"Tending to Edify, Astonish, and Instruct": Published Narratives of Spiritual Dreams and Visions in the Early Republic

On a Sunday in September 1798, a large congregation gathered in Jericho, Vermont, to hear nine-year-old Hannah Coy relate a strange and wonderful story of a vision that had transformed her life.¹ She had seen heaven and Christ himself—even his wounded feet and hands—and witnessed "thousands of saints and angels" singing praise to God, including a neighbor who in life had been deaf and dumb. Moreover, she had also been whisked by Christ to the pit of hell and seen the devil himself—a "dreadful creature" with "dreadful claws with long nails"—and observed "multitudes of poor souls in misery." Trembling at the prospect that this might be her fate, she was then assured by Christ that she "was his, and should live forever with him in heaven." Her only charge was to return to earth and tell all that she had seen. Two years later her story was published in a small pamphlet that also contained accounts of the visions of two other young women and another of a miraculous healing.²

Coy's account is but one of a large group of similar pamphlets of dreams and visions that were published in increasing numbers beginning in the 1780s and peaking in the early 1800s, paralleling the growth of evangelical Protestantism.³ These were short narratives that announced themselves as authentic personal experiences and consistently bore titles such as "A Very Remarkable Account of the Vision of Nathan Culver."⁴ They were inexpensive, not even worth including in bookseller advertisements: one printer in 1800 priced a fifteen page pamphlet at six pence and noted that a "great allowance"could be had if the buyer purchased "by the Gross or Dozen."⁵ A few were reprints of narratives published in Britain, where similar chronicles also found a ready audience.⁶ But most were American narratives that were printed in multiple editions not only in the major urban centers, but also in smaller towns such as Windsor, Vermont; Poughkeepsie, New York; Amherst, New Hampshire; Norwich, Connecticut; and Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The frequency of reprints and their publication in such diverse locales suggests their popularity.⁷ Few of

Figure 1.

Title page, A Vision Seen by Nathan Barlow ([1802]). A representative example of how visionary experiences were presented in pamphlets. Courtesy American Antiquarian Society.

Figure 2.

Title page, A True Narrative of a Most Stupendous Trance and Vision, . . . (1793). This satirical text challenged the characteristics and authenticity of other visionary pamphlets. Courtesy American Antiquarian Society.

the visionaries, who were mostly male, claimed a specific denominational identity, but when they did, it was of an evangelical character—Methodist, Baptist, or Presbyterian. Nor did they seek a particular religious audience, instead addressing their experiences to "the public"or simply to "my readers." These spiritual narratives in all likelihood appealed to and were accepted as authentic by the large community of evangelical Christians who had experienced, recorded in their diaries, and shared their own religious dreams and visions. They also joined a profusion of visionary accounts in published spiritual diaries and autobiographies and added to a rapidly growing body of devotional literature for evangelicals.⁸

The frequency of and credibility given to dreams and visions in America was periodically reanimated by religious revivalism, but never completely disappeared. After falling into disfavor in the late seventeenth century, charismatic religious experiences again acquired significance during the revivals of the 1740s when believers looked to a whole range of physical, sensory, emotional, and visionary manifestations as proof of the Holy Spirit's indwelling presence and hence the conversion of their souls. That charismatic intensity—at least its public manifestation—was short-lived, however, beaten back both externally and internally by Old Light Congregationalists who in organized fashion widely circulated their charges of religious enthusiasm, and by the seemingly inevitable emphasis on institutional issues that comes with organizing new churches—in this case, of Separates, New Lights, and Baptists. By the 1770s, many...