Jemima Wilkinson: Errant Quaker Divine

JEMIMA WILKINSON: ERRANT QUAKER DIVINE By Charles Lowell Marlin* That western New York from 1800 to 1850 was known as a seedbed for almost every cause, agitation, or revival in America, is due in part to the ministry of an erstwhile Quaker, Jemima Wilkinson, who thought herself the Spirit of God, "The Public Universal Friend." The area harbored so many religious communities and sustained so many revival fires that Charles Grandison Finney, the Methodist evangelist, called it the "Burned-over District ."1 Jemima began her traveling and preaching when she was twenty-four, and by thirty-five, had gathered a group to pioneer a "New Jerusalem," a haven for the righteous, in the wilderness west of Seneca Lake, New York. Her venture in 1788, the first white settlement in the region, opened the way for a momentous boom in Western migration. Born in Cumberland, Rhode Island, on November 29, 1752, she was the eighth child of a Quaker family that would grow to twelve in number before the mother died. Her father was a well established farmer and respected citizen, but the family did not have an opportunity to acquire a broad education or cultural background . Her mother's death when Jemima was ten may have caused the prophetess' lack of formal education, since she was, from that time on, left to her own devices; however, her early religious training was the principal molder of Jemima's ideas, even though in later years she made efforts to discount the early formative Quaker influence. She was twenty-four when she became dangerously ill with typhoid fever and was delirious for five days with rising fever. After subjecting herself to almost continuous prayer for the wellbeing of her soul, she began having hallucinations. She saw Archangels descend and take her soul away, replacing in her body the *Charles Lowell Marlin is Instructor in Speech and Assistant Debate Coach at Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa. 1 Charles G. Finney, Autobiography of Charles G. Finney (New York, 1876), p. 78. 90 Jemima Wilkinson91 Spirit of God which was to be known as "The Public Universal Friend."2 Never again was she to use her original name, as it belonged to the first dweller in her body. When Jemima gained strength again, she began her divine career. Though beautiful with dark hair and attractive figure, she dressed in a long, dark, shapeless habit to minimize her sex, occasionally wearing to services a large gray or white widebrimmed beaver hat.3 She did not hesitate to visit prisoner-of-war camps or to denounce the British soldiers for their evil ways, nor did she hesitate in all boldness and persistence to proclaim herself throughout Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania. She established meetinghouses in New Milford and South Kingston, Rhode Island, and at Worcester, Pennsylvania, had an active following . In 1783 she held a prolonged revival in Philadelphia at the "new Quaker meetinghouse on Arch Street."4 After fourteen years of preaching, her followers, loosely organized into a Society, sent a man into the Indian country of western New York in search of a place to escape the "wicked world." He reported that the Indians were too unfriendly, but a committee of three men was sent out again. So the Society in 1788 settled a party of about twenty-five west of Seneca Lake, where they planted the first wheat in the area.5 After two years she came to the settlement and moved it to the west branch of Lake Keuka. The log house first built for Jemima's household was also used as a church and became the first school in all the area in 1790.6 By 1790, from sixty to eighty families had settled; also, a gristmill and sawmill were built. She named her community New Jerusalem, but the "New" was soon dropped. At first, she proposed to make New Jerusalem a utopia, a place where believers would "constitute a separate and consecrated body set over against the sinful world—a Chosen People as the Hebrews phrase it, a City of God in the language of St. Augustine,"7 and the House2 Her own account of the illness, "A Memorandum of the introduction of...