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“Female Laborers in the Church”: Women Preachers in the Northeastern United States, 1790–1840

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

Louis Billington
Louis Billington
Affiliation:
Louis Billington is Lecturer in American Studies at the University of Hull, Hull HU6 7RX. He would like to thank Rosamund Billington of Humberside College of Higher Education for her critical reading of an earlier draft of this paper which, he hopes, has enabled him to clarify and do justice to the feminist implications of women's religious activity.
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Extract

In recent years historians have emphasized the centrality of women to religious life, especially among the older Protestant denominations in the northeastern section of the United States. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, women and girls were usually the majority of attenders at prayer meetings and Sunday services, made up the bulk of converts at revivals and provided the greatest number of candidates for church membership. They were also great fund raisers not only for their own congregations, but for a network of inter-denominational missionary agencies which sprang up during the first two decades of the nineteenth century and helped to impress a more evangelical character upon American society. As Nancy Cott has argued, ministers may have seen this work as part of woman's appropriate and subordinate “sphere,” but for the women themselves “evangelical religion nourished the formation of a female community that served…as both a resource and a resort outside the family.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , December 1985 , pp. 369 - 394
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

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References

1 Welter, Barbara, “The feminization of American religion: 1800–1860” in Hartman, Mary and Banner, Lois, eds., Clio's Consciousness Raised, (New York, 1974)Google Scholar; Cott, Nancy F., The Bonds of Womanhood: “Woman's Sphere” in New England, 1780–1835 (New Haven & London, 1977), pp. 126–29Google Scholar; Cross, Whitney R., The Burned-Over District: The Social and Intellectual History of Enthusiastic Religion in Western New York, 1800–1850 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1950), p. 38Google Scholar.

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8 Marini, pp. 116–35 exaggerates the speed of this process of formalization, and he ignores women preachers throughout his study.

9 George, Carol V. R., Segregated Sabbaths: Richard Allen and the Rise of Independent Black Churches, 1760–1840 (New York, 1973), pp. 128–29Google Scholar; Lee, Jarena, Religious Experience and Journal (Philadelphia, 1849), p. 38Google Scholar. The first edition of this autobiography appeared in 1836. See also McLeister, Ira Ford and Nicholson, Roy Stephen, History of the Wesleyan Methodist Church of America (Marion, Ind., 1959), pp. 28–44Google Scholar.

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12 Marini, pp. 96–98.

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14 Dublin, Thomas, Women at Work: The Transformation of Work and Community in Lowell, Massachusetts, 1826–1860 (New York, 1979)Google Scholar is a superior recent study with an extensive bibliography. Dublin, 's Farm to Factory: Women's Letters, 1830–1860 (New York, 1981)Google Scholar brings out the centrality of religion in millworkers' lives, as does Bushman, Claudia L., “A Good Poor Man's Wife,” Being a Chronicle of Harriet Hanson Robinson and Her Family in Nineteenth Century New England (Hanover, N.H. 1981), pp. 41–63Google Scholar. For the Christians in Lowell, see Memoir of Elijah Shaw by His Daughter (Boston, 1852), pp. 217–18Google Scholar.

15 The major autobiographical, biographical and periodical sources for this analysis are cited elsewhere in these notes. For a husband-and-wife team who organized their own sect see the account of Jeremiah and Almira Bullock of Limington, Maine in Beedy, Helen Coffin, Mothers of Maine (Portland, Me, 1895), pp. 338–39Google Scholar and The Morning Star (Limerick, Me), 31 08 1836Google Scholar.

16 Livermore, Harriet, A Narrative of Religious Experience in Twelve Letters (Concord, N.H., 1826)Google Scholar; Davis, Rebecca I., Gleanings from the Merrimac Valley (Portland, Me, 1881), pp. 13–34Google Scholar; Livermore, S. T., Harriet Livermore (Hartford, Ct, 1884)Google Scholar. See also Towle, , Vicissitudes, pp. 1–20Google Scholar.

17 Burgess, Gideon A. and Ward, John T., Free Baptist Cyclopedia, Historical and Biographical (N.P., 1889), p. 148Google Scholar.

18 Davis, Almond H., The Female Preacher, pp. 20–26 and 49–53Google Scholar.

19 Jarena Lee, pp. 1–5.

20 Towle, pp. 88–89; Russell, Thomas, Record of Events in Primitive Methodism (London, 1869)Google Scholar; McLeod, Hugh, Religion and the Working Class in Nineteenth Century Britain (London, 1984), pp. 26–29Google Scholar.

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22 Hopkins, pp. 76–83.

23 See Cott, , The Bonds of Womanhood, pp 126–32Google Scholar, and Ryan, Mary P., “A Woman's Awakening: Revivalist Religion in Utica, New York, 1800–1835,” American Quarterly, 30, No. 5 (1978), 602–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for women and revivals after 1800. For the breakdown of gender divisions and later female embarrassment see Bouton, Nathaniel. Memoir of Mrs. Elizabeth McFarland (Concord, N.H., 1838), pp. 269–71Google Scholar. Elizabeth McFarland was the widow of the principal Congregational minister in Concord and very prominent in female missionary and charitable societies.

24 Memoirs of Fanny Newell Written by Herself (Springfield, Mass., 1833), 3rd ed. The quotation is on p. 83Google Scholar.

25 Ibid., pp. 84–145.

26 Allen, Stephen and Pilsbury, W. H., History of Methodism in Maine (Augusta, Me, 1887), p. 237Google Scholar; Stewart, John, Highways and Hedges: or Fifty Years of Western Methodism (Cincinnati, 1872), pp. 114–16Google Scholar; Sketches of the Life and Times of Eld. Ariel Kendrick Written by Himself (Windsor, Vt, 1850), p. 30Google Scholar.

27 Cuthbertson, Brian C. ed., The Journal of the Reverend John Payzant 1749–1854 (Hantsport, N.S., 1981), p. 44Google Scholar.

28 Marini, , Radical Sects, p. 95Google Scholar; Goen, C. C., Revivalism and Separatism in New England, 1740–1800: Strict Congregationalists and Separate Baptists in the Great Awakening (1962 reprint edition, Hamden, Conn., 1969), pp. 200–02Google Scholar shows the strength of the antinomian tradition in New England, but he writes in terms of “lawless elements” and ignores the roles of women.

29 Rawlyck, “From New Light to Baptist,” p. 21. Nova Scotia Baptists gained enormously in social standing with the conversion of a group of prominent Anglicans in 1827. This group played an important role in the foundation of a Baptist college. See Harris, Reginald V., The Church of Saint Paul in Halifax, Nova Scotia: 1749–1949 (Toronto, 1949), p. 172Google Scholar. Yet the English Wesleyan missionary Charles Churchill could still detect “deeply rooted Antinomian prejudice” in western Nova Scotia in the late 1830s. See Churchill, Charles, Memorials of Missionary Life in Nova Scotia (London, 1845), p. 37Google Scholar.

30 Davies, John, Life and Times of the Late Rev. Harris Harding (Charlottestown, P.E.I., 1866), p. 102Google Scholar.

31 Journal of Edward Manning, MS, 2 Sept. 1821, Acadia University Library, Wolfville, N.S.

32 Towle, , Vicissitudes, pp. 56–60Google Scholar; Davis, , The Female Preacher, p. 103Google Scholar. Elias Smith, one of the founders of the Christians, was writing to the Maritimes as early as 1801. See Smith to Edward Manning, Portsmouth, N.H., 29 Oct. 1801, Correspondence of Edward Manning, MS, Acadia University Library, Wolfville, N.S. The Quaker evangelist Joseph Hoag found popular and able women preachers among the New Lights in the St. John river valley of New Brunswick and Maine around 1801, but their employment produced much controversy and was linked by many to the rejection of a paid ministry. See Hoag, Joseph, Journal of the Life of Joseph Hoag (London, 1862), pp. 88–105Google Scholar.

33 See, for example, Bouton, , Memoir of Elizabeth McFarland, p. 271Google Scholar. By the 1830s the evangelist Charles Finney's technique of encouraging women to pray in mixed audiences had further alarmed conservatives already worried by women preachers. See Boyd, Lois A. and Brackenridge, R. Douglas, Presbyterian Women in America: Two Centuries of a Quest for Status (Westport, Ct, 1983), pp. 93–4Google Scholar.

34 Pierce, Deborah, A Scriptural Vindication of Female Preaching, Prophesying and Exhortation (Auburn, N.Y., 1817)Google Scholar; Davis, Almond H., The Female Preacher, pp. 12–17Google Scholar; Elaw, Zilpha, Memoirs of the Life, Religious Experience and Ministerial Travels…of Mrs. Zilpha Elaw, an American Female of Colour (London, 1846), pp. 114ffGoogle Scholar.

35 Livermore, Harriet, Scriptural Evidence, p. 17Google Scholar; Pierce, p. 12; Lee, Jarena, Religious Experience, p. 11Google Scholar.

36 Pierce, pp. 3–4; Almond H. Davis, p. 38. So severely was Salome Lincoln's mind exercised on the subject of her call to preach that she wished herself damned rather than face the ordeal of a public ministry. Of course, many women succumbed to social pressures. In frontier New Brunswick, Mary Coy was converted in 1787 at the age of sixteen. As she readily admitted “if it were customary for females to preach the gospel, how gladly would I engage in the employment.” Mary felt “much shame and confusion” over the conflict between her “calling” and the restrictions placed on women. See “Mary Bradley's Reminiscences: a domestic life in colonial New Brunswick,” Atlantis, 7 (Fall 1981), 92–101Google Scholar. This consists of extracts from Mary Bradley's rare autobiography published in Boston in 1849 with a perceptive commentary. I owe this reference to Dr Susan O'Brien.

37 Almond H. Davis, pp. 13–14.

38 Towle, pp. 252–53.

39 Livermore, Harriet, Scriptural Evidence, pp. 85–110Google Scholar; Jarena Lee, p. 38.

40 Bordin, Ruth D., “The Sect to Denomination Process in America: the Freewill Baptist experience,” Church History, 34 (1965), 77–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bailey, Wesley, “Reformed Methodist Church” in Rupp, I. Daniel, ed., An Original History of the Religious Denominations at Present Existing in the United States (Philadelphia, 1844), pp. 466–68Google Scholar; Cross, Whitney R., The Burned-Over District, p. 16Google Scholar; Sawyer, Roland, The History of Kensington, New Hampshire, 1663–1945 (Farmington, Me, 1946), pp. 162–70Google Scholar. Sawyer had access to records of the local Christian church of which Harriet Livermore was a founder member. Almond H. Davis, pp. 40–41, shows Salome Lincoln moving easily between Reformed Methodists and Freewill Baptists. See also Hoag, pp. 88–89.

41 Jones, A., Memoir of Elder Abner Jones (Boston, 1842), pp. 76–81Google Scholar; Minutes of the General Conference of the Freewill Baptist Connection for 1832 (Dover, N.H., 1859), p. 80Google Scholar; Allen, and Pilsbury, , Methodism in Maine, pp. 235–72Google Scholar and passim show numerous schisms by local preachers defending the right to preach, “shout” and teach extreme perfectionist doctrines.

42 Livermore, Harriet, Scriptural Evidence, p. 120Google Scholar.

43 Christian Herald, 2 (Portsmouth, N.H.), 27 11 1819Google Scholar; Morning Star, 7 Aug. and 11 Sept. 1829; Stewart, I., History of the Freewill Baptists for Half a Century (Dover, N.H., 1862), pp. 190–91Google Scholar; Burgess, and Ward, , Free Baptist Cyclopedia, pp. 56–57Google Scholar.

44 Christian Herald, 5, 22 Aug. 1822 for the term “female laborers in Christ.” The same magazine listed women preachers as “unordained preachers.” The Freewill Baptists also used the term “female laborers.” Such women were licenced or “approbated” by their quarterly meetings. Estimates of the percentages of women preachers are taken from reports in Conference Minutes and magazines cited above.

45 The Morning Star, 1 Sept. 1830.

46 Minutes of the General Conference of the Freewill Baptist Connection for 1844 (Dover, N.H., 1859), p. 237Google Scholar.

47 Minutes of the General Conference of the Freewill Baptist Connection for 1832 (Dover, N.H., 1859), p. 32Google Scholar sets out these issues, but they kept recurring for the next decade and a half. See, for example, Minutes of the General Conference of the Freewill Baptist Connection for 1847 (Dover, N.H., 1859), p. 260Google Scholar for references to a secession movement in Maine opposed to the official Morning Star and the establishment of a biblical school.

48 Nancy Towle regarded Elice (Miller) Smith as the most admired female preacher in America, but I have discovered little more than passing reference to her. See Towle, , Vicissitudes, pp. 196–200Google Scholar.

49 Almond H. Davis, p. 65; Towle, pp. 53–95; Ripley, Dorothy, The Bank of Faith and Work United (Philadelphia, 1819), p. 63Google Scholar. See also Rosenberg, Carroll Smith, “The female world of love and ritual: relations between women in nineteenth century America” Signs, 1 (1975), 1–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

50 Marks, David, Life of David Marks…by Himself (Limerick, Me, 1831), pp. 182–85Google Scholar; Thornton, Abel, The Life of Elder Abel Thornton… (Providence, R.I.), pp. 110–28Google Scholar.

51 Towle, p. 45 reports Susan Hume undertaking a tour of 3,000 miles around New York state, and p. 239 gives her own preaching schedule. Jarena Lee's Journal and press reports of Clarissa Danforth indicate constant travelling and preaching.

52 For Cartwright and the male tradition see his Autobiography, which first appeared in 1856 and went through numerous editions. See also Byrne, Donald E. Jr, No Foot of Land: Folklore of American Methodist Itinerants (Metuchen, N.J., 1975)Google Scholar.

53 Christian Herald (Portsmouth, N.H.), the magazine of the Christian Connection, carried reports of women preachers in New York state from the first volume in 1818 through the 1820s. The report on Sarah Hodge's horse is in Vol. 6 (31 July 1823). See also Fernald, Mark, Life of Elder Mark Fernald Written by Himself (Newburyport, Mass., 1852), p. 201Google Scholar for Sarah Hodges preaching at the New York Christian Conference of 1827.

54 Gospel Luminary quoted in Christian Herald, 27 Jan. 1825.

55 The Morning Star, 7 Aug. and 11 Sept. 1829; Freewill Baptist Magazine (Providence, R.I.), 3 (06 1829)Google Scholar; Towle, , Vicissitudes, pp. 45–60Google Scholar; Minutes of the Stanstead Freewill Baptist Quarterly Meeting, MS, 3 02 1828, Wilbur Collection, University of VermontGoogle Scholar; Jarena Lee, p. 49; Elaw, , Memoirs, pp. 61–107Google Scholar.

56 Lewis, John, The Life, Labors and Travels of Elder Charles Bowles (Watertown, Mass., 1852), pp. 30–33Google Scholar.

57 Almond H. Davis, p. 104; The Primitive Methodist Magazine (Bemersley), N.S. 1 (04 1830)Google Scholar.

58 George, , Segregated Sabbaths, pp. 128–29Google Scholar gives a rather misleading and dismissive account of Ripley, whose own account, The Bank of Faith and Work United, 2nd edn (Whitby, 1822), pp. 187–303Google Scholar shows how extensive were her travels in the free and slave states.

59 Almond H. Davis, p. 104; Lee, p. 72; Burgess, and Ward, , Free Baptist Cyclopedia, pp. 567–68Google Scholar; McLeister, and Nicholson, , History of Wesleyan Methodist Church, pp. 1–44Google Scholar; True Wesleyan (Boston), 2 (1 06 1844)Google Scholar. The latter was the magazine of the anti-slavery Wesleyan Methodist Church and a useful source on women preachers in that sect.

60 The standard histories of American revivalism ignore women preachers during this period. Smith, Timothy L., Revivalism and Social Reform in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America (New York, 1957)Google Scholar has an excellent discussion of the career of Phoebe Palmer, but she was a much more bourgeois figure comparable in many ways to the mid-Victorian British women preachers considered by Anderson, Olive in “Women Preachers in mid-Victorian Britain: Some Reflections of Feminism, Popular Religion and Social Change,” Historical Journal, 12 (1969), 467–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

61 Lewis, pp. 30–3; Towle, pp. 19–36; Marks, p. 177; Thornton, pp. 14–18; Livermore, Harriet, Narrative of Religious Experience, p. 209Google Scholar; Fernald, pp. 145–61.

62 Colby, John, The Life, Experiences and Travels of John Colby (Portland, Me, 1815), pp. 58–59Google Scholar. Another edition appeared in 1819 and there were issues through 1820.

63 See the reports and letters cited in The Religious Informer, especially the issue for February 1820.

64 The Religious Informer, 1 (March 1821).

65 For Humes see Marks, pp. 182–5; Thornton, pp. 110–28, and her obituary in the Freewill Baptist Magazine, 1 (August 1827). For Towle, and Livermore in addition to their own writings already cited, the Christian Herald and Morning Star carry reports of their work during the 1820s. For example the Morning Star (26 Apr. 1827), reprinted an account of Livermore which described her as “the eloquent and gifted female preacher.”

66 Marini, , Radical Sects, pp. 40–59Google Scholar; Sawyer, , History of Kensington, p. 163Google Scholar. Alexander Crawford to Edward Manning, Yarmouth, N.S., 2 Oct. 1813, Correspondence of Edward Manning, MS, Acadia University, Wolfville, N.S. Crawford, a visiting Scot, was highly critical of Harris Harding, who preached only “to arouse passions” and was obsessed with dreams and visions. Stinchfield, Ephraim, Some Memoirs of the Life, Experience, and Labors of Elder Ephraim Stinchfield (Portland, Me, 1819)Google Scholar gives a good impression of New Light preaching from 1781.

67 Burgess and Ward, pp. 16 and 148; Christian Herald, 1 (Mar. 1819).

68 Beedy, , Mothers of Maine, p. 338Google Scholar; Stevens, John, Memoir of the Life and Character of the Rev. John Stevens (Dover, N.H., 1878), p. 8Google Scholar.

69 Beedy, p. 339; Marks, pp. 180–5; Towle, pp. 42–44; Thornton, p. 114.

70 Davis, Almond H., The Female Preacher, p. 44Google Scholar.

71 Ibid., pp. 45–46; Buzzell, John, ed., A Religious Magazine, 2 (Kennebunk, Me), 11 1820 and 08 1821Google Scholar; Freewill Baptist Magazine, 1, Sept. 1829.

72 See, for example, Almond H. Davis, pp. 85–86, and the Religious Informer, 1 (07 1821)Google Scholar, which gives the main headings of a sermon by Clarissa Danforth.

73 Even Davis in his sympathetic memoir of Salome Lincoln felt obliged to stress that she was a clear and logical preacher. Towle, Vicissitudes gives many examples of male hostility and anger that women were often superior preachers to the local ministers.

74 Livermore, Harriet, A Narrative of the Religious Experience, p. 17Google Scholar. See also her Scriptural Evidence, p. 115 for female preaching as a sign of the millennium. Towle, pp. 12–13, and the Religious Informer, 1 (July 1821) echo the same theme.

75 Almond H. Davis, pp. 47–48; John Davis, p. 102; Andrews, , The People Called Shakers, p. 22Google Scholar; Hopkins, James K., A Woman to Deliver Her People: Joanna Southcott and English Millenarianism in an Era of Revolution (Austin, Texas, 1982), p. 19Google Scholar; Elaw, , Memoirs, p. 74Google Scholar.

76 Almond H. Davis, p. 21, and portrait opposite title page.

77 Beedy, p. 338. Jarena Lee wore a white bonnet tied under the chin; see portrait in Lee, Religious Experience.

78 Towle, p. 73; Elaw, pp. 143–47; Shaw, Thomas, The Bible Christians (London, 1965), p. 15Google Scholar, and the photograph of Mary Thome, 1807–83, facing page 69.

79 Livermore, Harriet, A Narrative of the Religious Experience, pp. 259–62Google Scholar.

80 Ibid., pp. 269–72, and Scriptural Evidence, p. 9. For an unsympathetic view of Livermore which fails to relate her to the wider “sisterhood” of preachers see Hoxie, Elizabeth F., “Harriet Livermore” in James, Edward T., ed., Notable American Women 1607–1950: A Biographical Dictionary (Cambridge, Mass., 1974), 2, 409–10Google Scholar.

81 Ripley, Dorothy, The Bank of Faith, 1819 edn, pp. 55–63Google Scholar; Towle, p. 227; Morning Star, 2 Aug. 1837. Marks, , Life, p. 184Google Scholar and Almond H. Davis, pp. 40–43 both stressed the need for women preachers to maintain “propriety on all occasion” and to sustain “a good moral character.”

82 Towle, , Vicissitudes, pp. 49 and 95Google Scholar.

83 Livermore, Harriet, A Narrative of Religious Experience, pp. 192–93Google Scholar.

84 Ibid., pp. 269–72. The quotation is from p. 270. Smith, Elias, Articles of Faith and Church Building (Portsmouth, N.H., 1802), pp. 14–15Google Scholar while defending women's right to preach stressed that “every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered, dishonours her head.” I found Billington, Rosamund, “Ideology and feminism: why the suffragettes were ‘wild women,’” Women's Studies International Forum, 5, No. 6 (1982), 663–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar very helpful on the labelling of nineteenth-century feminists as “unfeminine” and “unwomanly.”

85 Thornton, , Life, p. 115Google Scholar; Towle, pp. 53, 182, 227; Almond H. Davis, p. 66.

86 Towle, p. 33.

87 Ibid., pp. 53–90.

88 Livermore, Harriet, A Narrative of Religious Experience, p. 209Google Scholar; Towle, pp. 42–44.

89 Mounfield, Arthur, A Short History of Independent Methodism (Warrington, 1905), pp. 1–20Google Scholar; Kendal, H. B., The Origin and History of the Primitive Methodist Church (London, n.d.), 1, 58–61 and 312–13Google Scholar.

90 Ripley, Dorothy, The Bank of Faith, 1819 and 1822 editions, especially the latter, pp. iv and 200Google Scholar. See also Ripley, Dorothy, Memoir of William Ripley (Philadelphia, 1827)Google Scholar, and Taft, Z., Biographical Sketches of the Lives and Public Ministry of Various Holy Women (London, 1825), pp. 205–41Google Scholar.

91 Freeman, Ann, A Memoir of the Life and Ministry of Ann Freeman… Written By Herself (Exeter, N.H., 1831)Google Scholar; Towle, pp. 97–180; O'Bryan, William, A Narrative of Travels in the United States of America (Shebbear, 1836)Google Scholar.

92 Acornley, John A., A History of the Primitive Methodist Church in the United States of America (Fall River, Mass., 1909), pp. 16–49Google Scholar; Walford, John, Memoir of the Life and Labours of the Late Venerable Hugh Bourne (London, 1856), 2, 313–23Google Scholar. The Primitive Methodist Magazine from 1829 to 1832 contains letters from the American mission. See also Elaw, , Memoirs, pp. 143ffGoogle Scholar. and Dews, D. Colin, “Ann Carr and the Female Revivalists of Leeds…” in Dews, , ed., From Mow Cop to Peake 1807–1932, Wesley Historical Society, Yorkshire branch, Occasional Paper No. 4 (Leeds, 1982)Google Scholar.

93 As early as 1827 the editor of the Freewill Baptist Morning Star confessed that he was not “peculiarly partial to the improvement of female gifts in meetings of worship.” By 1840 reports in the paper on women preachers were scarce. For Methodist sects see Acornley, p. 5 3; McLeister, and Nicholson, , History of Wesleyan Methodist Church, p. 69Google Scholar, and Behney, J. Bruce and Eller, Paul H., The History of the Evangelical United Brethren Church (Nashville, Tenn., 1979), pp. 159–60Google Scholar.

94 Hanaford, Phebe A., Daughters of America; or Women of the Century (Augusta, Me, 1883), pp. 417–21Google Scholar. Phebe Hanaford was an ordained Universalist minister from 1868.

95 Burgess and Ward, Free Baptist Cyclopedia, passim; Drinkhouse, Edward, History of Methodist Reform (Baltimore, 1899), 1, 123–66Google Scholar; Beedy, , Mothers of Maine, pp. 331–39Google Scholar. The latter was published by the Maine Federation of Women's Clubs.

96 A classic statement of the mid-nineteenth-century conventional male view of woman can be found in the chapter entitled “Woman – Her Position in America” in Stevens, Abel, Sketches from the Study of a Superannuated Itinerant (New York, 1853), pp. 29–44Google Scholar. Far from being “superannuated,” Stevens was thirty-eight and a rising Methodist leader and historian. See also Cross, Whitney R., The Burned-Over District, p. 15Google Scholar on Methodism rapidly becoming “respectable” in western New York.

97 Similar problems faced the handful of Universalist women preachers of this period. Maria Cook, 1779–1835, who was of “genteel and commanding appearance” preached in New York state from 1811, but her friends implored her to stop. She was later arrested as a vagrant and forced into retirement. She was considered an “eccentric” both by a leading Universalist of her day, Nathaniel Stacey, and by the most recent historian of Universalism. See Miller, Russell E., The Larger Hope: The First Century of the Universalist Church in America, 1770–1870 (Boston, 1979), pp. 546–7Google Scholar.

98 Byrne, , No Foot of Land, especially pp. 17–29 and 275–301Google Scholar. He includes no women in his study and ignores female autobiographies. His book is a study of male “giants and heroes.”

99 A Watcher (Ephraim Stinchfield), Cochranism Delineated: or A Description of, and Specific for Religious Hydrophobia… (Boston, 1819)Google Scholar, and Graham, D. M., The Life of Clement Phinney (Dover, N.H. 1851), pp. 78–92Google Scholar chart the alarm caused by one antinomian sect which led on to Mormonism. The impact of the Mormons and Millerites can be traced through the Freewill Baptist Morning Star, and in many of the biographies and autobiographies already cited.

100 Rev. Burbank, Porter S. A.M., “Freewill Baptists” in Rupp, , An Original History, pp. 58–69Google Scholar; Bordin, “The Sect to Denomination Process,” pp. 81–93; Burlingame-Cheney, Emeline, The Story of the Life and Work of Oren B. Cheney: Founder and First President of Bates College (Boston, 1907), pp. 15–16Google Scholar. The first edition of the autobiography of David Marks already cited has a full discussion of his work with women preachers. The second, posthumous edition published by his widow at Dover, N.H. in 1847 deletes all references to female preaching.

101 Bordin, pp. 81–93; Burlingame-Cheney, pp. 19–29 and 83–141.

102 I have traced this development in the Morning Star which has a “Female Department” from 1833. Reports of home and foreign missionary societies and the temperance movement quickly follow. The Freewill Baptist Female Missionary Society was organized in 1847. Mrs. O. B. Cheney was the first secretary, and “her husband was repeatedly called upon to read her reports,” (Burlingame-Cheney, p. 171). A similar process of gender divisions and the restricting of women to subordinate roles is described for Birmingham in Hall, Catherine, “Gender divisions and class formation in the Birmingham middle class, 1780–1850,” in Samuel, Raphael, ed., People's History and Socialist Theory (London, 1981), pp. 164–75Google Scholar.

103 The links between Freewill Baptist women and abolition have already been indicated. Their attitude towards the women's rights movement needs investigation.

104 See, for example, Morning Star (5 Oct. 1836), and Beedy, , Mothers of Maine, pp. 338–39Google Scholar.

105 Wilson, , The Hill Country, pp. 29–210Google Scholar; Stilwell, Lewis, Migration from Vermont (Montpelier, Vt, 1948)Google Scholar; Dublin, Thomas, Women at Work, pp. 138–40Google Scholar; Rowe, William Hutchinson, The Maritime History of Maine: Three Centuries of Shipbuilding and Seafaring (1948; rept. Freeport, Me, 1966), pp. 119–87Google Scholar.

106 Lemon, James S., Historic Lewiston: A Textile City in Transition (Auburn, Me, 1976), pp. 14–19Google Scholar; Burlingame-Cheney, pp. 232–33.

107 Ryan, Mary P., Cradle of the Middle Class: The Family in Oneida County New York, 1790–1865 (Cambridge, 1981), pp. 71–104 and 191–210Google Scholar. Elaw, , Memoirs, p. 128Google Scholar refers to a Mrs. Jones, a female preacher from England who by the 1830s found very little popularity in Utica.