in Revolutionary New England (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1994), 124–27. 31. European Anabaptists and Nonconformists struggled with the issue of the female franchise during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. See Sprunger, “God’s Powerful Army of the Weak,” 45–73. Joan Gundersen defines this phenomenon as a “shadow” organization in the nineteenth-century Episcopal church. Joan Gundersen, “Parallel Churches? Women and the Episcopal Church, 1850–1908,” Mid-America 69 (April–July 1987): 87–97. 32. Gardner, “The Ketocton and Philadelphia Associations,” 1487; Burkitt and Read, CHKBA, 80; Roanoke District Association, October 6–8, 1798, Pittsylvania County, Virginia, VHS. 33. Decorum 1787 and 1820, High Hills Church (Sussex County, Va.), Minute Book, 1787–1845; December 12, 1793, Black Creek Church, Minute Book (Southampton County, Va.), 1776–1804, CRC, LV; October 16, 1802, Mill Creek Baptist Church (Page County, Va.), 1798–1824, VHBS. 34. Some New Jersey churches experienced feminization early; these numbers are based on church membership lists: Middleton, 1712, 19 men, 23 women; Scotch Plains, 1747, 37 men, 97 women; Cohansey, 1757, 46 men, 57 women; Pittsgrove, 1771, 7 men, 9 women; Upper Freehold; 1790 31 men, 69 women. By 1800, the Pittsgrove church had 59 men and 75 women. For feminization among New England Puritans, see Gerald Moran, “ ‘Sisters’ in Christ: Women and the Church in SeventeenthCentury New England,” in James, ed., Women in American Religion, 47–65; Richard D. Shiels, “The Feminization of American Congregationalism, 1730–1835,” AQ 33 (Spring 1981): 46–62; Stephen B. Grossbart, “Seeking the Divine Favor: Conversion and Church Admission in Eastern Connecticut, 1711–1832,” WMQ 3rd ser. 46 (October 1989): 696–740; Barbara E. Lacey, “Gender, Piety, and Secularization in Connecticut Religion, 1720–1775,” JSH 24 (Summer 1991): 799–821; Harry S. Stout and Catherine A. Brekus, “Declension, Gender, and the ‘New Religious History’,” in Philip R. Vandermeer and Robert R. Swierenga, eds., Belief and Behavior: Essays in the New Religious History (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1991), 15–37. Records of the Great Valley Church, Collections of the GSP, vol. 23 (Philadelphia, 1896); Records of the Southampton Baptist Church, HSP. 35. The 24 churches, the membership year, and number of male and female members are as follows: Ablemarle (1773; 42/36), Amherst (1771; 12/15), Bedford (1771; 10/14); Black Creek (1774; 2/2); Bluestone (1772; 6/10); Broad Run (17711; 36/46); Buckingham (1772; 19/13), Chappawamsic (1771; 9/4); Chesterfield (1773; 55/85); Geneto Creek (1773; (15/25); Goochland (1771; 33/53); Goose Creek (1775; 36/26); Hartwood (1771; 46/72); Ketocton (1776; 26/30); Lyle’s (1774; 18/32); Lynville’s Creek (1771; 11/12); Meherrin (1771, 71/101); Mill Swamp (1774; 86/91); Morattico (1778 52/80); Racoon Swamp (1772; 54/14); Reedy Creek (1775; 12/19); Smith’s Creek (1779; 8/6); Thumb Run (1771; 9/9); Upper King and Queen (1779; 19/44). Data from Robert G. Gardner,

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Baptists of Early America: A Statistical History, 1639–1790 (Atlanta: Georgia Baptist Historical Society, 1983), 420–22. 36. Morattico Church, LV; 7th Article of Church Constitution, Records of the Beulah Baptist Church, 1812–32, Gwathmey Family Papers, 1790–1982, VHS. Growing class respectability and educational requirements for clergy discouraged female preachers among these nineteenth-century religious radicals. Brekus, Strangers and Pilgrims, 27, 135–36, 284–88.

Chapter 7. Free People in the Lord: Race and Religion 1. At least eight other blacks were members of this church in the late eighteenth century. See June 6, 1796, Church Book of Middletown Baptist Church, New Jersey, 1784–1796, ABHS; Mary Parry in the Records of Southampton Baptist Church, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, 1687–1842, Collections of the GSP, vol. 14 (Philadelphia, 1895), HSP. Two slaves, Pollydore and Nelly, are listed in the 1770 membership list of the Philadelphia church. Morgan Edwards, Materials Toward a History of Baptists in Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: Joseph Crukshank and Isaac Collins, 1770), 1: 41. 2. In Pennsylvania and New Jersey, black membership reached double digits in the 1770s. The number of black Baptists in Virginia rose by 19 percent from the 1770s to the 1780s. See Robert G. Gardner, Baptists of Early America: A Statistical History, 1639–1790 (Atlanta: Georgia Baptist Historical Society, 1983), 16, 395–98, 400, 408–9, 419–22. George William Beale, “The Early Church of Yeocomico, Forerunner of Wicomico (Coan),” Bulletin of the Northumberland Historical Society 6 (1969): 51. For black attendance at meetings, see Richard Dozier, “Historical Notes Concerning the Planting of Baptist Principles in the Northern Neck of Virginia,” ed. John S. Moore VBR 28 (1989): 1427, 1429. 3. John Asplund, The Universal Register of the Baptist Denomination in North America: For the Years 1790, 1791, 1792, 1793, and Part of 1794 (New York: Arno Press, 1980), 50–51, 63. 4. Semple, HRPBV, and Benedict, GHBDA. On black Christianity, see E. Franklin Frazier, The Negro Church in America (New York: Schocken Books, 1974); Eugene D. Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (New York: Pantheon Books, 1974); Albert Raboteau, Slave Religion: The “Invisible Institution” in the Antebellum South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978); Mechal Sobel, The World They Made Together: Black and White Values in Eighteenth-Century Virginia (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1987); Sobel, Trabelin’ On: The Slave Journey to an Afro-Baptist Faith (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988); Carter G. Woodson, The History of the Negro Church (Washington, D.C.: Associated Publishers, 1992); Paul E. Johnson, ed., African-American Christianity: Essays in History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994); Sylvia R. Frey and Betty Wood, Come Shouting to Zion: African-American Protestantism in the American South and British Caribbean to 1830 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998); and Philip Morgan, Slave Counterpoint: Black Culture in the Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake and Lowcountry (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998).

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On Pennsylvania blacks, see Edward Raymond Turner, The Negro in Pennsylvania; Slavery—Servitude—Freedom, 1639–1861 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1911); Charles L. Blockson, Pennsylvania’s Black History, ed. Louise D. Stone (Philadelphia: Portfolio Associates, 1975); and Gary Nash, Forging Freedom: The Formation of Philadelphia’s Black Community, 1729–1840 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988). 5. In 1770, there were 5,561 slaves in Pennsylvania, 2 percent of the total population. There were 187,600 slaves in Virginia by the 1770s, making up 42 percent of the population. The total black population of Pennsylvania was 10,324; 63 percent were free inhabitants by the 1790s. At the same time, Virginia had a black population of 305,493, only 4 percent of whom were free. These percentages would rise to 93 percent and 7 percent respectively in the 1810s. See tables 1 and 2 in Ira Berlin, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998), 369, 372. 6. June 12, 1784, June 3, 1785, June 18, 1790, August 8, 1791, February 9, 1793, and February 2, 1795, Records of Southampton Baptist Church, HSP; Nash, Forging Freedom, 20–24; 28–29. Pennsylvania Quakers arranged special meetings for black members; see Jean Soderlund, Quakers and Slavery: A Divided Spirit (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985), 148, 182–84. Thomas Attmore’s Certificate for Moses Johnson, 9 mo., 8th, 1787, and Minute Book of Acting Committee, 1784–1788, 7–8, Papers of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, HSP; and Nash, Forging Freedom, 66–67, 117. 7. These are Gardner’s calculations, Baptists of Early America, 419–22. Wesley Gewehr, The Great Awakening in Virginia, 1740–1790 (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1930); 1778 and 1808 membership lists, Morattico Church (Lancaster County, Va.), Minute Book, 1778–1844, CRC, LV. According to John Asplund, there were 980 black Baptists in North America in 1795. See Asplund, Universal Annual Register of the Baptist Denomination, 1794–1795, 80, VHBS. 8. Scotch Plains Baptist Church, Essex County, New Jersey, 1747–1837, Deacon’s Minutes, HSP; Upperville Church (Fauquier County, Va.), Minute Book, 1775–1860; Upper King and Queen Church (King and Queen County, Va.), Minute Book, 1774–1816, CRC, LV. Also see Boar Swamp Church (Henrico County, Va.), Minute Book, 1787–1828; Meherrin Church (Lunenburg County, Va.), Minute Book, 1771–1837; and Coan (Wicomico) Church (Northumberland County, Va.), Minute Book, 1804–1851, CRC, LV; and Tussekiah Baptist Church, 1784–1842, VBHS. Edmund Botsford directed his preaching specifically to the “sable hearers” in his South Carolina church, which had 120 black members and 30 white members. September 19, 1809, Edmund Botsford to William Rogers, William Rogers Papers, RIHS. 9. November 12, 1791, “Abstract of Church Records, Linville’s Creek, Smith Creek, and Brock’s Gap, 1756–1844” in John W. Wayland, Virginia Records: Genealogical and Historical Materials of Rockingham County, Virginia, and Related Regions (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing, 1965); August 1793, Boar Swamp Church; September 1802, Lyle’s Church (Fluvanna County, Va.), Minute Book, 1794–1799; and November 30, 1817, South Quay Church (Nansemond County, Va.), Minute Book, 1775–1827; Waller’s Baptist Church, 1799–1818, VBHS; CRC, LV; November 3, 1809.

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10. June 13, 1777, Mill Swamp Baptist Church, 1774–1790, VBHS; 1806, Buck Mountain Church (Ablemarle County, Va.), Minute Book, 1801–1833; November 1806, Boar Swamp Church, CRC, LV; May 1806, Records of the Strawberry Association, 1787–1822, VHS. An example of one such note reads: “Charlotte has her master’s permission and mine to join the Baptist church. Her preparation I cannot judge but her character is a good one. Agnes Burwell.” Undated letter in Slave Certificates, Bethel Baptist Church, Clarke County, 1832–1860, Dr. Garnet Ryland Collection, LV. The white leaders at a Maryland church agreed that slaves “were capable of being church members,” but they were undecided on whether they were entitled to voting rights. Anonymous, History of Baptist Churches in Maryland, Connected with the Maryland Baptist Union Association (Baltimore: J.F. Weishampel, Jr., 1885), 33. Slaves could not join one black church without submitting their owners’ testament to their good behavior. Yama Craw church covenant of 1777, cited in Sobel, Trablin’ On, 151. 11. August 6, 1808, and November 3, 1809, Waller’s church; August 1807, Coan church, VBHS and LV. A similar pattern occurred among the Methodists; meetings and classes were “segregated as soon as black participation reached what whites perceived to be a critical mass.” See Dee E. Andrews, The Methodists in Revolutionary America, 1760–1800: The Shaping of An Evangelical Culture (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000), 133. The Upper King and Queen County church expected black members who owned property to tithe. September 18, 1785, Upper King and Queen County Church; April 1806 and November 1820, Boar Swamp Church; and January 1, 1809, Chappawamsic Church (Stafford County, Va.), Minute Book, 1766–1860, CRC, LV. 12. July 2, 1782, Morattico Church; October 1808, Buck Mountain Church; and January 4, 1782, South Quay Church, LV; January 20, 1787, December 3, 1796, Lyle’s Church, VBHS; Church Book of Canoebrook, 1786–1801, in Records of the Northfield Baptist Church, NJHS. 13. June, 16, 1787, and March 22, 1817, Waterlick Baptist Church, VBHS; March 3, 1797, Lyle’s Church; and July 15, 1802, Chappawamsic Church, LV; June 1, 1799, Zoar Baptist Church, VBHS. For a similar argument, see Jewel Spangler, “Salvation Was Not Liberty: Baptists and Slavery in Revolutionary Virginia,” ABQ 13 (1994): 221–236. 14. September 1805, Burrus’s Baptist Church, 1799–1935, and April 25, 1789, Waterlick Baptist Church, VBHS; May 10, 1794, and July 26, 1794, Brock Gap’s Church, Frederick County, Va., HSP; February 22, 1772, Meherrin Church; and June 21, 1793, August 23, 1793, and November 22, 1793, Black Creek Church (Southampton County, Va.), Minute Book, 1776–1818, CRC, LV. Francis Vaughan, a non-slaveholder, accompanied Humphrey to see his master. As Jewel Spangler argues: “In his performance of a church-assigned duty, Vaughan witnessed Humphrey’s subordination to and dependence upon his master, and was thereby afforded the opportunity to experience himself as an authority figure over a slave.” Jewel L. Spangler, “Becoming Baptists: Conversion in Colonial and Early National Virginia,” JSH 67, 2 (May 2001): 267. 15. May 4, 1816, June 1, 1816, May 5, 1819, and July 7, 1819, Chappawamsic Church, LV; Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll, 259–60; Raboteau, Slave Religion, 238–39; July 22, 1817, Waterlick Church, VBHS; May 18, 1777, Albemarle Church (Albemarle Co., Va.), Minute Book, 1773–1779; August 1818, Boar Swamp Church, CRC, LV. On blacks and church courts, see Monica Najar, “Citizens of the Church: Baptist Churches and the Construction of Civil Order in the Upper South, 1755–1815,” ABQ 16 (September 1997): 206–18.

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16. William E. Montgomery, Under Their Own Vine and Fig Tree: The AfricanAmerican Church in the South, 1865–1900 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1993); 5–6; Peter H. Wood, Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 Through the Stono Rebellion (New York: Knopf, 1974), 143–144. March 1770, Jack P. Greene, ed., The Diary of Colonel Landon Carter of Sabine Hall, 1752–1778 (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1965), 1: 378; May 22, 1771, William Lee to Cary Wilkinson, Letterbook of William Lee, 1769–72, VHS; October 1, 1767, Virginia Gazette (Purdie & Dixon), 1, (Jupiter); May 1, 1778, Virginia Gazette (Purdie), 4 (Nat); Journals of Burgesses, 1770–1772, 185–186, LV. 17. By the nineteenth century, evangelicals agreed that religious instruction would promote morality among slaves, weaken the authority of black preachers, and improve southern society. See Anne C. Loveland, Southern Evangelicals and the Social Order, 1800–1860 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University, 1980), 225–26. March 16, 1797, Will of John Wright, Northumberland County Wills, LV; February 18, 1809, William Rogers to Edmund Botsford, William Rogers Papers, RIHS. Anglican parson Adam Dickie wrote to the bishop of London about the dilemma of married slaves. John K. Nelson, A Blessed Company: Parishes, Parsons, and Parishioners in Anglican Virginia, 1690–1776 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 442 n20. Burkitt and Read, CHKBA, 54. “Minutes of the meeting of business held by the church of Philadelphia from August 11, 1760,” 80, ABHS; March 1805, F.T. Baptist Church (Culpeper and Rappahannock Counties, Va.), Minute Book, 1805–55; May 30, 1772, and July 5, 1772, the Meherrin Church, LV; June 1790 Meeting, Minutes of the Roanoke Baptist Association, 1788–1830, VBHS. 18. Nash, Forging Freedom, 103–6; William B. Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1860), 146. Elhanan Winchester, The Reigning Abominations, Especially the Slave Trade, delivered in Fairfax County, Virginia, December 30, 1774 (London: H. Trapp, 1788), 17–18; 1775 slave trade in William Keen, ed., 1698, The Bicentennial Celebration of the Founding of the First Baptist Church of the City of Philadelphia, 1898 (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1899), 193; “The Representation and Petition of the Subscribers, Citizens of Pennsylvania,” petition against the slave trade, 1780, HSP. John Brown, a slave trader and member of Manning’s church, fought with fellow members for joining this society. Manning and Moses Brown (John’s brother) worked on legislation to free all slaves in their state. William G. McLoughlin, New England Dissent, 1630–1833: The Baptists and the Separation of Church and State (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971), 2: 768; 1789 minutes in A. D. Gillette, ed., Minutes of the Philadelphia Baptist Association, 1707–1807: Being the First One Hundred Years of Its Existence (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1851), 247. Enlightenment philosophy changed Anglo-American attitudes toward slavery. See David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770–1823 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1975); Ira Berlin and Ronald Hoffman, eds., Slavery and Freedom in the Age of Revolution (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1983); and Gary Nash, Race and Revolution (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991). On emancipation, see David D. Essig, The Bonds of Wickedness: American Evangelicals Against Slavery, 1770–1808 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1982); Patience Essah, A House Divided: Slavery and Emancipation in Delaware, 1638–1865 (Charlottesville: University

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Press of Virginia, 1996); Ira Berlin and Leslie M. Harris, eds., Slavery in New York (New York: W.W. Norton, 2005); and Eva Sheppard Wolf, Race and Liberty in the New Nation: Emancipation in Virginia from the Revolution to Nat Turner’s Rebellion (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006). November 24, 1786, and February 23, 1787, Black Creek Church (Southampton Co., Va), Minute Book, 1774–1889, CRC, LV; Minutes of the Ketocton Baptist Association, 1787, VBHS; June 24, 1786, Ralph C. McDaniel, “Elder John Alderson, Jr., and the Greenbrier Church,” VBR 7 (1968): 313. Jewel Spangler has documented significant property ownership, including slaves, among Baptist church members in Southampton and Lunenburg Counties. See Spangler, “Becoming Baptists,” 248–249. 19. John Leland, The Writings of the Elder John Leland, ed. L. F. Greene (New York: Arno Press, 1969), 174; June 1790 Meeting, Minutes of the Roanoke District Association, 1788–1830; Records of the Strawberry Association, 1787–1882, VBHS; Essig, Bonds of Wickedness, 68–69. Methodists followed a similar pattern. See Donald Mathews, Slavery and Methodism: A Chapter in American Morality, 1780–1845 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1965), 29; Davis, The Problem of Slavery, 200–201, 205–6; and Russell Richey, Early American Methodism (Indiana University Press, 1991), 61. Leland in Semple, HRPBV, 105, 392. 20. Minutes of the Ketocton Baptist Association, continued at Broad Run Meetinghouse, Fauquier County, Virginia, August 14, 1798 (Winchester, Va.: Richard Bowen, 1798); Minutes of the Ketocton Baptist Association, 1797, VHS. The Dover Association also created a plan for gradual emancipation. Minutes of the Dover Association, 1797, VHS. John Asplund argued that slavery was “contrary to the doctrine of Jesus Christ” and that slaves have the right to “civil and religious liberty.” John Asplund, The Annual Register of the Baptist Denomination, in North America; to the First of November 1790 (London, 1790), 56; Sylvia R. Frey, Water upon the Rock: Black Resistance in a Revolutionary Era (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1991), 249–50. 21. David Barrow, “Circular Letter,” Southampton County, Virginia, February 14, 1798, in WMQ 3rd ser. 20 (July 1963): 445. Carter Tarrant was excommunicated in 1806 for advocating abolition. At the same time, individual churches, including Tarrant’s, passed resolutions that prohibited preaching about emancipation. See Charles Tarrant, “Carter Tarrant (1765–1816): Baptist and Emancipationist,” Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 88, 2 (1990): 126–27. John Sutton, originally from New Jersey, joined the Clear Creek Church after moving to Kentucky. He became a vocal advocate of abolition and caused so much turmoil, he was cited by the church. He and Tarrant started the New Hope Church, “the first emancipating church in this part of the world.” Young, Baptists on the American Frontier, 211.This antislavery debate continued with white immigration to Kentucky in the late eighteenth century. See Monica Najar, “ ‘Meddling with Emancipation’: Baptists, Authority, and the Rift over Slavery in the Upper South” JER 25, 2 (2005): 157–86. Other Baptist clergy and laymen, such as Samuel Harris, Thomas Chisman, and Joseph Pierce, also freed their slaves. Essig, Bonds of Wickedness, 145–46; and John B. Boles, Religion in Antebellum Kentucky (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1976), chap. 6. Barrow wrote one of the first antislavery pamphlets by a white southerner entitled Involuntary, Unmerited, Absolute, Hereditary Slavery Examined (Lexington, Ky.: D.C. Bradford, 1808). John Leland, “Letter of Valediction on Leaving Virginia,” in Leland, Writings of John Leland, 173–174. The

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Shaftsbury Association of New England issued a circular letter condemning the slave trade and endorsing abolition. McLoughlin, New England Dissent, 2: 769. 22. February 6, 1786, Robert Carter to James Manning; December 7, 1787, Robert Carter to Robert Roger; and August 27, 1788, Robert Carter to John Rippon in Louis Mourton, Robert Carter of Nomini Hall: A Virginia Tobacco Planter in the Eighteenth Century (Williamsburg, Va.: Colonial Williamsburg, 1941), 240; 257; January 25, 1791, Samuel Jones to Robert Carter, Carter Family Papers, VHS; Edmund Botsford to James Manning, JMP, BUA; November 22, 1793, Black Creek Church, LV. Many white Virginians viewed western migration as a way to escape slavery. Some Baptist emigrants to Ohio took such a strong stand against black enslavement they refused to correspond with associations in slaveholding states. Benedict, GHBDA, 1: 257–58. Black Baptists also made their way west, albeit by force; “Old Peter” founded the First African Baptist Church of Lexington, Kentucky. George Ranck, “The Traveling Church”: An Account of the Baptist Exodus from Virginia to Kentucky in 1781 Under the Leadership of the Rev. Lewis Craig and Capt. William Ellis (Louisville, Ky., 1910), 22; “Uncle Phil” preached to whites and blacks on the Kentucky frontier. See Young, Baptists on the American Frontier, 224; Benedict, GHBDA, 2: 813. When Thomas Carneal moved to Tennessee, he offered to relocate and free some of Carter’s teenage slaves at age twenty-one, when they would be given “a suit of clothes and one hundred acres of land . . . to make a comfortable living.” August 27, 1793, Thomas Carneal to Robert Carter, Carter Family Papers, VHS. Some Baptists freed slaves after death, such as Oliver Hart. Oliver’s widow, Sarah Hart, freed two slaves in 1796 and planned to free two others when they reached age twenty-five. William Rogers, A Sermon Occasioned by the Death of the Rev. Oliver Hart, A.M. (Philadelphia, 1796), 24. Layman Joseph Pierce freed his slaves upon his demise. Will of Joseph Pierce, January 1, 1796, Westmoreland County Records, LV. Conversely, a South Carolina church purchased four slaves in 1768 “for use of the ministry.” Sarah E. Kegley and Thomas J. Little, eds., “Records of the Ashley River Baptist Church, 1736–1769,” Journal of the South Carolina Baptist Historical Society 27 (November 2001): 26. 23. Jones owned slaves and hired out those owned by others. Samuel Jones Accounts, 1761–1821, and April 30, 1786, Sylvia Jones to Samuel Jones, MIFMC, HSP; January 25, 1791, Samuel Jones to Robert Carter, Carter Family Papers, VHS. When Botsford took over the Welsh Neck church in 1782, he dissolved the separate black meeting and reintegrated most but not all of the former members into the white church. Sobel, Trabelin’ On, 314. First Botsford quote in Benedict, GHBDA, 1: 210; others in February 18, 1809, Edmund Botsford to William Rogers, William Rogers Papers, RIHS; March 10, 1797, Eleazar Clay to Thomas Ustick, Correspondence of Thomas Ustick, ABHS; November 22, 1793, Black Creek Church, LV; Young, Baptists on the American Frontier, 220. Jones’s approach to ending slavery echoed Thomas Jefferson’s, who castigated Edward Coles for moving to Illinois and taking individual initiative to free his own slaves rather than staying in Virginia to devise a communal solution. August 25, 1814, Thomas Jefferson to Edward Coles, in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Paul Leicester Ford (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1899), 9: 478. Also see Paul Finkelman, “Jefferson and Slavery: ‘Treason Against the Hopes of the World,’” in Peter Onuf, ed., Jeffersonian Legacies (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1993), 209.

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24. The Pennsylvania abolition bill of 1780 was one of the most conservative gradual emancipation laws; complete abolition did not occur until 1847. See Nash, Forging Freedom, 62–63; also see, Gary Nash and Jean Soderlund, Freedom by Degrees: Emancipation in Pennsylvania and Its Aftermath (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); Benedict, GHBDA, 1: 207. 25. The activities of slave preachers were often possible only by permission of their owners, such as “Black Harry,” a blacksmith and slave of Charles Carter, or “Negro Lewis,” owned by “Mr. Brockenborough of Essex.” See Sobel, The World They Made Together, 211–12. For black elders as mediators, see Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll, 259–60, and Raboteau, Slave Religion, 238–39. Also see Cynthia Lynn Lyerly, Methodism and the Southern Mind, 1779–1810 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), chap. 3. Anglicans engaged in such oversight of black Christians during the colonial era. In 1772, a presentment was issued against the churchwardens of the Wicomico parish for “not keeping the negros in proper order” during Sunday services. Nelson, A Blessed Company, 267 n39. Like many of their male counterparts, black female preachers operated outside of the church. “Aunt Sylvia” of Mississippi held weekly meetings in her cabin, while Clarinda of Georgia preached on the street. Catherine Brekus, Pilgrims & Strangers: Female Preaching in America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 129. The Autobiography of Norvell Robertson, 1765– 1846, 34, MDAH; June 1800, Albemarle Church, Minute Book (Albemarle County, Va.), Minute Book, 1773–1779; June 1809, Boar Swamp Church, CRC, LV; and Jeremiah Bell Jeter, The Recollections of a Long Life (Richmond, Va.: Religious Herald, 1891), 105. 26. See September 27, 1788, Waterlick Baptist Church; June 19, 1790, Upper King and Queen County Church; Buck Marsh Baptist Church, 1785–1841; August 2, 1800, and March 3, 1805, Waller’s Baptist Church; Goshen Baptist Association, 5; August 1807, Lyle’s Baptist Church, VHS, VBHS, and LV. Wapping in June 1806 minutes, McDaniel, “Elder John Alderson”; Dozier, “Historical Notes,” 1402, 1414, 1424. David Benedict noted the “broken and illiterate” but “highly useful” preaching of black exhorters. Benedict, GHBDA, 1: 212. A number of black preachers appear in runaway advertisements. See Morgan, Slave Counterpoint, 653. 27. “Uncle Jack” in Young, Baptists on the American Frontier, 353. “Black Harry” (probably Harry Hosier, a Methodist preacher) officiated at the funeral of “old Jack” in September of 1801 with an attendance of 200 people, mostly African Americans. September 8, 1801, Dozier, “Historical Notes,” 1427; Raboteau, Slave Religion, 138–39; Amos Cubit in January 11, 1793, Journal of John Pitman, 1751–1822, mss. 622, RIHS. 28. May 26, 1782, December 25, 1787, and April 27, 1789, Dozier, “Historical Notes,” 1402, 1415, 1416–1417; Church license, August 2, 1829, Papers of John Dipper, 1816–35, NJHS. Also see Philip J. Schwarz, Migrants Against Slavery: Virginians and the Nation (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2001), 68–69. March 4, 1843, and December 1, 1844, African Baptist Church of Richmond, VHS; Semple, A History, 457; William Lemon in Sobel, Trabelin’ On, 192; Burkitt and Read, CHKBA, 285; Minutes of the Virginia Portsmouth Baptist Association, holden at Black-Creek Meeting-house, Princess Anne County, May 24th, 25th, and 26th, 1794 (Richmond, Va.: Thomas Nicholson, 1794), VBHS. 29. Jacob Bishop eventually became the minister at the Abyssinian church in New York City. December 5, 1812 and March 4, 1813, South Quay Church; November

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1815, Piney Branch Church (Spotsylvania County, Va.), Minute Book, 1813–1851; and February 11, 1826, the Mt. Poney Church (Culpepper County, Va.), Minute Book, 1822–1833; CRC, LV; Records of the Beulah Baptist Church, 1812–32, Gwathmey Family Papers, 1790–1982, VHS. Association query in Wesley Gewehr, The Great Awakening in Virginia, 1740–1790 (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1930), 241. One black minister’s ordination was delayed when a white male member objected to his preaching in a New Hampshire church. McLoughlin, New England Dissent, 2: 878 n3. May 18, 1792, George Liele to John Rippon, Benedict, GHBDA, 1: 201–2. 30. Sobel, Trabelin’ On, chap. 5. Also see Lawrence Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), 55–61; John Blassingame, The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972), 72; Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll, 236–37; 165–66; and Raboteau, Slave Religion, 212–15. Sobel, Trabelin’ On, 87–88; 90–91; Milton Sernett, Black Religion and American Evangelicalism: White Protestants, Plantation Missions, and the Flowering of Negro Christianity, 1787–1865 (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1975), 83–85; Walter F. Pitts, Jr., Old Ship of Zion: The Afro-Baptist Ritual in the African Diaspora (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 43–45; Morgan, Slave Counterpoint, 637–39; and Frey and Wood, Come Shouting to Zion, 121, 146–48. 31. Some members of George Liele’s slave congregation were literate: “A good many of our members can read and are all desirous to learn; they will be very thankful for a few books to read on Sundays and other days.” Letter of 1791, George Liele to John Rippon, Benedict, GHBDA, 1: 197. Some of Edmund Botsford’s black congregants could read. February 18, 1809, Edmund Botsford to William Rogers, William Rogers Papers, RIHS. On slaves and literacy in Virginia, see Jeffrey H. Richards, “Samuel Davies and the Transatlantic Campaign for Slave Literacy in Virginia,” VMHB 3 (2003): 333–78. Raboteau, Slave Religion, 246; Nash, Forging Freedom, 13, 21; June 1800, Ablemarle Church, LV. At the time Daniel was active, there were only three black members in this church. June 1787, March and April 1789, Waterlick church, VBHS. In the 1790s, Asplund counted two black churches in Virginia and one each in South Carolina, Georgia, and Jamaica. Asplund, The Universal Register, 50–51, 92. 32. Gilbert in July 21, 1774, Virginia Gazette (Purdie & Dixon), 2. Templeman story in “Isaac Backus: An 18th Century Yankee Baptist in Virginia,” VBR 2 (1963): 71. Henry Toler baptized a slave named Cupid on October 25, 1786. William S. Simpson, Jr., ed., “The Journal of Henry Toler, Part II, 1783–1786,” VBR 32 (1993): 1652. 33. Colonial churches organized seating based on rank, age, occupation, gender, and race. Dell Upton, All Things Sacred and Profane: The Anglican Parish Church in Colonial Virginia (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1997), 179–180. August 1812, April 1813, and June 1813, Coan (Wicomico) church, LV. White Baptists of the lower South built special galleries or sheds for black members. See Larry M. James, “Biracial Fellowship in Antebellum Baptist Churches,” in John B. Boles, ed., Masters and Slaves in the House of the Lord: Race and Religion in the American South, 1740–1870 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1988), 52. Several Anglican congregations practiced segregated seating; see Frey and Wood, Come Shouting to Zion, 76–78, 69–70. Black Methodists of Philadelphia separated from St. George’s church

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after the white leaders instituted segregated seating. See Richard Allen, The Life Experience and Gospel Labors of the Rt. Rev. Richard Allen (New York: Abingdon Press, 1960), 25; Carol V. R. George, Segregated Sabbaths: Richard Allen and the Emergence of the Independent Black Churches, 1760–1840 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973), chap. 2; and Andrews, The Methodists, 146. When Samuel Stillman preached the installation sermon at the new African Baptist Church in Boston in 1805, white visitors sat in the pews, while black members occupied the gallery. McLoughlin, New England Dissent, 2: 766. 34. August 1807, Lyle’s Church; McDaniel, “Elder John Alderson Jr. and the Greenbrier Church,” 315; Dover Association Minutes, 1801, 9. Linville’s Creek church came to the same conclusion about black witnesses. See March 8, 1807, Linville’s Creek Baptist Church, 1787–1844, VBHS. Richard Allen found the Bethel church to worship free from white interference. See William H. Becker, “In God and Country Do We Trust? A Debate Between Two Black Pennsylvanians,” in Otto Reimherr, ed., Quest for Faith, Quest for Freedom: Aspects of Pennsylvania’s Religious Experience (Selinsgrove, Pa.: Susquehanna University Press, 1987), 138. Paul in McLoughlin, New England Dissent, 2: 765–66. In Philadelphia, this process of religious separation occurred alongside residential segregation, see Nash, Forging Freedom, 165–67. 35. Black Methodists were often segregated at household and outdoor meetings. When a Methodist chapel was built in Annapolis in 1788, it included a separate stairway to the gallery for black congregants. Andrews, The Methodists, 134. George argues that black evangelicals were less willing to accept segregated facilities in biracial churches after 1800. George, Segregated Sabbaths, 73. 36. Black Baptists in New York City overcame resistance from the white meeting to organize the Abyssinian church in 1807 with the help of Thomas Paul of Boston. Sobel, Trabelin’ On, 191. 37. The Bluestone meeting was reconstituted in the early 1770s and four black ministers were ordained. Some members of this meeting would eventually become the First Colored Church of Petersburg. The Gillfield church would eventually split when a group of free blacks organized the Elam church in 1810. Sobel, Trabelin’ On, 292, 296. Semple, GHBDA, 291–92; Gillfield Church (Petersburg, Va.), Minute Book, 1815–1842, CRC, LV; June 14, 1808, Minutes of First Baptist Church of Philadelphia, 1806–1813, HSP; on Gardiner, see McLoughlin, New England Dissent, 2: 766 n48; Woodson, History of the Negro Church, 88–91; Benedict, GHBDA, 1: 197. Many black churches, especially if unaffiliated with a white church, were often not officially counted in denominational records. Sobel, Trabelin’ On, 184–85. Philadelphia’s free black population reached 2,000 by 1790; much of this increase was due to migration from outlying counties as well as from other parts of the Mid-Atlantic, the Chesapeake, and southern New England. Gary Nash, “Forging Freedom: The Emancipation Experience in Northern Seaport Towns, 1775–1820,” in Ira Berlin and Ron Hoffman, eds., Slavery and Freedom in the Age of the American Revolution (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1983), 4–8. 38. The larger black population of southern states accounts for part of this difference. Mechal Sobel argues that free black churches in the North were more threatening than those in the South; the former could claim full equality as a separate church, while the latter could legally be kept in an inferior position. Sobel, Trabelin’

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On, 191. On black Baptist churches, see Luther P. Jackson, “Religious Development of the Negro in Virginia from 1760 to 1860,” JNH 16 (April 1931): 168–239; Walter H. Brooks, “The Evolution of the Negro Baptist Church,” JNH 7 (January 1922):11–22; Charles H. Brooks, Official History of the First African Baptist Church, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, n.p., 1922). Benedict, GHBDA, 1: 206. 39. Minute Meetings of the First Philadelphia Baptist Church, 1806–1813, ABHS. In 1810, John Harris and Edward Simmons served as delegates to the PBA on behalf of the African church. Brooks, Official History, 4–6, 13–15, 18, 21. Jackson, “Religious Development of the Negro,” 189–90; 195; Raboteau, Slave Religion, 138–39; Semple, HRPBV, 114–15; 548; John Rippon, Baptist Annual Register for the Years 1790, 1791, 1792, and Part of 1793 (London: Dilly, Button & Thomas, 1793), 332–37; Brooks, “The Evolution of the Negro Baptist Church,” 8; Burkett and Read, CHKBA 285; Nash, Forging Freedom, 201–202. 40. After his emancipation, David Norfleet applied for dismissal from the South Quay church in 1824 so he could move to Philadelphia. July 24, 1824, South Quay Church, LV; January 22, 1816, and July 12, 1827, Minutes of the First Philadelphia Baptist Church, HSP; Keen, 1698, 184, 186; Sermon Notes, Abigail Harris Papers, 1801–1827, CCHS. Records of the Free Africa Society in William Douglass, Annals of the First African Church (Philadelphia: King & Baird, 1862), 19, 35. The status of independent black Baptist churches in the South changed significantly after Nat Turner’s revolt. See Charles Irons, “ ‘The Chief Cornerstone’: The Spiritual Foundations of Virginia’s Slave Society, 1776–1861” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Virginia, 2007), chap. 4, and Randolph Scully, “ ‘Somewhat Liberated’: Discourses on Race and Slavery in Nat Turner’s Virginia, 1770–1840,” Explorations in Early American Culture 5 (2001): 328–71. Also see their books, Charles Irons, The Origins of Proslavery Christianity: White and Black Evangelicals in Colonial and Antebellum Virginia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008); Randolph Scully, Somewhat Liberated: Baptists and the Making of Nat Turner’s Virginia (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2008). 41. The 1815 annual meeting of the PBA ran for eight days rather than the usual three in large part because of this controversy. See Minutes of the Philadelphia Baptist Association, held in the meetinghouse of the First Baptist Church in the City of Philadelphia, October 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 16, 17, and 18 (Philadelphia: Dennis Heartt, printer, 1816), 6. 42. Simmons believed that two PBA messengers from the African meeting were the most likely suspects; they, in turn, claimed one of Simmons’s friends was the culprit. See Henry Holcombe, A Protest Against the Proceedings of the Philadelphia Baptist Association by the First Baptist Church of Philadelphia, with Preparatory and Concluding Extracts and Remarks (Philadelphia: R. Johnson, 1816), 7–8, 12–13, 20; and Letters to William Staughton, D.D., by Plain Truth (Philadelphia: Printed for the author, 1818), 23–24, 41–42, LCP. (Henry Holcombe denied being the author of Plain Truth.) Holcombe was born in Virginia and served as a pastor in Georgia before moving to Philadelphia in 1811. According to his eulogist, Holcombe was interested in freeing the souls of slaves not their bodies. See B. Rush Rhees, M.D., Eulogium on the Life and Character of the Rev. Henry Holcombe, D.D. (Philadelphia: Published at the request of the congregation, Stavely & Bringhurst, printers, 1824), 14, 21–23, 26–27, LCP. One Staughton supporter argued that Holcombe used the dispute in the African

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meeting to challenge his opponents, with African Americans as pawns in the hands of the white leaders. Lewis Baldwin, A Candid Development of Facts, Tending to Exhibit the Real Grounds of Difference Existing Between the First Baptist Church of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Association (Philadelphia: Printed for the author by Anderson and Meehan, 1819), 12–13, LCP. 43. J. L. Rhees, Error Refuted: Or, A Brief Exposition of the Leading Features of the Baptist Controversy, in Philadelphia and Its Vicinity, for Some Years Past (Philadelphia: Printed by William Stavely, 1827), 20–21, LCP. For more on race in the antebellum period, see Joanne Melish, Disowning Slavery: Gradual Emancipation and “Race” in New England, 1780–1860 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1998); Mia Elizabeth Bay, The White Image in the Black Mind: African-American Ideas About White People, 1830–1925 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999); Eddie Glaude, Exodus! Religion, Race, and Nation in Nineteenth-Century Black America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000); and Bruce Dain, A Hideous Monster of the Mind: American Race Theory in the Early Republic (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002).

Chapter 8. The Manly Christian: Evangelical White Manhood 1. See Janet Moore Lindman, “Acting the Manly Christian: White Evangelical Masculinity in Revolutionary Virginia,” WMQ 3rd ser. 57, 2 (April 2000): 393–416. 2. I am using Kathy Brown’s term “gender frontier” to describe interactions among Europeans as they created new communities in British North America. See Kathleen M. Brown, “Brave New Worlds: Women’s and Gender History,” WMQ 3rd ser. 50, 2 (1993): 311–28. On Quakers, see Jack Marietta, The Reformation of American Quakerism, 1748–1783 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984, 2007); Barry Levy, Quakerism and the American Family: British Settlement in the Delaware Valley (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988); Jean R. Soderlund, “Women’s Authority in Pennsylvania and New Jersey Quaker Meetings, 1680–1760,” WMQ 3rd ser. 44 (October 1987): 722–49; Mary Maples Dunn, “Saints and Sinners: Congregational and Quaker Women in the Early Colonial Period,” in Janet Wilson James, ed., Women in American Religion (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1980); and Rebecca Larson, Daughters of Light: Quaker Women Preaching and Prophesying in the Colonies and Abroad, 1700–1775 (New York: Knopf, 1999). 3. See Aaron Spencer Fogelman, Jesus Is Female: Moravians and the Challenge of Radical Religion in Early America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007). 4. This definition of gender as performance is taken from Judith Butler, who asserts that gender is not “a stable identity or locus of agency,” but rather an “identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts.” As such, “gender is performatively produced and compelled by the regulatory practices of gender coherence.” Gender identity and behavior is routinized, ritualized, and legitimated through repetition. See Judith Butler, “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory,” in Sue Ellen Case, ed., Performing Feminisms: Feminist Critical Theory and Theatre (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), 270; Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1990), 24–25.

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5. On race, class, and gender, see Joan Wallach Scott, “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis,” in Joan Wallach Scott, Gender and the Politics of History (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988); Kathleen M. Brown, Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs: Gender, Race and Power in Colonial Virginia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996); Barbara Fields, “Slavery, Race, and Ideology in the United States of America,” New Left Review 181 (1990): 95–118; Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, “African-American Women’s History and the Metalanguage of Race,” Signs 17 (1992): 251–74; Stuart Blumin, The Emergence of the Middle Class: Social Experience in the American City, 1760–1900 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989); “Class and Early America: An Introduction” special issue, WMQ 3rd ser. 58 (April 2006). 6. Susan Juster, “ ‘In a Different Voice’: Male and Female Narratives of Religious Conversion in Post-Revolutionary America,” AQ 41 (March 1989): 34–62. Kathy Brown argues that privileged white men secured authority in colonial Virginia through five sources: “landownership, control over sexual access to women, rights to the labor of slaves and servants, formal access to political life, and the ability to create and manipulate symbols signifying these other sources of power.” Brown, Good Wives, 347. On manhood in early America, see Kenneth Lockridge, On the Sources of Patriarchal Rage: The Commonplace Books of William Byrd and Thomas Jefferson and the Gendering of Power in Eighteenth Century America (New York: New York University Press, 1992); Toby Ditz, “Shipwrecked; or, Masculinity Imperiled: Mercantile Representations of Failure and the Gendered Self in Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia,” JAH 81 (1994): 51–80; Mark E. Kann, A Republic of Men: The American Founders, Gendered Language, and Patriarchal Politics (New York: New York University Press, 1998); Dana Nelson, National Manhood: Capitalist Citizenship and the Imagined Fraternity of White Men (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1998); Lisa Wilson, Ye Heart of a Man: The Domestic Life of Men in Colonial New England (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1999); Anne S. Lombard, Making Manhood: Growing Up Male in Colonial New England (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003); Craig Thompson Friend and Lori Glover, Southern Manhood: Perspectives on Masculinity in the Old South (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2004); and Lori Glover, Southern Sons: Becoming Men in the New Nation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007). Also see E. Anthony Rotundo, American Manhood: Transformations in Masculinity from the Revolution to the Modern Era (New York: Basic Books, 1993); and Mark C. Carnes and Clyde Griffen, eds., Meanings for Manhood: Constructions of Masculinity in Victorian America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990). 7. John McLean, Sketch of Rev. Philip Gatch (Cincinnati: Swormstedt & Poe, 1854), 32–33; Morgan Edwards, Materials Toward a History of Baptists in Virginia, 1772 (hereafter the Furman Manuscript), 41; John Leland, The Writings of the Elder John Leland, ed. L. F. Greene (New York: Arno Press, 1969), 21; James Alexander, The Life of Archibald Alexander (New York: Charles Scribner, 1856), 213–14, VHS. 8. Furman Manuscript, 25–26, 29, 59; The Life of the Rev. James Ireland, Who Was for Many Years Pastor of the Baptist Church at Buck Marsh, Waterlick, and Happy Creek, in Frederick and Shenandoah Counties, Virginia (Winchester, Pa., 1819), 141–42; John Taylor, A History of the Baptist Churches, of Which the Author Has Been Alternately a Member (Frankfort, Ky., 1823), 37; Henry Toler, The Faithful Minister’s Work

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(Philadelphia, 1795), 15–16. As Sandra Rennie, “Virginia’s Baptist Persecution, 1765–1780,” JRH 12 (1982): 50–51, has shown, these “mobs” were usually members of the local gentry. 9. Weeks and Warren, MEMTHB, 45. 10. Leland, Writings of John Leland, 21–22; Weeks and Warren, MEMTHB, 56; David Thomas to Nathaniel Saunders in Semple, HRPBV, 483. 11. Life of the Rev. James Ireland, 130–31. Taylor in William S. Simpson, Jr., Virginia Baptist Ministers, 1760–1790: A Biographical Survey (Richmond, Va.: W.S. Simpson, Jr., 1990), 1: 38; Waller in Middlesex County [Va.] Court Records, in Lewis Peyton Little, Imprisoned Preachers and Religious Liberty in Virginia (Lynchburg, Va.: S.P. Bell, 1938). Donald Matthews, Religion in the Old South (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), 20, makes a similar point. A parallel development to evangelical masculinity is the emergence of a new ideal of manhood (“the man of feeling”) based on the cult of sensibility. See G. J. Barker-Benfield, The Culture of Sensibility: Sex and Society in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992); Markman Ellis, The Politics of Sensibility: Race, Gender, and Commerce in the Sentimental Novel (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Julie Ellison, Cato’s Tears and the Making of Anglo-American Emotion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998); Mary Chapman and Glenn Hendler, eds., Sentimental Men: Masculinity and the Politics of Affect in American Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999); Bruce Burgett, Sentimental Bodies: Sex, Gender, and Citizenship in the Early Republic (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998); and Sarah Knott, “Sensibility and the American War for Independence,” AHR 109 (February 2004): 19–40. 12. Life of the Rev. James Ireland, 84–85, 100–101, 112, 114–15, 116. Ireland was baptized in 1769 and soon after began preaching. Also see William Lumpkin, Baptist Foundations in the South: Tracing Through the Separates the Influence of the Great Awakening, 1754–1787 (Nashville: University of Tennessee Press, 1961), 96. Rules and Regulations, the Burruss’s Baptist Church, 1799–1935, VBHS; Young, Baptists on the American Frontier, 96; Moore in Little, Imprisoned Preachers, 384. 13. Young, Baptists on the American Frontier, 96; The Autobiography of Norvell Robertson, 1765–1846, 27, MDAH; Leland, Writings of John Leland, 11; Enoch Edwards, “A short narrative of the miraculous working of gods spirit upon my mind in the year 1772 beginning in April to July,” Edwards Section, MIFMC, HSP; The Life of Rev. James Ireland, 118–19. 14. Weeks and Warren, MEMTHB, 142; Biographical Memoirs of the Late Rev. John Gano (New York: Southwark & Hardcastle, 1806), 41–42. 15. On Baker and Lunsford, see James B. Taylor, Virginia Baptist Ministers, series 1 (Philadelphia, 1859), 111, 139–40. For Hickman, see Simpson, Virginia Baptist Ministers, 21. Baker was described as “a man of low parentage, small learning, and confined abilities” in Semple, History, 396. On Gibbons, see Morgan Edwards, “History of the Baptists in Delaware,” mss. copy, HSP, 24; Wilson in Norman H. Maring, Baptists in New Jersey: A Study in Transition (Valley Forge, N.J.: Judson Press, 1964), 87–88. 16. See October 14 and 15, 1783, William S. Simpson, Jr., ed., “The Journal of Henry Toler, Part II, 1783–1786,” VBR 32 (1993): 1638. Methodist ministers experienced “sweet union” at conferences and through itinerancy, which cemented a sense of brotherhood. See Russell E. Richey, Early American Methodism (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1991), 6–8; and Donald Yacovone, “Abolitionists and the

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‘Language of Fraternal Love,’” in Carnes and Griffen, Meanings for Manhood, 87; and Henry Abelove, Evangelist of Desire: John Wesley and the Methodists (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1990). 17. July 3, 1778, and July 28, 1778, Robert Carter Papers, vol. 15, VBHS; Carter Family Papers, 1651–1861, VHS. New England Baptist men evoked a “fraternal nature” and “sense of connectedness with the larger body of saints” in their conversions. Susan Juster, Disorderly Women: Sexual Politics and Evangelicalism in Revolutionary New England (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1994), 73–74. The Life of Rev. James Ireland, 116. Daddy Gumby in John B. Boles, Black Southerners, 1619–1869 (Louisville: University Press of Kentucky, 1983), 155; Richard Dozier, “Historical Notes Concerning the Planting of Baptist Principles in the Northern Neck of Virginia,” ed. John S. Moore, VBR 28 (1989); May 3, 1778, Robert Carter Papers, vol. 15, VBHS. 18. See Lockridge, Sources of Patriarchal Rage, 97–98. 19. Morgan Edwards, Samuel Jones, and James Manning directed the effort to establish the new college. Manning, the college’s first president, launched an intensive fundraising campaign for the institution; he sought assistance from Baptist ministers in the colonies and Britain, offering honorary degrees to English clerics to encourage support for the new school. October 3, 1791, John Pitman to Robert Carter; Early Account of the College by James Manning, 1773; May 1773, John Collett Ryland to James Manning; February 20, 1773, Isaac Woodman to James Manning, JMP; March 11, 1764, Gardner Thurston to Samuel Jones, Samuel Jones Papers, 1760–1786, BUA. Daniel Jenckes noted that Morgan Edwards was able to solicit money from England despite “how angry the mother country then was with the colonies for opposing the Stamp Act.” Morgan Edwards, Materials Toward a History of Baptists in Rhode Island, 1771, Rhode Island Historical Collections, BUA, 328; August 1768, Accounts of Morgan Edwards, Rhode Island College Miscellaneous Papers, BUA. 20. Samuel Jones opened a school in 1774; he later served as a trustee of the Lower Dublin School begun in 1803. Jones provided room and board to 32 students from the 1760s to the 1790s. William Staughton, D.D., The Servant of God Concluding His Labours: A Sermon on the Death of the Reverend Samuel Jones, D.D. (Philadelphia: R.P. & W. Anderson, 1814), 26, Account Book of Pennepek Church, MIFMC, HSP. In 1760, the PBA set up a “society for the promotion of learning” to raise funds for the Hopewell Academy. Miscellaneous Church Papers, 1760–1795, MIFMC, HSP. Burgess Allison ran an academy in Bordentown, New Jersey, while Charles Thompson had a home school in Swansea, Massachusetts. John Asplund, The Universal Register of the Baptist Denomination in North America, for the Years 1790, 1791, 1792, 1793, and Part of 1794 (New York: Arno Press, 1980), 63; Edwards, Materials Toward a History of Baptists in New Jersey, Distinguished into First Day Baptists, Seventh Day Baptists, Tunker Baptists, Rogerene Baptists (Philadelphia: Thomas Dobron, 1772), 50. 21. Horatio Gates Jones, ed., “The Diary of S[amuel] J[ones],” Baptist Family Magazine 2, 2 (1881): 46–48; Samuel Stillman, Young People called Upon to Consider, that for Their Conduct Here, They Must be Accountable Hereafter, at the Judgement Seat of Christ. In a Sermon, delivered on Wednesday Evening May 8, 1771, in Boston, at the Desire of a Number of Young Men (Boston: John Boyles, 1771), 30–31. 22. Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit, 6: 90–91, 104. Jones graduated from Philadelphia College with a B.A. in 1762 and earned a master’s degree in 1766. On

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Manning, see Reuben Aldrich Guild, Early History of Brown University, Including the Life, Times, and Correspondence of President Manning, 1756–1791 (Providence: Snow & Farnham, 1897), 25–26. 23. May 16, 1761, James Manning to Samuel Jones; November 24, 1772, James Manning to Samuel Jones; July 13, 1773, James Manning to Samuel Jones; September 27, 1783, David Howell to James Manning; November 5, 1773, Oliver Hart to James Manning; December 17, 1788, James Manning to Hezekiah Smith; November 7, 1787, and May 10, 1790, James Manning to Robert Carter, ABHS; July 18, 1788, James Manning to Samuel Jones, MIFMC, HSP; Diary of Samuel Jones, HSP. Manning recommended Jones’s school to Carter because of the quality of farming and milling in Philadelphia County. 24. August 4, 1790, John Stancliff to Samuel Jones, MIFMC, HSP; August 30, 1765, December 23, 1767, and April 17, 1770, Oliver Hart to James Manning; November 20, 1786, James Manning to Samuel Jones; July 3, 1784, May 17, 1786, and June 10, 1788, James Manning to Hezekiah Smith, ABHS; September 19, 1809, Edmund Botsford to William Rogers, William Rogers Papers, RIHS; April 9, 1780, Records of the Southampton Baptist Church, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Baptisms, Marriages, Burials, 1687–1842, Collections of the GSP, vol. 14 (Philadelphia, 1895), HSP. 25. September 4, 1779, Henry Toler to Robert Carter; December 25, 1782, Samuel Jones to Robert Carter, Carter Family Papers, 1651–1861, VHS; December 21, 1778, Robert Carter to John Toler, and February 26, 1779, Robert Carter to John Clay in J. Motley Brooker, “Robert Carter of Nomini Hall, Abstracts of Letters, 1774–1784,” Northern Neck of Virginia Historical Magazine 16 (December 1966): 1517, 1521–22. Semple claimed that Henry Toler was converted by the preaching of John Courtney, a minister in King William County; Semple, HRPBV, 475. Carter and the PBA financed the educational expenses of Silas Walton, who studied with Samuel Jones in the 1790s. A. D. Gillette, ed., Minutes of the Philadelphia Baptist Association, 1707–1807: Being the First One Hundred Years of Its Existence (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1851), 254. 26. March 1783, William S. Simpson, Jr., “The Journal of Henry Toler, Part I, 1782–1783,” VBR 31 (1992): 1568, 1570. 27. Simpson, Virginia Baptist Ministers. Samuel Jones’s ministry at Lower Dublin started after his college graduation in 1762 and lasted until his death in 1814. Staughton, The Servant of God, 26, LCP. April 26, 1779, to September 29, 1779, Journal of James Manning in Guild, Early History, 314–16; Diary of Samuel Jones, 1763–65, MIFMC, HSP. 28. Jones had his son Horatio Gates Jones preach at least twice at his Chester County church. Diary and Register of David Jones, 1786–1818, HSP. 29. Ministers often kept records of the number of sermons they performed and the miles they traveled. In 1762, Hezekiah Smith preached 173 sermons and traveled 4,235 miles. See Journal no. 1, October 29, 1762, to April 19, 1764, Papers of Hezekiah Smith, ABHS. “Journal of Henry Toler, Part I,” 1572–1573; Papers of Hezekiah Smith, Journal no. 1, 1761–1764, Journal no. 2, 1764, Journal no. 3, 1764–1767, Journal no. 4, 1767–1769, and Journal no. 6, 1776–1777, ABHS; Jeremiah Bell Jeter, The Recollections of a Long Life (Richmond, Va.: Religious Herald, 1891), 62, 64.

Notes to Pages 171–174

253

30. John Leland organized churches in Orange, Culpeper, and Goochland Counties; Thomas headed a church in Fauquier County, and Waller was active in meetings in Spotsylvania, Orange, Goochland and Louisa Counties. Ambrose Dudley preached in Virginia until he immigrated to Kentucky in 1786. Jeremiah Walker ministered in churches in Mecklenburg, Lunenburg, and Dinwiddie Counties. Simpson, Virginia Baptist Ministers, 25–26, 39, 41; Semple, HRPBV, 201, 276; March 1783, “Journal of Henry Toler, Part I,” 1572–1573. 31. Papers of Hezekiah Smith, Journal no. 1, 1761–1764, ABHS. Isaac Backus forged close relationships with other ministers during a preaching tour of Virginia in 1789. “An 18th Century Yankee Baptist Tours Virginia on Horseback,” VBR 2 (1963): 76; March 28, 1783, May 25, 1783, and July 19, 1783, “Journal of Henry Toler, Part I,” 1581, 1583, 1587, October 14 and 15, 1783, “Journal of Henry Toler, Part II,” 1638, VBHS. Walker’s indiscretion in Semple, HRPBV, 388. David George in Benedict, GHBDA, 1: 289; “tender feelings” from David D. Essig, Bonds of Wickedness: American Evangelicals Against Slavery, 1770–1808 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1982), 39. 32. For fraternity among evangelical ministers, see Russell Richey, Early American Methodism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), 6–8; “masculine community” taken from Michael Grossberg’s, “Institutionalizing Masculinity: The Law as a Masculine Profession,” in Carnes and Griffen, eds., Meanings for Manhood, 134–35. 33. When a Portuguese diplomat visited the Philadelphia church in 1799 he noted that “the meeting consisted only of preaching.” See Robert C. Smith, “Excerpts from the Diary of Hipólite José de Costa, 1798–1799,” PMHB 78 (1954): 93. 34. Before Samuel Jones began preaching for the Philadelphia Baptist Association to celebrate its hundredth anniversary in 1807, he informed the congregation that he would read his sermon. David Benedict, Fifty Years Among the Baptists (New York: Sheldon, 1860), 55–56. Samuel Jones Correspondence and Miscellaneous Church Papers, MIFMC, HSP; Correspondence of Thomas Ustick, ABHS; Edwards in Charles C. Sommers, William R. Williams and Levi I. Hill, eds., The Baptist Library: A Republication of Standard Baptist Works (Prattsville, N.Y.: Robert H. Hill, l843); 295; The Autobiography of Norvell Robertson, 1765–1846, 32, MDAH; Kelsay in Gillette, Minutes, 236; John Leland, “Syllabus of a Sermon Preached at Philadelphia, April 17, 1814,” in Leland, Writings of John Leland, 376. On Virginia preachers, see Sandra Rennie, “The Role of the Preacher: Index to the Consolidation of the Baptist Movement in Virginia from 1760 to 1790,” WMQ 3rd ser. 88 (1980): 430–41. Presbyterian ministers wrote their sermons out in full or made extensive outlines, which they glanced at periodically. See Anne C. Loveland, Southern Evangelicals and the Social Order, 1800–1860 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University, 1980), 40–41. 35. Semple, History, 118–19, 354, 471; John Rippon, The Baptist Annual Register for 1790, 1791, 1792, and Part of 1793 (London, 1793), 515; August 15, 1754, Fragment of Oliver Hart Diary, 1754, ABHS; Reuben Aldrich Guild, Chaplain Smith and the Baptists; or, Life, Journals, Letters, and Address of the Rev. Hezekiah Smith, D.D. (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1885), 376–77. 36. The use of the term “evangelical” in this context refers to the gospel of Jesus and his redemption of humankind. Leland, “Syllabus,” in Leland, Writings of John Leland, 376–79.

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37. “A Letter to the Irregular BAPTISTS of Virginia,” December 22, 1768, Virginia Gazette (Rind), 2; Edwards, “History of the Baptists in Delaware,” mss. copy, HSP, 17; Minutes of the Proceedings of the Roanok District Association, Virginia (Hillsborough: R. Ferguson, 1789), 12; Rennie, “The Role of the Preacher,” 440–41. Baptists continued to be ambivalent about education. The Goshen Association recommended churches financially support young men studying for the ministry but was against establishing a seminary. Minutes of the Baptist Association in the District of Goshen, Held at Waller’s Meetinghouse, Spotsylvania County, Virginia, Meeting on the First Saturday in October 1819 (Fredericksburg: Wm. F. Gray, 1819), 7. Jeremiah Jeter remarked upon the “evangelical” and “experimental” preaching he heard in the early nineteenth century: it “might be confused in arrangement, meagre in thought, obscure, ungrammatical and coarse in style and vociferous and awkward in delivery, but, with few exceptions, it disclosed, with more or less distinctness and force, the atonement of Christ and the necessity of regeneration.” Jeter, Recollections of a Long Life, 19. 38. May 23, 1782, Isaac Backus to Samuel Jones, Samuel Jones Papers, 1759–1914, JHL; Gillette, Minutes, 1775, 148; Minutes of the Baptist Association, Held in Philadelphia, October 1785, 6, LCP; Leland in Simpson, Virginia Baptist Ministers, 26; Robert Torbet, “A Social History of the Philadelphia Baptist Association, 1707–1940” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1944), 21. On disestablishment in Massachusetts, see William Gerald McLoughlin, New England Dissent, 1630–1833: The Baptists and the Separation of Church and State (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971), 2: 1245–62. Many Baptists were reluctant initially to become involved in a worldly entanglement like revolution. A group of Virginia Baptists petitioned the House of Burgesses asking that their clergymen be exempted from bearing arms and attending musters because it interfered with ministerial functions; the House rejected their petition. Others struggled with the legality of warfare. In the fall of 1775, one Virginia church discussed whether it was “lawful for Christians to take up arms in the present dispute with Great Britain.” After some deliberation, the church agreed that it was permissible. May 26, 1775, petition, G. Maclaren Byrdon, comp., Legislation in Colonial Virginia Concerning Religion, vol. 1, Extracts from the Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1619–1775, 329, VHS; September 16, 1775, Hartwood Church (Stafford County, Va.), Minute Book, 1771–1871, CRC, LV. On Pennsylvania Baptists’ hesitancy to support the Patriot cause, see Jessica Lee Flinchum, “Reluctant Revolutionaries: The Philadelphia Baptist Association and the American Revolution,” PH 72, 2 (Spring 2007): 173–93. 39. See W. R. Ward, The Protestant Evangelical Revival (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 1–13. On publishing, writing, and reading, see Candy Gunther Brown, Word in the World: Evangelical Writing, Publishing and Reading in America, 1789–1880 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004); Cathy Davidson, Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); Richard D. Brown, Knowledge Is Power: The Diffusion of Information in Early America, 1700–1865 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); Michael Warner, The Letters of the Republic: Publication and the Public Sphere in EighteenthCentury America (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990); Rosalind Remer, Printers and Men of Capital: Philadelphia Book Publishers in the New Republic (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996). July 30, 1773, August 17, 1773,

Notes to Pages 176–182

255

Benjamin Wallin to James Manning; September 20, 1788, Caleb Evans to James Manning, JMP, BUA; May 1, 1786, “Journal of Henry Toler, Part II,” 1640; Undated letter, Samuel Jones to Thomas Jones, MIFMC, HSP. 40. One irony of the growth of Baptist denominationalism in the early Republic is the difference between the church membership in Pennsylvania and Virginia. Though the Baptist religion came early to the Delaware Valley and demonstrated denominational leadership through the PBA, Pennsylvania Baptists had a small membership. By the 1810s, Pennsylvania had 72 churches and 4,516 communicants compared to 271 meetings and more than 29,000 members in Virginia. When numbers from the other Mid-Atlantic states are added to Pennsylvania, the results even out to 352 churches with 24,847 communicants compared to 303 churches and 30,590 communicants in the Chesapeake. Benedict, GHBDA, 2: 508–24. 41. April 25, 1789, David Barrow to Thomas Ustick; April 19, 1793, Isaac Backus to Thomas Ustick, Correspondence of Thomas Ustick; and February 17, 1809, John Stanford to Samuel Jones, Correspondence of John Stanford, ABHS; August 30, 1777, Benjamin Wallin to James Manning; January 22, 1777, Thomas Mackaness to James Manning; and May 1, 1784, John Rippon to James Manning, JMP, BUA; November 3, 1788, Thomas Ustick to Richard Clegg, Thomas Ustick Papers, 1773–1800, BUA; Rippon, Baptist Annual Register, iv. 42. November 16, 1768, Job Bennett to Nicholas Brown and Co., and September 19, 1782, David Howells to Nicholas Brown, Nicholas Brown and Co., Miscellaneous Papers, JCBL. Anthony carried letters for John Pitman to his mother and friends in New England. June 9, 1782, Journal of John Pitman, 1751–82, ms. 622, RIHS. 43. November 12, 1784, James Manning to John Rippon; June 28, 1792 and August 10, 1770, Samuel Stennett to James Manning, James Manning Papers, 1761–1827, BUA. Abraham Booth and Caleb Evans were incredulous that Stanford gained a ministerial post in the United States. July 11, 1789, Abraham Booth to James Manning; February 22, 1790, Caleb Evans to James Manning; May 1, 1784, and February 23, 1785, John Rippon to James Manning, JMP, BUA. John Rippon’s greatest contribution to the denomination came in publishing The Baptist Annual Register. Begun in 1790, the Annual Register recorded activities of Baptists principally in England and the United States. Its intent was to show “the state of religion among different denominations of good men.” Rippon wanted his publication to “give the European Baptists an opportunity of shewing their love to the American brethren” and to publicize activities on both sides of the Atlantic. See June 28, 1791, John Rippon to James Manning, JMP, BUA; Rippon, Baptist Annual Register, ii, iii, iv.

Conclusion: Baptists in the Early Republic 1. Jeremiah Bell Jeter, The Recollections of a Long Life (Richmond, Va.: Religious Herald, 1891), 44, 51. 2. This organization was also known as the Triennial Convention because it met every three years. See Thomas Armitage, A History of the Baptists: Traced by Their Vital Principles and Practices, from the Time of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to the Year 1892 (New York: Bryan, Taylor, 1892), 814. Many Baptists opposed the formation

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of the Triennial Convention because it endangered congregational supremacy and forced ministers to preach and fundraise at the same time. See John Taylor, Thoughts on Missions (n.p., 1820); Nathan O. Hatch, Democratization of American Christianity (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1989), 174–78; and Young, Baptists on the American Frontier, 53–55. 3. Hatch, Democratization of American Christianity, 95; Burkitt and Read, CHKBA, xxi. 4. New controversies divided congregations, disputed orthodoxy, and produced splinter groups in the early nineteenth century. Debate and division would lead to new beliefs (i.e., Free Will and Anti-Mission Baptists) and new denominations (e.g., the Disciples of Christ). Print culture expanded the range and impact of religious ideas at the same time it became a vehicle to brew controversy, such as Campbellism. On the Campbellite movement, see Lee Synder, Book of Acts by Alexander Campbell (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen, 2002); Eva Jean Wrather, Alexander Campbell: Adventurer in Freedom; A Literary Biography, ed. D. Duane Cummins (Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 2005); and Peter Verkruyse, Prophet, Pastor, and Patriarch: The Rhetorical Leadership of Alexander Campbell (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2005). 5. September 1814, Records of the Washington District Baptist Association, 1811–44, VBHS. 6. “Minutes of the meeting of business held by the church of Philadelphia from August 11, 1760” (hereafter Philadelphia Church Book), 48, ABHS. 7. Another factor in this fluidity was the life cycle of an individual congregation. Churches were constituted, expanded, and flourished with a group of core members over time (often from the same families), and then declined due to death, migration, and competition. Churches came in and out of existence, divided, and changed their names and composition throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 8. New Jersey churches in Norman H. Maring, Baptists in New Jersey: A Study in Transition (Valley Forge, Pa.: Judson Press, 1964), 94–95; Morgan Edwards in the Philadelphia Church Book, 46–48, HSP. 9. Benedict, GHBDA, 1: 254–56. On the Cane Ridge revival, see Paul Conkin, Cane Ridge, America’s Pentecost (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990); and Ellen Eslinger, Citizens of Zion: The Social Origins of Camp Meeting Revivalism (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1999).

Index

Aaron (black preacher), 146 Abraham (black preacher), 148 Act of Toleration, 42 African Americans, 6, 29, 100, 135, 139, 181; bodies of, 103–4; character of, 104; Christianity and traditional rituals of, 148–49; and church courts, 103, 138; conversion experiences, 149; as exhorters, 146, 147, 149; growth in church membership, 139; as hearers, 134; men serve as elders, 145–46; participation in church governance, 136–37; as preachers, 146–48, 152; secret prayer meetings of, 149; sexuality regulated by churches, 106–7; spirituality, 113; status in church, 154–55, 164; white opposition to membership, 141. See also Baptist Church courts; Women African Baptist Church of Philadelphia, 152, 153 Albemarle Church, 107, 115, 123, 140, 146; rituals used at, 81, women and, 115 Albemarle County, 149 Alderson, John, Jr. 122 Alderson, John, Sr., 50, 86 Alexander, Archibald, 67 Alexandria, Virginia, 42 Allen, Thomas (black preacher), 147 Allison, Burgess, 163 Allmand, Kiziah, 106 Amelia County, 42 American Revolution, 4, 31, 35, 46; Baptists’ role in, 175; impact on Baptist attitude toward slavery, 142 Anabaptists. See Münster Anabaptists Anderson, Elizabeth, 116 Andrews, Jedediah 18 Angelica (slave), 107 Anglicans, 8, 18, 42, 43, 117, 180, 181; and African Americans, 135; opposed to Baptists, 44, 45, 157; and Davis controversy, 16; in Delaware Valley, 11; disestablishment in

Virginia, 89; and evangelical movement, 46; on frontier, 35; on revivalism, 36, 37 Annotations (Pool), 116 Annual Baptist Register (Asplund), 135 Annual Register (Rippon), 118 Anointing the sick with oil, 73, 75, 82, 89 Anthony, Joanna, 128, 129 Anthony, Joseph, 41 Anthony, Stephen, 177 Arianism, 15, 24 Arminians, Arminianism, 34, 46, 49. See also General Baptists Arminius, Jacob, 8 Arnold, John, 62 Ashmead, Samuel, 122 Asplund, John, 135 Backus, Isaac, 118, 134–35, 176; disestablishment a goal of, 175; preaching tour of, 79–80 Baker, Desolate. See Loveall, Henry Baker, Elijah, 163 Baldwin, Sarah, 60, 68 Baptism, 31, 58, 64, 68, 75; adult by immersion, 8, 9, 46, 73, 75–76, 89; baptismal houses, 77; community presence during, 79; infant, 29, 44, 49, 50, 114, 120, 176; and laying on of hands, 88; outside, 7, 77, 80 Baptist church, Baptists, 49, 177; on abolition, 143, 145; black membership of, 29; codifies practices, 88–89; community of, 54, 68, 80, 90; congregationalism of, 7, 22, 26, 93, 110, 183; conversion experiences of, 52, 53, 180; and Davis controversy, 17–19; in Delaware Valley, 3, 11, 13, 31–32, 74; denominationalism, 7; discipline, 90, 91–92, 180; English counterparts of, 175–76; familial connections, 2; feminization of, 183; Great Awakening impacts, 27; interracial marriage, 106–7; Keithian controversy in, 14, 15; ministers, 55, 160; national missionary organization, 181; paradoxical nature of, 2;

258

Index

Baptist church (Cont.) persecution of, 40, 41, 42; public spaces used by, 79–80; Quaker practices accepted by, 19; radical reputation of, 40; rapid growth of, 170; regional relations, 3–4, 175; rites of, 84–85, 91; rules of behavior, 90; slavery and, 2, 142–43; segregated, 164, 183; and sermons, 173, 174; spiritual equality in, 2, 7, 181. See also African Americans; Baptism; Baptist Church courts; Body; Regular Baptists; Separate Baptists; under specific rites Baptist church courts, 5, 20, 93; alternative to secular courts, 94; black Baptists and, 99, 100, 139, 140; female sexuality and, 106; gender patterns of, 108–9; offenses cited by, 100–101; proceedings of, 96–97, 98; punishments of, 92, 95–96, 101, 108, 110; racial patterns of, 108–9; regional differences among, 101; rituals of, 94, 95; and spousal abuse, 105; standards of conduct established by, 91; struggle between spiritual parity and social inequality, 92; and white men, 98, 104 Baptist General Convention for Foreign Missions, 182 Barnes, Barnaby, 30 Barnett, John, 45 Barrot, Mary, 113 Barrow, David, 144, 176 Beckingham, William, 15, 17 Bedgegood, John, 167 Bemish, Rachel, 106 Ben (slave; Burruss’s church), 107 Ben (slave; Chappawamsic church), 138 Benedict, David, 135, 147 Benn, John (black preacher), 152 Berkeley County, 25, 34, 35, 118 Berks County, 34, 165 Beulah Church, 114, 132 Bibb, Thomas, 16 Biddle, John, 96 Biles, Elizabeth, 60, 115, 118, 119 Billings, Thomas, 153, 154 Binney, Avis, 119 Biracial churches, 6, 136, 145–46, 149–50, 183 Bishop, Jacob (black preacher), 147 Bivins, James, 152 Bivins, Samuel, 152 Black churches, 6, 150, 183; deaconesses in, 121; leadership of, 152

Black Creek church, 139; and women suffrage, 130; on slavery, 142 “Black Joe” (slave), 139 “Black Nancy” (slave), 99 Blackhead, Benjamin, 107 Blackhead, Milly, 107 Blackwater meetinghouse, 77 “Blair, Dr.,” 119 Blue, Sam (slave), 140 Bluestone church, 151 Boar Swamp Church, 90, 98, 137 Board of Ministers (London), 30 Bob (slave), 138 Body, bodies, 2–5, 40, 53–54, 69–70, 91–92, 179–80, 184; conversion, 62; passions, 62, 63; and ritual, 72, 73; and self-discipline, selfregulation, 63. See also African Americans; Baptist church; Women Borden, Green, 145 Boston, Massachusetts, 150, 175 Botsford, Edmund, 145, 167 Boucher, Jonathan, 45 Bower, Robert, 102 Bradley, William, 37, 45 Brandywine Church, 19, 22, 71, 113, 23 Brandywine River, 71, 77 Bridges, James, 105 Bright, Mary, 122 Broad Run Church, 35, 114, 171 Broaddus, Andrew, 62 Brock, Ruth, 102 Brookfield, Jacob, 139 Brooks, Ebenezer, 49 Brooks, Hannah, 102 “Brother Webb’s Cooper” (slave), 109 Brown, Joanna, 119 Brown, Nicholas, 177 Brown, Nicholas, Jr., 119 Buck Marsh Church court, 146 Buck Mountain Church, 137 Buck, Thomas, 161 Buckingham County, 38, 49 Buckingham meeting, 131 Bucks County, 16, 26, 34 Burkloe, Samuel, 30, 96 Burleigh Church, 33–34 Burlington Township, New Jersey, 13 Burns, John, 102 Burruss’s meetinghouse, 100, 107, 139, 124 Byrd, William III, 151

Index Caban (slave), 107 Calvinists, Calvinism, 8, 46, 49. See also Regular Baptists; Particular Baptists Camisards, 52 Canoebrook Church, 93, 124 Cape May, New Jersey, 26, 29, 84 Caroline County, 43, 49,171 Cason, Edward, 94 “Cason, Sister,” 94 Carter, Bill, 66 Carter, Frances, 119 Carter, George, 167 Carter, John, 167 Carter, Landon, 141 Carter, Robert “Councillor,” 45, 119, 167–69; ecumenical sponsorship of, 49; and fellowship, 164; on slavery, 144 “Carter, Sister,” 122 Cary, Archibald, 42 Cate (slave), 137 Catlett, Peter, 139 Cesar (slave), 107 Chappawamsic Church, 47, 106; becomes biracial, 139–40; and black members, 138; rights of women at, 124 Charles (slave), 107 Charles City County, 171 Charles I, 9 Charleston, South Carolina, 26, 171 Chastain, Rane, 75, 82 Chester County, 19, 22, 34, 71, 87, 99, 115; and Davis controversy, 16; and laying on of hands, 16 Chesterfield Baptist Church, 40 Chesterfield County, 33, 40, 41–42, 121 Chestnut Ridge Church, 25, 34 Christ Church, Philadelphia, 19 Christiana River, 22, 77 Church of England. See Anglican Church Church, Mary, 84 Clark, Kitty, 121 Clark, Sarah, 122 Clay, Eleazar, 145 Clay, John, 168 Clay, Margaret Meuse, 121 Clayton, Thomas, 16, 19 Clegg, Richard, 176 Clergy, 3, 24, 160–61; and collegial guidance, 167–68; companionship, 171; hiring of, 115; masculine and Christian attributes

259

combined in, 166, 173–74; ordination of, 89; regional differences among, 75; shortages of, 170; training of, 165, 166; unlicensed, 160; and white men, 164. See also itinerant ministers; under individual names Coan meeting, 122 Cohansey church, 22, 23, 25, 116 Cole, LeRoy, 50 Cole, Mary, 106 Colley, Ben, 149 Collins, Christopher, 69, 118 Communion, 73, 74, 85, 89; closed, 4, 8; meetings of preparation, 80; open, 8; primary church rite, 53 Compton, Rubin, 98 Congregational church, 169 Conner, John, 122 Conversion, converts, 5, 52, 62, 80, 111, 163; drama of, 69; emotional release for new believer, 61; examination of, 59; male, 67–68; narratives, 75–76, 179; process of, 57–58, 64; and ritual, 72, 83; and spiritual contemplation, 68–69; of white men, 6, 7, 64, 65, 181. See also Women Conviction, 57, 58, 59, 62, 70 Cook, Charles, 142 Cook, Joseph, 55 Corbin, Hannah Lee, 36, 61, 114, 115 Cornet, James, 108 Cornog, Sarah, 116 Corporeality. See Body Cox, Massy, 115 Cox, Nicholas, 31 Craig, James, 67 Craig, Lewis, 38, 55, 57 Craig family, 67 Cranbury, New Jersey, 26 Cresswell, Nicholas, 37 Cromwell, Oliver, 9 Cubby, Mary, 105 Cubit, Amos (black preacher), 146–47 Culpeper County, 35, 41, 45, 47 Cumberland County, 116 Cunningham, Henry, 152 Cyrus (slave), 67, 107 “Daddy Gumby,” 164 Dan River meeting, Virginia, 74 Daniel (slave), 139 Danvers, Henry, 8

260

Index

Daphney (slave), 114 Darby, Nancy, 115 Davenports church, 152 David, Catalina, 82 Davies, Samuel, 66, 127 Davis controversy, 17, 24. See also Davis, William Davis, Elizabeth, 17 Davis, Elnathan, 37, 39, 55, 57, 58, 66 Davis, Hugh, 82 Davis, John, 75 Davis, Jonathan, 111 Davis, Mary, 71 Davis, Samuel, 31 Davis, William, 14, 15–17 Deaconesses, 121 Deacons, 9, 15, 30 Decoundry, Israel (black preacher), 152 Delaney, John, 40 Delaware Indians, 170 Delaware River, 77 Delaware Valley Baptists, 19, 22, 87, 157, 170, 181; black Baptists in, 135, 152–53; and laying on of hands, 20, 21, 87; immigrants to, 11; irregular clergy in, 24; migration to Virginia from, 34; network developed by, 4; religious diversity in, 29 Difficult Church, 124–25 Dinah (slave), 140 Dipper, John (black preacher) 147 Disciples of Christ, 133 Discipline, 5, 70, 90–92, 109–10, 111, 180. See also Baptist Church courts Dover Association, 85, 147, 150 Downing, James, 138, 164 Dozier, Richard, 36–37 Drown, Solomon, 177 Drury, Joseph, 105 “Dry christening,” 73, 74 Dunkers, 11 Dupuy, James, 67 Dupuy, John, 67 Early, John, 49 Eaton, George, 84 Eaton, Isaac, 30, 96, 165, 166 Eaton, Margot, 101 Eaton, Peter, 84 Edmund (slave), 67 Edwards, Alexander, 68

Edwards, Enoch, 59, 61, 68, 162 Edwards, Evan, 68, 167 Edwards, Jonathan, 60, 63, 118 Edwards, Jordan, 138 Edwards, Marshall, 64 Edwards, Morgan, 30–31, 46–47, 121, 134; on education of ministers, 174; on Keach, 12–13; on rituals, 74–75, 81, 87; sermons, 173; on washing the saints’ feet, 85; woman suffrage opposed by, 127 Edwards, Thomas, 9 Elect, The, election (doctrine of), 37, 46, 117 Elizabethtown, New Jersey, 25 Elkhorn Association, 47 Emancipations (of slaves), 114 Emotions, 64, 68, 162–63, 172 Encapsulation, 54 England, 12, 14; Baptists in, 8, 9; connection with America, 177 English Civil War, 9 Essex County, 113, 171 Esther (slave), 114 Evan, Morgan, 11 Evangelicals, evangelicalism, 7, 27, 29, 60, 89; African Americans impacted by, 141, 149; and conversions, 179; differentiate between emotion and reason, 62–63; egalitarian message of, 164; emotional excesses, 64; genderless religious ideal, 64; males and, 65–67, 156, 161, 163, 164, 165; meetings, 39, 55, 56, 79, 134; metaphors of, 63; ministers, 29, 160, 173; opposition to, 28, 41, 64–65; physical expression employed by, 63; preaching, 1; on slavery, 142; in Virginia, 33; women impacted by, 114. See also Corporeality Evans, Lettice, 116 Fairfax County, 41 Fairfield, Connecticut, 26 Fall Creek Church, 74 Fauquier County, 35, 39–40, 50, 114, 171 Fellowship of children. See “Dry christening” Female Seminary Society of Winchester, 116 Fifth Monarchists, 9, 11 First African Baptist Church, Boston, 151 First Baptist Church of Philadelphia, 122, 151, 153 Fluvanna County, 169 Foster, Esther, 118 Francis, Henry, 152

Index “Frank, Brother,” 146 Franky (slave), 106 Frederick County, 34, 80, 86, 113, 160; itinerant preachers in, 35; persecution of Baptists in, 50–51 Frederick Parish, 45 Fredericksburg, Virginia, 171 Free Africa Society, 136 Freehold, New Jersey, 170 Freeman, Dianna, 113 Freewill Baptists, 133 Frey, Sylvia, 144 Friends to Humanity, 144 Fristoe, Daniel, 56, 79 Fristoe, William, 48 Gano, Daniel, 177 Gano, John, 30, 34, 170, 176; Church court proceedings against, 96–97; conversion of, 29, 163 Gardener, Ann, 117 Gardiner, Cato (black preacher), 150 Gardner, Ethelred, 98–99 Garthwright, Judith, 90 Gatch, Philip, 49 Gender, 6, 7, 92, 180–81; and church courts, 103; distinctions, 111. See also Men; Women General Baptists, 12, 74; follow Arminius, 8; leadership of, 9; in Maryland, 34; 1660 Confession of Faith, 8; in Virginia, 33 General Committee of Virginia, 143 George (black preacher), 146 George, David (black preacher), 67, 76, 172 German Pietists, 14, 15 German Reformed church, 11 Germantown, Pennsylvania, 11 Gibbons, John, 163 Giberne, Isaac, 44 Gilbert (slave), 149 Gill, John, 30, 124, 177–78 Gillfield African meeting, Petersburg, 122, 109, 151 Gilliam, Thomas, Sr., 108 Goochland County, 37, 41 Goodman, Betsy, 90 Goodman, Thomas, Sr., 146 Goose Creek Church, 77, 85–86, 90, 97, 131 Gordon, William, 177 Goshen Association, 146 Gospel of Justification, The (Mather), 116

261

Grace, Sally, 106 Great Awakening, 4, 5, 27, 36; black membership impacted by, 29, 136; connections among evangelicals encouraged by, 29; women impacted by, 120–21, 125 “Great Bett,” 106 Great Valley Church, 92, 22, 170; gift to, 115; feminization of, 131 Green, James, 79 Green, Nancy, 79 Green, William, 45 Greenbrier church, 146, 150 Greenwood, James, 168, 170, 171, 172 Griffin, Anthony, 104–5 Griffith, Benjamin, 22, 30, 34 Griffith, Eleanor, 106 Griffith, Thomas, 22 Grimes, Lucy, 140 Guildford County, North Carolina, 34 Guinea’s Bridge meetinghouse, 77, 171 Gum, Eleanor, 97 Hall, David, 95 Halsey, Ichabod Benton, 101 Hamblet, James, 98 Hampshire County, Virginia, 34, 159 “Hannah, Sister,” 106 Hanover circuit, 49 Hanover County, 168, 169, 171 Harris, Abigail, 59, 68, 69, 117, 118–19; and “holy walking,” 72; and women’s meetings, 112, 121 Harris, Samuel, 33, 37, 61, 81, 169; and bodily movement, 54–55; conversion of, 58; as itinerant preacher, 41 Harris, William, 68 Harrison, Hannah, 122 Harrison, Margaret, 139 Harrison, Sally, 117 Harry (slave), 135 Hart, Ann, 60 Hart, Oliver, 26, 68, 167, 168, 172; collegial relationships of, 172; and Great Awakening, 29 Hatchet, Hannah, 114 Hathaway, Nancy, 122 Hays, Edward, 34 Heart, “heart religion,” 60–61, 65, 91 Heath, Rhonda, 76 “Heaton, Mrs.,” 120 Heaton, Samuel, 120

262

Index

Helwys, Thomas, 8 Henley, Samuel, 42 Henrico County, 171 Henry, Patrick, 42 Hepzibah Church, 53, 99 Hewes, Josiah, 177 Hickman, William, 38, 114, 163 High Hills Church, 54, 96, 130 Hightstown church, 163 History of New England Baptists, The (Backus), 118 Hobbs, Elizabeth, 116 Holcombe, Henry, 153 Holy Ghost, Holy Spirit, 21, 60, 62 Holy walking, 72, 90, 157 Hopewell Academy, New Jersey, 165, 166, 171 Hopewell church, 29 Hopewell, New Jersey, 116 Hough, Edith, 122 Hough, Isaac, Jr., 87 House of Burgesses, Virginia, 141 Howells, David, 167, 177 Howley, Sarah, 60, 119 Hughes, Phebe, 115 Hughes, Philip, 49, 50 Humphrey (slave), 139 Immersion. See Baptism Imposition of hands. See Laying on of hands Independents, 7, 11, 14, 16 Infant baptism. See Baptism Ireland, 12 Ireland, James, 38, 39, 47, 58, 160, 161; itinerant, 35; on male evangelicals, 66, 164; salvation and masculinity, 162 Iron Hill Brook, 77 Isaac (slave), 140 Isle of Wight County, 106 Itinerant ministers, 41, 47, 178; collegial relationships fostered by, 172; endurance required by, 169–70. See also under individuals Jacob (slave; Mill Swamp church), 107 Jacob (slave; Boar Swamp church), 140 James (slave), 138 James City, 171 James River, 77 James, Joseph, 104 James, Mary, 115

Jarratt, Devereux, 50 Jelly, Henry, 104 Jenkins, Nathaniel, 25 Jesus, The Crucified Man, The Eternal Son of God (Davis), 17 Jeter, Jeremiah, 57, 58, 68, 171; conversion of, 67, 179; on evangelical religion, 66; use of metaphor, 63 Jim (slave), 137 Joe (slave), 138 “Joe, Brother” (slave), 146 “John Rivers’ Betty” (slave), 109 Johnson, Fanny, 114 Johnson, Joseph, 114 Johnson, Moses (slave), 136, 152 Johnson, Rebeckah, 114, 139 Jones, David, 88, 105, 115, 165, 168; chaplain in Continental Army, 170; on laying on of hands, 87; repeats sermons, 170 Jones, Isaac, Esq., 31 Jones, Jenkin, 27, 29, 84, 156 Jones, John, 140 “Jones, Major,” 67 “Jones, Mrs. William,” 67 Jones, Samuel, 30, 68, 87, 88, 118, 167, 168, 176; and continental association, 175; attends Hopewell Academy, 165, 166; itinerancy of 26, 169; sermons, 173; on slavery, 144 Jones, Stronger, 139 Jones, Thomas, 68 Jones, William, 67 Jupiter (slave), 141 Juster, Susan, 63 “Kain, Parson,” 44 Keach, Benjamin, 8, 12 Keach, Elias, 12, 13 Kehukee Association, 85, 130, 141 Kehukey Church, North Carolina, 74 Keith, George, 14, 15 Keithians, Keithian controversy, 14–15, 16, 18, 89 Kelsay, Robert, 173 Kentucky, 35, 47, 169, 170 Kerrill, Lucretia, 122 Ketocton Association, 26, 84, 88; on abolition, 142–43; washing the saints’ feet at, 85 Kezia (slave), 113 “Kidd, Sister,” 122 King George County, 171

Index King and Queen County, 168, 169 King William County, 168, 169, 171 Kingston, Jamaica, 151 Kingwood, New Jersey, 29 Kinnersley, Ebenezer, 27–28, 30, 156 Kinnersley, William, 75, 83 Kiss of charity, 73, 89 Klepius, Johannes, 11 Laity, 13, 28, 130; activism among, 29; in Baptist church, 71; power of, 87; and ritual, 81–82; role under Edwards, 30. See also Men; Women Lambe, Thomas, 8 Lancaster County meeting, 34 Lane, Dutton, 56 Lane, Tilden, 55–56 “Lawrence, Brother,” 138 Laying on of hands, 73, 74, 75, 82, 89; and baptism, 88; controversy over, 8, 20, 21; and PBA, 87; at Pennepek church, 13 Lee, John, 98 Lee, William, 44, 141 “Leet, Mrs.,” 119 Leland, John, 39, 59, 171, 176; on abolition, 143, 144; on African Americans, 66; on baptism, 76–77, 79; conversion process of, 60, 65, 162; General Assembly of Massachusetts addressed by, 175; preaching tour of, 37, 168–69; sermons, 173, 174 Lemon (slave), 107 Lemon, William (black preacher), 147 Letty (slave), 107 Levellers, 9 Lewis (black preacher), 146 Liele, George (black preacher), 148 “Line, Sister,” 117 Line singing, 30, 31 Linville’s Creek meeting, 34, 139; black membership of, 137; blessing of children used by, 74; female members of, 122; oversight of members, 87; rituals of, 86 Little River meeting, 50 Littlejohn, John, 49 Locust, John (slave), 100 Lomax, Judith, 119 London Confession of Faith (1644), 9, 23, 25 London Particular Baptists, 12 Lord’s Supper, 13, 26, 75 Loudon County, 26, 50, 159

263

Louisa County, 47 Love feast, 73, 80–81, 85, 89 Loveall, Henry, 24–25, 34 Loveall controversy, 34 Lower Dublin Church, 13, 64, 77, 169; established, 14; exclusion rate of, 109; feminization of, 131; gift from women, 115; and laying on of hands, 21 Lower Dublin Township, 12, 16 Lower South River Church, 46 Loxley, Benjamin, 61 Loxley, Catharine, 122 Lucy (slave), 107 Lummers (slave), 107 Lunsford, Lewis, 49, 163 Lutherans, 9, 11 Lyle’s church, 114, 137, 146 Lyons Farms Church, 64 Macay, Margaret, 61, 119 Mackaness, Thomas, 176 Madison, James, 42 Major (slave), 138 Major, Richard, 159 Manhood, masculinity, 7, 67, 156–58, 166, 173; manly Christian, 160–64 Manning, James, 25, 167, 170, 171, 178; abolitionist, 142; clergy network of, 176, 177; and continental association, 175; and clergy, 165, 168; as itinerant, 169; president of Rhode Island College, 166; and Rhode Island association meeting, 26 Mansfield, New Jersey, 76 Margaret (slave), 113 Marks, John, 30, 35 Marshall, Daniel, 34, 52, 79 Marshall, Martha Stearns, 34, 121 Martin, Margery, 113 Martin, Thomas, 15, 17 Mason, Elizabeth, 97 Mather, Cotton, 116 Mattox, Nancy, 99 Maury, James, 44 McClanahan, Elizabeth, 117 McClanahan, Peter, 117 McLeod, John, 122 McRoberts, Archibald, 44 Meditations (Harvey), 118 Meeker, Jonathan, 104 Meherrin church, 114, 142

264

Index

“Meldrun, Parson,” 44 Men, 6, 156, 157, 158, 183; authority of, 129; black, 6; bodies of, 104; camaraderie of, 165–67; and conversion, 64, 65, 161, 162; laity, 13, 29; networks, 164, 177–78; patriarchal role of, 104. See also clergy Mennonites, 8, 11 Mercer, Silas, 119 Methodists, Methodism, 11, 29, 36, 49, 52, 61, 88, 122; corporeal spirituality of, 52; and Great Awakening, 29, 36; and itinerant ministers, 169 Middle Association, 102 Middlesex County, 41, 45, 160 Middleton (Middletown) church of New Jersey, 23, 26, 62, 97, 105, 134, 170; black members of, 135; and PBA, 2 Middleton, East Jersey, 12 Miles, Richard, 21 Mill Creek meeting, 25, 130 Mill Swamp church, 34; and black membership, 137; rights of women at, 124 Miller, Alexander, 50 Miller, Benjamin, 29 Milley (slave), 139 Millin, Benjamin, 139 Monmouthshire, England, 22 Montague, James, 41 Montanists, 52 Montgomery church, 23–24, 34, 113, 115, 169 “Moor’s Bess” (slave), 109 Moore, Ann, 118 Moore, Jeremiah, 35, 41, 161 Moore, John, 100 Moore, Joshua, 29, 30 Morattico church, 45, 117, 138; and black members, 136; feminization of, 131, 132 Moravians, 157 Morgan, Abel, Jr., 26, 29, 83 Morgan, Magdalen, 110–11 Morgan, Samuel, 29–30, 84 Morton, Elijah, 45 “Morton, Mrs.,” 122 Moses (slave), 107 Moses (black preacher), 147 Moulder, Rebecca, 57 Mount, Lydia, 105 Mt. Poney meeting, 148 Muggletonians, 11 Mulkey, Philip, 55, 57, 67–68, 162–63, 167–68

Munings, Mary, 83 Münster Anabaptists, Münster rebellion, 9, 43, 44 Murphy, William, 36 Nansemond County, 100 Nant yr Ewig (brook), 77 Nayler, James, 56 Ned (slave), 138 Nero (slave), 107, 138 New Britain, Pennsylvania, 169 New Canton, Pennsylvania, 121 New Jersey, 25, 29, 31, 34, 112, 116 New Jersey College, 25, 166 New Light, 38, 44, 46, 141, 156; itinerants, 40–41; called “Moonlights,” 36; preaching, 27 Newcastle, Delaware, 122 Newcastle County, 21 Newton, John, 162 Newtown, Chester County, 19 Noble, Abel, 17 Noflet, David, 152 Nomini Church, 45, 120 Nomini Hall plantation, 49 Nordin, Robert, 33 Northern Neck, Virginia, 47, 79, 120, 164, 169, 171; Anglican opposition to Baptists in, 44, 45; black Baptists, 134; revival in, 138 Northrop, Eleanor, 115 Northumberland County, 138, 169 Nottoway River, 77 Oath taking, 8, 19 Occoquan meeting, Prince William County, 113 Ony (slave), 138 Opequon meeting, 25, 34 Orange County, Virginia, 35, 41, 45, 160 Orange County Court, 45 Overton, John (slave), 139 Oyster Bay, New York, 26 Pacifism, 8, 19, 157 Palmer, Paul, 25 Pamphlet, Gowan (black preacher), 152 “Parker’s Daniel” (slave), 109 Parry, Mary (slave), 113, 134 Particular Baptists, 8, 74. See also Regular Baptists Patty (slave), 113

Index Paul, Thomas (black preacher), 150 PBA, 4, 24, 33, 34, 47, 152; and American Revolution, 175; black members, 152; and clergy training, 168; church courts, 123; denominational policy set by, 26; on emancipation of slaves, 142, 155; founded, 22, 32; functions of, 23; Hopewell Academy supported by, 165; and laying on of hands, 87–88; London Confession of Faith adopted by, 87; and Loveall issue, 25; and race relations, 153; on Simmons case, 154; on washing the saints’ feet, 85; Welsh ministers impact, 22, 87; and women franchise, 125, 126, 127 Peckworth, John, 122 Peggy (slave), 106 Pembrokeshire, England, 22 Penn, William, 10, 11, 13 Pennepek church, 17, 18, 21, 26, 84, 101, 113, 116; and abolition, 155; church court of, 19–20; discipline at, 110; established, 13; Jones pastor at, 166; and Keithians, 15; and PBA, 22; Philadelphia meeting separates from, 29; politics within, 84, 169; women at, 118. See also Davis, William; Keach, Elias; Lower Dublin church Pennepek Creek, 12, 77 Pennsylvania Abolition Society, 36 Pennsylvania Baptist church, 3, 180; on abolition, 145; black membership in, 132, 135; feminization of, 131, 132; gendered experience of white men in, 156, 157, 158; monitor marital practices, 101–2 Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Gradual Emancipation of Slavery, 142 Pergoe’s meetinghouse, 137 Perry, Judith, 122 Perry, Lucy, 122 Petersburg African Church, 121–22 Petersburg, Virginia, 150, 152 Pew fees, 30, 115 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 26, 169; Baptist relationship with Presbyterians, 4, 18; Davis preaches in, 16 Philadelphia Baptist Association. See PBA Philadelphia Baptist church, 13, 14, 19, 96; black members, 135–36, 152, 151; and laying on of hands, 21; revivalism in, 156; on slavery, 142, 154; and women franchise, 127 Philadelphia College, 166

265

Philadelphia Confession of Faith, 48 Philadelphia Meeting of Ministers, 14 “Philadelphia Plan,” 25, 26 Philadelphia Society, 11 Philadelphia tradition, 182 Philip (slave), 139 Pickett, John, 44, 160 “Pierce, Captain,” 67 Pierce, Patty, 120 Pierce, Peggy, 120 Pierce, Ransdell, 67, 120 Pierce, Sarah, 57, 120 Pierson, Esther, 96 Pietists, 11 Pilgrim’s Progress (Bunyan), 118 Piney Branch meeting, 148 Piper Creek Church, 80 Piscataway Church, 22, 25, 99, 107 Piscataway, New Jersey, 170 Pitman, James, 42 Pitman, John, 163 Pitts, Susannah, 105 Pitts, Winifred, 105 Pittsgrove meeting, 116 Pittstown Church, 123 Pittsylvania County, 38, 50, 74, 159 Pompey (slave), 100, 107 Port Royal, 171 Portsmouth Association, 102–3, 147, 152 Portsmouth, Virginia, 100 “Posey, General,” 67 “Posey, Mrs.,” 67 Potomac River, 77 Potter, Agga, 122 Potts, Anna, 119 Powell, Elizabeth, 71, 95, 118 Powell, Joseph, 71 Powell, Martha, 119 Powell, Mary, 71 Powhatan County, 49 Preaching, 80, 172; extemporaneous, 174; tours, 170–71. See also sermons Preaching competitions, 49–50 “Preaching Dick” (black preacher), 149 Predestination, 8, 46 Presbyterians, Presbyterian church, 18, 20, 36, 50, 116, 117; converts to, 49; and Davis controversy, 16; in Delaware Valley, 11; Great Awakening, 29; New Light, 28 Price, Susannah Gano, 121

266

Index

Priestley, Joseph, 176 Prince William County, 114 Pritchard, Elizabeth, 105 Providence, Rhode Island, 25 Psalms, 13 Public Friends, 14 Puritans, 7, 8 Quakers, 3, 13, 16, 31, 50, 52, 181; in Delaware, 11; Keithian controversy and, 14, 15; pacifism of, 157; role of women, 124 Race, 153; polygenesis, 104; segregation, 149–50, 164, 182, 183 Racoon Swamp church, 54, 77, 106; black membership in, 132; discipline rate at, 110: exclusion rate of, 109; women’s rights at, 124 Ralph (slave), 168 Ramsay, Julia, 100 Rappahannock River, 77 Ray, Susannah, 122 Read, James, 169 Reading, James, 159 Rebecca (slave), 140 Redstone Association, 85 Regular Baptists, 12, 34, 49, 89, 171; and laying on of hands, 74; licenses for ministers, 41; PBA organization, 25; and Separate Baptists, 46, 47; Toler as, 37; in Virginia, 35, 46, 48; women take leadership role in, 122 Regular Baptists Ketocton Association, 46, 47, 48 Religious Affection (Edwards), 118 Religious persecution, 4, 41, 42, 50–51, 157, 175 Religious toleration, 11, 13–14, 157, 175 Revivals, revivalism, 6, 27, 36, 140, 156, 171. See also Great Awakening Rhode Island College, 26, 165, 167, 174, 177; clergy training at, 168; Manning becomes president of, 166. See also Manning, James Richards, William, 176 Richardson, John, 139 Richmond County, 169 Richmond, Virginia, 147, 150 Right hand of fellowship, 73, 74, 81, 86, 87, 89 Rippon, John, 118, 177, 178 Rituals, ritual performance, 5, 70, 80, 111, 172; Christian, 73–74; controversy over, 8, 20–21, 56, 85, 87–88; and corporeal spirituality, 72;

orthodoxy of, 74; and self-identity, 83–84. See also under individual rituals Roads, Abigail, 117 Roads, Ruth, 117 Roadstown meeting, 118 Roanoke Baptist Association, 142, 143 Roanoke District Association, 43, 130, 174–75 Roberts, James, 159, 160 Robertson, Norvell, 37–39, 40; and biracial churches, 145; and conversion process, 59–60, 62, 119, 162; sermons, 173 Rogers, William, 142, 167, 168 Roman Catholics, 9, 11 Rose (slave), 138 Rowland, John, 28 Rutter, Thomas, 14, 17 Sabra (slave), 107 Salem African meetinghouse, 152 Salem Baptist Church, 117 Salem County, New Jersey, 116, 121 Samuel (slave), 134 Sandy Beach church, 151, 152 Sandy Creek church, 34 Sansom Street church, 153 Saunders, Nathaniel, 37, 41, 45, 160 Savannah, Georgia, 151, 152 Saylor Creek, 85 Schools, George, 67 Schuylkill River, 77 Schwenkfelders, 11 Scotch Plains church, 77, 96, 98, 105, 117; biracial church, 136: deaconesses in, 122; gifts to from women, 115 Seabrook, James, 97 Segwick, George, 140 Self, selfhood, 68–69; subjectivity, 91 Semple, Robert, 135, 169 Separate Baptists, 7, 8, 47, 49; and laying on of hands, 74; ministers of, 35, 41, 171; North Carolina association of, 48; rituals used by, 81; in Virginia, 46, 48: women take leadership role in, 121, 122 Sermons, 172–74 Sethrage, Susannah, 106 Seventh Day Baptist church, 19, 23, 169 Shakers, 52 Shenandoah County, 35, 47 Shenandoah River, 86 Shenandoah Valley, 34

Index Shepherd, Mary, 20 Shields, Hannah, 115 Shippen Township Church, 92 Shoulder’s Hill meeting, 105, 106 Simmons, Edward, 153–54 Skillman, Isaac, 165 Slaves, slavery, 103, 137; American Revolution impacts, 142; Baptists resistant to, 142–45; christianizing, 141; church courts used by, 139, 140; marriages, 102–3, 106–7; religious freedom inhibited by, 123; runaway, 107; sale or forced removal of, 113–14. See also African Americans Smalley, Henry, 79, 117 Smith, Elihu, 95 Smith, Hezekiah, 79, 165, 167, 173–74; and persecution of Boston Baptists, 175; preaching tour of, 170, 171; and women, 119, 121 Smith, Owen, 38 Smith, Thomas, 44–45 Smyth, John, 7–8, 9 Sobel, Mechal, 148 Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, 141 Society of Friends. See Quakers South Quay Church, 86, 98, 106; and black membership, 137, 138; on black preachers, 147; discipline rate at, 110 Southampton Church, 26, 87, 120, 168, 169, 170; black membership of, 135; feminization of, 131; Jones pastor at, 166 Spotsylvania County, 41, 45 St. Mark’s Parish, 45 Stafford County, Virginia, 56 Stancliff, John, 167 Stanford, John, 173, 176, 177 Staughton, William, 153, 154 Stearns, Shubal, 34, 39, 56, 171 Stelle, Isaac, 30 Stennett, Samuel, 177 “Stephen, Brother” (black preacher) 146 Steptoe, Elizabeth, 115 Steward, John, 39 Stillman, Samuel, 30, 115, 142, 170, 176 Strange, Mildred, 138 Strawberry Association, 88, 137, 143 “Strong, Sister,” 76 Sukey (slave), 113 Sullivan, Hannah, 118 Surry County, Virginia, 33

267

Sussex County, Virginia, 42, 54 Sutton, David, 165 Swedenborgians, 154 Swift, Samuel, 84 Talbot, Brother, 139 Talbot, James, 166 Talliaferro, Zechariach, 45 Tamar (slave), 137 Tarrant, Carter, 144 Taylor, Jane, 57 Taylor, John, 6, 46, 47, 64, 96, 159, 160; conversion of, 1, 38, 39, 52, 57, 161; laying on of hands by, 82; metaphor used by, 63 Templeman, Samuel, 149 Tennent, Gilbert, 29 Third Baptist Church of Savannah, 152 Thomas, Catherine, 118 Thomas, David (“Daddy”), 26, 50, 77, 160, 165, 171; Baptist theology explained by, 43–44; on church courts, 94; on conversion, 63; itinerant preaching of, 35; metaphor usage, 63; violence against, 159 Thomas, Owen, 82 Thomas, Spencer, 150 Thomas, Susanna, 12 Thompson, Amos, 50, 159 Tinsley, David, 40 Toler, Henry, 38, 60, 76, 115, 120, 172, 176; collegiality and, 170, 171; on manliness, 164; ministry of, 79, 163; preaching tour of, 37; rumination important to, 68; training of, 168–69 Tom (slave), 99–100 Tomahawk Church, 95 Trabue, Daniel, 38, 39, 57, 61 Tredyfrrin meeting house, 77 Trible, Andrew, 115 Trinity Church, 15 Truax, Philip, 98 Tucker, Deborah, 117 “Uncle Jack” (black preacher), 55, 60, 146 Universalism, universalists, 88, 116, 117, 154 Upper Freehold Church, 97 Upper Goose Creek Church, 107 Upper King and Queen County Church, 100, 113, 136, 146, 151 Upper Providence, Chester County, 14, 19 Upperville Church, 136

268

Index

Ustick, Susan, 118 Ustick, Thomas, 173, 176 Van Horn, Peter, 30 Van Horn, William, 87, 168 Vaughn, Elder Joshua, 71 Vaux, Samuel, 12 Vick, Noel, 145 Vincent church, 155 Virginia, 35, 170, 171; campaign for religious freedom, 4, 32; House of Burgesses, 35–36, 42; immigration to, 34; Baptist preachers licensed, 40; and washing the saints’ feet, 85 Virginia Baptist churches, 3, 180; black membership in, 102, 132, 136, 152–53; feminization of, 131–32; gendered experience of white men in, 156, 157, 158; on slavery, 144, 145; violence against, 158, 160 Virginia Gazette, 42, 43 Virginian Baptist, The (Thomas), 43 Waddell, James, 38 Wales, Welshmen, 11, 12, 22, 32 Walker, Jeremiah, 42, 172 Waller, John, 39, 75, 124, 171; and anointing with oil, 82; arrested, 41, 55, 160; and black Baptists, 137; evangelical efforts, 49; support for, 45 Wallin, Benjamin, 176, 177 Wansel, Richard, 17 Ware, James, 42 Warren Association, 26 Washing of the saints’ feet, 8, 26, 73, 81, 85, 86, 89 Waterlick Church, 47, 99; black membership of, 139, 146; court of, 105, 140; monetary gift from women, 115 Watts, John, 13, 15, 16–17 Watts, Stephen, 31, 166 “Watts, Widow,” 115 Webber, William, 41, 173 Weeks, William, 104 Wells, George, 139 Welsh Tract, 82 Welsh Tract Baptist Church, 20–22, 26, 98, 104, 105, 106; and baptism, 77; clergy of, 26; court of, 93; discipline at, 110; and PBA, 22. See also Laying on of hands Wescott, George, 31

West, Ignatius, 104 Western Baptist Association of England, 177 Westmoreland County, 49, 169, 171 Westmoreland County church, 45, 115–16 Wheelor, Sarah, 122–23 White, Thomas, 33 Whitefield, George (Grand Evangelist), 27, 29, 36, 120–21; on African Americans, 66; ecumenical style of, 28; sermons of, 118 “Whitelock, Sister,” 115 Wicomico church, 53; black membership in, 132, 137–38; segregation in, 150 Wiley, Allen, 47 Williams, Jane, 105 Williams, John, 56, 61, 96; preaching of, 55, 79; on washing the saints’ feet, 81, 85 Williamsburg, Virginia, 152 “Williamson, Mrs.,” 117 Willis, Henry, 49 Wilson, Peter, 163 Winchester, Elhanan, 59, 142 Winchester, Virginia, 34 Winsted, Molly, 122 Witt, Daniel, 67, 171 Women, 6, 120, 132, 182–83; associations and meetings of, 117–18, 120–21 130; black, 6, 113–14; bodies of, 65, 103; and church courts, 103, 105, 122–23; clergy supported by, 115–16; and conversion, 64, 112–13; devotional culture of, 118; and discipline, 109, 110; governance role of, 112; laity, 20; limitations on, 123; pious literature read by, 118, 119; position in church, 128–29; religious equality of, 113, 123; and revivalism, 125; rights of, 123, 124; sexuality of, 106; suffrage, 28, 125–27, 129–32; white, 6, 105, 113, 120; write letters, 119, 123, 129 Wood, Katherine, 20 Woodberry plantation, 115 Woodfork, Richard, 123 Woodrow, Henry, 29, 30, 31, 84 Worth, William, 116 Wright, John, 50 Yates, Thomas, 34 Yeocomico church, 54, 134 York (slave), 140 York County, 169, 171 Yuerkes, Mary, 122

Acknowledgments

The support of many people and institutions made this publication possible. I need to thank Rowan University for providing internal funding and release time to work on this book. Fellowships from a number of institutions also supported my research: the University of Minnesota, the John Carter Brown Center, the Virginia Historical Society, and the McNeil Center for Early American Studies. I want to express my gratitude to the staff at several historical societies and archives that provided invaluable help: the American Baptist Historical Society, the Virginia Baptist Historical Society, the Virginia Historical Society, the Library Company of Philadelphia, the Library of Virginia, the Pennsylvania Historical Society, the New Jersey Historical Society, the Rhode Island Historical Society, and the John Hay Library and John Carter Brown Library at Brown University. I wish to thank the editors of the American History and Culture series of the University of Pennsylvania Press, Dan Richter and Kathy Brown, for their enthusiastic support. I wish to especially thank Kathy for her penetrating comments on the manuscript. The careful and incisive reviews provided by the two outside readers also greatly improved the book. Bob Lockhart at the University of Pennsylvania Press helped me navigate the process from proposal to final publication with good humor and great advice. Alison Anderson provided invaluable help copyediting the final version of the manuscript. I would also like to thank Dick Scott in the Geography/Anthropology Department at Rowan University for his assistance in creating the map. My advisors in graduate school, Sara Evans and Rus Menard, deserve my deepest gratitude for the rich education they provided in women’s history and early American history during my years at the University of Minnesota. Other faculty who also contributed to my knowledge include Roland Dellatre, John Howe, M.J. Maynes, David Noble, Lisa Norling, Jean O’Brien, Riv-Ellen Prell, and Steve Ruggles. I want to recognize some friends who made graduate school enjoyable and the work meaningful: Susan Cahn, Liz Faue, Steve Gross, Mary Hedberg, John Sayer, Nancy Shoemaker, Lucy Simler, Ed Tebbenhoff, and Ruth Townsend. I also want to express my thanks to friends and colleagues who have supported and critiqued my scholarship

270

Acknowledgments

over the years, including Dee Andrews, David Applebaum, Catherine Brekus, Jon Butler, Konstantin Dierks, Toby Ditz, Richard Dunn, John Fea, Joyce Goodfriend, Joan Gundersen, Christine Heyrman, Charles Irons, Susan Juster, Susan Klepp, Anna Lawrence, Ann Little, John Murrin, Erik Seeman, Jean Soderlund, Michele Tarter, Joy Wiltenburg, and Mike Zuckerman. I also want to thank my family and friends for their understanding and patience during the long process of bringing this project to fruition. My siblings, stepchildren, in-laws, and grandchildren were a welcome respite when I needed a break from the eighteenth century. My book club and canasta friends also helped me keep the work in perspective. Finally, I wish to thank Ed Kelly, my wonderful partner, best friend, and superior husband. Your editorial and technical skills as well as your constant support greatly aided the completion of this book. Your fortitude in reading and re-reading seemingly endless chapters is also appreciated. Most importantly, your deep love and goofy humor make our journey through life a blissful adventure. As promised, I have never been bored.

,!7IA8B2-cebbed!