It Happened Here--"Jemima said she had Died..."

Jemima said she had died when she emerged from the fever that had suddenly struck her during a local epidemic in 1776, in Cumberland, Rhode Island, where she lived with her father and twelve siblings.  But stranger still was her assertion that her soul had gone to heaven and her body was reanimated by the holy spirit and returned to earth to save souls in a dying world that would soon face the Apocalypse. Within a few weeks Jemima Wilkinson began preaching and traveling around southern New England and promoting her message of personal redemption and forgiveness of sins for all who renounced sin and asked for forgiveness. Her message was not unique, but rather an amalgam of Quaker theology, the religion she had been raised in, and  the "New Light" movement that was sweeping Revolutionary America, at this time*.

 While the message was not unique, the messenger certainly was.  Jemima refused to answer to her old name, maintaining she was now a new being, of neither male or female gender, to be called now the "Public Universal Friend". The "Friend," as she called herself, or sometimes, the "Comforter" began to dress in clerical garb -- usually a black clerical gown,  with  white facings, in the manner of   an Episcopal minister.  She wore her hair long, parted in the middle, in ringlets about her shoulders, as was the fashion of most ministers of the day; and never wore any sort of close linen cap, the almost universal convention of colonial women, who were not of the upper class. When she went outside she usually wore a low, broad-brimmed hat, typically worn by Quaker men. 

Within a couple years the Friend had gained a sizable following, including several wealthy New Englanders, one of who provided him/her and some of her/his brothers and sisters and closest followers with a large residence in Little Rest (Kingston), R.I. 

In 1782 the Friend began the first of a series of extended visits to Philadelphia and surrounding areas.The Comforter had had the most success attracting Quakers and former Quakers in Southern New England, so it was natural she/he would look to Pennsylvania, a fountainhead of American Quakerism for potential followers. Though large crowds were attracted to the Friend's early meetings, often a majority were curiosity-seekers attracted not so much by her/his message as by his/her appearance and the implied flaunting of gender-norms. Soon the local press was filled with a fierce public debate about the Friend and his/her group. Charges of impropriety, fraud, blasphemy and even crimes** were bandied about. 

By the mid 1780's the Friend had turned her major efforts from proselytizing to finding a "New Jerusalem" sanctuary for her/his flock and was looking to the New York frontier. An area west of Seneca Lake was chosen. 

Unfortunately, the New York frontier was not a sanctuary but a maelstrom of competing land claims, beginning with the fact that western New York had been granted to Massachusetts by colonial charter in 1628/9. The Massachusetts' claim was not settled until 1788 when an arbitration board ruled that the Bay State retained the "Pre-emptive right" to buy the land from the Indians to sell it to any speculators/developers but that New York had the right to govern the territory and, once developed, could tax improvements made on it. First to come forward was a partnership of Oliver Phelps and Nathan Gorham who bought 6 million acres of Iroquois land, promising to pay Massachusetts $300,000. But then, another group of investors, led by John Livingston arranged to lease 18 million acres from the Senecas, Cayuga, Oneidas and Onondagas in a 999 year lease. The first complication was that the  Phelps/Gorham purchase and the Livingston and Associates leases overlapped! The two groups of speculators worked this difficulty out by Livingston et.al.  giving Phelps and Gorham cash payments to buy more Indian land and to help meet their payments to Massachusetts.  Then New York Governor George Clinton and the NYS Assembly stepped in to put an end to the Livingston et. al. leasing scheme (which was in fact an infringement on Massachusetts pre-emption rights.) Payments to Phelps/Gorham stopped, settlement lagged and the partners could not meet their obligations to Massachusetts. Bankruptcy inevitably followed.

PREEMPTION LINE
BOUNDARY DRAWN BETWEEN
MASSACHUSETTS AND NEW YORK
DECEMBER 16, 1786
CAUSE OF LONG CONTROVERSY
IN WESTERN NEW YORK
Location: ON US 20 & NYS 5 AT WESTERN EDGE OF THE CITY (sign not found)

 

Several roads that follow the Pre-Emption
lines are named for that line. This one runs
along the western side of Geneva.


 As if these were not troubles enough, the Friend's followers built their settlement along the west shore of Seneca Lake, assuming the Pre-emption line, when surveyed, would run up the center of the lake.  To their horror they discovered, when it was surveyed, it ran several miles west of the lake, through their community, cutting off houses,  a new grist mill  and saw mill they had just constructed!  Then, the demise of the leasehold scheme left the Livingston partnership with clear title to only four townships that Phelps/Gorham had sold them outright. The Universal Friend's followers discovered that instead of a 999 year lease to 14,000 acres, they actually owned only a strip of land 6 miles long and 92 rods wide! James Parker, the Friend's Congregation's agent appealed to the state and in 1791 they were given a grant allowing them to purchase the land for a shilling an acre. But then questions about the accuracy of the pre-emption line began to arise. The old line had been drawn by chain and mariners compass, and conveniently left the town of Geneva in New York and under the Livingston Lessee's control. A new transit created survey put the line farther east, giving part of the settlement back to Massachusetts, on land New York had no right to grant to the Universal Friend's followers!  Fortunately, the business agent of the new owners of the Massachusetts' land, Charles Williamson***, of  Pulteney Associates was sympathetic but some members of the Friend's Congregation ended up paying for their land a third time!

Hewitt Rd., Dresden

By now many of the Friend's settlers had become weary of the battles that ensued over their land.

To make matters worse, the land they had pooled their money to purchase had been doled out in proportion to the money they put in.  With settlement it had increased in value many times over and the bigger land owners, especially, were drawn by profit to sell to whoever (members or non-members) were anxious to meet their price.

By 1794 the Friend had had enough of the willfulness independence of several of the (male) large landholders in her community and moved west with a number of his/her loyal followers, leaving behind the Friend's Settlement  to develop a new settlement near  Keuka Lake, that the Friend called Jerusalem. Unlike the Comforter's original settlement, of which she/he had not owned any part, the Universal Friend in 1791 began making payments to his/her agent who had secured the land from Phelps and Gorham at the time his/her other agent had been securing their Livingston lease. By 1795 the Universal Friend owned 4,480 acres. Starting again with his/her faithful adherents, the Friend built a second community, from the wilderness. She/he was joined by a score of other families, both from the old settlement and the congregations in Southern New England and Pennsylvania. A succession of three large houses was built for the Comforter and a number of her/his followers, male and female, who had chosen his/her preferred lifestyle of celibacy. The last of these, built about 1809, still stands.

For the next decade the Universal Friend held sway over a restive community until 1819 when she died. Lack of a charismatic leader to continue her work led the community to gradually dissolve until by mid-century the properties passed into the hands of individuals who had not been members of the sect.

Friend Hill Rd., off of Rte 29, Branchport

                                                            (This date appears to be in error)

The Universal Friend's 3d and final residence

*Under assault was the Calvinist/Puritan notion that some people were predestined for heaven while the majority were predestined for hell and that an individual's only recourse was to eschew sin and pray for a sign that would confirm their salvation. So too was the notion that clergymen must have formal theological education, to be replaced by the notion that divine inspiration was sufficient to empower an individual to become a preacher.

**In one incident, a new follower of the sect came into disagreement on the interpretation of an event with several older members of the sect. Afterwards she thought she observed a conversation of looks and gestures between older members, and that night awoke in terror, feeling she was being strangled.  No formal reports or investigations were made, and perhaps the incident was dreamt by the girl, but reported in the press it became more grist for the anti-Friend's mill.

***In a future post we will look at the remarkable Charles Williamson.



--A major source of information for this post is from the just published, The Public Universal Friend, Jemima Wilkinson and Religious Enthusiasm in Revolutionary America, by Paul B. Moyer, 2015.


 Marker of the Week -- You just never know where a NYSHM might turn up. In addition  to new markers created daily by both the William G. Pomeroy Foundation and dozens of local organizations, with and without local government affiliations, now and then you come across a marker that has escaped any public listing. Although the New York State Museum Historical Marker List was pretty comprehensive for its time, the list was compiled decades after the State began underwriting markers proposed/applied for by local historical groups and groups of interested citizens. The State Education Department, not having kept its original records appears to had to go back to the County governments to ask their help in compiling its list, with, not surprisingly, mixed results. Though the Albany County listing appears to have been pretty complete, even here are surprises. In Westerlo, a short distance from my home is Lobdell Mills Rd.  Along part of it runs Basic Creek and where the creek crosses the road is this sign. 

To the best of my knowledge, nowhere is this sign listed.