seeking book recommendation

[David Olson]

Dear Singers,

Before Wyeth's Repository Second Part and Ananias Davisson's Kentucky Harmony, there were circuit preachers riding through the wilderness. Some, like John Leland and Berryman Hicks, wrote lyrics that we still sing.

Are there any good books/monographs about circuit preachers? Did they carry books of poetry by Watts, Wesley, Newton, and Doddridge with them on their long journeys? Any diaries? Any historical novels about circuit preachers? 

Those who were Methodists, did they file reports with the sending body?

Johnny Appleseed -- I've heard that he was a missionary sent by the Unitarian Church. Any studies of Appleseed as a missionary? Did he file reports with the sending body?

Any interest? Irrelevant to shape note traditions?

David Olson

San Diego

[Fulton, Erin]

Dear David, 

John H. Wigger's Taking Heaven by Storm: Methodism and the Rise of Popular Christianity in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998) is a good introduction to the itineracy system in the specific context of Methodism, though it should not be forgotten that clergy of other denominations also itinerated. Elizabeth Elkin Grammer's Some Wild Visions: Autobiographies by Female Itinerant Evangelists in Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003) is written from a literary criticism perspective but may still be of interest. As for individual diaries, they're just about innumerable. Here's a list in rough chronological order just of the most accessible, courtesy of Laura Arksey's excellent subject index in American Diaries: An Annotated Bibliography of Published American Diaries and Journals--

Isaac Backus (1724-1806), The Diary of Isaac Backus. Ed. William G. McLoughlin. Providence: Brown, 1979. 

John Cuthbertson (1719-1791), extracts in William L. Fisk, Jr., "The Diary of John Cuthbertson, Missionary to the covenanters of Colonial Pennsylvania," Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 73 (1949): 441-458.

Charles Woodmason (fl. 1766-68), reproduced in The Carolina Backcountry on the Eve of the Revolution, ed. Richard J. Hooker, pp. 3-66. Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1953.

Joseph Pilmore (1739-1825), The Journal of Joseph Pilmore, Methodist Itinerant, ed. Frederick E. Maser and Howard T. Maag (Philadelphia: Historical Society of the Philadelphia Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, 1969).

Francis Asbury (1745-1816), The Journal and Letters of Francis Asbury, ed. Elmer T. Clark (London: Epworth/Nashville: Abingdon, 1958).

Freeborn Garrettson (1752-1827), The Experience and Travels of Mr. Freeborn Garrettson, Minister of the Methodist-Episcopal Church in North America (Philadelphia: printed by Joseph Crukshank, 1791).

Jesse Lee (1758-1816), Memoir of the Rev. Jesse Lee, with Extracts from His Journals, ed. Minton Thrift (New York: N. Bangs and T. Mason for the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1823; reprinted New York: Arno, 1969).

James Meacham (1763-1820), "A Journal and Travel of James Meacham," Duke University Trinity College Historical Papers ser. 9 (1912): 66-95 and ser. 10 (1914): 87-102.

Nathan Perkins (1749-1838), A Narrative of a Tour Through the State of Vermont (Woodstock, Vt.: Elm Tree Press, 1920)

Richard Whatcoat (1736-1806), reproduced in The Methodists: A Collection of Source Materials, ed. William Warren Sweet, pp. 74-122 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1946).

William Hill (fl. 1790-1791), reproduced in The Presbyterians, 1783-1840: A Collection of Source Materials, ed. William Warren Sweet, pp. 755-777 (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1936). 

Lorenzo Dow (1777-1834), History of Cosmopolite, or, the Four Volumes of Lorenzo's Journal, Concentrated in One (Philadelphia: Joseph Rakestraw, 1815). Later circulated under the titles Perambulations of Cosmopolite and The Dealings of God, Man, and the Devil.

Benjamin Lakin (1767-1849), reproduced in The Methodists: A Collection of Source Materials, ed. William Warren Sweet, pp. 203-260 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1946). 

Joel Winch (fl. 1802-1806), "The Rev. Joel Winch, Pioneer Minister: Selections from His Diaries," ed. Arthur W. Peach, Vermont Historical Society Proceedings 9 (1941): 235-270 and 10 (1942): 21-35, 83-103.

John Early (1786-1873), "Diary of John Early, Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South," ed. Collins Denny, Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 33 (1925): 166-175, 283-287; 34 (1926): 130-137, 237-251, 299-312; 35 (1927): 7-12, 280-286; 36 (1928): 175-179, 239-248, 328-332; 37 (1929): 130-138, 256-260; 38 (1930): 251-258; 39 (1931): 41-45, 146-151; 40 (1932): 70-74, 147-154 (incomplete). 

William Williamson (fl. 1809), "A Missionary Journey in Ohio in 1809," ed. Guy S. Klett, Journal of the Presbyterian Historical Society 27 (1949): 229-234.

William Colbert (fl. 1810), "A Methodist Circuit Rider among the Berks County Dutch," ed. Don Yoder, Pennsylvania Dutchman 2, no. 13 (Dec. 1, 1950): 1, 5-6.

Joseph P. Howe (fl. 1813-1814), "A Journal of Two Missionary Tours Made in Kentucky and Tennessee," ed. Thomas C. Pears, Jr., Presbyterian Historical Society Journal 16 (1935-1936): 373-388.

Thomas Nixon (1793-1872), excerpt in John G. Jones, A Complete History of Methodism as Connected with the Mississippi Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (Nashville: Southern Methodist Publishing House, 1887), 1:396-397.

John E. Miller (1792-1847), "John Miller's Missionary Journal," ed. Jasper W. Cross, Journal of Presbyterian History 47 (1969): 226-261. 

Hemen Bangs (1790-1869), The Autobiography and Journal of the Rev. Hemen Bangs (New York: N. Tibbals and Son, 1872).

Henry Bryson (1799-1874), "Frontier Evangelist: The Journal of Henry Bryson," ed. John R. Williams, Alabama Historical Quarterly 42 (1980): 5-39. 

Matthew Simpson (1811-1884), passim in George R. Crooks, The Life of Bishop Matthew Simpson, of the Methodist Episcopal Church (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1890). 

James Gilruth (1793-1873), reproduced in The Methodists: A Collection of Source Materials, ed. William Warren Sweet, pp. 370-467 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1946). 

Alfred Brunson (1793-1886), "A Methodist Circuit Rider's Horseback Tour from Pennsylvania to Wisconsin," Wisconsin Historical Collections 15 (1900): 264-291. 

James-Hanmer Francis (1796-1863), "Diary of the Rev. James-Hanmer Francis," ed. Winifred L. Holman, Ohio State Archeological and Historical Quarterly 51 (1942): 41-61. 

Salmon Stebbins (1795-1882), "Journal of Salmon Stebbins," Wisconsin Magazine of History 9 (1925-1926): 188-212.

Re: "Those who were Methodists, did they file reports with the sending body?" Sort of yes and no. Elders' annual reports survive in accessible form mostly by way of the statistics published by each conference, which are probably not what you're after. More nuanced, narrative reports on the spiritual health of each circuit were supposed to be provided at quarterly conferences, and therefore can sometimes be recovered from quarterly conference records, when those were well-managed and survive; I've seen a few 1810s examples at the Maine State Historical Society, for example. I don't, however, know offhand of anything like that making it into print. 

And I'm no kind of Johnny Appleseedist, but the popular press presented him as a Swedenborgian, not a Unitarian in the ordinary sense. No clue what polity or record-keeping looked like in that context. 

Happy reading,

E. Fulton. 

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[David Olson]

Thank you Erin and others who responded off-line.

I stand corrected: Appleseed was a Swedenbourgian. Willa Cather's Death Comes To The Archbishop was mentioned as perhaps the closest well-known novel to what I'm looking for. I didn't read very far, but I recall it begins with the Archbishop riding a horse.

This Sunday, a newbie attended so we sang entry-level songs and slower than usual. We it was time to pick up the tempo, we still began 114 Saint's Delight at a moderate pace, testing the waters for speed on the last two verses. Maybe singing the first verse at an unexpectedly thoughtful tempo helped trigger these three questions:

 "When I can read my title clear"; what do those words mean to a father raising a family in a log cabin, pioneering a farm to which he might not yet possess the full title? 
Wouldn't circuit preachers read through books of poetry, beginning with Isaac Watts, searching for verses of particular interest to their congregants?

Isn't this where some of our music comes from? When Elkanah Kelsey Dare and Ananias Davisson traveled through Kentucky looking for folk hymns, the fields were ripe for the harvest. Alexander Johnson in Tennessee.

Never underestimate the pastor-parishioner relationship. We sing John Newton's poetry. The manic-depressive genius poet William Cowper was his congregant. As a Methodist, Newton's model for dealing with William Cowper's depression would be the Sanctification "method". Reading my own meaning into the song, but for example 148 Jefferson "With salvation's wall surrounded" -- when the poet is surrounded by salvation, he's productively writing poetry. This stanza is from Psalm 87, perhaps written to celebrate King Uzziah strengthening of the walls of Jerusalem (and adding various unspecified contrivances for discomfiting any attackers). By way of ministering to the poet when he falls into depression, Newton draws from Isaiah after the walls have been destroyed and the elite have go into Babylonian Capitivity: The Sacred Name is ready to restart the relationship from Square One, with the Cloud and Fire in the wilderness, spreading the chuppah of marriage once again over the repentant people: "for a glory and a cov'ring".

Never underestimate the pastor-parishioner relationship. And never underestimate a pastor's sense of being called. Not often discussed.

Among other thoughts,

David Olson

San Diego

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[Gabriel Kastelle]

"when I can read my title clear" 

is critical--much on the mind-- to everyone everywhere under European [settler]-colonial systems.  

Some examples are ready to mind for me from our tradition-related Brothertown Indian singers. 

The Watts' C.M. text beginning "When I can read my title clear" appears also in the 1774 hymnal by the Rev. Samson Occom (Mohegan / Brothertown) [compiled in CT], as well as, a couple generations later, in the 1845 tunebook Indian Melodies by Thomas Commuck (Narragansett / Brothertown) [music composed and texts compiled in WI Terr.]. 

Other Watts hymns seem to have been memorized-fluent from the pen of Occom's Mohegan son-in-law Joseph Johnson in his rhapsodic diaries of the 1770s (Laura Murray is usu. credited as author of a 1990s collection of Joseph Johnson's writings-- similarly Joanna Brooks for the hefty volume of Occom writings from Oxford  U P, 2006, I think-- just off-the-cuff--) 

Methodist circuit-riding minister Rev. Wage Gesson Miller began his service in that role in the 1840s with the Brothertown Indians on the east side of Lake Winnebago, and mentions their singing in his published memoirs. 

Rev. Cutting Marsh (for Congregationalists, I think?) was serving the related Stockbridge neighbors of the Brothertown around the same years-- not published that I know of, but extensive collections of his journals &c. are held by the Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison, WI, and also include mentions of singing and singing schools and youth performances demonstrating learned skills. 

After that, details on this trail become harder to find; but the "bread crumbs" are out there...  

:-) 

-- A. Gabriel Kastelle, wapato-planter / "the Johnny Appleseed of wapato" 

Eugene, OR / Kalapuya Ilihi 

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