America's Religious Crossroads by Stephen T. Kissel

Author:Stephen T. Kissel [Kissel, Stephen T.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, General, Sociology of Religion, History, United States, State & Local, Midwest (IA; IL; IN; KS; MI; MN; MO; ND; NE; OH; SD; WI), 19th Century
ISBN: 9780252053191
Google: 1IJTEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: 2021-12-28T05:29:52+00:00

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Reflecting on the lack of civic law and order in early antebellum Illinois, Methodist circuit rider Benjamin Young was forced to concede in an 1804 letter that Illinois was “of all places, the worst for stealing, fighting, and lying,” and the Congregationalist preacher Joseph Badger found many settlers in eastern Ohio who “seemed to glory in their infidelity.”75 Such an environment often compelled itinerant clergy to occasionally exercise unconventional means to maintain civil order among Northwestern residents. Among the scores of recorded encounters with Northwestern ministers, several colorful accounts survive of an especially resilient selection of preachers who refused to be intimidated by insults or threats of violence. Reverend Jesse Walker of Illinois was known to have pitched a man over a high fence who had tried to frighten Walker out of town, and Peter Cartwright informed an Illinois ferry operator that if he did not stop verbally abusing Methodist ministers, “I will put you in the river, and baptize you in the name of the devil, for surely you belong to him.”76 In the 1830s, Eli Farmer hired men to help clear trees on his family’s lot in Indiana. One of them accidentally felled a tree on the property of Farmer’s “close and exacting” neighbor Philip Bunger. When the preacher later approached Bunger to make amends for the trespass, he was met with a barrage of insults and “intemperant” abuses.77 After being accosted on five occasions by Bunger in this manner, Farmer engaged the neighbor in a roadside brawl. “In a moment he raised in his stirrups to strike,” Farmer recalled, “and as he did so, I caught him by his collar and pulled him off of his horse, … I now laid the lash to him in a lively manner.”78 By the following morning, news of the fight had spread all over town. Farmer presented himself, along with a witness, to the local magistrate for review, and was absolved of any guilt. This was neither the first nor the last time Farmer had publicly “whipped” a man.79 During his 1843–1845 term in the Indiana state legislature, Farmer broke up a fight on the floor of the Senate, an act that involved Farmer “whipping” one of the aggressors into submission.80 While such outbursts give the appearance of a lapse in conduct by Methodist clergy, they actually emphasize a preacher’s ability to adapt to threats of intimidation. Troublemakers could witness the power of God peaceably or forcibly. Put simply by scholar Almer Pennewell, settlers “could choose which they wanted, hell or heaven,” and it was given to them accordingly.81 Tests of personal strength frequently determined an individual’s manliness in the Old Northwest. Being able to hold one’s own in a fight was regarded with equal value to honesty, because it proved a man could stand his ground and defend his principles.82 “In those days, there was not much done in court-houses,” reminisced Rev. George Brown of Ohio. “The border settlers decided controversies, in many instances, as in all new countries, by a trial of manhood.

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