Life and Letters of Rev. Aratus Kent

Introduction

The Reverend Aratus Kent was just one of a tide of Connecticut Yankees who went west in the early decades of the 19th century. Today, Kent’s name is recognized only among a small circle. His enduring influence is difficult to measure precisely, but it is surely considerable. His personal ethic of selflessness, so often espoused from his pulpit, was for him a way of life. His good works were performed in anonymity whenever possible. And, out of humility, he burned most of his letters and journals shortly before his death.[1] This act of destruction was one that his conscience approved, but was a deed to be profoundly lamented by students of the social and religious history of pioneer Northern Illinois. “I have an invincible dread of such notoriety,” is how Kent himself once expressed his passion for obscurity.

The material artifacts of Kent’s memory include a little stone church, a weathered tombstone, a small assortment of brief recollections of those who knew him, some letters preserved by the American Home Missionary Society, and a few other scattered documents. A little hamlet in Stephenson County, Illinois, is named for Kent - a fifty year resident of Kent was recently queried as to the origin of the name of the town. “Named for an old preacher boy from the horse and buggy days,” was the pithy reply.

If the presence of a man’s spirit can be sensed in the places where he labored, then Aratus Kent remains among all of us in Northern Illinois. Kent long served the American Home Missionary Society; first as its charter Northern Illinois missionary; and then as its first agent for that state’s northern three tiers of counties. Before there were stage roads, he traveled the Indian traces and along the rivers on horseback and on foot. When the stage roads came into existence, he traveled them all in his buggy, wearing out many beasts and machines in the process, but never exhausting his own ecclesiastical energy. He rode “the cars” of the rail roads from their inception, stopping at the little depots to “prospect” for spirituality among the new populations. If he missed the “cars,” he “jumped” the freights (charming the stern train superintendents into looking the other way at his “bending” of the rules).

When an image of the weary traveling frontier preacher is conjured, Methodism is the stamp that comes immediately to mind. Aratus Kent was Presbyterian to his marrow. He frequently chided the missionaries in his charge to live amongst their flocks, not at a distance. Yet he himself was prone to itinerate, sometimes to the consternation of his superiors in New York. He always kept Galena as his home, but his letters were post-marked from Lodi, Haldane, Nora, Garden Prairie, Orangeville, Wayne, Little Fort, Crete, and Chicago, to name just a few of the hundreds of places where he preached and proselytized for the American Home Missionary Society. Doubtless there is not a single spot in Northern Illinois where Aratus Kent did not pass within a few miles.

His forty years of vigorous life in Northern Illinois encompassed two wars, many draughts and blizzards, and several economic cycles. Yet, human nature was his greatest adversary. He agonized over the indiscretions of his fellow clergyman, and he was tormented by “sectarian strife,” even though he himself contributed some to it.

He never really understood the power that the anti-slavery issue exerted amongst many of his fellow Christians. He certainly was not pro-slavery, as some of his contemporaries accused him. But he displayed none of the firey abolitionism that characterized the ministries of many of his fellow New Englanders.

His contributions to education, from Sunday schools to colleges, were manifold and lasting in their influence.

How many roads must a man walk down before they call him a man? Perhaps, just as the popular ballad proclaims, the exact answer is blowing in the wind. Whatever the precise quantity, Reverend Aratus Kent’s travels in quest of salvation for his fellow man far exceed the minimum requirement. Even at the age of 65, though crippled with rheumatism, he often trudged alone 10 or 15 miles at a time across the treeless prairies in mid-February so that some destitute congregation would not miss a sermon on the Sabbath. The “Apostle of Northern Illinois” deserves a prominent place in the annals of the Prairie State.

Ancestry and Early Life

Aratus Kent sprang from the cradle of American academics & clerics: Connecticut. In Illinois, the phrase “Connecticut man” was one of grudging respect given to the generally shrewd and learned sons of the Nutmeg State. One of Kent’s Galena, Illinois, townsmen, U.S. Grant, once remarked that “it would not take a Connecticut man” to discern that Grant had been bested in his first horse trade.[2] Many, perhaps even most, of the first doctors, lawyers, teachers, and clergy of the old Northwest were Connecticut’s expatriates.

Captain John Kent (1855-1827), Aratus’ father,, was a well-to-do merchant-farmer of Suffield, Connecticut, a town 16 miles north of Hartford, and 10 miles south of Springfield, Massachusetts, on the west side of the Connecticut River. Aratus was born there on the 17th day of January, 1794. He was joined to the same branch of the family from whence Chancellor James Kent of New York came.[3] And he was a distant relation of Connecticut’s most notable figure of the age: Timothy Dwight. Aratus’ mother, Sarah Smith, died in 1813 at the age of 49.[4] Aratus had an older brother, Germanicus, who became another important figure in Northern Illinois history by founding the City of Rockford. He also had an older sister Sally, and a younger sister Cecelia.[5]

Aratus' great grandfather, Samuel, was a representative to the Great and General Court or Assembly of Massachusetts from Suffield from 1742 to 1747. Samuel had married one of the twin daughters of Nathanial Dwight of Northampton.[6] Nathaniel Dwight was also the grandfather of Timothy;Timothy Dwight, President of Yale.[7] Of course, Timothy Dwight's other grandfather was the great, if controversial, Calvinist Jonathan Edwards.

Jeddidiah Morse’s Gazetteer of 1821 put population at 2680.[8] Aratus Kent was not the town’s only peripatetic son: in 1853 the population was only 2962.[9] Suffields’ best known son of the 19th century was probably Dr. Sylvester Graham. He introduced the Graham system of dietetics based on unbolted flour, and thus the “Graham Cracker”.[10]

Suffield had three churches in Aratus' time there: two Congregational and one Baptist. This, coupled with the strong Calvinistic environment that had always surrounded the Kent family, molded his early years, but did little to foster any ecumenical ideas in Aratus' young mind.

Suffield was one of the northern border towns of Connecticut that was originally included in the grant made by the Massachusetts Bay Colony to the Springfield patentees. This was long a source of complaint from Connecticut, because the original survey that created the boundary was grossly in error. In 1700 Connecticut attempted to obtain an amicable settlement of the difficulties, and two years later appointed commissioners, who by actual surveys ascertained that the line should be a considerable distance north of the former limits. The Bay Colony dissented from this report, and in 1708 Connecticut appointed commissioners with full powers to establish the boundaries, and if Massachusetts would not unite to complete the transaction, an appeal to the Crown was threatened. The dispute was settled, but not finally until 1826, about the same time that the border between Wisconsin and Illinois was fixed.[11]

When Aratus Kent arrived in Galena, Illinois, in 1829 a similar border dispute was in progress. Some felt that Galena was within the territorial boundaries of Wisconsin, and not within the State of Illinois. The Galena miners became suddenly and particularly knowledgeable about geography when the Illinois tax authorities came calling. When their geographical argument failed, with typical frontier brashness, some 120 residents of Galena and surrounding territory petitioned Congress on November 29, 1828, to form a new territory called “Huron”. This territory would encompass all of northern Illinois and most of the present states of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa. Naturally, in their memorial the petitioners humbly suggested that Galena be named the capital of their new territory. The memorial was “Read, and laid upon the table...” of Congress on December 29, 1828. Apparently its repose upon that table was never disturbed.[12]

Aratus was fitted for college at the academy at nearby Westfield, Massachusetts, (where the only church was Congregational) At Westfield Aratus studied under the Rev. Ralph Emerson, a member of a family of ministers with whom Kent would have many associations.[13] Ralph was only seven years older than Aratus Kent, but young men frequently taught school to support themselves while they pursued higher education. Ralph Emerson also became a Yale Graduate (1811), and he ended his days in Rockford, Illinois.[14]

Education at Yale

At the age of nineteen Aratus entered the Sophomore Class at Yale College. College life at Yale in Kent’s years had improved considerably under President Theodore Dwight's “parental” system of discipline. However, some of the old pranks and frolics were beyond the control even of Dwight. One such custom Dwight never quite quelled was the traditional freshman-sophomore "push." This had been going on since time immemorial. ''Much as when a new cow is put along with a herd of others," each year, after the freshmen came, the sophomores put the strangers to the test.

Emerging from Chapel after evening prayers, the second-year men stopped on the porch and tried their strength at keeping the freshmen back. If they conducted the ceremony with the proper verve, individuals caught in the center found themselves raised high from the floor and had visions of being squeezed to death. The Faculty, convinced that the experience offered nothing beneficial, strove as strenuously to eliminate the rite. Sometimes by suspending two or three who had been "forward" in it, they broke it up for a year. But the effect was only temporary. The same mystic compulsion impelled successive classes to repeat the ritual, so strong is ancient custom.[15] Aratus Kent, by entering Yale as a sophomore, avoided being the victim of the traditional "fagging" of freshmen. But Aratus did not totally avoid discomfiture at the hands of his classmates. The boys, true to all ages, gave him a nick name, and called him “Ratty.” The name so displeased him that he would never allow any of the twelve children whom he and Mrs. Kent took into their home to call each other by any nick names.[16]

The Freshman, Sophomore and Junior classes were split into two divisions, each being assigned to its own tutor, who instructed them in all subjects. The tutor was often himself a student studying for an advanced degree in law or theology. One of Kent’s own tutors, Dr. Emerson, influenced Kent’s choice of the ministry for a career, and provided a son himself for the frontier ministry. Kent recalled the encounter:

“I remember with ineffaceable impressions some things in relation to Tutor Emerson, one of which is my visit to his room near the close of my college life to consult with him in relation to my future course.

This question rested with tremendous pressure upon my mind at that time whether I should become a minister and whether I did right or wrong, you must bear the responsibility of having encouraged me to go forward.”[17]

The tutor commonly carried the same group through their second and third years. There was little variation in the fields covered, and the demand for pedagogical specialization was only beginning to be felt.

Another of Kent’s tutors was Chauncey Allen Goodrich. The son-in-law of Noah Webster, Goodrich became an accomplished lexicographer himself, working on many editions of the famous Dictionary. “His labours with me in the revival of 1815 were among the links which composed the change of influence which led me to consecrate myself to God and to the ministry,” is how Kent recalled his tutor’s influence.[18]

Usually to the same tutor, sophomores like Aratus Kent recited:

Horace

Collectanea Graeca Majora, Volume I

Morse's Geography, Volume II

Webber's Mathematics, Volume II

Euclid's Elements

English Grammar (Lindley Murray's was the text)

Tytler's Elements of History

This took care of the requirement in the college laws that second year students be taught Geography, the "Elements of Chronology and History," Algebra, and Plane Geometry. From this, they advanced, in their junior year, to:

Tacitus (History)

Collectanea Graeca Majora, Volume Il

William Enfield's Natural Philosophy

Enfield's Astronomy

Chemistry

Vince's Fluxions

And, if the faculty lived up to the laws, English Grammar, Trigonometry, Navigation, Surveying, and "other branches of the Mathematics" were not neglected.

All students, regardless of class, were required, in daily rotation, to "exhibit" compositions of various kinds, and submit them to the instructor's criticism. About four at a time, they declaimed, publicly and privately, on Tuesdays and Fridays, in English, Latin, Greek, or Hebrew, as directed; and, whenever required, each had to hand in a copy of his declamation "fairly written." Seniors and juniors also disputed forensically before the class, twice a week, on a question approved by the instructor; when the disputants had fired their bolts, the instructor discussed the matter "at length," giving his own views of the problem and of the arguments used by both sides. Dwight considered it "an exercise, not inferior in its advantages to any other;" and one student assured his parents that all these disputes and compositions required "a great deal of hard thinking and close application."[19]

With tutors performing the more mundane tasks, not unlike today’s graduate assistants, the professors could concentrate on a more detailed instruction in their specialties. Students were required to attend lectures with a notebook to record the principal points. At every tests were given on the preceding lecture. Dwight thus introduced the “daily quiz” into American education, and held the method as superior to the Old World methods. "This responsibility, so far as I am informed, is rarely a part of an European system of Education." In addition to these daily quizzes, all the students in the seminary were "publicly" examined twice a year in their several studies. Those discovered to be deficient were liable to "degradation" to a lower class or dismissal. A very laborious fortnight was devoted to this gruesome business of “semester finals”.

The seniors attended seminars given by the learned President himself, where Dwight encouraged open discussions. The topics covered are as germane today as they were in Kent’s time:

Ought capital punishments ever to be inflicted?

Ought Foreign Immigration to be encouraged?

Does the Mind always Think?

Which have the greatest influence in forming a National Character: Moral or Physical Causes?

Is a Lie ever justifiable?

Ought Anonymous Publications to be suppressed?

Ought Religious Tests to be required of Civil Officers?

Are all mankind descended from one pair?

Ought Representatives to be bound by the will of their Constituents?

Is a Savage State preferable to a Civilized?

Do Spectres appear?

Does Temptation diminish the turpitude of a Crime?

Is Privateering justifiable?

Is man advancing to a state of Perfectibility?

When the subject before them was peculiarly provocative the students entered the classroom after prolonged preparation. Young Benjamin Silliman became so stirred over the question, "Whether the mental abilities of the females are equal to those of the males," that he worked one evening until ten-thirty (which was late when you had to leave your bed at five in the morning), and all the next forenoon, on an affirmative answer. He believed that the apparent difference between the feminine and masculine mind “is owing entirely to neglect of the education of females, which is a shame to man, and ought to be remedied.”

The problem “was warmly contested at the eleven o'clock recitation, and decided in favor of the females, after a debate of more than two hours.” Such discussions as these must have influenced Aratus Kent. Certainly Kent's pivotal role in the establishment of the Rockford Female Seminary indicates that he and the great chemist Silliman were of one mind when it came to equal educational opportunities for females. Indeed, the charter of Rockford College, largely crafted by Kent, insisted that the Rockford school be of the same caliber as its brother institution for men at nearby Beloit, Wisconsin.

During debate Dwight sometimes interjected pertinent remarks, and after the students had finished their arguments, he gave his own. This might take thirty minutes or several recitations, according to the importance of the topic. The majority of the class brought notebooks to record even his most casual comments. Regrettably, none of Kent’s survive. Whatever the question, Dwight examined it from all angles, and, by close reasoning, found an unhesitating answer.[20]

Aratus Kent united with the church under President Dwight August 15, 1815, and was graduated in 1816. The Providence that Kent always relied upon had been especially benevolent to him in permitting him to enjoy the tutelage of the greatest theologian and pedagogue of his era. Timothy Dwight was dying of a painful bladder cancer during Kent’s senior year, and he passed to his reward in the fall of 1816. Kent never left the watchful eye of Timothy Dwight, for he kept Dwight’s portrait hanging on the wall of his Galena study.[21]

Calvinism, Presbyterianism, and Congregationalism in Aratus Kent’s Time

If Timothy Dwight was instrumental in shaping the attitudes of Aratus Kent, he was equally instrumental in shaping Kent's theology, and in creating the institutions that permitted Kent to embark upon his life's work. The grandson of Jonathan Edwards has not been classed with the first group of Calvinistic interpreters of the Scriptures. Yet more than that of any contemporary, his common sense “New Divinity” theology was accepted and promulgated. Dwight, unlike his famous grandfather, took no great delight in controversy. Being a practical man, he sought to narrow differences between sects. His recognition of the necessity to compromise was emulated by Aratus Kent. And, except when it came to the issue of slavery,[22] this conciliatory theological attitude served Kent well.

Timothy Dwight’s Calvinism was of a kinder and gentler cast than that of his grandfather. His enormously popular and widely read treatise, Theology, Explained and Defended,[23] (Kent distributed many copies to ministers on the frontier) focused as much on the duties of a Christian life as on Calvinistic doctrine. Indeed, Dwight as much as any man directed the Second Great Awakening that swept the country during the first half of the 19th century to a much less strident course than the first. No burning of witches was required, or even desired by Dwight. Infidels were to be debated with Christian zeal, not burned at the stake. In this regard, Dwight himself was perhaps un-Calvinistic.

Dwight let his close friend and associate Jeddidiah Morse carry much of the burden in the debate with the unorthodox. Morse bitterly opposed the elevation of the Unitarian Henry Ware to the Hollis Professorship of Divinity at Harvard (a battle Morse ultimately lost).[24] The issue of slavery was also a powerful wedge that drove apart the orthodox Presbyterians and Congregationalists of New York and Connecticut from the Boston and Cambridge Unitarians and unorthodox Congregationalists. Aratus Kent fought that battle on the frontier, where he devoted more energy to opposing Unitarians, “Ultra-abolitionists”[25] Congregationalists, and “Old School” Presbyterians than to competing with the Methodists, Baptists, and Catholics.

Before the Revolution, Edwardian Congregationalists in Connecticut and western Massachusetts, and Presbyterians in the middle colonies had been drawing together. The New England clergy were then eager to secure united opposition to the threatened establishment of an Anglican episcopate in America. They differed from Presbyterians mainly in organization structure. Presbyterians organized their church government by an orderly system. The presbytery, consisting of the ministers and one lay elder from each church in a certain area, exercised local authority. Over the presbytery stood the synod, and over the synod stood the national body, the General Assembly.

In Connecticut the Congregationalists had a similar, if looser, organization of "consociations" and associations. Aratus Kent, like his mentor Dwight, always considered this “Connecticut Congregationalism” to be so close to Presbyterianism as to warrant no distinction. However, the unorthodox, Boston influenced “Western Congregationalism” that Kent watched evolve in Illinois was another matter altogether. This movement he considered “unscriptural” and far too independent in its polity.[26]

Where the Presbyterians dominated, the consociations and associations exercised a much more powerful and binding influence, somewhat in the manner of the Presbyterian ruling councils. In Northern Connecticut near New York, where the Presbyterians were strong, Congregationalism was particularly akin to Presbyterianism.. Dwight himself leaned decidedly in that direction. When, in his Statistical Account of the City of New Haven, he listed the churches to be found in that town, he made no distinction between "Congregational" and "Presbyterian" but seems regularly to have used the terms more or less interchangeably. The three nominally Congregational Churches in Aratus Kent’s native Suffield probably fit this mold also.

Presbyterianism also was strengthened by the fact that the last great wave of immigration to the Colonies before the War for Independence was from Northern Ireland. Most of these Ulster Irishmen were Scotch by bloodline and religious tradition, and thus were Presbyterians.[27] The Scotch-Irish element, however, introduced an element into American Presbyterianism that would prove difficult to alloy.

Following the war several motives favored a closer connection between the Presbyterians and Congregationalists. Congregational leaders in Connecticut, for the most part, sided with the Federalist view in favor of a strong national government. For them Jeffersonian democracy meant mob rule, and the excesses of the French Revolution strengthened their fears. Jeffersonian Deism and even atheism were growing threats. These two movements were easily seen as enemies, but a more subtle but equally powerful shift was occurring within the church itself in the form of a rising, if vague, "liberalism," that gradually evolved into Unitarianism. Here was a heresy that threatened the very foundations of the faith. The orthodox saw that a successful defense against Unitarianism required setting aside “minor” sectarian differences.

With a Presbyterian government it would be possible to erect creeds and enforce strict adherence to them. They could supervise more efficiently the training and licensing of candidates for the ministry, and make certain that only reliable pastors were ordained over the churches. The line between orthodox and unorthodox must be drawn sharply so that friend and foe might be unmistakably identified. All this would be difficult, if not impossible, under a purely congregational organization which permitted each church to be independent. The cause was impelling. Hence it was that Dwight and his confreres looked favorably upon Presbyterianism.

As more and more immigrants moved west to the frontier the need for churches there became more pressing. To theologically conservative Congregationalists, Presbyterianism seemed a more effective method of protecting these infant institutions against the perils confronting them. In the newer thinly settled regions like northern Illinois it took time for recently arrived inhabitants to become acquainted and accustomed to working together. Meanwhile, ministers of doubtful character might easily impose dangerous doctrines upon the unsuspecting. To churchmen of the older settlements in the East the evangelization of the West was a matter of supreme importance. Many believed that the Presbyterian organizational structure would best serve to preserve orthodoxy.

The friendly relations which Dwight helped establish led to the "Plan of Union," an agreement made in l80l between the Presbyterians and Congregationalists in order to avoid conflict in their missionary activity. A problem arose from the fact that among the new settlers who were continually pouring into the West, some were Presbyterian and some were Congregational. Division seemed undesirable in the small, frontier settlements, and so the Connecticut General Association and the Presbyterian General Assembly agreed upon the Plan of Union as a modus vivendi to promote harmony and a more uniform system of church government among Christians in the struggling young communities on the frontier. It was a compromise intended to be fair to all, but in actual practice it operated, at least initially ,in favor of the Presbyterians. Friction developed, and later doctrinal controversies widened the split until the “Old School” Presbyterians finally repudiated the agreement in 1837.[28]

If Dwight had grave concern for the souls of the pioneers, he seemed to care little for their persons. He said of them: “They are impatient of the restraints of law, religion and morality; grumble about taxes by which school masters are supported, and complain incessantly ...of the extortions of mechanics, merchants, and physicians, to whom they are always indebted. At the same time they are usually possessed, in their own view, of uncommon wisdom, and understand medical science, politics and religion better than those who have studied them through life. In mercy, therefore, to the sober, industrious, and well disposed inhabitants, Providence has opened in the vast western wilderness a retreat, sufficiently alluring to draw them away from the land of their nativity. We have many troubles even now; but we should have many more if this body of foresters had remained at home.”[29]

Out of this cauldron of theological ferment, Aratus Kent emerged with a strong, yet pragmatic, faith. Like most men, he had his share of difficulties reconciling the values of his formative years with fast evolving frontier conditions. His destiny was to minister to the “foresters” of the “vast western wilderness.” But first there was need for more preparation.

Preparation for the Frontier Ministry

Kent spent the years from 1816 to 1820 in theological studies in the city of New York under the experienced pastors Romeyn and Mason.[30] John Brodhead Romeyn was one of the most popular preachers of his day, and an able theologian. He was originally licensed to preach in the Dutch Reformed Church, but he ultimately accepted charge of the Cedar Street Presbyterian Church in New York City. Romeyn was one of the founders of Princeton Theological Seminary and was a trustee of Princeton College. He was also Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in 1820. Romeyn’s interest in education and church polity undoubtedly served to inspire Aratus Kent’s similar life long interests. Romeyn also cemented Kent’s identity as a Presbyterian.[31]

Kent’s other mentor, John Mitchell Mason, had few equals as a pulpit orator. Mason believed in frequent communion, and had issued a pamphlet on the subject as early as 1789. Aratus Kent’s Eucharistic enthusiasm can be traced to Mason. Although educated in Edinburgh himself, Mason came to believe that foreign dependence in the education of the clergy was undesirable. He thus began a movement that resulted in the formation of the Union Theological Seminary. Mason only became officially a Presbyterian late in life, but his theology was thoroughly Calvinistic.[32]

Kent was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of New York on the 20th day of April, 1820. After being licensed, he spent one year, 1821, as a missionary in what was the then wilds of Ohio, possibly near Greenville in central Ohio.[33] Kent’s next pulpit was in Blanford, Massachusetts, a rural township fifteen miles northwest of Springfield with a population of about 1000 souls. An extensive revival is said to have been taken place there during his year long tenure.[34] From November 21, 1822, until April 11, l823, he was a regular student of the Theological Seminary at Princeton. Again the influence of Romeyn is discernible.

Next Kent was called to the Presbyterian Church in Lockport, New York, and was there ordained on January 26, 1825. The three years spent there in the mid 1820’s must have given Kent a sense of the power of the magnet that was drawing the populace ever west. For Lockport is that point on the Erie Canal where the water descends from the level of Lake Erie to that of the Genesee, by ten double combined locks of massive masonry. Of course, the Erie Canal was under construction until 1824, but even before completion it became the main artery of commerce that opened up the Northwest Territory to old New England. Kent was present in Lockport to witness the ever rising tide of immigrants heading west to places like the wilds of Northern Illinois.

He then spent a year with his aged and dying father back in Suffield. After John Kent died, Aratus attended to placing “suitable monuments” on his parents graves, and looked for new opportunities to serve. He took up home missionary work, first going to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. In a letter to the A.H.M.S., Kent displayed the zeal that was to characterize his later career. In addition to teaching, preaching, and making pastoral visits in New Hampshire, Kent expected to itinerate into Canada.[35] After leaving New Hampshire Kent took temporary charge of a church in Bradford, Mass., a town 32 miles north of Boston and home to two celebrated academies, One for boys and one for girls.[36] This separate but equal educational model was later adopted by Kent for the Beloit College and the Rockford Female Seminary.

Fate then called Kent to the Allen Street Presbyterian Church in New York,[37] probably as a temporary supply. While in New York he became acquainted with Rev. Absalom Peters,[38] Secretary of the American Home Missionary Society. Peters convinced Kent that he could be the most useful as a missionary on the frontier. Kent liked the idea, partly because his already weak and failing vision made the more traditional role of a well read scholar-preacher impossible. Legand holds that he said to the officers of the Society: “Send me to a place so hard that no one else will take it.”

The American Home Missionary Society and Its Rivals

If religion was to gain a foot hold on the vast frontier, a coordinated effort was required. The American Home Missionary Society was formed on May 12, 1826, at a meeting in the Brick Presbyterian Church in New York through a union of several Congregational and Presbyterian societies. The A.H.M.S. became the first such society organized on a national scale, and by the end of its first year it had 169 missionaries in the field, most of whom were inherited from the pre-existing societies.

Some 5000[39] letters of application or missionary reports per year were received by the Society’s secretaries, and these letter provide a window on the moral, social, and economic conditions of every frontier region. Many of these letters, including several from Aratus Kent, were published in The Home Missionary and American Pastor’s Journal, which Kent always called the Home Miss.

The A.H.M.S. was the center of controversy from its inception. Its original benefactors were primarily affluent Presbyterian Churches. A parallel society, The American Board of Missions, was also primarily Presbyterian. Efforts to merge these two home missionary agencies repeatedly failed, and partisan supporters of one board quickly and publicly began attacking the other. One Cincinnati Presbyterian preacher went so far as to accuse the A.H.M.S. of “attempting to overthrow the Presbyterian Church.”[40] The A.H.M.S. great need for man power made it seem lax as to qualifications of its missionaries, at least in the eyes of some. Indeed, the Society freely assigned Congregationalist ministers to nominally Presbyterian churches.

Strife and criticism notwithstanding, the Society had 463 missionaries in the field by 1831. But the Society also became identified as more theologically liberal than some Presbyterians liked, and Society supporters began to become known as “New School Presbyterians.” Aratus Kent was certainly no liberal, but he loyally defended the A.H.M.S. through his entire career against attacks from the theological right and left.

What alarmed the “Old School” Presbyterian ministry was that heretical New England Congregationalists were beginning to infiltrate the A.H.M.S.

During the years in which the great Congregational stream was flowing westward into Presbyterianism, New England Calvinism was undergoing what seemed to the stiff-backed Presbyterian, a radical and dangerous modification. Indeed this modification had been in process for many years and what was known as Hopkinsianism, the school of thought farthest removed from strict Calvinism, was widely accepted. Timothy Dwight, the President of Yale College from 1795 to 1817, and Aratus Kent’s mentor, was a New Divinity man, and the numerous other young Yale graduates coming into the West during those years were thoroughly imbued with Dwight’s system of Divinity.

The bitter controversy with Unitarianism in the early part of the nineteenth century had served to emphasize New England orthodoxy, and gave country-wide distinction to such defenders as Lyman Beecher, more or less obscuring the fact that many of the so-called defenders of orthodoxy were themselves far from traditional Calvinism. The new revivalism that swept through New England and New York in the early years of the nineteenth century was the result of the New Divinity teaching, with its larger emphasis upon human responsibility. There was also much opposition to the "New Measures" fathered by Charles Gradison Finney and his associates, in the New York revivals. Thus there came to be a feeling among the full-fledged Presbyterians that the New England stream was tainted with heresy.[41]

In Illinois, this conflict surfaced early when, in 1833, Edward Beecher and two Illinois College professors were brought before the Illinois Presbytery of charges of preaching the New Haven doctrine. They were acquitted, but the battle lines were formed that resulted in the eventual division of the Presbyterian church after 1837 into “New School” and “Old School”.

The A.H.M.S. survived, though in a weakened condition, the split of the Presbyterian church over what were basically theological issues. And the split resulted in rival Old School missionaries entering into Kent’s Northern Illinois field as competition. But another powerful force was threatening the tear the Society to pieces: abolitionism.

Lewis and Arthur Tappan, brothers and wealthy New York mechants, were major contributors to Presbyterian church causes. In concert with William Lloyd Garrison, they founded the American Anti-slavery Society in 1822 (though they soon broke with the more radical Garrison). The Tappans’ philanthropy caused the Lane Theological Seminary to be created in Cincinnati in 1832. Quickly, the student body, led by Theodore Dwight Weld, formed an anti-slavery society. Small at first, it soon swelled to include a sizable minority of the student body. While President Lyman Beecher was away, the anti-slavery students revolted against the trustees’ prohibition of anti-slavery activity.

Those students and faculty members who could not countenance the Lane policies moved almost en mass to Oberlin College, where Charles Gradison Finney became Professor of Theology in 1835, and which quickly received the largess of Arthur Tappan. Ironically for Aratus Kent, “New Schoolers” were the supporters of the new college. Kent clearly agreed with Lyman Beecher’s assessment of the “Oberlinites”: “He goat men who think they do God a service by butting everything in the line of their march which does not fall or get out of their way.”[42]

Never having remotely approached a pro-slavery position, the A.H.M. Society’s failure to openly adopt a strong anti-slavery stance (at least until 1856), enabled several new missionary agencies to arise. The Society also sent missionaries to the Choctaw Indians, though the tribe held slaves. And it failed to prohibit slave holders from being members of churches it supported. As a result, The Amistad Committee, The Union Missionary Society, The Western Evangelical Missionary Society, and others formed.

Chief among the new anti-slavery societies was the American Missionary Society. Founded in 1846, its treasurer was one of the ubiquitous Tappans (Lewis). Soon many other societies merged with the A.M.A.. Northern Illinois churches that leaned toward abolitionism had an alternative source for funds after 1846, and many weak and fledgling churches were divided. To further complicate matters, the Congregationalists tended to be more prominent in the A.M.A.[43]

Flanked by the Old School on the right over theological differences, and by the A.M.A. on the left over slavery, Aratus Kent had a narrow path to follow while seeking to establish churches and raise funds for the A.H.M.S to support them. To further complicate matters, the Free Presbyterian Synod of Cincinnati was formed in 1846 which lured Presbyterian pastors and congregations away from both the Old and the New School Presbyteries. And such Free Presbyterians found the ample purse of the A.M.A. opened to them. All these developments, of course, lay in Aratus Kent’s future.

A Place So Hard No One Else Will Take It[44]

“They would come with a tolerable education, and a smattering knowledge of the old Calvinistic system of theology. They were generally tolerably well furnished with old manuscript sermons, that had been preached, or written, perhaps a hundred years before. Some of these sermons they had memorized, but in general they read them to the people. This way of reading sermons was out of fashion altogether in this Western world, and of course they produced no good effect among the people. The great mass of our Western people wanted a preacher that could mount a stump, a block, or old log, or stand in the bed of a wagon, and without note or manuscript, quote, expound, and apply the work of God to the hearts and consciences of the people. The result of the efforts of these Eastern preachers was not very flattering.”[45]

So wrote the legendary pioneer Methodist circuit rider, Peter Cartwright. If Timothy Dwight had been pleased to see disgruntled New Englanders depart for the frontier, the predominantly Upland South bred residents of Illinois in the 1820’s were not necessary pleased by the arrival of these displaced Yankees. Aratus Kent, one of Cartwright’s scorned “Eastern Preachers,” found his impressive academic and theological credentials, initially at least, almost superfluous.

Peter Cartwright and Aratus Kent personify the cultural collision that occurred when Connecticut met Virginia in Northern Illinois. Cartwright came to Illinois from Virginia via Kentucky. Only nine years Kent’s senior, Cartwright knew no formal education. Cartwright’s fame exceeds Kent’s not because he was a more tireless worker, but because he ran for Congress against Abraham Lincoln, and because he left an autobiography, two activities completely foreign to Aratus Kent’s character.

Ten years before Kent arrived in Galena, Timothy Flint, another frontier missionary commented on what he perceived to be the reasons behind the frontiersman’s half hearted plea for religion: “Why did they invite me here? A minister:a church:a school:are words to flourish in an advertisement to sell lots.”[46]

The following brief statement summarizes the noble motivations and religious pragmatism that united to create the American Home Missionary Society:

“The strength of the nation lies beyond the Allegheny. The center of dominion is fast moving in that direction. The ruler of this country is growing up in the great valley: leave him without the gospel and he will be a ruffian giant who will regard neither the decencies of civilization nor the charities of religion.... When we place ourselves on the top of the Alleghenies, survey the immense valley beyond it and consider that the character of its eighty or one hundred million inhabitants a century hence will depend upon the direction and impulse given it now in its forming state; must not every Christian feel disposed to forgo every party consideration, and cordially unite with his fellow Christians to furnish them those means of intellectual and moral cultivation of which they now stand in need; and for which they are constantly sending us their importunate petitions.... And what we do, we must do quickly. The tide of emigration will not wait until we have settled every metaphysical point of theology and every canon of church government. While we are deliberating the mighty swell is rising higher and higher on the side of the mountains.”[47]

What was the population of Northwestern Illinois like when Kent arrived? The first settlers into Northern Illinois were Southerners from Kentucky and Tennessee. Charles Latrobe described their circumstances:

“From Peoria to Galena the road leads over vast prairies, as yet very rarely broken by cultivation.... The farm houses generally lay on the edge of some rich piece of forested land, on the margin of one of the numerous creeks or rivers, and were usually built in the southern style . . . namely, two square log-apartments divided by a covered passage, while the kitchen premises lay without. The upper loft was almost always unfinished; and the floors covered with rough planks hewn by the axe. The furniture was necessarily scanty, comprising besides the beds in the corners, a table, a few tools or a bench, a chest or two containing the family clothing, and a shelf with a few papers and books. A few bottles of powerful medicine hung on one nail, and on another the trusty skin-pouch and powder horn, and a charger made of an alligator's tooth. One or two rifles were always to be seen in a dry corner. In these crowded apartments we were frequently obliged to stow ourselves away at night pell-mell with the family.... You may imagine a crowded area of twelve or fourteen feet square, furnishing the bed-chamber of as many people. In the corners the travelers were allowed to stow themselves away enveloped in their clothes and blanket-coats on the low plank erections which might pass for bedsteads. The floor at one end would be occupied by the driver, the squatter, and another, side by side under the same rug before the fire, and at the other extremity a huge flock sack, laid upon the planks, served as the family bed. The mother and eldest daughter would lie down on it at opposite ends, so that each other's feet and head would be in contact, were it not for the little children, whom, to the number of three or four, we have seen stowed in... “like mortar between the stones,’ to keep all tight.”[48]

Governor Thomas Ford described the pioneers from Kentucky and other upland southern states as being the “poor white man” of the South who had fled to avoid slavery. This class of people were said to be “a very good, honest, kind, hospitable people, unambitious of wealth, and great lovers of ease and social enjoyment” although Ford noted that many Northerners regarded this type of emigrant as “a long, lank, lean, lazy, and ignorant animal, but little in advance of the savage state; one who was content to squat in a log-cabin, with a large family of ill-fed and ill-clothed, idle, ignorant children.”[49]

This latter point of view was held by Eliza W. Farhnam, that aristocratic New Englander with the “great lady” complex:

“His [the Sucker’s] aspirations are equally stationary in the more important particular of educating his children. He ''reckons'' they should know how to write their names, and "allows it's a right smart thing to be able to read when you want to." He ''expects" his sons may make stump speeches if they live; but he don't "calculate that books and the sciences will do as much good for a man in these matters as a handy use of the rifle." . . . As for teaching ''that's one thing he allows the Yankees are just fit for;'' he does not hesitate to confess, that they are a ''power smarter" at that than the western boys. But they can't hold a rifle nor ride at wolf hunt with 'em; and he reckons, after all, these are the great tests of merit.

With all these peculiarities, and this ignorance of what is esteemed essential in a cultivated society, these people have strong intellects, bold and vigorous ideas, and possess a vast fund of knowledge, drawn from sources with which a more artificial society is too little acquainted. They have an order of eloquence peculiar to themselves, rough, bold, and strong, and glowing with illustrations drawn from nature as they know her, and from other sources familiar to their minds.”[50]

Mrs. Farnham, who lived near Peoria and made an extended visit to the Rock River Country of Northwest Illinois in the late thirties, in writing of the morals of these Southerners stated:

“They are too magnanimous to be often mean, too free from avarice to be often dishonest. A little fraud or shrewd trick played upon a Yankee they consider a commendable evidence of superior sagacity; a thing to be exulted in rather than repented of. Their passion in trade is for the never-sufficiently-to-be-prized horse, and a considerable part of their petty litigation grows out of this class of transactions. Indolence is one of their worse vices; for it leads to many others. This, however, I am bound to say is confined to the male sex.... The male population may be pronounced unequivocally indolent. On a bright day they mount their horses and throng the little towns in the vicinity of their homes, drinking and trading horses until late in the evening. It is not extraordinary to see two or more come to blows before these festival days end.”[51]

Reverend Cartwright, himself a product of the frontier, was much more sympathetic in his description of the early pioneers of northwestern Illinois. After picturing a great district north of Quincy where new settlements were formed and forming, hard long rides, cabin parlors, straw beds, and bedsteads made out of barked saplings and puncheon bedcords, he described the settlers as follows:

“The people were kind and clever, proverbially so; showing the real pioneer or frontier hospitality. The men were a hardy, industrious, enterprising, game catching, and Indian driving set of men.

The women were also hardy; they would think no hardship of turning out and helping their husbands raise their cabins, if need be; they would mount a horse and trot ten or fifteen miles to meeting, or to see the sick and minister to them, and home again the same day.”[52]

From the very first some Yankees had come to the Rock River Country to settle alongside the more numerous emigrants from the South. The news accounts of the Black Hawk War and Black Hawk's later triumphal tour of the East, after his short confinement in Fort Monroe, made him and the Rock River Country a topic of conversation throughout the East.

Levi Warner, writing to his nephew in the East on June 25,1833, described the Rock River Country in this way:

“The country is good and healthy. I should be highly gratified if some of you Green Mountain boys who have to toil, dig and sweat among the rocks and hills to gain sustenance in life . . . would take it in your heads to abandon those doleful sterile places of servitude calculated to wear out or destroy the youthful or most vigorous part of your lives allotted you to no other purpose but to keep you in poverty and want, depriving you of the means of accumulating property for your future benefit and enjoyment.... Penetrate between the vast region that lies between you and this place until you arrive at the desired haven, the flower of the World, the Garden of Eden, a land flowing with milk and honey.

Already I anticipate the time when Myriads of Green Mountain boys shall make their way to the land of Promise in order to locate themselves a residence where they may enjoy the pleasing satisfaction of reaping the benefits of their labor.

But to the point - this country far excels yours and happy are they who make the exchange.”[53]

This land of milk and honey was sure to fill up fast. To counter the heathen influence of the first wave of rustics, religion was needed. At least the eastern religious establishment prayed that such a need would be recognized.

Religion Arrives at the Mines

The first public religious services known to be held in the Galena mines occurred in 1827, conducted by Rev. Revis Cormac.[54] It is said, however, that an Episcopal Clergyman, a chaplain of the Hudson Bay Co. at York Factory,[55] was weather bound in Galena in 1826, and preached on Sunday in a log tavern then just built opposite the present site of DeSoto House.[56]

“In 1828, the Catholic Reverend Vincent Badin... visited the Catholics of Galena and the surrounding country; but the Mission was only of a few days' duration, and left not the slightest trace of the formation of a parish.” This is how Father Mazzuchelli described the advent of Catholic services in Galena.[57]

The first regularly appointed preacher in Galena is a matter of some dispute. The History of Jo Daviess County states that “Mr. Kent arrived on the First of April, 1829, and Mr. Dew [a Methodist] one week later.” Actually, Kent put the date of his own arrival at April 19.[58] Mr. Dew had visited the year before, but the letter of 1869 in the Galena Gazette that is the source for this earlier visit is also the source for the claim that Dew returned permanently one week later than Kent in the spring of 1829. “Reverend” Rivers Cormack is listed as one of the charter members of Dew’s first Methodist “class,” thus Cormac was probably not an ordained minister.

What was Galena itself like when Aratus Kent accepted his assignment there? C.R. Robert[59] who was sent to survey the ground being offered to Kent described it this way:

Galena is situated on the west bank of Fever River (proper name River au Fevre) three miles east of the Mississippi between 42 30' and 43 latitude. It has not yet be determined whether it is just without the northern border of Illinois or not. It is not however far from the line. The number of inhabitants is estimated to be from 1200 to 1500 : the former is probably the most accurate, It is supposed two thirds of which have emigrated hither from various parts of the U.S. and the remainder from Ireland. The last are mostly Catholic. The rest who profess to anything are various but it is thought that a majority of them would prefer a clergyman of the Presbyterian denomination.

The place derives its importance entirely from the extensive & rich mines of lead ore in the vicinity. The U.S. agent, I am informed, reported the quantity of lead made at the different smelting establishments situated within 20 miles of this village at 5,000,000 lbs, most, if not all of which was shipped from here & the value of which was not less than $200000. It is estimated that the quantity this year will be nearly doubled. The diggings or mines are scattered over the whole country & from 1 to 40 miles distant from this & in which are employed from 6 to 7000 persons. Every steam boat brings larger numbers and it is thought by the month of July the number will increased to near, if not quite, 10000.

There are none of the external or public means of grace here either in town or country. There was at one period a catholic priest here, and last summer a Methodist clergyman [Rev. Dew] for a short time. I have been much occupied since my arrival and have not yet been out in the country and but little about the town. But you can readily imagine what the situation of the people is in a moral & religious point of view from what I have said. The Sabbath is not much regarded in the village. The miners do not generally work on that day, I fear not out of regard to it.

The number of families in the village is estimated at 100 to 150, the number of children is smaller in proportion : I am told not exceeding 50. There is no school here apparently. There was one last summer of about 30 scholars.

I am informed there are a number of professors in the village who are desirous of having a clergyman settle here. There is not any place of public worship erected. The subject, I am informed, of erecting one has been in agitation for some time. No measures have yet been taken to accomplish it. There are some few pious persons in the place and a number of others friendly to religion who I have no doubt if they had a sensible judicious clergyman to advise & instruct them could be disposed to cooperate in any measures calculated to improve the condition of the people. A short time since a person showed me a Sub[scription] for the purpose of raising funds for the support of a clergyman: when I saw it there were $125 sub. by the names as far as I am able to judge there will be enough since to support a man for a year at least.

There would be a difficulty in obtaining a proper place in which to hold worship as the houses are most of them built of logs and very small. But some persons with whom I have conversed on this subject think this difficulty could be overcome by erecting a temporary structure: which could be done in a short time.... I presume I need say nothing to impress upon your mind the importance of the field offered here to preach the Gospel & the present population is very small to what it will be in a few years. The whole country east of the Miss from the mouth of the Rock River to the Ouisconsin is full of lead ore & from what I learn the incarnation here has scarcely begun. You can form some idea of the rapid growth of this country from one fact: two years since the population of this place did not exceed 50 souls.... The climate in the country is healthy, the village cannot be called as far as I am informed unhealthy : but like most newly settled places subject to fever and ague and bilious fever in the fall.

If at least some residents of Galena wanted preaching, what qualities did they seek in their preacher? Again, C.R. Robert had an opinion:

In the sub[scription] above named nothing is said as to the denomination, but it is supposed that the Presbyterian is to be preferred. I am young in Christian life and have but little experience & I am diffident in expressing an opinion as to the requisite qualifications of the person whom it would be best to send here but from what I have already said regarding the population it would not be good picking to send hither a young & inexperienced man. A parson in residing here would undergo much frustration for a few years or until the country becomes more settled. His fare would be plain, much of the time salt provisions & few or none of the leisures of life.[60]

Several years earlier Dr. Horatio Newhall, Kent’s longtime parishioner, friend, physician, and associate in many endeavors, writing back home to Massachusetts had this opinion on what was required in an Illinois preacher:

In order to be useful among us we think a minister should be eminently pious and philanthropic; should be decidedly evangelical in his sentiments, and of a mild & conciliating disposition. He should be sociable & unostentatious, willing to visit & converse with his flock. He should possess a good share of confidence or assurance as modesty is unfashionable in this [western] country. He should be eloquent or at least fluent in extemporaneous discourses, and he must come prepared to live and fare like a missionary in an uncivilized country .... You will probably infer that we are prepared to offer him a handsome salary. But ... this is far from being the case.[61]

The man Newhall sought was preparing for Galena.. On June 4th, 1828, Kent wrote: “Having closed up my accounts and seen some suitable monuments erected over the graves of my parents, I bade adieu to the place of my fathers’ sepulchers and immediately after dinner, mounted my horse and turned my face to the north. But my heart was heavy and my countenance sad, for I was like unto Abraham who went forth not knowing whither he went.”[62] In 1828 the “whither” was Bradford, but the missionary labors there “were not congenial to him,” and he soon was back in New York City.

Galena Pastoral Duties: The Early Years

“Going to New York City, 1829, under great depression and sore trial of mind which had continued long to oppress me, while in Bradford, in reference to a field of labor at the West, by which I thought only of Niagara County, New York, I must needs [sic] call on Dr. A. Peters, Secretary of the A.H.M.S., and inquire after a field of missionary labor. He proposed the lead mines of the upper Mississippi, of which I knew nothing before, but where there were several thousand souls with no preaching. I go, Sir, was my prompt reply.”[63]

Kent’s commission was dated March 21st, 1829. Kent did not wait. He gave his horse to the American Tract Society, and on April 3rd, he wrote: “I am as one that dreams, with my paper on a trunk and my pen trembling with the jarring of the steam boat contending with the strong current of the Mississippi, I am urging my way up the great valley to the lead mines, not knowing the thing that shall befall me there.”[64]

The trip to Galena from New York was not an easy one, and it was punctuated by frequent stops. Kent even visited Hannibal, the eventual home of Sam Clemons. Several years later Mark Twain could not help poking fun at the “tract scattering preachers” like Kent, as an illustration from his Life on the Mississippi depicts. Kent felt an obligation to make the trip a working missionary expedition, and described his activities for Dr. Peters:

By the Kind Providence of God I was kept in safety amidst the dangers incident to a journey of 2000 miles, and after a quick passage of 18 1/2 days, exclusive of 8 days during which I lingered in Missouri, I arrived in this place on the 19th of April and felt that I had more than ordinary occasion for devout thanksgiving to the Preserver of men.

I sent you a line from St. Louis [not located] and after leaving that place I considered myself as having entered into my own broad Diocese and felt it my duty there to get all the information possible and form acquaintance with all the various people within my reach; since there is not any clergyman of any denomination, to my knowledge, on the Mississippi above that city.

I should think that Pike County, Missouri, is an important location for a Missionary. At Clarksville, a little village 110 miles above St. Louis, I called upon Mr. Warren Swain. They are intelligent eastern[65] people and seem anxious to have preaching. They gave a flattering report of the Sab. School which they established last summer. I thought proper to promise them the Home Missionary for one year on condition that he would pay the postage and circulate it.

At Louisiana, a larger village 10 miles above, I called and left some tracts. Pike county is said to be very good land, to be settling fast, and to contain 2 or 3000 inhabitants.

I cannot however give you definite information for I felt it my duty to proceed as fast as possible to the place of my destination.

Twenty or 30 miles above are 2 other villages: Hannibal[66] and Palmyra. The latter is two miles off the River, to which I forwarded some tracts by a citizen. From information I thought it might be well to forward the Home Missionary to Henry Snow or William Porter who live at Quincy, Adams County, Illinois, and who were represented to me as intelligent Presbyterian professors.

At Rock Island, 100 miles below this place (at the foot of the upper Rapids), are stationed two companies of soldiers. I was informed that Dr. Sprague, the surgeon, and his family are Presbyterian professors.

Were it not for the tax on my time and purse I have thought it might be well to attend the Indiana Synod which meets at Shoal Creek, Greenville 50 miles east of St. Louis in Oct., visiting these and other places in my route.

During my journey I did not lose sight of the object of my mission, and, though the people of these Western Waters are generally disinclined to reading or religious conversation, yet I kept some little volumes in my berth which were read to some extent. I also circulated 3000 pages of tracts among the passengers, including those that I left at the various stopping places or sent ashore by persons proper.

The vices of Sabbath breaking, Profane swearing, the free use of strong drink, and the practice of Gambling everywhere prevalent at least beyond anything I ever saw. But I have not thought it my duty to make a direct attack upon them from a persuasion that if they were not restrained from respect to the Ministerial presence, nothing would be gained by incurring their displeasure, which by wearing an affable demeanor and impressing their minds with the conviction that I feel the importance of religion, and am tenderly alive to their spiritual welfare, I should take a sure method of securing their esteem and of recommending the Religion I profess to love. And having a passage of 4 or 5 days I found opportunities to converse with many individuals on the subject of personal piety, the result of which eternity discloses.

Kent abhorred the breaking of the Sabbath, and he campaigned vigorously on the issue of “keeping the Sabbath.” A certain irony exists in the fact that he himself traveled on a “Sabbath breaking” steamboat to get to Galena. This small hypocrisy was probably not lost on Kent. One biographer of Kent made a careful point of claiming (erroneously) that Kent had actually arrived in Galena on Saturday the 18th.[67] Kent’s arrival and initial impressions are recorded in his own words:

On Sabbath morning I stepped ashore at this place, presented the letters kindly furnished me at St. Louis, procured a place and preached at 3 o’clock PM to about 50 persons.[68] And I ought to say that I have received many tokens of kindness and approbation from the people both of St. Louis and this place. This village of 200 houses, very compactly built on two streets or benches, one about 20 or 30 feet above the other, closely copying the circular direction of Fever River in front and a high bluff of 100 feet immediately in the rear. The hum of business is heard on the margins of the River while abundant scope is afforded for the display of taste in the little yards and gardens which seem already to be creeping up the steep ascent of the surrounding hills.

Here are thrown together like the tenants of the grave yard without any order, people of every country and every race, and you may see in one day Indians, French, Irish, English, Germans, Swiss and Americans, and such a variety of national customs and costumes as are rarely to be met within any other place. I have been out in the country as far as Dodgeville which is 50 miles distant and 12 miles from the Ouisconsin. I preached in 5 different nights to assemblies ranging from 2 to 150 of whom 3/4 were males.

Out of 24 Prof. of Dif. Denom. that I have discovered in this village one half are in the not known at all, or known only as Backsliders, thus they remind one of the 10 virgins. They are of different denominations and may be adverted as a beacon to warn the churches to examine whether their Religion is such as will live only in the mansions they now occupy, or whether they could still flourish if transplanted to some lonely distant and deprived of all moral culture.

A combination of unpropitious circumstances have already produced & sustain still greater embarrassments in this place and the adjoining country. The present regulations of Government are oppressive. I shall not take it upon me to say that they require too great a proportion of the lead, but the requisition that those who live 50 miles out should deliver their tithes here, and the restrictions by which people are prevented from cultivating the soil and are thus made to depend on markets 1000 miles distant are oppressive beyond endurance. The merchants and smelters have sold their goods on c