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[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.
1[1]
Caroline Kent to Chapin
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[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[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[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[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[6] Nathaniel Dwight was also the
grandfather of Timothy Dwight, President of Yale.7[7] Of course, Timothy Dwight's other
grandfather was the great, if controversial, Calvinist Jonathan Edwards.
See Nelson
Newhall, H: Obituary of Aratus Kent. Galena Gazette, Nov. 23, 1869. There is some confusion as to whether Kent
was born on the 15th or the 17th. A 1957 letter from the Town Clerk of Suffield in the Beloit College Archives, gives
the 17th, but Newhall gives the date as the 15th. Most other biographical sketches seem to be taken from Newhall.
4[4]
Sarah died in 1813 and John married the widow of his brother Elihu in 1815. Biggs, L.V.: Genealogies of the
Different Families Bearing the Name of Kent in the United States. Boston, 1898. p. 195.
5[5]
Loomis Collection of Vital Records, Kent Memorial Library, Suffield, Ct., p. 141. This gives Jan. 17, 1794 as the
date of Aratus' birth.
6[6]
Justice Nathaniel Dwight (1666-1711). Dwight, B.W.: History of the Decendents of John Dwight. New York, 1874.
Vol. I, p. 102-105.
7[7]
Cunningham, C.E. Timothy Dwight. New York, 1942. p. 10.
2[2]
3[3]
Jeddidiah Morse’s Gazetteer of 1821 put population at 2680.8[8] Aratus Kent was not the
town’s only peripatetic son: in 1853 the population was only 2962.9[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[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[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[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[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[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
Morse, J., and Morse, R.: New Universal Gazetteer. Hartford, 1821. p. 715.
Baldwin, T., and Thomas, J.: A New and Complete Gazeteer of the United States. Philadephia, 1854. p. 1119.
10[10]
Appleton”s, Vol. IV, p. 338.
11[11]
Morgan, F.: Connecticut as a Colony and as a State. Hartford, 1904. Vol. I, p. 308-310.
12[12]
Memorial of Inhabitants of the Town of Galena, in the State of Illinois. Doc. #35, 20th Congress, 2nd Session, Ho.
of Reps. Among the signers was Dr. Horatio Newhall, Kent”s close friend and writer of Kent”s obituary.
13[13]
Townsend, Lucy Forsyth: The Best Helpers of One Another: Anna Peck Sill and the Struggle for Women’s
Education. Dekalb: Department of Leadership and Educational Policy Studies, Northern Illinois University, in
cooperation with Educational Studies Press, 1988. p. 26.
14[14]
Appleton’s, Vol. 2, p. 342.
8[8]
9[9]
"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[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[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[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[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
Cunningham, C.E.: Timothy Dwight. New York, 1942. p. 261.
Centennial, p. 39.
17[17]
Kent to Professor Emerson, April 17, 1850. Chapin Papers, Beloit College.
18[18]
See March 1860 letter.
15[15]
16[16]
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[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?
19[19]
Cunningham, op cit, p. 238-239.
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[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[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
20[20]
21[21]
Cuningham, op cit. p. 244-5.
Kent, Inaugural Address, Beloit Papers.
by Aratus Kent. And, except when it came to the issue of slavery,22[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[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[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[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
“Negro slavery existed in the mines for some years. Many of the early miners were from slave-holding states, and
brought their slaves with them. In 1823, when Captain Harris arrived, there were from 100 to 150 negroes here. Under
the ordinance of 1787, slavery was forever prohibited in the Northwestern Territory, but Illinois sought to evade this
organic law by the enactment of statutes by which these slaves could be held here as "indentured" or "registered
servants," and these statutes were known as tlle Black Laws. As late as March 10, 1829, the commissioners of Jo
Daviess Oounty ordered a tax of one half per cent to be levied and col]ected on "town lots, slaves, indentured or
registered servants," etc. (Slavery existed in the mines until after this date and was not abolished until about 1840.)
There is now [1878] living in Galena a venerable old colored man, Swanzy Adams, born a slave, in Virginia, in April,
1796, who moved to Kentucky, and thence, in April, 1827, to Fever River, as the slave of James A. Duncan, on the old
steamer "Shamrock." His master "hired him" to Captain Comstock, for whom he worked as a miner. He subsequently
bought himself for $1,500 (altllough he quaintly says, "good boys like me could be bought in Kentuck for $350"), and
discovered a lead on Sunday that paid it, but he was compelled to serve five years ]onger as a slave, and was once
kidnapped and taken to St. Louis. "Old Swanzy," as he is familiarly called, is the sole survivor of the slaves held under
the Black Laws of Illinois, then in force, but which have lon., since been swept from her statute books. It is p]easant to
add that, by hard labor, industry and economy, since he owned himself; “Swanzy” has secured a comfortable home and
competence against want in his declining years.” Hist Jo Davies Co. p. 257.
23[23]
Dwight, Timothy: Theology; explained and defended in a series of sermons-with a memoir of the life of the author
[by Sermon E. Dwight] 5 vols. Middleton, Ct. 1818-19.
24[24]
Appleton's
25[25]
The term “ultra abolitionist” firt appeared in Kent”s correspondance in 1850. Kent ot Sec., A.H.M.S., Aug. 14,
1850.
22[22]
Illinois was another matter altogether. This movement he considered “unscriptural” and far too
independent in its polity.26[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[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.
Kent to Chapin, Beloit papers.
Sweet, William W.: Religion on the American Frontier, 1783-1849; Vol. II The Presbyterians. New york, 1964.
26[26]
27[27]
p.1.
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[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[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[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[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[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,
Cunningham, op cit. p. 126-128.
Quoted in: Turner, F.J.: Rise of the New West, 1819-1829. New York, 1968. p. 11-27 contains an excellent sketch
of the New England of Kent's youth - it politics, economics, and its religion.
30[30]
Edwards, John H.: “Rev. Aratus Kent.” in The Church at Home and Abroad, 1895. Edwards quotes one of
Edwards twelve adopted children, so must have had access to some family records or at least recollections.
31[31]
Appleton’s Vol. 5, p. 315.
32[32]
Appleton”s, Vol. 3, p. 245-6.
28[28]
29[29]
possibly near Greenville in central Ohio.33[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[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[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[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[37] probably as a
temporary supply. While in New York he became acquainted with Rev. Absalom Peters,38[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.
Kent visited Greenvile in 1821 and was impressed by the sucess of the plan to transplant a flock with each
preacher as a means of settling the frontier. “Such a colony went in a body from Greenville Mass [not listed in Baldwin
and Thomas] to Greenville Ohio [A post township in the central part of Darke Co. Ohio, pop. 3417 (1853) (B&T, p.
450)]. The first Sabbath was a day of holy convocation and when I visited them 9 years since it was one of the most
pleasant and best societies in the state.” Kent to Secretery AHMS, August 1830. Chapin put Kent”s mission in “western
Ohio”.
34[34]
Edwards, op cit.
35[35]
Letter of June 19, 1828 from Portsmouth. Quoted in Riegler, G.A.: “Aratus Kent, First Presbyterian Minister in
Northern Illinois.” Jour. of the Pres. Hist. Soc., Vol. 13, 1929. p. 366.
36[36]
Some sources put Kent at Bradford, Mass., and others at Bradford, N.H. Bradford, Mass., was both a township
and the name of a village in the township. There are also Bradford Townsihps in Maine and Vermont. see Baldwin and
Thomas, A Gazeteer of the United States. 1853.
37[37]
Edwards, op cit.
38[38]
Absalom Peters (1793-1869) was Presbyterian Clergyman, editor, and author. He was born in Wentworth, N.H.,
the son of Gen. Absalom Peters, a revolutionary veteran. He graduated from Dartmouth in 1816, the same year Kent
graduated from Yale. After graduating from the Princeton Theological Seminary, he preached at the First
Congregational Church at Bennington, Vt. In 1825 he became secretary of the United Missionary Society of New York.
Under his leadership the American Home Missionary Society was established in 1826, with which the New York
Society was merged. The A.H.M.S. has a Board of trustees representing sixteen states. He served the Society for 12
years and travelled about 75,000 miles, largely under difficult frontier conditions. He wrote all the annual reports and
edited the Home Missionary and Pastor’s Journal. When the schism between the “Old School” and New School”
Presbyterians occurred, Peters took his place with the more liberal New School. In 1837 Peters retired from the
A.H.M.S. He was instrumental in the founding of the Union Theological Seminary. He assumed the Pastorate of the
First Congregational Church of Williamstown, Mass., and served as the financial agent for Williams College, of which
he was a trustee. [DAB.]
33[33]
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 500039[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[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
The entire correspondance of the A.H.M.S. consists of 70,000 original letters and 150 volumes of “press” copies
of letters written by the Secretaries. Once housed in the Hammond Library of the Chicago Theological Seminary, the
letters now reside at the Amistadt Research Senter at Tulane University, New Orleans. Sweet, p. 651-2.
40[40]
Sweet p. 104.
39[39]
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[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[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[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.
Sweet, p. 107.
Sweet, p. 117.
43[43]
Kuhns, p. 10.
41[41]
42[42]
A Place So Hard No One Else Will Take It44[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[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[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
Though often quoted as uttered by Kent, I cannot find where Kent himself ever wrote the phrase. The quote first
appears in Horatio Newhall”s obituary sketch of Kent in the Galena Gazette in 1869.
45[45]
Strickland, ed.: Autobiography of Peter Cartwright. p. 358.
46[46]
Kirkpatrick, John Ervin: Timothy Flint, Pioneer, Missionary, Author, Editor. Cleveland, 1911. Appendix B,
p.293.
44[44]
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[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 bedchamber 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[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
Address of Rev. J. Van Vecten, Pastor of the Reformcd Dutch Church, Schenectady, N. Y., The Home
Missionary, June, 1829.
48[48]
Latrobe, C.J.: The Rambler in North America. New York, 1835. II:183-4.
47[47]
savage state; one who was content to squat in a log-cabin, with a large family of ill-fed and illclothed, idle, ignorant children.”49[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[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[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
Ford, T.: A History of Illinois. Chicago, 1854. p. 280-1.
Farnham, E.: Life in Prairie Land. New York, 1847. p. 330-1.
51[51]
Ibid. p. 334.
49[49]
50[50]
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[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[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[54] It is said, however, that an Episcopal Clergyman, a
Strickland, W.P., ed.: Autobiography of Peter Cartwright, the Backwoods Preacher. New York, 1957. p. 326.
Warner, L. to nephew, Galena, June 25, 1833. Levi Warner Papers, Public Library, Polo, Il.
54[54]
Elsewhere (Hist. Jo Daviess Co. p. 498) it is stated that Rivers Cormack was a settler who remained many years.
52[52]
53[53]
chaplain of the Hudson Bay Co. at York Factory,55[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[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[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[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. Robert59[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
Ibid. The preacher was en route to the east from the Selkirk Settlement, north of Minnesota.
Hist. Jo Daviess Co., p. 251. There are references to Kent preaching in a tavern, but I do not find Kent himself
writing of it.
57[57]
Mazzuchelli, p. 166.
58[58]
Hist.Jo Daviess, p. 498.
59[59]
Christopher R. Robert was long associated in a lay capacity with the A.H.M.S. In June of 1856 he received
correspondance pertaining to contributions for the Soc. from D. J. Ely of Chicago. He was treasurer of the A.H.M.S.
during much of the decade of the 1860”s.
55[55]
56[56]
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[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
60[60]
Robert, C.R. to Peters, A., May 11, 1829.
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[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[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[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[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
Horatio Newhall to Otis Lockwood, Nov. 19, 1821, Newhall Letters. Quoted in: Davis, J.E.: “Settlers in Frontier
Illinois: Primary Evidence, Persistent Problems, and the Historian’s Craft.” Selected Papers in Illinois History, 1981.
Springfield, 1982. p. 10
62[62]
Chapin, In Memorium. The Beloit College Monthly, Vol. XVI. #5, p. 122. Chapin corresponded with Mrs. Kent
after Aratus Kent died. SHe informed Chapin that Kent had burned most of his letters and diaries shortly before his
death. Chapin”s quotes may well have come from letters Kent wrote to Caroline Corning, who became Mrs. Kent in
1832. Chapin put Kent in Bradford, N.H., but Kent”s correspondance with the A.H.M.S. was from Portsmouth, N.H.
(June 19, 1828).
63[63]
Chapin, ibid, p. 123.
64[64]
ibid.
61[61]
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 eastern65[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: Hannibal66[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 was as partial to fellow New Englanders as most Yankees who arrived at the Northern Illinois interface
between New England and Southern cultures. He expressed either subtly or frankly this same prejudice.
66[66]
Samuel Clemens’ home town.
65[65]
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[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[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
credit to such an unwarrantable extent that the country is becoming bankrupt.
The price of lead is so low that under present disadvantages it will scarcely
pay for digging, smelting, & conveying to market.
The waters of the Mississippi are so low as to threaten a famine both
because of the difficulty with which provisions are brought to us and because
the lead with which they are purchased cannot be transported at least without
great additional expense. In addition to this, the Capitalists who sustain him
Chapin, “In Memorium,” p. 121.
“On the 10th of May he preached his first sermon, in an unfurnished frame house, then being erected by Mr.
William Watson, on Bench Street.” Hist of Jo Daviess, p. 455. Apparently this reference is incorect, as Kent gives
Sunday, April 19th as the date of his first preaching.
67[67]
68[68]
at a distance are taking the alarm and using oppressive measures to call in
their funds. The consequence of all this is that the people are already fast
retreating and the present prospect is that but few comparatively will remain
here though the winter.
The state of things is untimely & is regretted for this is a good country, a
land of hills and valleys and brooks of water, a land promising great fertility
of soil & salubrity of air and a land of immeasurable beauty of appearance,
and multitudes would gladly live and die here, if dire necessity did not drive
them away. If encouragement were afforded them to open farms and raise
their own provisions, this land would then supply them with cash while at the
same time permanent residence in the country would greatly check the
prevalence of the fires and thus promote the growth of timbers.
Kent was cordially received and made a good initial impression, as Mr. Robert reported to
New York:
On my arrival I was much gratified to find that he was very popular and I
think he still continues to be so : as far as I am competent to judge, he possesses
that kind of manner and tact which will enable him to do his duty as a faithful
servant of his Lord & master without giving offense. He will tell them their duty
in such a way that they cannot help but see it : very probably they may like the
admonition or reproof : yet they cannot take exception to the germ of it : I think
him an excellent judge of character and of human nature generally. These with
the qualifications I have not mentioned are frequently necessary for a man to
possess who comes to preach the gospel to this people. Mr. K informed me that
he likes the place and inhabitants full as well as he expected from the account I
gave him. I am pleased that he does so, as I was unwilling to have him get a more
favorable impression from me than he would realize. He does not let these people
know that I was in the least instrumental (if I was) in getting him here. If they
thought I had anything to do with it would in a measure destroy his popularity
and impair his usefulness. You must not think me uncharitable when I say that
there are some here who from their conduct appear to think that a man who
makes a profession of Religion must never ask for what justly is his own. I
therefore advise and consult with Mr. K when he wishes to the best of my ability
but take no active part in these measures for erecting a church, for I feel sensible
that my doing should be an injury as I fear there are some who would throw
obstacles in the way of an object which they thought I was desirous of
attaining.69[69]
Just where Kent preached his first Galena sermon is a bit uncertain. Dr. Newhall gave
the following account:
“Mr. William Watson was building a frame house on Bench Street two lots
south of the present Young Ladies' school house.70[70] The house was enclosed but
no floors laid. A few enterprising young men laid some boards upon the sleepers
at one end of the building on which was placed a borrowed pine table and after
considerable search a Bible and Watts' Hymn Book were found. Notice was
given in the Miner's Journal of the 9th of May that Mr. Kent would preach the
next day, Sunday 10. The congregation was composed wholly of young people;
there were no old ones here, occupying the sleepers for seats, very conveniently
69[69]
70[70]
Robert, C.R. to Peters, May 11, 1829.
Where was "the present [1869] young ladies school"?
resting their feet upon the ground, there being no cellar under the house. The
whole congregation sung the good old tunes of St. Martin's, Mear, and Old
Hundred. Here was preached Mr. Kent's first sermon.”
But Kent himself reported that he had preached “to about 50 persons” on April 19th. He may
have utilized a log building just opposite the DeSoto Hotel, for that long extinct structure was
often given in early accounts as the site for sporadic religious activities. Chapin wrote “the largest
dining hall in the place” was the site of Kent’s inaugural sermon.71[71] Unfortunately, although the
pious Dr. Newhall recalled the songs, the text of Kent’s sermon escaped his recollection.
Kent wrote his impression: “Here is opened a great and effectual door to preach the gospel. I
have long desired to know what was the will of God, and if I have found my place, I hope now
that amid all discouragement’s, I may remember that I said I was willing to go to the world’s end,
if I could but be in the place that God designed I should occupy.”72[72]
By mid summer Kent gave some evidence of loneliness and isolation when he reported to Dr.
Peters: “I have felt at times as inclination to accompany [C.R. Roberts back to St. Louis], but then
the question had occurred ‘With whom will thou have those few sheep in the wilderness’.” Kent
had identified about 40 persons of varying denominations who exhibited “a spark of grace.” To
minister to this scattered flock required a hundred miles of travel and fifteen preaching sites. He
told Peters he intended to make this circuit once in four weeks and hoped that Peters would
approve of the scheme “...as long as Galena is supplied on the Sabbath.”
Kent also had a confession for Dr. Peters: “I reproach myself for having so little regard for
these sheep. Oh what feelings must it occasion a minister of Christ to hear him saying, “the
diseased ye have not strengthened neither have you healed that which was sick, neither have you
bound up that which is broken, neither have you brought back that which was driven away.’ A
passage this which needs to be often considered by one that occupies such a post as I now do.”
Although Kent was a thirty-five year old veteran preacher, he may have been naively
optimistic about his Galena prospects. Three months after his arrival he reported: “My hopes of
forming a church and of erecting a house for divine worship have been disappointed.”
The problem of monetary support was ever present for frontier missionaries, and Kent was no
exception: “I shall be under the necessity of drawing on you for money and, indeed, I think if I
get through the year on the sum allowed I shall deserve some credit for economy.”
Although he had been only resident in Galena for about four months, Kent felt compelled to
attend the Synod meeting held at Greenville, Bond County, Illinois, about fifty miles east of St.
Louis. Initially he reported: “I shall not feel much inclination to go by water to attend Synod if
the river continues so low as to make the passage of 20 or 30 days.”73[73] A restless spirit
compelled him to change his mind and he convinced himself that it was his duty to attend.74[74]
Kent’s travel report, lifted from his diary, is a scarce contemporaneous description of early
Illinois. He made the trip on horseback due to the low state of the Mississippi.
Being provided with money and tracts and letters and with blankets where the
former could be of no use, I left Galena Sept 29. I rode to Apple River,75[75] 15
Chapin, op cit. p. 123.
ibid.
73[73]
Kent to Peters, Aug 7,
71[71]
72[72]
74[74]
1829
Kent to Peters, Nov. 16, 1829
A post office was established at Apple River in December of 1828. The name was changed to Elizabeth in 1842.
Illinois Place Names, p. 28.
75[75]
miles, where I have often preached, then to Plumb River,76[76] 12 miles, where are
3 families.
Sept 30 : In company with two guides whom Providence furnished me when I
had lost my way, I rode 40 miles to the first house, 2 miles above the first of the
upper Rapids of the Mississippi.
Oct 1st: Rode to Farnamsburgh77[77] (18 miles) opposite Rock Island Fort and
2 miles from the juncture of Rock & Mississippi Rivers. Fifty families have
settled along the river here within 15 months. Visited 6 families and distributed
tracts.
Oct 2nd: Preached a funeral Sermon and made appointments for the Sabbath.
4th: Preached on Rock Island to a very attentive congregation of about 75
including officers and soldiers & at 3 pm on the Illinois shore to about 40. This is
a post that merits attention from the Home Miss. So. for several reasons: 1)
There are about 150 souls connected with the fort and including 6 families quite
respectable and anxious to have preaching. 2) The Island and the Illinois shore
present most beautiful, healthy, and commanding situations which in a few years
will grow in importance. 3) This point of land between Mississippi and Rock
Rivers has now come into market and will settle rapidly.78[78] It is very healthy
and has an excellent soil and an unusual supply of timber. The settlers will find
markets for their produce from this proximity & the fort and the lead mines. Coal
is found on both these rivers near this spot and in case timbers for smelting runs
out the mineral might be floated down and smelted with coal. Dr. Sprague, a
Presbyterian & Surgeon of the Fort remarked; “There will be a large population
here in five years.” 4) They say they would build a church if they had a preacher,
and I think they would give him near half his support immediately, for they
offered 5 dol a Sabbath to a Methodist preacher to supply them and could not
obtain him as he was engaged in piloting boats over the rapids. They would as
soon have a Presbyterian.
Oct 5th: Rode 40 miles to Henderson River, no house on the way...having
seen neither quadruped nor biped during the day.
6th: Followed up the forks of the River 5 miles, gave notice, and preached to
about twenty five, though the day was very wet.
7th: Went down the river about 18 miles collected about 20 persons...and
preached apparently with great acceptance. Proceeded to the mouth of the River
to preach again but my appointment did not reach and I could not tarry without
losing company that I could have next day. Between 60 & 80 families have
moved in to this River, all within 18 months. No Presbyterian Preacher has
visited them before. They were ready for a tract society.
8th:Rode 35 miles and preached in the evening to about 15 souls.
A post office south west of present day Stockton, Illinois. Illinois Place Names, p. 476.
Part of present day Rock Island. Illinois Place Names, p. 360.
78[78]
This “point of land” was the site of Saukenuk, Black Hawk”s tribal village. Whether this “sale” was legal under
the terms of the Treaty of 1804 between the U.S. and the Sauks can still be debated. Article 7 of that treaty can be
interpreted to mean that the Sauks had the right to remain forever upon their ancestral lands. Kent did accurately reports
that those lands were advertised for sale in 1829. see: Wallace, A.: Prelude to Disaster. Springfield, 1970. p. 27.
76[76]
77[77]
9th: Proceeded to the head of the lower rapids (Hancock Co.) 10 miles and
preached to about 20 souls. It was a very rainy day. They urged to stay and spend
the Sabbath : about 20 families destitute of preaching.
10th: Rode 32 miles and passed Fort Edwards at the foot of the lower Rapids.
South of which houses are to be found every few miles to St. Louis.
11th: Crossed Bear Creek at the peril of my life and rode 10 miles to the
settlement, called and preached at the house of the Methodist preacher...
Congregation about 40: this settlement is increasing rapidly.
12th: Proceeded to Quincy (Adams Co.) 8 miles, preached in the evening to
60 persons, this is destined soon to be a very important place. They were
circulating a paper to raise 100 dollars to encourage a Presbyterian by the name
of Porter to preach to them.
13: Rode in the company of Mr. Porter to Mill Creek 10 miles and preached
to about 40
14- Rode to Atlas (Pike County) 30 miles and preached to about 50 souls.
This is a post that deserves attention.
15: Preceded to Coles Grove (Calhoun County) 35 miles & collected a
congregation of 40.
16: Crossed over to St. Charles and lodged with Mr. Lindsey. On my arrival at
St. Louis on the 17th and found I had been misinformed concerning the time of
the meeting of Synod, but could not regret my tour which was one of more than
ordinary interest to me.
21: Arrived at Carrolton (Green Co.) and spent Sab. Religion very destitute in
this region.
26: Went on my way to Jacksonville.79[79]
27: Walked out to the elegant site of Illinois College. Called on Mrs. Ellis and
rode to Springfield spent the night with Mr. Bergen, and having got necessary
information I kept on the east side of the Ill. River until I arrived, Sabbath, Nov.
1 at Union Grove 10 miles below the foot of the Rapids, where is a Presbyterian
settlement. They seem quite spirited to have preaching and I preached the first
sermon in the first meeting house north of the Sangamon River which they have
just built. This settlement will await immediate attention. About 70 families have
moved into this region in a little time and being near the route of the canal it will
settle rapidly. I think I may say that the population between Sangamon River and
the Miss. will double every year for some time. I am gratified to hear that seven
young men are coming out but shall soon need seventy times seven, or a great
many more. Illinois is indeed in its infancy but this infant will soon become a
giant, and if the infant has imbibed the spirit of infidelity : the giant will defend it
with the strength of manhood and the deep depravity which “Pride and fullness
of brass and abundance of idleness” will generate. We should be behind, if we
should tell the eastern people how easy it is to raise provisions here, but I fear
Rev. John M. Ellis was an A.H.M.S. worker in Illinois who went east in 1828 to solicit funds for the
establishement of a college. Seven young Yale students pledged to go to Illinois to enter missionary and education.
Illinois College was the result - an example of cooperation between Presbyterians and Congregationalists. Edward
Beecher, the second son of Lyman Beecher, and a Congregationalist became the first President in 1829.
79[79]
this will prove them injury. What eastern Christians do for us then must be done
quickly.
While on this journey on one of the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi and the prairies on
either side, Kent alighted from his horse and proclaimed aloud: “I take possession of this land for
Christ.”80[80] No matter that he was jumping the claim of Father Marquette. Even as he claimed for
his King a vast nation, he failed miserably in nurturing himself with the company of his fellow
missionaries. As he noted, he had been “misinformed” as to the dates of the Synod and arrived a
week after it was over. He had written Dr. Peters that he had intended to return “through the
interior,” but he did not. On his return trip he visited Saukenuk, and the wigwam of Black
Hawk.81[81]
As his first Galena winter approached he wrote to Dr. Peters: “I have nothing of special
interest to relate concerning this place, except that I have been chased until I have purchased a
house for Sab. school and Public worship on my own responsibility and drawn on J.W. & B.
Levitt for funds. My limits will not allow of further particulars at present...I am more than ever
impressed with the importance of this post notwithstanding the embarrassments under which I
labor, and only wish to stay here until you can send a better man and give me a humbler home in
the same state.”
Not everyone was pleased with their station in Galena. Newspaper man Hooper Warren,
destined to be an important Illinois abolitionist, wrote of his impressions of Galena that winter.:
“Thank God, the winter is almost over; and I hope it is the last I shall ever spend in Galena,
unless I am better prepared. Since the commencement of cold weather there has been nothing
here but balls, parties, gambling, and frolicking. Men who can not pay a cent of their just debts,
find no difficulty in spending $20 or $30 a week in these amusements. These parties are general
in this place, the exceptions but very few. I am sorry to say that my partners come in for a large
share of this description.”82[82] One of those newspaper partners was Aratus Kent’s pious friend,
Dr. Horatio Newhall.
The winter of 29-30 was one of discontent for Aratus Kent. He suffered “rebuke” from the
civil authorities of Galena over a beating suffered at the hand of an associate in the secular “day”
school Kent had founded (more on this later), and his pastoral success was limited. He reported to
Dr. Peters:
When I returned from my late tour to St. Louis I found the weather extremely
cold.83[83] I had no room, no place for public worship and the Sabbath school. And
I seemed to have little or no prospects for doing good and secretly wished to be a
part of the time at some other place, but I found your “instructions” were to
persevere and to confine myself to Galena. Thus I was exceedingly strengthened
and thrown upon my own resources. I formed a plan which I have strictly
pursued apparently with success.
Chapin, op cit., p. 123.
ibid.
82[82]
Hooper Warren to Ninian Edwards, Feb. 20th, 1830. Ninian Edwards Papers, Chicago Historical Society Library,
Chicago. The “partners” were Dr. Addison Philleo and Horatio Newhall. For a sketch of the Northern Illinois career of
Hooper Warren, see: Ellsworth, Spencer: Records of Olden Time. Lacon, Ill: Home Journal Steam Printing
Establishment, 1880. p. 385-87.
83[83]
The period of 1830-1832 is known as the “mini ice age” among meteroligical historians.
80[80]
81[81]
I purchased the house in which we had worshipped84[84] and issued a
subscription paper to solicit aid to repair it (being determined to try whether they
felt interest in me or my work, as I had heretofore been unable to ascertain what
their feelings were toward me). In four weeks time $200 were raised and paid out
for completing the repairs on my house (as they understood it to be) Public
worship and Sabbath school were resumed under circumstances of increasing
interest and much greater promise. A singing society having much the aspect of a
moral society of 25 male members started in to being of itself; and a day school
of 60 scholars was commenced and has been conducted with great prosperity
until the recent occurrence.
I have a bible class 5 days in the week and following the lesson in order I did
them (23 in number) away to Mount Sinai and then there expounded the law of
the Lord. It is also my frequent practice to make the whole school repeat after me
the ten commandments with an occasional short and familiar exposition of one.
Sabbath morning will average about 60 of the most respectable people. The
merchants are disposed to shut their shops and come to meeting and teamsters
come in and find it difficult to do business as usual on the Sabbath. In the
evening, i.e. at 6 pm, I have about as many of another descript who will not
attend the day. So that there are at the 2 services and the Sabbath School about
150 under religious influence every Sabbath. I have also a weekly prayer meeting
and Sunday School concert. And though we mourn that we have none inquiring
after Salvation yet impressions are made as you will discover by the spirit of the
proceedings with which I commenced.
But all this labor is too much for my two eyes and they are failing me so that I
tremble but I shall be desist [sic] and again have recourse to travelling. If i can
hold out 4 weeks I think of attending Presbytery at Springfield which I deem very
important and which will permit me the necessary traveling and enable me again
to visit Rock I[sland] and U[nion] Grove...
You will appreciate this when I tell you that about 1/3 of the Catholics, most
of those that have any influence attend service occasionally. Many of their
children are in the day school and several are in the Sabbath school : confidential.
We have an average of 2 balls a week this winter : card parties abound and
other vices.
I had liked to have forgotten that I have no money to pay my board, and must
ask you to send me one hundred dollars.
Believing as I do that the soil, the minerals, the salubrity and the waters afford
a combination of inducements to setters unequalled in the U.S. as will soon
render it a prosperous district. I am extremely anxious that laborers should take
the field in time and not linger until the weeds or error and vice shall (like those
in the bottoms) get over our heads....I consider that among all this population
there are not materials enough to organize one Protestant Church. My feelings
would prompt me to raise my voice till it should reverberate among the hill-tops
of my much loved New England, saying “Brethren come over to Mississippi and
help us.”
84[84]
The “Watson” house referred to earlier.
And so Reverend Kent spent his first industrious, if stressful, winter in Galena. Kent’s failing
eyesight was a source of constant worry. His restless spirit, and his need to “itinerate” seemed to
be a merger precipitated by his vision trouble. He could ride into the face of a blizzard, and his
blurred vision served him adequately. But to study scriptures or to correspond was too taxing for
his weak eyes.
By Spring, 1830, Kent, like Hooper Warren, was having financial trouble due to the lack of
promised financial support of his sponsors: "Poverty and insolvency constitute a serious
difficulty. I requested 100 dollars 3 month since but have not received it (as I hoped accompanied
by some words of advice) and I fear it has miscarried."85[85] To make matters worse, Kent was in
trouble with the authorities again, this time for failing to serve on a jury: "I was yesterday fined
$5 Dol. for not serving on the petty jury. But the judge 86[86] spoke kindly to me and said: 'We
make it up the money ourselves.' He is a worthy man and attends church regularly...You will
conclude that my spirits are depraved but I hope I shall feel better next time I write."87[87]
The summer brought Kent an unusual invitation: "I started July 5th for Prairie du Chien by
request of Genl. Street, Indian Agent, fulfilled several appointments in my circuitous route, and
after great fatigue arrived in time to meet my engagement to Preach there on the 11th at the
meeting of the Council with the Indians of whom 800 of different tribes were present. My
congregation of 200 presented as great a variety of the human family as was perhaps ever
assembled at the same time by an ambassador of Christ."88[88]
At Prairie du Chien Kent rubbed elbows with some celebrated men, but the mosquitoes had a
larger and more lasting effect on him. The post surgeon was a fellow son of Connecticut, William
Beaumont, and with him was his famous fistulous patient, Alexis St. Martin. Indeed, Beaumont
was in the midst of performing the experiments on gastric physiology that would immortalize him
and his subject. William Clark was there from St. Louis in his role as Indian Agent, along with
several young army officers who would later rise to prominence, including Zachary Taylor,
Robert Anderson, and James Kearny. Just as Kent was constantly bothered by his "weak eyes,"
Beaumont was afflicted with near deafness, and also a tendency towards Jeffersonian Deism. If
the Doctor did not attend (and perhaps he did) Kent's sermon, the more orthodox Deborah
Beaumont did.89[89]
The summer was a particularly unhealthy one in Prairie du Chien, for the mosquitoes breeding
conditions were ideal. Beaumont wrote a paper on the resulting malaria epidemic: The History of
the Intermittent Fever as it Prevailed at Prairie du Chien in the Summer and Fall of 1830. The
prevalent fever that Beaumont described was not confined to Prairie du Chien. Kent's layman’s
description from Galena was similar:90[90]
"God has scourged this sinful place with a distressing sickness and every
family and about every person has been brought low with it. I have visited 30 or
40 in a day before I was taken down myself. But the affliction has been mingled
with mercy for amidst the general prevalence of disease there have been but two
deaths that can be traced to the vicinity of the Mississippi and the bottom lands
which are inundated when this Jordan overflows its banks.
85[85]
May 10, 1830.
Richard M. Young, the first judge to sit in Galena. Judge Young fined several prominant Galena citizens besides Kent. William
Hamilton, the son of Alexander Hamilton, was also fined $5. Hist. Jo Daviess Co., p. 351.
87[87]
ibid. Judge Young sent the sheriff around with the receipt to show that the fine was paid.
88[88]
July 31, 1830.
89[89]
Nelson, R.B.: William Beaumont, America's First Physiologist. Grant House Press, Geneva, Illinois. 1990. p. 176-178.
90[90]
Nov. 13, 1830.
86[86]
I was attacked by a bilious fever91[91] on the 6th of Sept since which I have
been unable to preach nor yet now am I able, though it is more than 9 weeks that
I have been laid aside. I attempted it once about three weeks since but my
strength entirely failed and I was compelled to sit down before I was half through
my discourse and the congregation was a fever and ague of which I had been
forewarned that it would most likely follow that with which I was first attacked.
It seems very difficult and a very hard process to recover one’s strength after
being sick in this country.
I thought to promote the restoration of my health by going into the country
and at the same time to do good by riding extensively and visiting those scattered
inhabitants who are so disposed that they cannot be collected for preaching, but I
soon got quite down again and returned to Galena miserable enough., but I am
now recovering and hope to be able to preach in a few days."
The winter of 1830-1 was not much better than the preceding one for spiritual efforts, and the
blizzards were the stuff of legends. Kent complained:
"The people of this country are mainly a floating population and vast numbers
left us last season on account of the pressure of the times, and the congregation is
small, nor can we expect much good will be accomplished until the land is
offered for sale and permanent improvements encouraged. During the winter the
snow has been unusually abundant and the winter remarkably cold. Several men
have been frozen to death though they were generally intemperate and it is at the
peril of life to ride over these prairies without a tree or a house to break the force
of the wind for many miles."92[92]
Two of Kent's comments that winter were: "I have been prevented by the depth of snow from
executing my purpose of visiting Prairie du Chien (90 miles)... The traveling this winter is such
that nearly all communication with the civilized world is cut off..."93[93] But Kent's Yale
colleagues to the south at Jacksonville were in even more dire straits. "The situation of the
people," wrote Dr. Sturtevant, "was alarming. It was not at first apparent that sufficient food and
fuel could be got to keep everybody from starving or freezing." 94[94] The floods the following
spring lead to many drownings in the swollen streams and rivers. Only the powerful arms of
young Abe Lincoln saved two men from drowning in the Sangamon River in April.95[95]
Dangerous streams notwithstanding, Kent spent the spring prospecting for souls. "I visited
Rock Island (the seat of war at this moment)96[96] on the first of may and spent a Sabbath there.
[While there Kent was one of 38 signers of a petition to Gov. Reynolds complaining about Black
Hawk’s presence east of the Mississippi.]97[97] And I spent a Sabbath at Prairie du Chien in March
where I was received with utmost cordiality. They are exceedingly anxious that I should spend a
part of my time with them or that you should send another laborer and they gave me substantial
proof of it by contributing $13.37/100. I have been desirous of visiting them & other military
posts around here, vis that at Chicago and Fort Winnebago (at the portage between Wisconsin and
91[91]
Daniel Drake listed many names for malaria: autumnal, bilious, intermittant, remittant, congestive, miasmic, malarial, marsh,
malignant, chill-fever, ague fever, ague, dumb ague, and, lastly, the fever.
92[92]
Feb. 26, 1831.
93[93]
idid.
94[94]
Atkinson, Eleanor: "The Winter of the Deep Snow." Trans. of the Ill. State Hist. Soc., 1909. p. 50.
95[95]
Ibid. p. 54.
96[96]
Refers to Black Hawk”s 1831 crossing of the Mississippi. He and his band were convinced to return to the west bank before any
conflict took place. The nextr year was a different story. Kent
97[97]
“Citizens of Rock River to John Reynolds, April 30, 1831,” in The Black Hawk War, 1831-32, Vol. II, Part I. Springfield,
1973. p. 3.
Fox Rivers) and the Fort at St. Peters. but it has not been convenient. I have been several times to
Mineral Point, 37 miles north, and the next Sabbath I am to preach on the Pekatonica (30 miles
east), agreeably to my plans of itinerating for the present every third Sabbath. These as preaching
posts are important, but it embarrasses the Galena Sabbath School to have the Superintendent
absent so often."98[98]
Local financial support continued to be wanting. A promise to circulate a subscription for the
year had been made, but not accomplished by June.99[99] A bell for the meeting house had been
ordered, and it consumed an alarming proportion of the available funds. Kent's letters made many
references to the perplexing bell, and to the difficulties he had in getting the materials and labor to
install it. By late summer Kent feared that his commission would not be renewed: "It does not
appear (by the Home Miss.) that my request for reappointment has been granted, and perhaps
your esteemed Committee have become discouraged by the prospect of this barren fruit, or are
waiting for some evidence of good accomplishment."100[100]
His commission was renewed in spite of the fact that he was the penman of a protest over a
general salary reduction imposed on Illinois missionaries. He assured the Secretaries that "...such
a measure would never have originated with me," and that he had merely been the recording
clerk. He also assured his superiors that he would not need more than $200 for the coming year
from them. Then he announced a milestone: "You will be pleased to learn that on Sabbath Oct. 29
a Presbyterian Church of 6 members was organized in this place and the Lords supper
administered in this village."101[101]
Kent's moral presence was beginning to affect the town's character: "In brackets I would
mention some tokens of improvement. Such a little increase of seriousness: a total silence about
those winter amusements which have usually prevailed. The success of the Grand Jury in
breaking up and banishing the house of ill-fame. And the circulation of a paper pledging
abstinence from “brag-playing” which was commenced last week." Prostitutes and Presbyterians
would henceforth not cohabitate Galena.102[102]
Kent was always interested in Temperance, and he was making good progress on that front,
too. “The Moral Association (Alias, Temperance So.) at a late meeting resolved to hold meetings
in the country for the purpose of extending a knowledge and influence on the subject. They voted
to recommend to their members to abstain from the use of wine and appointed a Committee of 5
(Sab. School Teachers) to invite the youth to enlist in this work of reform and to aid them in
organizing a Juvenile Temperance Society, which will be formed next week.”103[103]
Sabbath breaking was a constant source of irritation to Kent: “It is due to the citizens of this
village to say that the more intelligent and influential part of the people manifest a disposition to
observe the Sabbath. But the embarrassments that they constantly meet with from extraneous
causes are too great to be encountered by men who are not yet brought under the influence of an
inflexible religious principle. These embarrassments are the arrival and departure of the mail, of
steam boats, and of teams with lead which must be weighed...The multitudes of strangers who
visit us and leave on the Sabbath and the practice of miners and smelters of coming in to do
business on that day. All these causes combined operate to prevent a due observance of the
Sabbath and constitute an annoyance which is greatly to be deprecated.”104[104]
98[98]
June 6, 1831.
ibid.
100[100]
Sept. 1, 1831.
101[101]
Dec. 1, 1831. The original history of the First Presbyterian Church is reproduced in an appendix.
102[102]
Dec. 1, 1831.
103[103]
Dec. 1, 1831.
104[104]
Dec. 1, 1831.
99[99]
The ever vigilant Rev. Kent found an opportunity to strike a blow to the evil of wagering, and
he moved on several fronts.
“Perhaps it will amuse and perhaps inform you of the character of this country
to note some things in relation to gambling. The two Methodist ministers and
myself are enrolled on the list of Grand Jurors for the avowed purpose of putting
a check upon this vice which has rapidly become flagrant. But another method
has been adopted. It was taken up among themselves and agreeably to public
notion a “Benevolent Society” was formed and 24 subscribers obtained upon the
spot to pledge of entire abstinence from gambling. I would state further (enter
not)105[105] one man refused to sign the paper because the pledge was not restricted
to Galena and its vicinity, another because it was contrary to his profession,
asserting he could see but 2 or 3 in the room which whom he had not
played.”106[106]
Kent gave examples of how advanced the crisis had become:
“A laboring man as he laid down his dollar said that was the last of 183 which
he had spent through this winter. Another sold his “lead”, i.e. his mineral grant
for 150 dollars to have a “spree” : came to Galena, returned penniless and had
well-nigh died from the excruciating disease brought on by his excesses. He now
promises to be temperate. The vice had become so public that the boys were
enlisting extensively, and perhaps the credit of the reformation should be
awarded to a Negro who established a Faro Bank. This created alarm among the
gentlemen for they saw their craft was in danger of falling into disrepute.”107[107]
Illinois had outlawed most forms of gambling as early as its third session of the legislature,
when it was decreed: "If any person shall hereafter bring in the State...or shall sell or offer for sale
any pack of playing cards, or any dice, billiard balls, or any other device of thing intended, or
made for the purpose of being used at any game; shall on conviction shall be fined in the sum not
exceeding $25."108[108] But even Kent's Presbyterian zeal coupled with the law of the land were
insufficient forces to put a total end to gaming.
Kent had been a lonely bachelor in Galena for three years. Now he planned a trip back to the
east, and its purpose was matrimony. He must have known Caroline Corning of Hartford, Conn.,
from some association, but details of their courtship are lacking. Kent’s weak eyes hampered his
missive campaign, but he must have had assurances that his trip east would be productive. Kent's
stated purpose for making the trip was truthful, if a trifle too broad: "...to persuade good people to
come west."
Charles Fenno Hoffman, a New York journalist who visited Galena about then, explained the
real reason for Kent's trip. “...There is another defect in the place [Galena], and, indeed, in almost
all western towns where you get so far beyond the mountains, that is not so easily got over, and
that is, the want of female society. The number of males in proportion to females on the frontiers
is as least five to one; and girls of fifteen (I might say twelve), or widows of fifty, are alike
snapped up with avidity by the disconsolate bachelors...I was told by an old borderer, he had
traveled twenty miles only to get a look at a petticoat, where it was rumored that there was
actually one in the neighborhood... Even now they talk seriously in Galena of getting up an
105[105]
Missionaries correspondance were frequently published in the “Home Missionary and Pastor”s Journal” and this reference is
to advise confidentiality.
106[106]
March 1, 1832.
107[107]
March 1, 1832.
108[108]
Buley, Vol. I, p. 368.
importation of ladies, for the especial amelioration and adornment of the place.”109[109] Kent
brought three specimens of the rare creature back with him.
By June Kent was in New York City, and he wrote to the Secretaries that he needed more
missionaries. He incorrectly assured them that the threat of serious Indian hostilities was
exaggerated, though he accurately predicted a swift resolution of any disturbance.110[110]
“Allow me again to direct your attention to the Northwestern territory as an
important field for a missionary from your Society. And here I may be met by the
arguing are not the Indians over running the country. They are at this moment
creating great alarm and confusion, but from my knowledge of their movements
for 2 years past I am well satisfied that they are instigated by one restless spirit
(Black Hawk) and that the result of their disturbance will be the adoption of a
train of measures which will secure the inhabitants from apprehensions in future.
So that these various alarms some of which are greatly exaggerated should have
no influence on any plans of operation which are to take effect 6 or 9 months
hence.”
Kent took great pains to paint the picture of the frontier life of the missionary, for he wanted
only “good soldiers.”111[111]
“But we want a man who can endure hardship as a good soldier, : A man
who can face prairie winds in winter and swim the swollen creeks in spring, and
eat what is set before him asking no questions and making no invidious allusions
to other days; : A man who can sleep sweetly on the “soft side” of an oak plank
or on the green sod of Mother earth with no covering but his blanket and no
company but his horse, or perchance a passing wolf or a benighted whip-poorwill, and in the mean time can preach with apostolic zeal whenever he can collect
a dozen precious souls to listen. Oh and he must have patience withal, to delay
his journey an hour or two while they are collecting, though it should subject him
to inconvenience of riding in the night and the danger of loosing his trail which
conducts him to the next cabin. You will be surprised if I say at the next breath
that we want a man of easy manner, but this is always important, especially in
one who would expect any considerable influence on the officers of those Forts
[Crawford, Snelling, Armstrong, Winnebago] of which mention was made.
Perhaps you would inquire what “school” he should belong to. By all means let
us have one that has been taught in the school of Christ and one who had made
such proficiency in the lesson of self-denial that he can be cheerful under the
regimen prescribed above and account himself honored in being permitted to
serve the Lord Christ in a post of so much distinction.”
On September 4th, 1832, Aratus Kent and thirty year old Caroline Corning were married in
Hartford. Of Caroline's life before her marriage nothing is known. That she was possessed of a
good education cannot be doubted. She immediately served as a teacher in the Sabbath school,
and often acted as scribe for her husband during periods when his chronic ocular affliction flared.
Aratus Kent's career was frequently a contradiction to the conventional wisdom. His marriage
was no exception. One of Kent's colleagues wrote to Reverend Peters: “...if an eastern minister
comes here with a wife she will be discontented, and casue him to return. If he comes here
without a wife he will probably go to the east for one and we shall see no more of him before
109[109]
110[110]
111[111]
Hoffman, C.F.: A Winter in the West. New York, 1835. Vol. II, p. 51-52.
New York, June 14, 1832.
ibid.
there is no chance of keeping him, unless he marry in this country.”112[112] If Caroline Kent had
any qualms about her life in the west, she kept them to herself.
An account of the return trip of Kent's party was recorded years after the fact by Caroline
Thompson, who later married Rev. Phelps, the long time Home Missionary at Lee Center, Lee
County, Illinois.113[113]
AN EARLY DAY JOURNEY
The Story of a Trip from New York City to Galena Taken
by Caroline Thompson afterwards Caroline Phelps,
when a Girl, as Told by Herself
Early in September 1832 I left New York for Galena with Uncle and Aunt
Kent, my parents expecting me to return by the first safe opportunity after a year
had passed.
We left by boat for Hartford where we spent a few days with Corning
relatives. Next we went to Suffield, Conn., Uncle Kent's birthplace and home, a
typical New England home. Then we went by stage to Enfield to take up Miss
Clarissa Pierce who wanted to go west to teach and help in mission work Then
next to Blanford, Mass., by stage to pick up Eli Edwin Hall, a young man of 19,
who was to finish fitting for college with Uncle Kent and later enter Illinois
College at Jacksonville, Ill., in preparation for Home Mission work. Then by
stage, our party of five came to the Hudson River, took boat for Albany, then
across New York State via Erie Canal to Buffalo. From Buffalo to Niagara Falls
where we spent two days with a friend of Uncle Kent. From Buffalo again we
took stage for Wheeling, Va., where we took steamboat for Cincinnati to "spend
the Sabbath" as Uncle Kent would not travel on Sunday.
Sickness of some of our party delayed us in Cincinnati for four weeks. We
then took boat for Maysville, Kentucky, where we waited several days for the
boat for St. Louis in which place we finally arrived about the middle of October,
the time set for our arrival in Galena. We were delayed in St. Louis by trouble
with Uncle's eyes and it was nearly the end of November before we could go on.
We then took the night and day stage for Springfield, Ill., and learning to our
dismay on arriving that the stage was then laid off for the winter and only a
horseback mail once a week sent to Galena. But it was decided to push on at all
risks. The whole country from points not far north of Springfield has been
devastated in the summer and autumn by the Black Hawk war and was still
unsettled, Indians roaming about, and but few of the white settlers who had fled
had returned. man and beast were most uncertain and we were assured that after
the first night north house or cabin would not be seen more than once in forty
miles.
However, Uncle bought a span of stout horses, blankets robes, feed and other
supplies, with a large sack of crackers and a ham of smoked beef for provisions.
With five people and three trunks that wagon was filled to capacity. The weather
was mild for December but the ground was frozen and traveling rough. First
night out was spent in Hennepin. We set out next morning on a forty mile stretch
112[112]
Solomon Hardy, Greenville, Bond County, Illinois, May 28, 1828 to Absalom Peters.
Caroline Pierce was but a child of nine when the journey was made. Her recollections are therefore clouded by the passage of
many years.
113[113]
of prairie for Daddy Chambers' cabin. We dined on crackers and dried beef and
drank water from the streams we crossed, reaching Chambers' mansion at night
fall. Daddy and Ma'am Chambers gave us a warm welcome. The cabin was log
with mud floor and a "stick and daub chimney" and a swing window, a mere
board shutter on leather hinges. Daddy and Ma'am had formerly kept a tavern for
the stage route but the Indians had burned the house. They had in this cabin,
formerly the kitchen, a few chairs, a home made bedstead, trundle bed, a small
table and a few dishes, coffee pot and an iron three legged bake oven with iron
cover, the only cooking utensils they had. After a supper of biscuit and bacon I
slept with Miss Pierce in the root house made of sod while the others were
stowed in the cabin, Mr. Hall sleeping in the wagon.114[114]
After a breakfast of soggy biscuit and bacon we started at daylight for a forty
mile stretch to Dixon's ferry. Late in the afternoon we reached Daddy Joe's cabin,
some ten miles from Dixon's Ferry; but a peril lay before us in the Winnebago
Swamp, three miles from Dixon's Ferry which must be crossed.
After the "howdye" and preliminary greeting Uncle Kent asked him for
directions to the swamp and the safe crossing but Daddy Joe advised waiting
until the next day as night might overtake us before we got through and that it
was dangerous except in the light. Uncle Kent being very desirous of completing
the journey, decided to risk the crossing and with careful directions given by
Daddy Joe we pushed on. The horses made the best progress possible but it was
dark by the time we reached the swamp. After a time the trail seemed to fade out
and the crossing hard to find. Finally following what seemed to be the crossing
the horses were turned down a bank only to land in a mire at the bottom so deep
it reached the bed of the wagon. In vain the horses tried to pull the wagon out and
after working for two hours one of them got down and only with difficulty were
they unhitched so they could reach the bank. We were taken from the wagon by
means of some sapling poles placed so as to make a kind of a bridge.
After rubbing most of the thick mud from the horses with the coarse prairie
grass, robes were put on the horses and the two women placed thereon and we
walked the three miles to the Ferry. On reaching the Dixon home we found
between two and three thousand Indian warriors encamped prepared to sign a
treaty of peace with the U. S. Government whose interests were represented by
U. S. troops. We were given the comforts of home in the Dixon house and we
were given a glad welcome by Mrs. Dixon and her daughter. It was long past
midnight before we got to bed. Early the next morning Uncle Kent and Mr. Hall
assisted by the Dixon men took horses with them and went back to where the
114[114]
Miss Thompson apparently partially confused Dad Joe Smith's with Issac Chambers' Tavern. The Chambers were likely the
proprietors of the "lone house on the stage road" north of Dixon referred to a bit later in the narrative. Issac Chambers was the first
white settler in Ogle County, having settled originally just west of Forreston in 1829 after visiting Galena. He later moved down to
Buffalo Grove [see historical sketch in 1872 Atlas of Ogle County]). He them moved to "Chambers Grove," just north of Brookvile in
1830, having traded his Buffalo Grove claim to Kellogg. A reference to the destruction of his tavern appeared in the Galena Gazette in
June, 1832. "In speaking of Chamber's place eight miles north of Buffalo Grove, he [Captain Bates] remarks: 'The scene in and around
the house beggars description. Hogs were tomahawked in the yard, their limbs broken, property of every kind torn in pieces, and an
awful momento left to the family, of what they might have expected, had they not saved themselves by timely flight. They apprear to
have given Mr. C's books and papers a careful inspection, and as if in sport, turned his clock upside down." The context of this
description does not suggest that Chambers' house was burned. However, since Bates passed the site of Chambers house in the last
week of May 1832, it is possible that another marauding band of Indians revisited and burned the house later in the 118 day war. In
1858, when Kent recorded his own recollection of the trip, he noted that Chamber's house had, indeed, been burned. (Collections of
the Illinois State Historical Library Vol XXXVI, The Black Hawk War, Vol II. Letters and Papers, Springfield, 1973, p. 490.) Issac
Chamber's fine brick home built after the war still stands on modern route #64 just across from an historical marker describing
Kellogg's Trail. An old stone bridge that was part of the stage road still exists just west of Chamber's house.
wagon was still mired and after a time succeeded in pulling it out. In the
meantime I had opportunity to go out among the Indians. I had not a particular of
fear of them, I hardly know why. The chiefs were in a large tent and I went about
among them to see their gay feathers, blankets and moccasins. Their leggings and
earrings looked so queer to me. Some of them took me on their knees and
touched my cheeks and called me brave squaw because I did not turn pale as they
laughed and chatted together.
After an early and very good dinner we were again on our way. Mr. Dixon
and his sons went with us to the ferry which consisted of a flat bottomed boat
with pulleys to haul us across the Rock River. The horses objected to going on
the boat and with difficulty were finally persuaded to go aboard. Mr. Dixon had
given us minute directions as to finding our lodging place for the night, a lone
house on the stage road. Snow had fallen and as dusk approached and made it
impossible to follow the grass-overgrown stage road. The night shut down upon
us lost upon the trackless prairie without even a star for guidance. There was
nothing to do but halt, unhitch, make the best camp we could and wait for
morning. No fire could be kindled for fear of attracting some wandering Indians.
We did the best we could to keep warm but little sleep was had that night. The
next morning we discovered a column of smoke about half a mile away and no
time as lost in breaking camp and getting to the house where we were most
hospitably welcomed, warmed and fed and started on the last stage of the
journey. It was Saturday and we must reach Galena by the night of December
13th our jaded horses pulled us into Galena. Our trip from New York ended in
the deep clay mire of Main St., Galena, before one of the warehouses near the
levee. Uncle Kent left us there, the wagon wheels nearly up to the hubs in mud,
while he hastened to the home of Reuben Brush on Bench St. He soon returned
with Mr. Brush and we were given a warm welcome by his good wife and most
hospitably entertained, giving us a good supper which we ate like wolves for we
had eaten nothing but a noonday lunch of crackers and dried beef. We stayed
with the Brush family until a house could be procured and furnished. The only
shelter that could be found was a little frame house on Bench street, next door to
the corner of Hill street, which Uncle Kent purchased of John Delany later, that
was the family home for so many years.
The John Delany corner, he lived in a house with a big stone chimney, had
been used for the block house, a palisade fort of hewn logs set upright, close
together, and banked with earth. It had a rough roof and many portholes for firing
guns in case of attack by Indians. Hither the people hastened from all parts of the
region round about in times of alarm.
The only stove that could be procured for heating and cooking was a tiny
Franklin. It had a tin reflector to set upon its hearth, wherein to bake. An old log
hut stood in the rear of the house, called a kitchen, with a roofed space between
called a porch. This little hut had a small swing window of four panes, a mud and
stick chimney for a fireplace. It had a puncheon floor and here a ' bunk" was put
for Miss Pierce and me.
When we landed in Galena, Mr. Delaney had begun to turn the fort into a
dwelling and Uncle Kent bought the corner and the side hill back of it,
employing Mr. Delaney to finish it as soon as possible; meanwhile Mr. Hall had
his bed in a corner of the old court house (with jail under it) partitioned for a
study for uncle.
The court house he had bought a year or two before and had it for a church
and school room, first occupied by Deacon Wood.
Caroline T. Phelps115[115]
The Kent party was detained in Cincinnati at “...great expense of time and money” due to an
exacerbation of Kent's chronic ocular inflammation. By the time they reached St. Louis all the
steamboats had ceased running for the season, and they were obliged to travel overland “...along a
road but ill provided with accommodations, and embarrassed with unbridged water courses. Our
family being not yet inured to the hardships incident to a new country and my own eyes so weak
that we were in constant apprehension of snow which would have prevented our traveling across
the prairies. This last consideration forbade the employment of any conveyance which we could
not control. We therefore purchased horses and a covered waggon which served us for parlor,
dining hall and sanctuary not to say ferry boat and lodging place which lastly was true in one
instance.”116[116] In 1858, Kent recalled the 1832 trip to Galena this way:117[117]
There is an Old School Ch. at Union Grove, whose large and overgrown
house of worship has been a bone of contention for many years. I recall some
pleasing reminiscences in reference to my first visit there in 29 or 30. Several
pious families has some in from Bond Co. (or there abouts) and I preached the
first sermon in the little log church as yet had neither bottom door nor puncheon
floor. But there was a sweet harmony and brotherly love such as the wide house
with strife cannot contain. But my third visit there in Dec. 32 affords more
pleasure in the review than we found in the bitter experience of our journey. On
my return from a tour to the East to persuade good people to come West, I was
accompanied by Mrs. Kent, Miss Pierce, a truly missionary spirit, E.E. Hall a
youth of 17, now preaching at Rome or Paris, and a child of 9, now Rev. Mrs.
Phelps of Lee Center. We were detained by sickness on the rivers until they were
frozen and we were obliged to travel from St. Louis by land and from Springfield
by means of a big waggon which providence furnished and I purchased. And as
we proceeded our weary way we reached this grove at evening and finding no
one to entertain us, we kindled a fire and made a kettle of mush with which we
welcomed the return of the family. And if you will allow the interpolation of
some “Prairie Missionary” adventures to these dry statistics you may follow the
big waggon and listen to our songs and our prayers, for we had some good
singing and some precious prayer meetings. While Rev. E.E. Hall acted
alternatively as Postillion or officiated as chaplain. Having crossed the Ill. River
and arrived late in the evening we found ourselves in a “muddy run” with 10 high
banks that our high and powerful horses could not get out. But we left the vehicle
and rode as best we could to Dixon, where we were kindly entertained by Mrs.
Dixon amidst a group of Indians stretched out before the fire. There was but one
house and that a log cabin. The next morning we went back 3 miles and “took up
our carriages” and passed on to Chambers Grove, where a part of our company
were lodged in the root house, the Indians having burned their cabin during the
115[115]
Editorial note: The above is an account of the second trip to Galena by the Rev. Aratus Kent, the first one having been made
three years previously. Due to the Indian war in 1832 the church which he had established was closed and he journeyed East where he
was united in marriage with Miss Caroline Corning. When the church was reopened Mrs. Kent conducted the primary class of the
Sunday school and there are still living members of her class. Among the members of the Kent family were Mrs. Henry Phelps
Corwith, long a member of the First church, who was married from the Kent residence and Miss Julia Joy, who died some years ago at
Plattsburg, New York. The account of the trip was published in Centenniel Celebration of the First Presbyterian Church of Galena,
Galena, 1931. p. 73-76.
116[116]
March 1, 1833.
117[117]
The account of Kent is found in his extensive Jan. 1858 county by county report to the A.H.M.S.. The account appears in the
Putnam Co. section.
summer. Two days later we were overtaken by night and bewildered by a snow
storm., but the big waggon served us for a lodging place and the next day (13th)
we reached Galena and if ever we knew how to be thankful for domestic
comforts it was in our own limed log house with one room and a shed and a
small Franklin stove.
Lest it be suspected that the danger of travel across Northern Illinois was exaggerated by Miss.
Thompson and Rev. Kent, remember that the Black Hawk War was then over by only a couple of
months. Two of Kent's ministerial colleagues were murdered during the hostilities. A newly
married Methodist minister and his bride died a horrible death in Bureau County that summer, if
the following lurid tale is to be believed.118[118]
The Indians bound their victims with strong cords, put them on their own
horses, and carried them back to camp. On arriving at camp, the warriors held a
council over their prisoners, and it was decided, in order to avenge their dead
comrade, they should be burned at the stake. Sample was well acquainted with
one of his captors, Girty,119[119] a renegade half breed, having met him a number
of times on Bureau, while on his ministerial excursions. Sample offered Girty all
he possessed as a ransom for the life of himself and wife. But all to no purpose,
nothing but revenge could satisfy this blood-thirsty savage.
Divested of all their clothing, bound hand and foot to a tree, the Samples
stood waiting their doom. A fire of dry limbs was kindled around them, while the
Indians stripped themselves of their clothing, with their faces painted red, in
preparation for a dance. Everything being now ready for the execution, Girty
took his long knife and scalped the prisoners, saving the scalps as a trophy of
war. Taking the scalp of Mrs. Sample, and tying the long hair around his neck,
leaving the bloody scalp to hang on his breast. In this way, Girty, assisted by the
other Indians, danced around their victims, jumping up and down, and yelling
like demons.
Mr. and Mrs. Sample were bound to the tree, surrounded by burning fagots,
their scalps taken off, with the blood running down over their faces, and covering
their naked bodies with gore. Soon the flames began to take effect on the victims,
and in their agony they besought the Indians to shoot or tomahawk them, and
thereby terminate their sufferings. But their appeals were in vain; with fiendish
laugh the Indians flourished their tomahawks over their heads, dancing and
yelling in mockery of their sufferings. Mrs. Sample, whose youth and innocence
ought to have moved the hardest heart, appealed to Girty, for the sake of
118[118]
Matson, N.: Reminiscences of Bureau County. Princeton, Il, 1872. p. 93-104. Matson is the only "primary" source for this lurid
tale. Frank Stevens retells it in his History of the Black Hawk War, but offers no new sources. The account here is abridged from
Matson. Matson gives the following detail on his sources:
"This tragical story came principally through Indian sources, and was unknown to the early settlers of this county. The manner of
capturing and executing the victims was narrated to the writer, a few years ago, by two Pottawatomie chiefs, named Half Day and
Girty. During the time of the Black Hawk War, a rumor was current among the people, that a man and his wife was lost while
traveling from the Mississippi to the Illinois river. Four years after the war, Shaubena told the writer that the Indians had burned a man
and woman, whose names were unknown to him. Also, Squire Holly, a well known pioneer, and whose face was familiar to many of
the Bureau settlers. Many years ago, a young man named Britt Sample, lived north of Dover, and for some time made his home with
James Forristal. Sample said his uncle and aunt disappeared at the commencement of the Black Hawk War, and were thought to have
been killed by the Indians.
The writer has spent much time in the investigation of this tragical affair, corresponding with those who would be likely to have
some knowledge of the matter, also visiting the place where the friend of the victims were said to have lived, and find the accounts
conflictlng. One account says the parents of Mrs. Sample, whose names were May, lived in a hovel, partly dug out of the bluff, on the
site of an ancient Indian village, nearly opposite the mouth of Lake Du Page. They had lived in the country but a short time, and at the
commencement of the war they boarded a steamboat at Fort Wilburn, and went to Missouri, where they had formerly lived."
119[119]
Matson does not tell us why Girty (see preceeding note) would relate the details of his own participation in these brutal
murders.
humanity, to save her from this terrible death. But her appeals were without
effect; nothing could change the purpose, or soften the heart of this devil
incarnate.
Then there was the case of Rev. Adam Payne. Payne was ordained an Elder in the Christian
church, then called “New Lights,” but who preached independently in Northern Illinois. Payne
left Chicago in May of 1832, and reached Plainfield, where he stayed with the Methodist
Minister, Rev. S.R. Beggs. Rev. Beggs cabin was surrounded with pickets, and was referred to as
“Fort Beggs.” The Plainfield settlers were about to abandon their homes and flee to Fort Dearborn
for safety. They urged Rev. Payne to accompany them. Payne had preached to the Indians, and he
believed they would not harm him. He set out for his brother’s (Aaron, who also was wounded
during the War and treated by Dr, Beaumont at Prairie du Chien) in Putnam County. Payne was
attacked near Holderman’s Grove, and murdered. His head was placed on a pole and used in an
ugly celebration by the Indians.120[120]
By the spring of 1833 Kent's vision and spirits were clear enough for him to begin traveling
again. This time he headed east to visit the shores of Lake Michigan. He visited Putnum County
and followed up the Illinois River to explore.
He was pleased to find fellow Presbyterian Rev. Jeremiah Porter at Chicago and, Kent had “...
rarely addressed a more attractive and apparently pious congregation than that which I met on
Sabbath morning in the Garrison [Fort Dearborn], and which combining the people of the village
and gentlemen of the army constituted a large assembly for this country.” On Sunday, May 26th,
1833, Kent preached the second known Presbyterian Sermon in Chicago history (Porter had
preached the first the Sunday before). Kent’s “excellent sermon” was from Hebrew, xi, 2446.121[121]
Kent hoped Porter would remain at Chicago, and predicted that “...if the pier now
commencing should be permanent and the harbor a safe one, Chicago will undoubtedly grow as
rapidly as any village in the western country.”
Kent described the return trip to Galena:
On my return I preached at Fountaindale,122[122] so called from the numerous
springs of pure water which form the DuPage one of the head waters of the
Illinois River. Here I found a large settlement of eastern emigrants but lately
come in and about 20 professors of religion of our denomination. They will soon
be able to support a preacher. Br. Porter will spend the next Sabbath with them.
From this grove, 30 miles west of Chicago, I came home in 3 days following the
trail of Gen Scott’s army, and was obliged to “camp out” but one night. The
whole distance by that route could not be more than 175 miles. And my way lay
through a tract of country possessing many advantages which will give it the
preference over the lower parts of Illinois in the estimations of emigrants from
New England.123[123]
This “Army Trail” was the route taken by General Scott’s army the summer before to reach
the front during the Black Hawk War. (Scott traveled the more conventional southern route
through Dixon). The Army Trail was cut through the prairies by a train of fifty wagons and the
remnants of Scott's army so recently decimated by cholera. They crossed the Des Plains River
near its headwaters, and the Fox between Elgin and St. Charles, thence on to Genoa and
120[120]
Matson, N.: Memories of Shaubena. Chicago, 1878. p. 194-206
121[121]
Andreas, A.T.: History of Chicago. Chicago, 1884. Vol. I, p. 300.
Near present day Bloomingdale.
122[122]
123[123]
June 2, 1833
Belvidere. The trail was originally an old Indian trace between Chicago and Beloit, the site of a
large Winnebago village. The Army Trail became an artery for immigration and commerce
immediately following the Black Hawk War. Kent's trip in May of 1833 would have been among
the first, however.124[124]
Aratus and Caroline toured to Fort Winnebago at the Portage between the Fox and Wisconsin
Rivers during the summer of 1833. Kent “...was persuaded to linger there 2 Sabbaths and was
treated with such marked attention and politeness as in a good degree obliterated the impression
of the perils attending such a journey. I received 32 1/2 dollars from individuals unsolicited but in
as much as I have received nothing from the people for about 10 months and my tour to Chicago
was at an expense of 13 dollars (not to mention $500 expense in getting here last fall) I concluded
to with hold any acknowledgment of that very liberal contribution.”125[125] Julia Kinzie, the refined
and literate wife of the Indian Agent, recalled the visit as “...being the first occasion on which the
Gospel according to the Protestant faith, was preached at Fort Wiinebago.”126[126] In March of that
year Jefferson Davis, stationed at Fort Winnebago, had been promoted to first lieutenant. He may
have been one of the polite and generous acquaintances made by Kent.
Cholera remained as a legacy of the Black Hawk War of the previous summer. Kent
recounted: “It should be noted that during the prevalence of Cholera about 25 deaths occurred,
among these was the Catholic priest [Rev. J. McMahon], a man of full habit (& said to be fond of
strong drink).”127[127] With a touch of envy he also reported: “The Methodists have succeeded
through the kindness of a merchant in completing a neat little chapel which was dedicated last
Sabbath. But up to that time they have had the gratuitous occupancy of the house of worship
belonging to the Presbyterians [i.e., the house that Kent purchased] every other Sabbath when
their own minister was absent by harmonious arrangement.”128[128] Kent no sooner related the bad
news about the cholera when he was laid low himself by a recrudescence of the malarial fever of
the year before. This time he was stricken while traveling with Caroline to synod, and he was
forced to spend 3 weeks “...under Brother Watson’s hospitable roof”at Jacksonville.129[129]
By New Year, 1834, Kent could “...see but little evidence of good done, except I admit to the
mischief resulting from 8 or 9 months absence. I can see that great evil attended that period of
time in which the people were destitute of Gospel ordinances... It was remarked to me recently
that the influx of vice during that period (which included the Indian war) had thrown us back 2
years in moral improvement. This is especially true of the vices of gaming, intemperance and
Sabbath breaking. The temperance cause has not prospered and I attribute its want of success to
the cholera during the prevalence of which the members thought it necessary to use brandy, but
chiefly to the unfortunate defect in the pledge, for they are not required to abstain from the traffic,
hence many merchants belong to the society and continue to sell spirits. But I hope we shall be
able ere long to new model the constitution. We have just forwarded money to obtain 45 copies of
the American Temp. Pledge, and I hope that this measure will give us a new impulse.”130[130]
Kent’s pessimism about the prospects of religion were not unique. His fellow A.H.M.S.
missionary, Lucien Farnam, wrote from Princeton, Illinois, in the same period: “Among us, it is
now what I should call a time of stupidity, in respect to religion. Not that we have any neglect of
the means of grace. Meetings are well attended:on the Sabbath out house is generally
124[124]
Quaife, M.: Chciacgo's Highways, Old and New. Chicago, 1923. p. 95-6.
Sept. 3, 1833.
126[126]
Kinzie, J. Wau Bun, Chciago, 1932. p. 567.
127[127]
Mazzuchelli, p. 166. "1833 sent there as Missionary the Reverend J. McMahon, an Irishman, who, as the preceding chapter
recounts, died nine months after his arrival and was buried in the public cemetery at Galena."
128[128]
Sept. 3, 1833.
129[129]
Oct. 10, 1833.
130[130]
March 21, 1834.
125[125]
filled:people listen with attention:but no sinners are converted. The word is heard but not obeyed.
To human view the prospect is dark.”131[131] And Princeton was primarily a settlement of “devout”
New Englanders, not the rag tag mixture of humanity that comprised Galena’s more cosmopolitan
population.
Kent felt he must justify to New York the large “family” he was now supporting: “If my
family is expensive, it is also useful, furnishing 4 teachers for the Sabbath School, an infant
school teacher and is the main support of the female prayer meeting and a weekly benevolent
society. Besides great assistance is realized in visiting the people and conversing on religious
subjects.”132[132]
Clearly Kent was anticipating becoming independent from the financial support of the
A.H.M.S., but in March of 1835 he was forced to apply for renewed aid. He reported on
conditions:
But we have much to contend with in this village. There are at least 25 places
where ardent spirits are sold. Our temperance society is reduced to about 30. We
have found it necessary to alter the constitution so as to exclude wine and the
traffic in spirits which furnished some hope that we shall succeed better than
heretofore.... Sabbath breaking prevails woefully. There are several Faro banks or
other gaming houses one of which has declared a net profit of $15,000 this
winter. The fashionable amusements have prevailed more and religious meetings
have been frequented less than during one or two winters previous. And the
church, though increased in numbers and containing some very excellent persons
both male and female has not been so zealous and so efficient as at some former
times. There is appearance of seriousness in a few of late and some desire to
prepare for a protracted visit from Dr. Nelson & Mr. Turner in May. We can
boast of entire harmony among ourselves and great unanimity with those of other
sects. My Methodist Brother (minister) and myself have commenced a new plan
which is to visit together from house to house exhorting and praying and urging
attendance or preaching.133[133]
131[131]
Lucien Farnham to Peters, July 1, 1836.
Jan. 7, 1834.
133[133]
Probably John T. Mitchell who was Galena”s Methodist Preacher in 1833-35. In 1834 Mitchell was also in charge of the
Dubuque Station and he was joined in Galena by Barton Randle. (Kett. p. 501) Late in 1835, probably before Brunson”s arrival,
Mitchell was sent to Chicago. [Log Cabins to Steeples, p. 73]. The following anecdote, probably at least partly apocryphal is from
Ellsworth, Spencer: Records of Olden Time. Lacon, Ill: Home Journal Steam Printing Establishment, 1880. p., 397-8.
About 1832 or 1833 Mr. Sawyer's father [Jesse Sawyer, an early settler of Hopewell in Marshall Co.] went
to Springfield to enter land. A man named Howard kept a sort of tavern at Holland's Grove, near where
Washington now stands, and there Mr. S. put up for the night. The landlord was short of beds and he was given
a bed-fellow a Methodist minister named Mitchell. After retiring these gentlemen struck up a conversation, in
which Mr. Mitchell disclosed his profession, and, the further fact that he was hard up for money. He said if he
had $500 he could put it to good use and make it pay him well, and that if he knew where to get it he would pay
fair interest for the same. Mr. Sawyer was a man of some means, and had more ready money than he desired to
use and though a careful business man he loaned the preacher the required sum, taking his note therefor. After
parting with his new friend and thinking the matter over he concluded he had been too precipitate. It was not
"business," and the conclusion arrived at was that he had been sold.
He had never seen or heard of Mitchell before, and only knew that his name was such from the man's own
statement. Mrs. S., good, careful woman that she was, did not approve his conduct, and more than once
expatiated upon the "old man's foolishness" in trusting the unknown preacher with so much money. Time rolled
on -one, two, three, four and five years passed, and no account came from Mitchell.
By this time the old lady's fears had become realities, and he gave it np as "a bad speculation." One day
business took him to Hennepin, and it being Sunday, he went to the Methodist Church. Imagine his surprise as
service was about to begin, when the long lost Mitchell walked into the pulpit! The preacher took occasion to
give his hearers a forcible sermon on the subject of temperance, painting in strong colors the fate of the
drunkard, and condemning in the strongest terms "regular" and "occasional" drinking, and promising unending
punishment for the bibulous man.
132[132]
Competition was formidable from the Methodists, and Rev. Alfred Brunson gave a somewhat
partisan account of Methodist supremacy in Galena: “In the course of the day I viewed the place
& found some acquaintances, one of which was with Rev. Mr. Kent of the Presbyterian church.
He is the only preacher of his order in the mining country. He is very catholic & friendly in his
views & feelings, & evinces a great warmth of piety. I preached for him at night, to a less
congregation than we had, the night before, in our own church. Our respective churches are about
of a size, say 30 members each, but his includes all the members of his church in the mines, while
ours extends but little out of the town.”134[134]
Methodists were not Kent’s only competitors: “A pamphlet has recently been published here
that renounces the scriptures and the being of God and places Jesus Christ between Mahomat and
Jo. Smith & Co. (leaders of the Mormons, I suppose).”
During the middle years of the 1830’s Kent concentrated his efforts in Galena to build up his
church. He organized several revival meetings with the help of members of the “Yale Band” from
Jacksonville, including Dr. Nelson, Rev. Edward Beecher, Rev. Asa Turners and others. Moneys
were being husbanded to raise $7500 to construct a church building of brick or stone. Some
representative reports to New York in this time include:135[135]
It gives me pain to think that I have been so long in the field without
witnessing more cheering results because I believe that it is to be attributed to my
own unfaithfulness. I do not doubt but that good is done by my instrumentality
and that is well worth all the expense by which this mission has been sustained
but I am perfectly certain that I have not accomplished what even I might have
done if I possessed more of a self-denying spirit.
In visiting the sick I meet with two very interesting cases last week : they are
included in the 11 married women in the village and 5 in the vicinity who have
died within six months : of these Mrs. Strother (the wife of a man who has
purchased 7/8 of a steam boat and who will command it himself and observe the
Sabbath strictly) was very satisfactory. She seemed as tranquil as if going to yield
herself to the influence of an ordinary sleep.
I think myself happy if I can assist in smoothing the dying pillow of a saint.
But I cannot pass over the case of this excellent Brother of the Episcopal
church. He is a Virginian of noble blood If I may judge of the blood from the
disposition for uncompromising obedience which he evidences. I regard his
When services were over Mr. Sawyer left the church unnoticed by the preacher, and went home without
seeking an interview. He related to his family the circumstances, and, of course, all hopes of seeing his $500
were gone.
At noon on the following day the preacher rode up to the gate and asked for dinner. There was no pretence
of a recognition on either side, but Sawyer managed to whisper to his wife, " that's our preacher!" The good
lady surveyed him with much dissatisfaction.
Mr. S. was in the habit of "taking something" before dinner, and moreover, feeling indifferent as to the preacher's sentiments and in defiance
of the temperance lecture of Sunday took down the decanter and invited the preacher to imbibe. To the utter bewilderment of the
old lady and surprise of Mr. S., the pious man poured out a goodly "horn," fixed it up with artistic skill and
drank it down with evident relish! Whatever weak hopes Mr. Sawyer had for his money were now banished.
Soon after each took another liberal "nip," and when dinner had been satisfactorily disposed of, the preacher
said: "Mr. Sawyer, I have a little business with you." To this Mr. Sawyer replied “all right, Mr. Mitchell; come
this way."
This was the first time that either had spoken the name of the other! They sat down and the preacher drew
from his coat pocket a well-filled bag and counted out the $500, with interest, to a cent, and handed it over with
“much obliged.” This done, he mounted his horse and disappeared.
The old lady's opinion as to the character of that preacher underwent some modification, but still remained
considerably mixed.
134[134]
Brunson, Wisc. Hist. Soc.
March 16, 1836
135[135]
purpose to run a Sabbath keeping boat on the Mississippi as one of the boldest
and most important adventures that individual enterprise could attempt.136[136]
We have no arrivals and no conversions of late but we have the promise of
arrival in less than a year according to the fruits of one of our visits in the
country. The church seems to possess more of the elements of efficiency, for they
are disposed to work in the Lord’s vineyard. We have a monthly concert, and a
good collection as you will see by the amount $45 of which was contributed by
the Female Bible Society. We observe the Sabbath school concert. We have also
commenced the monthly distribution of tracts in the village and vicinity and we
have adopted a method which promises what I have long desired but have never
been able to accomplish before a more familiar acquaintance of the members
with each other which is ordinarily attended with difficulty is a village like this.
At our Sat night prayer meeting of the church it is presumed that the absentees
necessarily are detained and accordingly the role is called and those who are
present volunteer to visit one and another of the absentees, until we have a
promise that each one will be visited during the coming week. And we cannot
doubt but that such a plan adopted by the churches in your city with some little
variation would be attended with most beneficial results.
Our Sabbath School continues to be very interesting and we hope in a few (5)
years to have 10 young men preparing for the ministry. We think this a spiritual
and very important movement. Please charge me one dollar and give credit to
A.G. Hawthorne for the Home Miss.
During the year our church has recruited by certificate 4 by conversion 4 and
now numbers 45: 1 Sab Sc, 75 scholars... the new members of the Church have
subscribed over 1000 dollars toward the church.
This country will grow with rapidity. We shall need greatly a preacher for
Cassville or whatever place is made the seat of territorial government, and one
more south to visit the settlements on Rock River and its tributaries.
Our population and my domestic cares are increasing and render it every year
more difficult for me to be absent itinerating as formerly. Few ministers ever
probably have more company than we and love to “use hospitality” but it is a tax
upon the weak vessel.137[137]
There is hardly a day passes but we have calls or visits from persons from
New England who dislike the confused state and Sabbath breaking of the public
houses and they are not infrequently persons who broke the Sabbath on their
journey hither.
The prospect of gaining ground by the conversion of sinners in Galena
becomes only more dark but there are other ways in which good may be done.
Orrin Smith was the wealthy steam boat captain who was so pious as to stop and tie up his boat where ever it
migth be on midnight Saturday and not more it again until after midnight Sun. His brother Samuel was Kent's associate
in the day school and the perpetrator of the beating of a student that caused Kent to be indicted. Orrin Smith was mayor
of Galena in 1844 (Kett, p. 492).
136[136]
137[137]
July 6, 1836
The wheels of the temperance car are clogged by the men of influence who
are engaged in the traffic. We have had monthly meetings but these men will not
attend or if they do attend it is only to return to their [evil?] course. Mr. A Turner
has been with us, and after lecturing 3 evenings he obtained 72 names to his teetotal pledge, but this makes no perceptible impression on the drunkenness of
Galena.
I also accompanied this indefatigable agent in a visit to the principle places in
the country. At Dubuque I preached in the day time and he lectured in the
evening of the Sab. and obtained 30 names. We hope this minister will speedily
return and have the pleasure of organizing a church there for the religious aspect
of that village is brightening. Being disappointed by the Sab. keeping. Steamboat
is going to Rock Island to spend the last Sabbath in June as I had proposed.
I went to Belleview a little village scarcely six months old on the west bank of
the Mississippi about 12 miles before Galena. The back country is settling
rapidly by agriculturalists: I had a large congregation most of whom had been
there but a few weeks. They were the first sermons ever preached in that place.
I suggested a Sab. School; three apparently efficient teachers volunteered. I
proposed if they would raise 5 dollars I would furnish $10 worth of books. They
immediately collected $11.50 and paid over and I have forwarded a library. They
urged me to come again. But there are 6 or 8 places on this side equally
important that I have not visited for many months.
There are 20 places around me where a Sab. School of 20 or 25 scholars
might be secured if but one pious family would come and settle down in each
neighborhood and take hold of this work but for the want of them these children
are growing up in ignorance.
Our Sabbath School is increasing in numbers and interest. Our celebration on
the 4th was attended by 130 children. They were furnished by their teachers with
an address and each a good piece of cake, a bunch of raisins and a flagon of
water.
The Captain of the Sabbath Keeping boat has succeeded so well that he has
bought another and employed as captain and clerk 2 of the best men in our
church, who are determined to keep holy the Sabbath. Would that the friends of
Zion would pray over this experiment for it involves the last hope of the west and
of the world.
Kent kept up a grueling pace of itineration, He travelled with Rev. Hale into Wisconsin and
Hale reported the results to Dr. Peters:
My journey was principally in the lead mine district & east of the Mississippi
River. Br. Kent & myself visited the principal villages & settlements. We found
no ministers of our denomination & very few of any other. Indeed, we have no
missionaries N. West of Rock River except Br. Kent, at Galena, & Br. Watson,
who I suppose has returned to DuBuque. In the Wisconsin Terr. with a
population 25,000 of there are not more than 4 Or 5 ministers of all
denominations i.e. not more than that number that we could hear of- Br. Kent has
long been calling for aid, & if men of the right sort can be had, his call ought to
be immediately attended to. The population of the Terr. is somewhat peculiar. A
far greater portion of them are foreigners, than of the people of Illinois. They are
as a body more intelligent. There is more open wickedness, such as intemperance
& gambling, &c., more infidelity, or rather it is more bold & open, & there is
more money. We need immediately, two Missionaries to plant within 40 miles of
Galena- but they must be men-men of sound minds & warm hearts -men who can
meet opposition & bear insults, & are willing to labor hard & bear reproach for
Christ, men who might do well in many parts of this state, I am persuaded could
not succeed there. I hope you will be on the lookout & as soon as you can find
the men send them to Br. Kent & he will go with them to their places of
destination. It must not be forgotten that churches in Wisconsin are as scarce as
ministers -all is new- a few professors of religion scattered over the field panting
for the bread & water of life & a large number who once were enrolled among
the people of God & are now twice dead & among the most formidable obstacles
to the progress of religion.138[138]
The year 1837 brought finacial collapse to the western frontier. The period of wild land
speculation and soft money culminated when “The whole financial system of the country has
fallen to the ground,” as The Cincinnati Daily Gazette put it in May of 1837.139[139] Certainly the
mechantile and banking interests of Galena were not immune to the effects of the national
calamity.
None the less, by early 1837, Kent was ready to sever his financial ties with New York:
I have been seven years a recipient if the bounty of your society and am
deeply and painfully conscious of the Christian and ministerial unfaithfulness.
But I have had difficulties to grapple with and burdens to bear which cannot be
well be estimated by those who have occupied a more highly cultivated field. For
more than two years I laboured alone, without Christians enough to form a
church or to maintain a prayer meeting.
Our church now numbers 63. We have morning and evening meetings for
prayer, a formal Benevolent Soc., a Maternal Association, and prayer meeting.
The monthly distribution of tracts has been in successful operation for a year. We
have commenced a house for public worship and have $4000 subscribed.140[140]
We have good schools taught by members of our church.
We have had during the whole time an interesting Sabbath School and men
are now scattered over the country who were once under our influence. Last fall I
met in one day at a distance of 300 miles 3 of its earliest pupils, two were
merchants, and one a mechanic, 2 hope they are Christians and all, so far as I can
learn, sustain a good moral character amidst the crowds of vicious people with
whom they are in daily and hourly mingling.
In taking my leave of your society141[141] I must express my grateful acknowledgments for the
promptness with which every wish has been met and my growing conviction that your society is
Extract from a letter by A. Hale to Absalom Peters. Jacksonville, Illinois, September 27, 1836. in: Sweet,
William W.: Religion on the American Frontier, 1783-1849; Vol. II The Presbyterians. New york, 1964. p. 684-5.
138[138]
139[139]
Buley, Vol. II, p. 270.
The corner stone of the Catholic Church was laid September 12, 1835. p. 44. A number of “firsts” were occurring in this
period. On Sept. 8, 1838 the first circus license was issued to Mr. Miller for $20. (Hist Jo. Davies, p. 471. On Dec. 3, 1838 the first
recorded license for a theatre was granted to McKenzie & & Jefferson for one year $75. p. 472. Their first performance was “Wives as
they were, And Maids as They Are”. Tickets were $1.00. p. 481. The Galena Library Association was organized in 1835 and by 1838
contained 835 volumes. p. 476.
141[141]
This marks the beginning of a five year hiatus in correspondance betweeen Kent and the A.H.M.S. Since he was financially
independent, he no longer made quarterly missionary reports.
140[140]
performing a service for the West and for our country, and for the church which none can so well
appreciate as those who witness its happy results.142[142]
Secular Public Education
Aratus Kent's contributions to education were numerous, and he made his mark on institutions at all
instructional levels and in many geographic localities. Ironically, his first endeavor in education, shortly
after his arrival in Galena, almost caused him to be run out of town. Winter in remote frontier out posts was
often a contentious time. Certainly the records of the military at places like Mackinac, Green Bay and
Prairie du Chien are replete with Court Martial proceedings over seemingly trivial disputes. Civilian
populations also found that the familiarity forced by isolation bred contempt. He told the story to his
mentor, Dr. Peters:143[143]
"I had looked forward for some time to the last Sat. when I hoped to have leisure to write you
somewhat that would be cheering, but alas! It was a day of sorrow and “rebuke”. And furnished
occasion to those who have been seeking occasion against me. An although this event, as well as
the report that I have been caught at card playing, may be construed as a token for good and as
evidence that the adversary is alarmed, yet the immediate effect will be to fix odium on me that will
not soon be forgotten.
My associate144[144] in the day school and I were summoned by warrant before the magistrate
for “assault and battery” on the body of a child, and tho we were acquitted yet it appeared in
evidence that the chastisement was too severe and some marks were left on the child. The crime
was telling a lie, and the occasion was whispering in time of prayer. And the severity resulted from
the passiveness of the child, which led my companion to strike harder than he ought from the
impression that the force of the blows were broken by a jacket or corset intervening. And although
we were perfectly dispassionate, and entirely innocent, yet you can easily imagine what will be
made of it by such men as would draw up a caricature and send off for the clergyman to come in
great haste to the man in his dying moments. True the messenger was arrested before he reached
me, but he set out on that errand and the circumstance was quite recent.
In relation to this last affray the parents are very sorry, hence sent their children to school
again, and state that the child is remarkable for insensibility under the rod and that they should not
have taken such a course but they were urged on by others.
The people of intelligence and influence manifest a great deal of sympathy for me. And I can
forgive and pity and forget for those that have injured me, but I cannot help feeling keenly when I
think that ever after my name must be associated with the ideas of barbarity and tyranny.
From the testimony given in, I supposed there were some 10 or 15 marks 12 inches long, but
my companion called 30 hours after the punishment was inflicted and found 3 marks 1 1/2 inches
long. And by the time such a story has traveled 100 miles the child’s back will be all skinned."
In spite of his fears, Kent's reputation survived his brush with the authorities over his role in the
punishment of the young girl. Many years later Henry Boss reported in his History of Ogle County: "As
evidence that the former animosities have died away, Mr. K. says that he was recently called upon to
perform the marriage ceremony for the same girl and her lover." 145[145] The irony of this affair is that Aratus
Kent contributed more to female education that any other man of his generation in Northern Illinois, as will
be seen later. Kent's sense of personal guilt stemming from this episode could not have detracted from his
later zeal in the pursuit of female education.
Kent continued to be a strict disciplinarian, even after the experience of being indicted for child abuse.
His Puritan heritage thoroughly embraced the traditional Presbyterian antipathy for foolishness, such as
card playing, and proudly he reported to New York: "...playing cards are a contraband article in our day and
Sabbath schools!"146[146]
142[142]
Jan. 17, 1837.
Feb. 9, 1830.
144[144]
Samuel Smith, the brother of Captain Orrin Smith, the owner of the “Sabbath Keeping steamboat” and a successful merchant
and one time [1844] mayor of Galena.
145[145]
Boss, Henry: History of Ogle County. Polo, Il. 1859. p. 30.
146[146]
July 31, 1830.
143[143]
Kent explained his reasons for engaging in the school business to his superiors in New York:
"My reasons for engaging in this school were: 1) the great need for such a school; 2) there
seemed to be little encouragement to itinerate during the winter months; 3) I wished to gain access
to a mass of people that were inaccessible at all other points; 4) I thought by this measure I should
eventually promote the Sabbath school; 5) I wished to establish a precedent for introducing the
scriptures and prayer into the school. "147[147]
He also explained something of his pedagogical technique, and offered an explanation for his
association with a Baptist in the enterprise:
"I found that the school were miserable spellers and had no ambition to excel. I offered as
premium to those who were at the head at night an apple or tract (an apple costs 2 cents here). They
all prefer the tract and then I send out 2 tracts a day under most favorable circumstances (besides a
tract to each scholar once in 4 weeks). My companion is a Baptist but a young man of great worth
and coincides with me in everything. Are not my reasons for the day school satisfactory? It was a
popular measure to offer to teach gratuitously."148[148]
While contributing “gratuitously” his own time to the day school, just a few months later he was
complaining about the lack of promised support for his associate, Samuel Smith: "I am owing about 130
dol. for board and horse keeping which are cash accounts, but the school keeper can get no cash for his
winter's work... I assist in opening the school daily and hear the class in Testament and preach little
sermons to them frequently. There is but little to encourage one here except this interesting group of
youth." Yet keeping company with this Samuel Smith and his brother Orrin was an early source of moral
sustenance for Kent, as when his weekly prayer meeting was "...attended by the teacher, his brother and 2
little boys of 5 and 8 years. It was a pleasant evening and we a good meeting." 149[149]
By July, 1830, Kent came to realize that he could not continue to devote so much time to the actual
running of the day school, and still accomplish his holy mission, even though such a course might provide
for his living. He wrote to Dr. Peters: "I could get through the coming year by devoting myself 5 days out
of 7 to a school with comparatively little expense but I presume that if you were here to judge of the case in
all its bearings you would not advise that course." 150[150]
Kent’s faith in education and its connection to his evangelical mission were summarized in a letter to
Dr. Badger in 1845: “If we look only at the salvation of the present generation the preaching of the gospel
is the great means on which, under God, we should rely. But when we look to ultimate and far reaching
results the great desideratum toward which we should bend our utmost efforts is to establish and sustain a
system of thorough Christian Education, and render it acceptable to all. And to effect this, we must have
local agents stationed at all points in the great field. But all history shows that there are no agents so
efficient in promoting Christian educations as Evangelical Ministers. Hence, we are conducted obviously to
the conclusion that Home Missionaries should be multiplied to meet the demand. And perhaps in the
Western country where so little interest is felt in the cause, they should be especially instructed to carry this
point but using every means within their reach : such as lecturing in education, visiting schools, procuring
competent teachers, and using their influence to establish primary schools and academies.” 151[151]
Kent participated, if indirectly, in the establishment of several “academies,” such as the one at Henry,
Illinois, by defending the role of the missionaries who devoted time and energy to secular education. Again,
Kent supported female education:
“Br. Pendleton's achievements astonish me. I spent 3 days with him and looked carefully into
his operations. How one little man & poor and withal a missionary preaching every Sabbath and
providing for a family could within 2 years have projected, gathered on a naked prairie all the
materials and all the labourers and finished a tasteful & commodious building 40 feet square and
containing 21 rooms all well arranged and could have more over filled it in every nook and corner
with the sons & daughters and serve at an expense of $3000 is to me a mystery."
147[147]
Feb. 9, 1830.
ibid.
149[149]
May 10, 1830.
150[150]
July 31, 1830.
151[151]
April 8, 1845.
148[148]
Kent assured the Secretaries in New York that he was ensuring that Pendleton did not shirk his pastoral
responsibilities:
"I had much pleasant conversation and endeavored to be faithful in guarding him against
worldly mindedness. The church at Milo is small and poor and can raise bit $25 and he hopes to
receive the same amount from individuals at Henry. And he asks 250 (i.e. 125 for Milo and 125 for
preaching at the Academy.) His school of 60 together with those that come from the village make a
congregation of 75. He has a very pleasant chapel and recitation room in the attic and a more
interesting congregation than usually falls to the lot of Home Miss. to address. Nor is his preaching
without effect for he reckons 10 as the converts of last winter, several of whom incidentally came
in my way.”
Rev. H.G. Pendleton was a graduate of the Lane Theological Seminary who became the preacher of the
Granville Presbyterian Church at its inception in 1839. In August, 1844, a resolution of the Church was as
follows: “Resolved, That Br. H.G. Pendleton having served four years as stated supply, and at the end of the
fourth year it was decided by a large majority that he was not satisfactory to the Church on account of his
pro-slavery sentiments,152[152] a portion of the church deeply sympathize with him, and he had proved
himself a laborious and faithful minister.” Pendleton served other churches in the same central Illinois
region, for example he was at Henry and Providence in 1848. The Henry Female Seminary was founded on
the efforts of Rev. Pendleton, and Kent was very impressed with Pendleton’s energy. Teachers for the
Seminary were brought west from the Holyoke (Mass.) Female Seminary. The Henry school flourished
until the financial collapse of 1857, after which the rise of public education supplanted the need for such
schools.153[153]
Kent played at least a permissive role in the rapid establishment of sound schools in DuPage County,
Illinois, where the A.H.M.S. missionary Rev. Hope Brown was for many years (1849-1856) superintendent
of schools. Kent encouraged Brown’s work, and supported his applications for continued missionary
aid.154[154] Kent proudly reported in 1858: “It [Dupage County] has been a small territory. In it there are 66
school districts, of 60 have builded [sic] good houses of brick or stone and employ good teachers. This
result has been reached in part at least by means of earnest efforts of Br. H. Brown, who was for several
years the County Superintendent.” 155[155]
Sabbath Schools
In 1828 Rev. Lyman Beecher asked, through a series of articles, whether the salvation of children
should not be the concern of all good Calvinists. 156[156] Yale's Nathaniel Taylor, an influential Calvinist
revisionist of the 1820s and 1830s, modified the doctrine of sin in general to accommodate a more
benevolent view of unregenerate children's sinfulness. Taylor, who served as President of the Connecticut
Sunday School Union during the 1820s, believed that individuals sinned only when they voluntarily
committed sinful acts. Orthodox Calvinism held that whenever they did anything while they remained
unregenerate, they sinned. Taylor's theology assumed that as long as children remained without a sense of
right or wrong, God did not hold them accountable for their acts. Once in possession of a moral sense,
however, children were inclined by nature to sin (because they possessed the depraved nature common to
all descendants of Adam) and needed regeneration. 157[157]
Taylor's revisionist ideas, like Beecher's liberal views, generated controversy within the Presbyterian
church, and played a role in its split into Old and New School factions. In 1833 the Old School Presbyterian
minister Gardiner Spring attacked Taylor for his "novel speculations" and "errors" regarding the doctrine of
152[152]
It is doubtful that Rev. Pendleton was "pro-slavery." More likely he was simply not sufficiently anti-slavery for the taste of at
least part of his congregation. Aratus Kent labored under similar burdens.
153[153]
Ellsworth, Spencer: Records of Olden Time. Lacon, Ill: Home Journal Steam Printing Establishment, 1880. p. 283-4.
154[154]
Aug. 28, 1848; A lengthy extract of Brown”s annual report of the state of education in Dupage county is in Richmond, C.W.
& Vallette, H.F.: History of Dupage , Illinois, Chicago, 1857. p.63-65.
155[155]
Jan. 19, 1858.
156[156]
Fleming, Children and Puritanism, p. 190, and Slater, Children in the New England Mind, pp. 81-84.
157[157]
Slater, Children in the New England Mind, pp. 77-87; George Stewart, Jr., A History of Religious Education in Connecticut to
the Middle of the Nineteenth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1924), p. 321; Sidney Earl Mead, Nathaniel William
Taylor: A Connecticut Liberal (1943; New York: Archon Books, 1967), pp. 171-99; and George M. Marsden, The Evangelical Mind
and the New School Presbyterian Experience: A Case Study of Thought and Theology in Nineteenth Century America (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1970), pp. 46-52.
human depravity. Defending the view that sin was an "inclination of the mind" as well as a characteristic of
individual acts, Spring stated that the child was a sinner from birth, "the perfect miniature of fallen, sinning
man," and "a moral and accountable being."
Distinguishing between the intellectual and moral faculties of the soul, Spring argued that original sin
tainted children's moral dispositions (their "hearts") just as it did adults'; one needed only look for evidence
of children's "moral depravity" in their "impatience, obstinacy, pride, self will." He went on to ask: "Where
do you discover that supreme selfishness, which is the essence and substance of all sin, if not in a little
child?" Despite their disagreements, Taylor's and Spring's arguments led in the same direction: toward early
religious education. Without early training, in Spring's view, children would grow up “slave[s] of ignorance
and passion," unaware of their alienation from God. If Taylor saw religious education as a means of
shortening the period during which children were alienated from God, Spring saw it as a way of making
them aware how deep that alienation was. Either way, children needed early and regular training. 158[158]
Just where Kent stood in this ideological controversy, he did not record. But he wasted no time. A scant
four months after his arrival, Kent reported: "The most interesting fact is the present appearance of our
embryo Sabbath School..."159[159] Pragmatist that he was, he often collaborated with his Baptist and
Methodist brethren in the formation of Sabbath schools. But the responsibility was taxing for a young
minister working in isolation. He reported: "The Sabbath School is very laborious under our embarrassing
circumstances. And I have been sick these 2 weeks past." 160[160] A few months later, the situation had not
improved: "The Sabbath school maintains its onward way and numbers 67 but it is burdensome for want of
help in teaching which prevents all efforts to enlarge it, for those who attend sometimes go away without
being taught. Last Sabbath was our first public examination when we gave out 52 books (bibles, testaments,
tracts & hymn books) and took up a collection of $5 from scholars & teachers & $6 from spectators. Our
library of 130 vol. and tracts doing their work." 161[161] A year later, progress in establishing Christian
education could be reported: "We have two Sabbath Schools with libraries in the country and the school in
Galena is still prosperous and exacting a healthful influence on society." 162[162]
Kent's pedagogical technique was simple, but he reported that it was successful: "Allow me to remark
on the plan of rewarding children for Committing scriptures. In my next tour I expect to hear from 40 or 50
repeating the 23 psalm. And I must be permitted to express the opinion that it is one of the happiest
methods of doing good in such fields of labor. Every child who commits the 10 commandments becomes a
preacher to the whole family, for they are brought under a necessity to hear the law of God daily rehearsed
in their ears. This exercise brings the child to maturity...."163[163]
Kent must have felt the part of a one armed paper hanger. As he scurried about the country side giving
birth to churches and nurturing fledgling flocks, some of his earlier hard won gains began to unravel. In
1834 he noted: "Since I have spent every third Sabbath in the country I have been obliged to give up the
superintendency of the Sabbath school, and it has declined until it was almost broken up. I felt it my duty to
resume the place I had occupied, and judged myself to be here every Sabbath this Winter, and now our
Sabbath School is a very pleasant one and numbers 50 besides 25 drawn off to the Methodist School... If
my family is expensive, it is also useful, furnishing 4 teachers for the Sabbath School, an infant school
teacher, and is the main support of the female prayer meeting, and a weekly benevolent society. Besides
great assistance is realized in visiting the people and conversing on religious subjects." 164[164] He thus
personally addressed the manpower shortage by marrying Caroline Corning, who became a legendary
Galena Sunday School teacher, and bringing other young people from the east to live in what he always
called his "family."
"He has also taken a deep interest in the Children, and has established Sabbath Schools in different
parts of the district. The school at Galena consists of twelve teachers & eighty scholars," is how Dr. Horatio
158[158]
Gardiner Spring, A Dissertation on Native Depravity (New York: Jonathan Leavitt, 1833), pp. 3, 8, 10, 17, 11-12, 36-37, 6869, 88-92. See also McLaughlin "Evangelical Child Rearing," pp. 20-30; and Slater, Children in the New England Mind, p. 87.
159[159]
Aug. 7, 1829.
160[160]
May 10, 1830.
161[161]
July 31, 1830.
162[162]
June 6, 1831
163[163]
Sept 1, 1831
164[164]
Jan. 7, 1834.
Newhall described Brother Kent's ministerial efforts in 1836. 165[165] "Our Sabbath School is increasing in
numbers and interest. Our celebration on the 4th was attended by 130 children. They were furnished by
their teachers with an address and each a good piece of cake, a bunch of raisins and a flagon of water," is
how Kent described the July 4th festivities that year. 166[166]
Chicagoan Edwin O. Gale recalled his brief tenure at a Northern Illinois evangelical Calvinist Sabbath
School during the 1830s. His jaundiced adult eye visualized "those small religious books of early days,
with water paper covers of somber hue," [as he remembered their contents_"most melancholy biographies
of inconceivably goody goody boys" who invariably died young. Gale could not connect "those sickly
examples" with the "robust, rollicking, roguish little rascal full of animal spirits" that he had been. However
he felt in later life, it was clear that the books and the lessons they represented had had their effect on him
in childhood. The Sunday school, he remembered, "made a painful impression upon my sensitive nature.
My frightened, rather than guilty, conscience left no doubt in my mind that I was in danger of . . . terrible
doom." Sundays "became days of torture" to him as he returned home with "red, swollen eyes and [a]
dejected countenance." Eventually his father, a Unitarian, forbade his further attendance, and young Edwin
returned to Sunday school only when a Unitarian school was established. Like Gale's father, evangelical
parents also objected on occasion to the methods employed in Sunday schools. 167[167]
By early 1837 Kent summarized his 7 year career as a Home Missionary (his support would thereafter
come wholly from the First Presbyterian Church of Galena), and he found the Sabbath School a highlight:
"We have had during the whole time an interesting Sabbath School and men are now scattered over the
country who were once under our influence. Last fall I met in one day at a distance of 300 miles 3 of its
earliest pupils, two were merchants, and one a mechanic, 2 hope they are Christians and all, so far as I can
learn, sustain a good moral character amidst the crowds of vicious people with whom they are in daily and
hourly mingling."168[168] He never ceased to emphasize the importance of Sabbath schools when he later
became the agent of the A.H.M.S. In 1854 alone, Kent visited 110 Sabbath Schools in his role as
agent.169[169]
Higher Education
Higher education actually preceded the establishment of a system of lower schools in Illinois. The early
stream of settlement into southern and central Illinois came mainly from the southeast and south by way of
the Ohio, Mississippi, and Illinois rivers. These pioneers, bred in the tidewater tradition that education was
a personal and not a public affair, evidenced little interest in the establishment of a common school system,
or even in the creation of institutions of higher education. Not until long after Illinois had attained
statehood was a system of public schools formed, and then the impetus came from the influx of New
Englanders who arrived via the lakes and the Erie Canal which opened in 1825.
In Illinois, schools and colleges were established on a hit or miss basis according to the wishes of local
groups, sometimes in opposition to the opinion of most of the inhabitants of the state, but more often with
the majority indifferent to things educational. Such was not the case in the lake states whose early settlers
came directly from New England. There an educational system was set up at once. In Michigan the
territorial legislature had provided for an institution of higher learning. Upon attaining statehood, the
legislature provided in its first session for a unified public school system with a state university as its
capstone, and all private colleges were prohibited. Similar action was taken in Wisconsin and Minnesota.
The impulse leading to the founding of colleges in Illinois came from organized religion. Ministers and
laymen were concerned over the future of their respective denominations, and to each group it seemed that
part of the answer was to set up a center of learning. So it was that the Methodists established a seminary at
Lebanon in 1828. In March, 1830, the name was changed from Lebanon Seminary to McKendree College,
though instruction of a collegiate grade was not offered until 1835, and no degrees were granted before
165[165]
Horatio Newell to A. Peters, March 7, 1836.
July 6, 1836.
167[167]
Edwin O. Gale, Reminiscences of Early Chicago and Vicinity. (Chicago: Fleming H. Revell, 1902), pp. 369-70. Gale”s father
Stephen was an early Chicago merchant.
168[168]
Jan. 17, 1837.
169[169]
March 6, 1854.
166[166]
1841.170[170] Even before the seminary was established at Lebanon, the Baptists had started a school at Rock
Spring in 1827. Discontinued in 1832, a successor was founded at Upper Alton. Instruction there on the
college level began in 1833. The first students were graduated in 1837.171[171]
The Reverend John Millot Ellis proposed that the Presbyterians establish a college, and succeeded in
interesting a group of seven Congregational theological students at Yale in the project. This alliance
resulted in the foundation of Illinois College in 1829. Actual instruction began in January, 1830. Since none
of the students were sufficiently prepared for college level study, instruction on a collegiate level did not
begin until 1831, and the first class graduated in 1835. 172[172] Aratus Kent was an early visitor to
Jacksonville, and he became acquainted with the founders of Illinois College, since they were fellow
graduates of Yale.173[173] On October 26, 1829, Kent, while on his way back from Synod..."Walked out to
the elegant site of Illinois College. Called on Mrs. Ellis and rode to Springfield [and] spent the night."
A few years later Kent again visited Jacksonville and sought the advice of the faculty on educational
issues:"My visit to Jacksonville was very pleasant and I obtained a promise of a visit this fall from Prof.
[Edward] Beecher [Lyman Beecher’s brother] and also from Mr. Baldwin to attend a protracted meeting
and to inquire into the prospects of education." 174[174]
The early colleges faced an up hill battle in securing charters from the state legislature. The legislature
was suspicious of the college movement. One legislator proudly proclaimed he was "born in a briar thicket,
rocked in a hog trough and had never had his genius cramped by the pestilential air of a college." 175[175] As
a result, it was only after considerable effort and difficulty that the first college charters were secured on
February 19, 1835. By this act, McKendree, Shurtleff, and Illinois Colleges were granted legal recognition
simultaneously. Three stringent restrictions in the charters showed the fears of the legislature. The
establishment of theological departments was prohibited, no college was to be permitted to hold more than
640 acres of land, and the profession of any particular religious faith could not be required for admission.
The first two named provisions were repealed on February 26, 1841.176[176]
McDonough College, located at Macomb, (the town was named for the army commander of the
victorious War of 1812 American forces at Plattsburgh, and the college named for the spectacularly
successful naval commander on adjacent Lake Champlain) was incorporated by interested citizens in 1836.
Instruction began on a preparatory level in 1837, but a full college course was not given until 1851. The
Presbyterians were solicited to take the sponsorship of the college, but when this did not materialize, the
local Masonic lodge purchased it in conformity with a plan to establish an Illinois Masonic College. The
Grand Lodge of Illinois declined the offer, and it then became a high school under direction of the Schuyler
Presbytery. A new charter was secured, and collegiate instruction began in 1851, but the college was closed
in 1855 due to a lack of the expected support from the Presbyterian church. 177[177]
Most interesting of the non surviving institutions was Jubilee College, located near Peoria. Here Bishop
Philander Chase had been planning for the college through the late Thirties. The first class was graduated in
1847, and the charter was secured in January of the same year. 178[178]
The colleges that survived and grew were not only related to some religious organization, but also had
associated with them one or more strong personalities to carry them through the trying formative years.
Aratus Kent was one of those strong personalities, and he carried Beloit College and Rockford Female
170[170]
W. C. Walton, Centennial History of McKendree College (Lebanon, Ill. 1928), 119-26.
Austin Kennedy de Blois, The Pioneer School : A History of Slturtleff College, the Oldest Educational Institution in the West
(New York, 1900), pp. 29-97.
172[172]
Charles Henry Rammelkamp, Illinois College: A Centennial History, 1829-1929 ([New Haven, Conn.], 1928), pp. 40, 68-69.
173[173]
Nov. 16, 1829.
174[174]
Oct 4, 1836
175[175]
Earnest Elmo Calkins, They Broke the Prairie: Being some account of the settlement of the Upper Mississippi Valley by
religious and educational pioneers, told in terms of one city, Galesburg, and of one College, Knox ( New York, 1937), 32.
176[176]
Earnest Elmo Calkins, They Broke the Prairie: Being some account of the settlement of the Upper Mississippi Valley by
religious and educational pioneers, told in terms of one city, Galesburg, and of one College, Knox (New York, 1937).
177[177]
Newton Bateman and Paul Selby, eds., Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of McDonough County (Chicago,
1907), II: 694-95.
178[178]
The Motto Jubilee College , Vol. I, no. 8 (July 11, 1849), 177. See also Roma Louise Shively, Jubilee, A Pioneer College
(Elmwood, Ill., 1935).
171[171]
Seminary (ultimately Rockford College) to stable maturity. He could not know that his casual
acquaintance, John Addams, of nearby Cedarville, would send a promising daughter, Jane (who wanted to
go east to Smith), to Rockford Female Seminary, and that she would become a world renowned
humanitarian and sociologist.179[179]
Not surprisingly, the most important of the questions that were faced by the founders of these early
lllinois colleges was that of finance. In the case of each of the surviving institutions, the first step was to
circulate a local subscription list. As a rule very little cash was pledged; land, labor, and materials formed
the bulk of the donations. Funds for the actual operation were expected from the East until the West could
become self-supporting. A common procedure was to elect a president who then journeyed to Illinois to
look over the scene of his future labors, and returned to the seaboard to seek funds from friends and
religious philanthropists. This is illustrated by a letter from John Mason Peck, financial agent of Shurtleff,
written to Dr. Haskell, treasurer of the college in Alton, in the fall of 1835, announcing that he had
succeeded in raising more money in Boston than Edward Beecher, president of Illinois College, who was in
the city at the same time on the same mission. 180[180] By 1843 the pleas for funds from the East became so
numerous that the Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education at the West was
organized to co-ordinate the fund drives of those institutions having a Presbyterian or Congregational
background.
Aratus Kent, like Beecher and Peck, did his share of Eastern fund raising. He reported to the
Secretaries, in apology for a short trip away from his post: "I accomplished something for the time I was
out of my field being but 2 Sabbaths out of the State, having obtained subscriptions to Rockford Female
Sem. to a considerable amount."181[181]
The men (and women, in the case of Rockford) who comprised the faculties of those early colleges
were devoted to the cause of education. They survived on small salaries, and even those were usually in
arrears. At Illinois College in 1837, President Edward Beecher received $1,100 and quarters, Julian M.
Sturtevant, first instructor, $750 and quarters, while two others were paid $900, but had to supply their own
houses. One professor received $1,000 without housing, but in 1840 all but one were raised to
$1,100.182[182] At McKendree College the president's salary in 1834 was $600, although in that year it was
raised to $700.183[183] With all the difficulties which they faced, they had need of the strong religious
convictions which sustained them through the painful and poverty-stricken years. In each of the early
institutions the majority of the faculty was composed of ordained ministers, or men who were using
teaching as a stopping point on the way toward ordination. As might have been expected, most of these
came from New England.184[184] The faculties were small, and their personalities had a deep influence on
the students entrusted to their care. William H. Herndon (Lincoln's law partner), for example, infected by
the virus of antislavery at Illinois College, was withdrawn by his father for this reason. 185[185]
Commencement was the high point of the college year for both students and faculty. Originally this was
held late in the summer, but by the early Forties all these colleges had changed to June. The exercises were
all-day affairs. Each member of the graduating class delivered an oration and suitable musical numbers
were rendered. Prizes and honors were conferred. As though there had not been enough speaking, members
of the lower classes were often placed on the program for additional orations and essays. Not only was this
a gala day for the graduates but also for the community. People came from miles around to spend the entire
day, or, if from a distance, to spend the nights before and after, in the college town. 186[186] Kent enjoyed
attending these affairs, as he reported in 1855.
“But we have much also to be thankful for. God has prospered the feeble efforts put forth to
plant and sustain literary and religious institutions. Last evening I listened with interest to a solemn
179[179]
look up the Kent letter references to Addams.
De Blois, Pioneer School, 69-70..
181[181]
Sept. 27, 1853
182[182]
Rammelkamp, Illinois College, 52.
182[182]
Walton, McKendree College, 120.
183[183]
Walton, McKendree College, 120.
184[184]
J. M. Sturtevant, Jr., ed., Juian M. Sturtevant, an Autobiography. (New York 1896), 191-92.
185[185]
Quotation from Herndon in Rammelkamp, Illinois College, p.103.
186[186]
Webster, Seventy-five Significant Years, p. 64; Carriel, Jonathan B. Turner, p. 60.
180[180]
and searching address to the Society of Inquiry on Missions in Rockford Female Sem. by Rev. Mr.
Colis 1st graduate of Beloit College, preaching the duty of entire consecration to Christ. Tomorrow
is commencement here.”187[187]
Slavery must be mentioned when the early Illinois colleges are discussed, for it was a pressing issue.
Going from southern to northern Illinois, abolitionist sentiment increased. McKendree, at Lebanon, was
less antislavery than the others. Two years after the death of the A.H.M.S. missionary Elijah Lovejoy, her
board took formal action demanding that persons expressing abolition sentiments sever their connection
with the college. Shurtleff, at Alton (where Lovejoy was martyred), was also anti abolitionist in order to
keep her connections with possible students from Missouri. Illinois College, at Jacksonville near
Springfield, never took a formal stand as a college but the faculty, including President Edward Beecher,
who had unsuccessfully helped to guard Lovejoy's press, were outstanding abolitionists, and were so
known throughout the state. Knox, at Galesburg, and its President Blanchard, were out-and-out abolitionist.
With the characters of the founders, and their previous connections, none of the colleges could have stood
otherwise than they did. Founded, nurtured, and molded as they were by men of strong character and public
spirit, the question remained one of the engrossing subjects of discussion, as well as action, until it was
settled by the tragedy of war.
In June 1844, the lake steamer Chesapeake, churned westward through the waters of Lake Erie from
Cleveland, Ohio, carrying seven men home from the Western Convention of Presbyterian and
Congregational Ministers. There three hundred delegates from eleven states had met to discuss the religious
needs of the Mississippi Valley. They had heard an appeal for church unity, and they made resolutions
against the evils of dancing and slavery. But what had seized their imaginations was the announcement of a
voluntary agency called the Western Educational Society. According to its secretary, the Reverend Theron
Baldwin, the newly-established society had been formed so that struggling collegiate institutions on the
frontier would not have to compete in their bids for financial aid from the East. The society would endorse
and even raise money for a limited number of fledgling western colleges. 188[188]
In a narrow stateroom seven delegates discussed the possibility of establishing colleges in Wisconsin
and northern Illinois. Among them was Theron Baldwin. His friend, the Reverend Stephen Peet, 189[189] was
the Wisconsin agent for the American Home Missionary Society. Lying ill on a berth, Peet was
nevertheless full of enthusiasm. For years he had been dreaming of founding a Christian college.
In 1839 Peet had toured nearly 575 miles of territory south of the Wisconsin River. He found rapidly
growing settlements but only one minister within 150 miles. To the secretary of the Society he wrote, "Send
us ministers-send us good ministers- send them now." The problem was that most ministers were trained in
the East, and the ones who volunteered for frontier missionary service often were restless, inefficient, or
unable to endure hardships. As agent, Peet, Like Arartus Kent, was responsible for organizing churches,
helping them secure pastors, advising missionaries arriving in the field, raising money and keeping alive
interest in missions. Repeatedly he urged (again like Kent) the Society secretaries not to make Wisconsin a
187[187]
July 10, 1855
The activities of the Western Convention are described in William Ganson Rose, Cleveland: The Making of a City (New York:
World Publishing, 1950), p. 195; see also Robert H. Irrmann and Helen L. D. Richardson, eds., "The Text: The Origin and Early
Progress of Beloit College," in Chapin”s Corner Stone Speech (n.p.: Beloit College,1867), p. 16, 24; A. L. Chapin, "A Paper on the
Acts and Aims of the Founders of Beloit College," in Exercises at the Quarter-Centennial Anniversary of Beloit College, 9 July 1872
(Janesville, Wisconsin: Garett Verder, 1878) p. 52; Colin Brummitt Goodykoontz, Home Missions on the American Frontier (New
York: Octagon Books, 1971), pp. 383-94.
As noted earlier, the formal name of the "Western Society" was "Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education at
the West." It was also called the "College Society." In 1931 President Maddox of Rockford College said that a 1844 newspaper
clipping reported that the Cleveland delegates had passed the following resolution: "The exigencies of Wisconsin and Northern Illinois
require that those sections should unite in establishing a college and a female seminary of the highest order; one in Wisconsin near to
Illinois and the other in Illinois near to Wisconsin." Typescript, "An Address by President Maddox of Rockford College, at the
Centennial Banquet" (1931), Aratus Kent Files, Rockford College Archives Rockford, Illinois, p. 3. This resolution was passed by the
first Beloit Convention, 6 August 1844, and was reported in an untitled newspaper article, Rockford Forum, 11 June 1845. See
(unpaged) Beloit Convention Minutes, 6 August 1844 to 2 October 1845, Rockford College Archives, Rockford, Illinois.
189[189]
Peet, Stephen, missionary, b. in Sandgate, Vt., in 1795, d. in Chicago, Ill.. 21 March, 1855. He was graduated at Yale in 1823,
and preached for seven years near Cleveland, Ohio. Afterward he was a chaplain in Buffalo, N. Y., editing there the “Bethel Magazine
" and the "Buffalo Spectator." In 1837 he became minister of Green Bay,Wis., and assisted in founding Beloit college and thirty
churches. He then went to Milwaukee, and subsequently took charge of an institute in Batavia, Ill. He was the author of a "History of
the Presbyterian and Congregational Churches and Ministers of Wisconsin"(Milwaukee. 1851). Appleton”s Vol. IV, p. 700.
188[188]
dumping ground for inept ministers (in return, Peet was undeservedly dumped by the Society.) He was sure
that a college planted in southern Wisconsin would solve the problem. Young men who studied there would
be accustomed to frontier conditions and would understand the people. 190[190]
A college would bring other benefits as well. An educational institution established early would draw
"the kind of population most desirable who are intelligent and willing to patronise [sic] and support such
institutions." Religion would be promoted as a collateral benefit. "I have never seen good order and wellregulated society to exist," he wrote, "without the influence of religion." A college would also provide
many needed teachers for the common schools, a goal dear to the hearts of both Peet and Arartus
Kent.191[191]
Doubtless, Peet expressed these cherished ideas to the men crowded together on the Chesapeake.
Theron Baldwin repeated the promise given at the convention, that "a hand from the East" would "be
stretched out to help on the establishment of genuine Christian colleges, judiciously located here and there
in the West." Standing nearby was the Reverend A. L. Chapin a Yale and Union Theological Seminary
graduate returning to his Milwaukee pastorate. More than twenty-five years later he recalled,
"Peet seizes on the gleam of encouragement, his uttered thoughts kindle enthusiasm and hope
in the rest. There is an earnest consultation- there is a fervent prayer- there is a settled purpose and
Beloit College is a living conception."192[192]
From this shipboard meeting emerged three collegiate institutions in three midwestern states. Yet the
man who would lead the group toward a broader, more liberal educational plan was not on board the
Chesapeake. He was the Reverend Aratus Kent, often called the "Father of Rockford Female Seminary."
On 6th, August 1844, a little more than a decade after Rockford had been founded by Aratus Kent's brother
Germanicus, among others, fifty-four church leaders from three states traveled to a convention in Beloit, a
tiny village on the southern edge of Wisconsin. Their meeting place was an imposing Congregational
church, one of the first three Protestant church buildings in the territory. From its tower hung the first bell
in the Rock River Valley, and in its basement the Beloit Seminary met for instruction. 193[193]
The group called themselves "friends of Christian education in Northern Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa."
They asked Aratus Kent to preside. For two days they prayed, argued and planned. A.L. Chapin, long time
President of Beloit College, recalled Aratus Kent's contribution.
"Beloit College like every good enterprise, owes its birth and nurture to a few men of foresight,
broad views and earnest self sacrificing devotion. Among these few men, a prominent place must
be assigned to the Rev. Aratus Kent. He was a member of each and was made chairman of the first,
of the four conventions of the friends of Christian education, whose deliberations determined the
time and place and character of the College. The last convention appointed him one of its original
trustees. He continued a member of the board to the time of his death, being very rarely absent from
its meetings till the infirmities of old age began to lay some check upon his activity. He was elected
the first president of the Board of trustees and by successive elections was kept in that position for
nearly three years, till on the appointment of a President of the College, the two offices were
merged. Thenceforward, he was, each year, regularly and unanimously elected vice president. of
the board. His interests, and counsels, and prayers have thus been from the outset, identified with
the institution, and he has from time to time made liberal contributions to its resources. It is
appropriate therefore, that the pages of the Monthly should present some fit memorial of what this
man, so near and dear to us, did in this and other relations of life, and of what he really was." 194[194]
190[190]
Lawrence E. Murphy, Religion and Education on the Frontier: A Life of Stephen Peet (Dubuque, Iowa: privately printed,
[1942]), pp. 47- 49; Goodykoontz, Home Missions, pp. 59, 183-84.
191[191]
Peet to Brown, 29 July 1839, quoted in Murphy, Religion, p. 89.
192[192]
Chapin, Quarter-Centennial Address, p. 6.
193[193]
In the minutes of the first convention, four men were listed as representatives of Iowa; fourteen were from Illinois, and
twenty-five were from Wisconsin. Also in attendance were Rev. Theron Baldwin, Secretary of the Society for Promoting Collegiate
and Theological Education in the West (the Western Education Society) and Rev. H. L. Loss from Ohio. The latter had been head of
the Beloit Seminary, and would assume the pastorate of the First Congregational Church in Rockford in 1846. See Conventions: RCA.
In his decade address entitled “Historical Sketch of Rockford Female Seminary, Commencement Exercises, 1861,” A. L. Chapin said
that twenty-seven delegates from Illinois attended the convention.[Sill Scrapbook (a collection of local newspaper articles about
Rockford Female Seminary), p. 16.]; See also Chapin, ~Founders of Beloit College,~ Quarter Centennial Address, p. 5; Edward
Dwight Eaton, Historical Sketches of Beloit College (New York: A. S. Barnes, 1928), p. 21.
194[194]
A.L. Chapin: “In Memorium,” The Beloit College Monthly. Vol XVI.- March 1870- No. V.
Chapin and Kent shared a long association. When Chapin was inducted into the Presidency of the newly
formed Beloit College on July 24, 1850, it was Kent who gave the discourse.195[195]
When Lord Nelson would electrify his soldiers [sic], in the hour of battle, he exclaimed,
"England expects every man to do his duty." Sir, Yale, expects every man to do his duty. You and
I, brother, as sons of Yale, have enjoyed singular advantages, and it behooves us to do what we can
to transmit these blessings to succeeding generations...The College, the Female Seminary, and the
rail car:the progress of science and society will not wait for the plodding course of older
institutions.
You and I are sons of Yale, and I know not how better to magnetize you to a high standard of
excellence than to point to the portraiture of your old President and mine. As I sat musing in my
study, anticipating the exercises of this say, my eye met the searching glance of the venerable expresident Day and the sainted Dwight. They seemed to be looking down from the wall where they
hung and came to my aid, just in time to administer the oath of office..."
The convention passed two proposals: to establish a "Collegiate Institution for Iowa"; and to establish a
"Collegiate and Female Seminary of highest order, one in northern Illinois near Wisconsin and the other in
Wisconsin close to Illinois." To clarify their educational priorities to the churches represented, they also
resolved:
1. that fundamental to the evangelization of the West is the establishment of collegiate and
theological institutions where "orthodox" and "pious" ministers might be trained;
2. that parents should consecrate their sons to the ministry;
3. that churches should help promising young men educate themselves for the ministry;
4. that the churchmen of the West should cooperate with the Western Education Society; and
5. that "permanent Female Seminaries of the highest order for the education of American women
should have a prominent place in our educational system." 196[196]
The fifth proposal was novel. Women's education had not, until then, been even a low priority : it had
no priority at all. Aratus Kent was became its champion. A charter for the Female Seminary was granted by
the State of Illinois on Feb. 25, 1847, but that was the easiest part. 197[197] Twenty-five years later, a
Rockford Female Seminary board member, and Kent's long time friend, Rev. Joseph Emerson recalled:
"He [Kent] was there to plead for the education of women.... As he went up and down sowing
the word of life upon the prairies, the conviction deepened more and more in his soul that this great
inland had no greater need than that of educated and sanctified womanhood in the school and in the
house."198[198]
Kent’s practical nature is exemplified by his plan of action for founding the Female Seminary. He
indicated his willingness to sell the “prize” to this highest bidding community.
"It sees to me that in view of the present posture of affairs and indeed in view of our own past
action, we are compelled to throw our Female Seminary into the market and to give it to the highest
bidder.
There are, it is true, some restrictions. Its location must be in Ill., and it must be contiguous to
the state line, and it should be in a healthy atmosphere both physical and moral. We ought (other
things being equal) to prefer a location where we have reason to believe that it would be not only
patronized by the community, but where there is that high tone of moral and religious influence
which would satisfy the most scrupulous parent.
Considerations of this kind should not be lost sight of nor should we disregard the anticipations
cherished by Rockford people, nor the noble efforts of those at Rockton. But after all, I think there
195[195]
Address and Discourse at the Inaugeration of the Rev. Aaron L. Chapin, M.A., as President of Beloit College, July 24, 1850.
pp. 8-10. Beloit COllege Archives.
196[196]
A.L. Chapin, “Founders of Beloit College,” Quarter-Centennial Address, 6; First Convention Minutes, 6 August 1844. Details
of convention resolutions are taken from the minutes of subsequent conventions, Conventions: RCA.
197[197]
Walhout, D.: "The Spiritual Legacy of Aratus Kent." in Asprooth, E.A., ed.: A Power not of the Present. Rockford College
Press, 1973. p. 44.
198[198]
Joseph Emerson, “Dedicatory Address,” delivered at the dedication of Sill Hall, 1887, and printed in Rockford Seminary
Magazine (15 January 1887): p. 2.
is no way for us to get out of the labyrinth of difficulties which beset is on every hand but to make
the whole thing turn upon the largest and best subscription. We are more completely tied up to this
now at this second effort then we were at first."199[199]
Despite the promises of the “Western Society,” funding from the east was not forthcoming. Yet Aratus
Kent was determined to pursue the project. He wrote: “....the committee ought to act and act promptly if
there no prospect of light from the east, as we had anticipated....In fact, we cannot foresee what and how
many and how great rivals may appear on the field of honorable competition for the tempting prize.” 200[200]
Kent drafted a request for proposals and caused it to be circulated:201[201]
Comm. of Trustees of Beloit College
Feb. 7, 1850
The undersigned as a committee of the Board of Trustees of Beloit College are instructed to
receive propositions for the location of a Female Seminary in Northern Illinois according to the
original understanding upon which the college was founded.
They accordingly invite proposals upon the following basis:
I. That the Board of Trustees of the Seminary will be legally & perhaps in part personally
distinct from that of Beloit College.
II. That the seminary shall be under the immediate charge of an Executive Committee residing
principally in the vicinity of the institution.
III. That this committee do not feel authorized to determine details as to permanent plan of
management, precise site, or any other matters which can remain open for consideration of the
trustees of the Seminary though the establishment of the school upon a temporary basis is
contemplated as soon as practical after determining the location.
IV. That subscriptions to be applied to the erection of buildings & other expenses necessarily
incidental to the commencement of the undertaking be made in the form of promissory notes, made
payable in such installments that the necessary buildings shall be ready for use by the first of Sept. ,
1852.
The committee deem it proper for them to state that after taking into account religious, moral &
social influences their recommendation to the board will depend principally upon the position of
places which may compete as being central, healthful, accessible & pleasant.And especially- upon the amount of subscriptions. This is regarded as important not only as
furnishing means for the commencement of the enterprise but ever more so, as indicating the
interest of the people in the plan and in order to meet the just expectations and claim the support of
other places of the object in other quarters.
The committee understand that the desire and to the extent of their ability the purpose of the
originators of this two fold enterprise is that the contemplated institution shall not be inferior in
grade, importance or usefulness to the college.
Propositions addressed to Rev. A.L. Chapin, President of Beloit College will be received until
the first of June next.
A. Kent
Wait Talcott
R.M. Pearson
Joseph Emerson
Almost from the beginning, Kent was pressured to assume personal direction of the Female Seminary
and move his family to Rockford:
At Rockford I spent a day on business pertaining to the Female Sem. located there,
and was urged by the other members of the Ex. Comm. to remove my family to
199[199]
Kent to Joseph Emerson, Jan. 29, 1850.
Ibid.
201[201]
Chapin Papers- Beloit College.
200[200]
Rockford. I have been so officious from the first in gathering up that Institution that they
seem determined to put me on all the business committees. The gentlemen composing
that Comm. stated distinctly they did not intend to throw the labour on me, but they
wished me nearer for consultation. It would be vastly better to be at R. as a center of
Home Miss. operations, provided that I should be continued in that service. But then on
the other hand, I feel no little reluctance at leaving “my old stamping ground”, and I have
no idea at present what decision will be arrived at on the subject. But I allude to it that my
counselors at 150 Nassau St. may express their wishes, if they choose. There is a good
deal of variety (which is “the spice of life”) in my present employment and I often think
of Paul’s experience and moral elevation. Phil. 4:11-13. But amidst the storms and
sloughs, the diurnal and nocturnal annoyances incident to constant traveling, my
heavenly father affords me many soft Indian Summer days, many smooth roads and
enchanting passages and in his Providence gives me an introduction to many excellent
families, where I have every substantial comfort that the most princely hospitality could
furnish and what is more than all, I am daily thrown into circumstances the very best I
could have to exert a personal influence in favor of the Religion I profess to love. 202[202]
Clearly, Kent was a bit tempted to assume the superintendency. But he was interested only if he could
do the job on the side, while continuing as agent for the A.H.M.S. He probably correctly sensed that if he
moved to Rockford he would be consumed by the needs of the Seminary. Fortunately for Kent, fate
(through the offices of his colleague Rev. Loss) brought Kent just the person he needed to save himself
from a job he knew he was not equipped to perform. That person, Anna Peck Sill, was perfectly suited to
the task, if she had some one like the practical and tolerant Kent to lean upon.
Anna Peck Sill arrived in Rockford in the spring of 1849 to teach school. She began in an abandoned
court house and finished her Rockford career by pushing the Rockford Female Seminary into the ranks of
the nations colleges. Few such frontier female seminaries survived even a few decades, and almost none
provided the nidus for the formation of a college. Anna’s grandfather, Jedidiah Peck was a farmer,
preacher, carpenter, mill builder, and judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Otsego Township on the
frontier of Western New York. He served in the New York State house and senate, where he introduced
bills to abolish slavery. Perhaps his greatest contributions came as a champion of public education. Anna
received a public education, and was an avid reader.
Following the dictums of Catherine Beecher, a champion of the concept that single women should take
up the profession of teaching, Anna went in 1836 to live with her brother on his homestead in far western
New York, and began to teach. During vacations she attended Albion Female Seminary, where she
ultimately became a teacher for several years.
She remained single, and her views of marriage are perhaps best revealed during a conversation with a
student’s mother:
[The student’s mother], as happily married women often are, was concerned about Miss Sill’s
spinster state, and said to her with some feeling, “Anna Sill, you should marry. Your should accept
one of these good chances.”
Quickly as a flash came the answer, “Emily Robinson, I’m not looking for a chance, I’m
looking for an opportunity.”
But Anna did not wait for opportunity, she seized it. To a family friend who was an A.H.M.S. minister
in Racine, Wisconsin, [Hiram Foote] she wrote:
I have thought perhaps I might be useful as a teacher and if possibly establish a female
seminary in some of the western states. Pecuniary considerations would have but little influence on
such an undertaking. My principal object is to do good.
From Rev. L.H. Loss Anna learned that Aratus Kent and others were interested in establishing a college
at Beloit and a female seminary in northern Illinois. Loss offered no promises, no salary, and only could
hold forth the rent free use of an abandoned court house as a inducement for Anna to head west. It was
enough.
202[202]
Oct. 1850.
Sill had a long battle to become principal. Twice the Executive Committee of the trustees, with Kent as
chairman, recommended Sill’s appointment, but the board was slow to act. They still hoped to recruit a
prominent male educator from the east.
But Anna Sill built the Rockford Female Seminary into a successful institution. Once Aratus Kent
became satisfied of Ms. Sill’s piety and evangelistic zeal, he gave her great freedom in running the school.
He attended board meetings regularly, and most of the important ceremonial occasions, but he remained a
strong back ground support for Ms. Sill. Others might criticize her for her blunt assertiveness, but he
always referred to her as “the excellent principal.” 203[203]
To Kent, Sill was principal almost immediately. For example, as early as 1851 he wrote to the
Secretaries: "In a recent conversation with our excellent and devoted Principal of the “Rockford Female
Seminary” Miss Anna P. Sill, she expressed a wish that she might have the “Home Missionary” to use in
her monthly missionary meeting. I said certainly you shall have it.204[204] A bit latter he acknowledged Ms.
Sill's Presidency, when he wrote: “Miss Anna P. Sill, President of the Rockford Female Sem., expressed a
wish that a set of Dwight Theology might be given to their library to stand by the side of Channings works.
I though that if you would give men the name of the donors I would write them on the subject.” 205[205]
Kent’s philanthropy was not confined to raising funds from others. In one year alone he donated 1/4 of his
total salary to the cause when he turned “...$150 over to Rockford Female Sem to meet a larger subscription
which I made to provoke others to good works 206[206]
For years after Ms. Sill’s arrival, pressure was kept on Kent to assume a more direct role in overseeing
the Rockford Female Seminary. Anna Sill even went herself to Galena to urge Kent to come to Rockford.
In 1856, he wrote:
Accompanying this you will see the action of a Com. consisting of Br. A.L. Chapin of Beloit,
Wm. H. Brown of Chicago and T.D. Robertson of Rockford, appointed to inquire into the
expediency of creating a new office and to define the duties of the incumbent.
The committee are to report at an adjourned meeting to be held on the 14th of Oct. or
immediately after the meeting of Synod.
Having been repeatedly solicited before I have some reason to presume the Board of Trustees
will adopt this report, if they have any reason to expect that it will open a way for relief from their
pecuniary embarrassments which are very serious, and yet the institution has acquired a high
character and is doing great good. The principal reports 25 hopeful conversions this year.
I have never given them any encouragement for a consciousness of my utter incompetency has
led me to shrink from it. But the matter is pressed upon me now in a way that I cannot dismiss it
without consideration.
It is true that I am in one corner of my field and obliged to be absent from home much longer at
a time than if I resided in some more central position.
And such are now the facilities for rapid traveling that an agent of your society could occupy
the whole state as his field without being absent more than 2 or 3 weeks at a time. And there are
parts of the state which (unless another agent is employed) will suffer unless you have an efficient
agent who possesses a sort of ubiquity which at my age I do not feel willing to assume.
203[203]
see: Townsend, Lucy Forsyth: The Best Helpers of One Another: Anna Peck Sill and the Struggle for Women”s Education.
Dekalb: Department of Leadership and Educational Policy Studies, Northern Illinois University, in cooperation with Educational
Studies Press, 1988. Ms. Forsyth found Joseph Emerson”s statment that Aratus Kent was “the man to whom, more than any other man,
the enterprise owed its inceptions and all its developments” erroneous. She apparently felt the satement was intended as a slight to Anna
Sill. Yet the double use of the word “man” leaves room for other interpretations. Certainly no other male did more to create the
institution, and there is some doubt that Miss Sill would have survived a Board of Trustees headed by a less sympathetic man than
Kent. Joespeh Emerson, Quarter Centennial Address.”, in Sill Scrapbook, p. 84-5. RCA.
In later years when Sill struggled to raise Rockford to collegiate status, Sill invoked the memory of Kent: “Let Beloit College steadily
pursue its course; it is the Yale of the West. Can it not afford to be the gallant brother to defend and aid the younger sister. I write eith
conviction that good Father Kent, if alive would say, “This let us do, ye, and to this end Brethren let us pray.” He used to tell me that
“of the two institutions, the Seminary was his pet.” Sill to Emerson, 3 July 1879. RCA.
204[204]
Oct. 31, 1851.
205[205]
Feb. 23, 1852.
206[206]
March 31, 1858.
The field I occupy is now better supplied than it was 10 years ago and to a considerable extent,
things have assumed their type and an exploring agent for this district is not as much needed as
formerly. But on the other hand, I have a great repugnance to undertake that difficult work of
Superintendent of Rockford Female Sem., 207[207] and am not adapted to any part of it, while I am
familiar with Home Miss. Agency. Old men do not easily adapt themselves to new business. We do
not feel disposed to exchange Galena for a new home and we think that our extensive acquaintance
affords us some facilities for usefulness that we should forfeit by a removal. I have thus spread out
this matter before you, for I did not feel at liberty to move on it without your knowledge. Please
return this paper soon.
Please return the enclosed document soon, as it is the property of Miss Sill who has been
spending some days with us, according to the request of Br. Chapin.
Kent never had any major differences with Ms. Sill (though she had her share of strife with J. Emerson
and others), but he had major concerns over the direction that Beloit College was headed. He worried that
Beloit was going over too far in the direction of Congregationalism, and that the result would be the
necessity for the Presbyterians to form their own institution
It was stated at the meeting of the directors (of which I am one, because I did not feel at liberty
to decline) that all the colleges in this vicinity are under Cong. influence. With regard to Beloit it is
maintained that while half the directors are nominally Presb. yet the Ex. Com. all sympathize with
Cong. The resident professors are all Congregationals. The (and the students with few exceptions)
attend the Cong. Ch., i.e., that the Home Influence are all on one side and that there is more danger
in College than in the Seminary of their being biased because in the latter they have more maturity
and are prepared to examine for themselves. Hence the conclusion was reached that we must have a
College too or lose our students in these says of sectarian strife.208[208]
President Chapin penned a very long and detailed response to Kent’s concerns. Chapin reassured Kent
that he personally was committed to preventing any sectarian strife within the Beloit faculty or trustees, and
defended past actions.209[209]
I can sympathize with you fully in the feeling you express respecting your position between
Presbyterianism & Congregationalism, those forces once accordant & cooperative now bristling
with a show at least of antagonism towards each other...The feeling is a real one with me personally
& stronger still in my identification with the College. My chief anxiety respecting this institution
come from the fact that the partisan leaders seem to mining off with Congregationalists &
Presbyterians & leaving us who cannot follow such lead either way to feel deserted.
Kent was almost apologetic in his inquiries of Chapin, but his concern was rising, as was his frustration
over his position with the A.H.M.S., as that organization steadily fell from favor in northern Illinois. 210[210]
I have ever been treated by you and your coadjutors with great kindness and consideration and
you may well suppose that after our long and very pleasant intercourse it was exceedingly painful
to give you pain by seeming to take a position adverse to Beloit. I have not taken that position. But
I am in the predicament of Orphan & Ruth : a position in which I shall be obliged to take sides or
be left alone. I have ever maintained the doctrine of cooperation and I take to myself none of the
guilt of “causing divisions”. But such is the excitement now that I see not what can be done by N.S.
Presb. but quietly to go by ourselves or cease to be. I have looked on for many months (and even
for a year or two) and altogether held my peace while the O.S. Presb. and the Cong. are absorbing
us, and we have been trying to cooperate and I have an array of facts on my own to field to confirm
this statement.
I am greatly troubled and have been for a long time. I cannot be a Cong. of the type it is
assuming at the West (as I understand it), I could get along well with Connecticut Cong., but
absolute independency is unscriptural and intolerable (to my mind.) Give me your views on that
subject and in addition to the questions asked in my former letter, I will ask one other, Is it
desirable that the N[ew].S[chool]. Presb. Ch. should be obliterated or have they a distinct mission
to fulfill?
207[207]
Sill reported to Chapin that Kent was considering the Rockford job and looked “at the whole subject in a more favorable light”
than before. But she correctly predicted Kent would decline, but wrote Chapin; “I would suggest that you write him, bringing forth
your strong reasons, ere he makes a final decision.” Sill to Chapin 16 Aug. 1856. Rockford College Archives.
208[208]
Kent to Chapin, Galena Aug. 24, 1854. Chapin papers, Beloit College.
209[209]
Chapin to Kent, Sept. 15, 1854, Chapin Papers, Beloit College.
210[210]
Kent to Chapin, Sept. 7, 1854. Chapin Papers, Beloit College.
I write with great freedom to you as to an old friend but I do not want this correspondence to be
published to the world, for I have an invincible dread of such notoriety.
By 1857, the Rockford Female Seminary had 330 young ladies enrolled. They came
mostly from northern Illinois, southern Wisconsin and eastern Iowa, but some came from
as far away as New York and Vermont. Tuition was $6 per quarter of 10 weeks, but there
was a $7 fee for oil painting and $8 for “music on the piano, melodian or guitar.” Board
was $70 per school year of 40 weeks. 211[211] Kent’s adopted daughter, Mary King, was in
the preparatory class that year.
The Galena Theological Seminary
The occasion of the controversy with Chapin was the movement by the New School Presbyterian
Church (which referred to itself as the “Constitutional Presbyterian Church”) to establish its own
Theological Seminary in the Northwest. Kent called the proposition “no child of mine.” Probably because
so many of his closest friends and old time associates were supporters of the plan, he did not feel willing to
divorce himself entirely from it. Local pride may also have played a role, for Kent allowed that “Perhaps
Galena is as good a point all things considered as any other” for the new seminary’s location. 212[212] He did
decline to be named the financial agent. 213[213] The stipulation that the Seminary would not commence until
it had $30,000 in capital reflects Kent’s fiscal conservatism, but may also have been Kent’s subtle way of
decreasing the probability of success. He displayed less conservatism when the Rockford enterprise was
begun on a shoestring. Kent also believed that the seminary should not be part of a college, probably to
protect the fledgling institutions at Beloit and Rockford from damaging competition. The following letter to
the Secretaries of the A.H.M.S. was perhaps not the child of Kent, but it was in his hand. 214[214]
The subject upon which we address you, is that of a Theological Seminary proposed to be
located in this city, under the auspices of the Constitutional Presbyterian Church. The subject is not
altogether a new one. It has for some time past been under serious and prayerful consideration by
some of the friends of Christ's kingdom, both at the West and at the East. Fully persuaded as we are
in our own minds, of the expediency, necessity, and feasibility, of establishing such an Institution
we are unwilling to put forth any positive efforts for the accomplishment of the object, until we
shall have asked counsel of those at a distance, in whose wisdom and judgment we can confide, and
whose paramount regard for the Church of Christ we cannot question.
With a map of our country before you; you will at once observe that this vast region of the
Northwest is, to some extent, an isolated district, separated from the East by distance and our inland
seas, and from the more central Southern portions of our country, by distance also, and noncommercial intercourse. This region embraces Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri and
what is soon to be the Territory of Nebraska. Scattered over this vast territory, is already a
population amounting to about two millions of souls. This number is rapidly increasing. Especially
is there an increasing tide of population pouring into the fertile and healthy region of the Upper
Mississippi. Missouri, Minnesota and Iowa will soon number their Millions of people. Illinois has
already a million.
Now, that this wide-spread territory of the Northwest, and its teeming population, should be
supplied with an adequate ministry from the East, is, in our opinion, out of the question. Indeed,
Such a supply cannot even now be had. Many of our most thriving villages and most populous
agricultural districts, are without a Presbyterian or Congregational ministry, nor can our young men
go to the East for theological instruction. The distance and the expense are alike too great. Had we
a Theological Seminary here at the present time, it is believed that young men would be found in it,
many of whom must relinquish the hope of entering the sacred office, by reason of the want of such
an Institution. We are furthermore persuaded, that other things being equal, it is far better that the
men who are to labor in this Western field, should be trained upon Western ground. The reasons for
this are obvious.
211[211]
212[212]
Catalogue of the Rockford Female Seminary, 1857-58. Rockford, 1857. p. 23.
May 9, 1849.
213[213]
Kent to Chapin, Sept. 7, 1854. Chapin Papers, Beloit College.
214[214]
May 5, 1849.
As has been intimated already, it is proposed that this Seminary shall be founded and conducted
under the auspices of the Constitutional Presbyterian Church. We are fully persuaded that while
this branch of the Church is unimpeachable in the soundness of its faith, its polity is most happily
adapted to the prevailing qualities of Western mind and Western society, and that under its
energetic and plastic influence, the most salutary and desirable type will be given the ecclesiastical
character of this region. By the foregoing observations, we do not mean that the Seminary shall be
purely and exclusively of a denominational character. We mean simply this, that while in matters of
Church polity, the largest freedom of opinion shall be allowed, the Institution shall be under the
immediate supervision of the Presbyteries of the Northwest, its Board of Trustees being chosen
from those Presbyteries, and that its Professors shall be connected with the Constitutional General
Assembly.
The location proposed for this Institution is the city of Galena. The advantages of this location
are numerous and obvious. Galena, including its suburbs, already numbers more than six thousand
inhabitants. It is destined unquestionably to be the largest city of the Northwest, Chicago excepted.
It is to be the great depot of the Upper Mississippi. It is a healthy city. It is central to the region
proposed to be supplied with a ministry by the Seminary in question. It is central also to a vast and
fertile agricultural region, to whose sons we are to look for the future ministers of the Northwest,
and for missionaries to the territories lying still farther West. It is very soon to be connected by railroad with Chicago, and eventually with the head-waters of the Missouri. It is the principal port of
the Upper Mississippi, and at every point of the compass is connected with thousands of miles of
water communication. The expense of living here, is as cheap as in any other city of the Union.
This city is already possessed of great wealth, and that wealth is on the increase. It is central to the
mining region, where thousands arc to be employed in the production of lead, and among whom the
students of the Seminary might be usefully employed as transient missionaries. Indeed, with a map
of the Northwest before you, you cannot fail to see at once the advantages of this location for such
an Institution as that proposed.
The plan contemplated for the establishment of the Seminary is this: To raise ten thousand
dollars on the field designed more immediately to be benefited by it, for the purchase of the
necessary grounds, and for the erection of suitable buildings. We have encouragement to believe
this can be done. The grounds and buildings being thus provided for, it is proposed to raise twenty
thousand dollars elsewhere, for the endowment of two professorships. It is further proposed that the
Seminary shall not go into operation until the thirty thousand dollars shall have been actually
realized and appropriated as above. In this way, all embarrassment from debt will be forestalled.
Such is a brief outline of the plan proposed for the establishment of a School of the Prophets for
the North. west. To us it appears not only exceedingly desirable, but a matter of inevitable
necessity, that such an Institution should be founded either at this city or at some other point, for
the region of the Upper Mississippi, and for the regions beyond. Our Seminary at Cincinnati, from
its remoteness, and its geographic location, cannot meet the wants of this field. It is less accessible
to us than New York or Andover. Moreover, the students going from that Seminary, are wanted for
Ohio, Indiana, and the Southern States. The Northwest alone is not provided for. Aside from Lane
Seminary, we have no theological school West of the Alleghenies.
Now, sir, with the map of this country before you, we ask you to give the subject of this
communication your prayerful and candid consideration. In proposing it, we assure you we are not
actuated by motives of mere local benefit. We look simply to the future welfare of this vast region,
so soon to be the dwelling place of millions of men. Do you, all things considered, think it
advisable to make an effort for the establishment of such an Institution as that above contemplated,
and at this city? Do you think the plan a feasible one ? And shall it have your hearty co-operation?
An answer at your earliest convenience is solicited.
Yours in the bonds of the Gospel,
S. G. SPEES,
A. KENT,
E. D. NEILL,
W. C. BOSTWICK,
C. S. HEMPSTEAD,
H. NEWELL,
GEO. W. CAMPBELL,
JAMES SPARE,
WM. H. BRADLEY.
The Galena Theological Seminary never got from paper to reality. Nothing in Kent’s correspondence
indicates that he was disappointed.
Perhaps more important than all his organizational and philanthropic efforts, Kent served as a stellar
role model. The son of one of Kent’s associates recorded the following observations in his diary: “Mr.
Kent[was] here today. Mr. Kent is a good man. He seems to show a regard and feeling in every one. He is
perfectly plain spoken and open hearted. He treats me with much respect and fatherly (it might be called)
feeling. I like such a character. Nothing stuck up. Nothing impulsive, with true heartedness. All goodness.
Such as draws the hearts of the young to one. Ask God may I be such a one.”215[215]
In at least one way, Aratus Kent’s involvement in higher education was no different than any other
parent’s: “My Lewis and Mary [two of his adopted children] were waiting my return for money to go back,
the one to Beloit Col. and the other to Rockford. Sem.” 216[216]
Aratus Kent, The A.H.M.S., and the Slavery Issue in Northern Illinois
Personally for Aratus Kent, slavery was a most vexing issue. His eulogizers, many years after
his death, recalled Kent as an ardent anti-slavery man.”Father Kent was very much opposed to
Slavery in the Northwest. There were slaves in Galena in the early days. Their shacks still stand.
The records of the Presbyterian minutes abound with Father Kent’s deep and profound aversion
to slavery. He preached against it wherever opportunity afforded. Any who practices it “should
not be invited to our pulpits for the fellowship of our chgurches.’ He said in 1849 that “the
holding and treating of human beings as chattels is a sin directly opposed to the gospel and to the
Law and Prophets as interpreted by our Lord Jesus Christ.’”217[217] Sadly, none of Kent’s
sermons demonstrating his “deep and profound aversion” survive.
In point of fact, Kent was even viewed as a “pro-slavery” man by some, a reality that
Kent acknowledged.218[218] Nothing in Kent’s correspondance suggests that he supported
slavery, but he certainly could be counted among the main stream conservatives. Kent’s
luke warm anti-slavery position was not shared by many of his Home Missionary
Brethren. Of course, Rev. Elijah Lovejoy was martyred, and his brother, Rev. Owen
Lovejoy, was elected to the U.S. Congress by virtue of their abolitionist views. Rev. Asa
Turner was chairman at Alton in 1836 of the meeting that led to the formation of the first
Anti-Slavery Society in Illinois.219[219] Edward Beecher also attended that meeting. Later
when Turner crossed the Mississippi to Iowa, his church at Denmark was also a station
on the underground railroad. All these men were Home Missionaries, just like Kent.
Beecher and Turner had preached in the mining country, the former assisting Kent in
215[215]
216[216]
Journal of Stephen Dennison Peet June 10, 1850, Beloit College Archives.
April 28, 1859.
Centennial Celebration of the First Presbyterian Church, Galena, Ill. Galena, 1931. p. 6.
217[217]
218[218]
Magoun, George F.: An Iowa Missionary Patriarch. Annals of Iowa, Vol. III, Third Series, DeMoines, 1897. p.
58. Rev. Magoun, in writing in 1896 of the influence of Rev. Turner on the frontier west, and, in turn the influence of
the frontier on the nation, quoted from a then little known these “The Significance of the Frontier in American History”
by Prof. F.J. Turner, which had just been published in 1894. The Annals of Iowa article was taken largely from
MAgoun”s earler work, Asa Turner, a Home Missionary Patriarh and His Times. Boston and Chicago Congregational
Sunday School anfd Puublishing Society, 1889.
219[219]
protracted revivials in 1837, 40, 41, 41 and 44 when 226 new members were received ino
the church.220[220]
Ironically, one of Illinois’ leading abolitionist journalists, Hooper Warren, arrived in
Galena almost the same time as Aratus Kent in 1829. Kent and Warren did not find in
each other kindred spirits, though Warren was later a close associate of the great Baptist
Missionary John Mason Peck.
Galena was in many ways more akin to Cairo than Chicago during the decades that
preceeded the Civil War. The settlement of Galena took place via the Mississippi, making
its cultural connections decidedly southern, pointing toward St. Louis and Kentucky.
There were 175 “colored people” out of a total population was 5600 living in Galena in
the late 40’s.221[221] In 1840, Jo Daviess County had a white population of 6386 and 125
“colored” persons. In 1845 the numbers were 12,220 and 205.222[222] Chicago in 1844 had
a total population of 7580, of whom only 65 were blacks.223[223]
Negro slavery existed in the mines for some years. Many of the early miners were
from slave-holding states, and brought their slaves with them. In 1823, when Captain
Harris arrived, there were from 100 to 150 blacks there. Under the ordinance of 1787,
slavery was forever prohibited in the Northwestern Territory, but Illinois sought to evade
this organic law by the enactment of statutes by which these slaves could be held as
“indentured” or “registered servants.” These statutes were known as the Black Laws. As
late as March 10, 1829, the commissioners of Jo Daviess County ordered a tax of one half
per cent to be levied and collected on “town lots, slaves, indentured or registered
servants,.” etc. (Slavery existed in the mines until after this date, and was not abolished
until about 1840.)
There was in 1878 living in Galena a venerable old black man, Swanzy Adams, born
a slave, in Virginia, in April, 1796, who moved to Kentucky, and thence, in April, 1827,
to Fever River, as the slave of James A. Duncan, on the old steamer “Shamrock.” His
master “hired him” to Captain Comstock, for whom he worked as a miner. He
subsequently bought himself for $1,500 (although he quaintly claimed that he had paid
too much for himself: “good boys like me could be bought in Kentuck for $350”). “Old
Swanzy,” as he is familiarly called, was the last survivor in Galena of the slaves held
under the Black Laws of Illinois.224[224]
Aratus Kent’s own brother, Germanicus, another prominant Northern Illinois pioneer,
was the founder of Rockford and a member of the Illinois legislature. He also brought a
slave with him when he came to Northern Illinois via Virginia (where he returned a few
years later).
So Aratus Kent was surrounded by forces at least sympathetic to the “peculiar
institution.” In addition, his affiliation with the nationally oriented A.H.M.S. required a
certain tolerance, regardless of what his own personal convictions might have been.
The Illinois Legislature, at its first session after the admission of the State, re-enacted,
with all their severity the “Black Laws” which had been in force in the territory. Those
220[220]
221[221]
Edwards
According to: E.S. Seymour: The 1847-8 Galena Directory and Miner”s Annual Register, Number 1. Chicago,
1848.
222[222]
223[223]
The Galena Directory and Miner”s Annual Registr, Number Two, Galena, 1849. p. 29.
Norris, J.,w.: General Directory and Business Advertiser of the City of Chicago for the year 1844. Chicago,
1844.
224[224]
Hist Jo Davies Co. p. 257.
laws were originally largely copied from the slave codes of the states of Kentucky and
Virginia, and under these a black person, free or slave, was practically without protection.
If free, unless he could present a certificate of freedom from a court of record, he was
liable to arrest and imprisonment, and to be sold to service by the sheriff of the county for
a period of one year. If he sought employment he was in constant danger of being
kidnapped by the desperadoes who infested the country, and sold “down the river.”225[225]
Blacks in Illinois did not enjoy the legal presumption of freedom until Abraham
Lincoln successfully appealed the case of Cromwell vs. Bailey to the Illinois Supreme
Court in 1839. This decision held, contrary to the established rule in many southern
states, that the presumption in Illinois was that a black was free and not subject to sale.
Not until 1845 in Jarrot vs. Jarrot did the Illinois Supreme Court finally recognize the
tenets of Article VI of the Ordinance of 1787. This decison effectively “repealed”
Illinois’ infamous “Black Laws”.226[226]
The statute referred to is the one under which American Home Missionary Owen
Lovejoy was indicted at the May term, 1843, of the circuit court of Bureau county, and
tried before a jury. Lovejoy was acquitted on the seventh day of October of the same
year.
Owen Lovejoy was the Congregational minister at Princeton, Illinois. Like many
Home Missionaries, he was a “conductor” on the underground railroad. The indictment
contained two counts. The first count charged him with harboring a Negro slave named
Agnes; the second with harboring a Negro slave named Nancy. Owing to the prominence
of the defendant, the trial excited great interest throughout the State and the nation, and,
as Mr. Lovejoy was viewed as a abolitionist. The acquittal of Mr. Lovejoy was
considered a great triumph by the anti-slavery forces .
Prior to the trial a pro-slavery man approached Prosecutor Fridley and offered him a
handsome fee if he would “send that abolition preacher to the penitentiary.” Mr. Fridley
declined the fee, as it was his official duty to prosecute the case, and remarked to the
zealous pro-slavery men that “the prosecution of Lovejoy was a good deal more likely to
result in sending him to Congress than to the penitentiary,” a remark that proved
prophetic.
Aratus Kent was not the only person credited with more anti-salvery zeal than he
actually possessed. With the rapid growth of abolitionist sentiment during the pre-Civil
War decade, a record of association with the antislavery movement in its earlier and less
popular phases came to be considered a mark of distinction by many Northerners. Much
of the bitterness and hostility toward Abolitionists which characterized the 1830’s had by
that time disappeared, and in their place the popular mind had granted a somewhat heroic
character to the early antislavery crusaders.
As sectional tensions heightened yearly after 1850 and as the antislavery movement
attained political expression through the Republican Party, the once-hated Abolitionists
began to achieve a measure of respect as spokesmen of the future. No individual
personifies this historical rationalization than another Illinois missionary, John Mason
Peck. With the help of journalist Hooper Warren, Peck tried to paint himself as a life long
ardent abolitionist. In reality, Peck, like Kent, was a moderate on the slavery issue until
225[225]
Hand, John P.: “Negro Slavery in Illinois.” in Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society, 1910. p. 43.
226[226]
Ibid. p. 45.
such a moderate stance became unfashionable. Peck had stood with the conservatives in
opposition to Elijah P. Lovejoy and other Abolitionists during the height of the
controversy in the mid 1830's.227[227] Unlike Peck, Kent was never so hypocritical as to
claim for himself something that he had not been.
Abraham Lincoln, speaking in Galena in 1852, appreciated the work of Fathjer Kent.
Charles Thomas, then a boy at his father’s house in Galena, heard Lincoln say to Rev.
Aratus Kent, “We owe our recent victory to you, sir. The influence of you missionaries
has been of great political value in our state.” Later, when Mr. Lincoln was President, Mr.
Thomas called on him at Wahington and in the course of the conversation President
Lincoln said to Mr. Thomas, “Do you remember a statement I once made to Mr. Kent at
your father’s house?” “Yes,” said Mr. Thomas. “Well, I say now,” said Mr. Lincoln, “that
to the labors of Home Missionaries like Mr. Kent, and other men like him, who started
and fostered church and college in the Northwest, we owe the saving of the Northwest to
the Union and the saving of the Union itself.”
Perhaps Lincoln included Rev. Elijah Lovejoy in his “other men like him” phrase, but
he did not mention him by name. Curiously, few of the Home Missionaries mentioned the
November 7, 1837 murder of their brother minister. Kent was no exception. Rev. Theron
Baldwin, the Principle of the Montecello Female Academy in Upper Alton, wrote that the
“mobites...had done more injury than Br. Lovejoy could have done by the publication of
his paper for centuries.”228[228] This hardly constituted a resounding endorsement of
Lovejoy’s position on slavery.
Kent’s sometime partners in revivals, Rev. Asa Turner of Quincy and Rev. David
Nelson were out spoken anti-slavery men, and as a result, Rev. Nelson’s college just east
of Quincy was torched by a Missouri mob in 1843.229[229] Two other A.H.M.S.
missionaries, Samuel Wright and John Cross, were arrested for their alleged participation
in the Underground Railroad, but their cases were nol prossed.230[230]
The A.H.M.Society’s work in the South and among the slave holding Cherokess Indians
quickly became a liability to the Society in Illinois. One of the Missionaries who resigned his
commission was Oliver Emerson, of Iowa Territory.231[231] Kent thought he had run accross this
man, and did not hold a high opinion of him.232[232] However, others thought Rev. Emerson a
“lame but tireless...Apostle Paul.” Taken in the context of the lameness, Emerson’s request for
horse and carriage does not seem as self indulgent as Kent painted it.
It is almost a year since I received a line from you respecting Mr. Emerson (whether it
is the same as that man whose letter is published in the Home Miss. for Jan., I have no
means of knowing but I suppose it is. He told me of another man of the same name who
came out to Iowa, but he was then an open Baptist, who, I was informed, has since
become Presbyterian.) I feel quite dissatisfied with him. And I will relate what has given
me the dissatisfaction. He borrowed 10 dollars of me when he first came on, he has never
come nigh me again, though he has been near Galena and I believe in town. I mentioned
For Peck's record in the 1830's, see Alton, {Ill.} Western Pioneer, July 29 1836, Oct. 27, 1837; Peck to the Rev.
Dr. Proudfit, Nov. 14, 1837, , African Repository, Xlll (1837), 378-380; Rufus Babcock, ed, Forty Years of Pioneer
Life: Memoir of John Mason Peck, D.D, Edited from His Journals and Correspondence (Philadephia, 1864), 275;
Edward Beecher, Narrative of Riots at Alton (Alton, 1838), 64.
228[228]
Balwin to Badger, Jan. 19, 1838. A.H.M.Papers.
229[229]
Western Citizen, Dec. 4, 1843.
230[230]
Kuhns, F.I.: The American Home Missionary Society in Relation to the Antislavery Controversy in the Old
Northwest. Billings, Montana. 1959. p.6.
231[231]
Emerson, O. to Badger, M., Aug. 16, 1844.
227[227]
232[232]
Kent to Badger, Feb. 11, 1842.
the circumstance to recently to Brother Dixon of Platteville. He had borrowed 10 dollars
of him. He is but ill able to spare money to such men. He called on Brother Neill upon
my introduction (about 12 miles out) and told such a pitiful tale that he promised and
afterwards gave him a valuable horse, then Emerson had the meanness to say that he
wished he had money to buy a carriage also for he did not know how much riding he
might have to do and he wanted to be very choice of that horse! Putting these things
together, and comparing them with what Brother Wright said who was in Lane Seminary
with him, I have no expectation of any good report and I am afraid to have him enjoying
your patronage ... I do not wish to burden you but I thought you ought to have the light
you can get That Brother Wright is a Missionary near Knoxville, Ill. He could give you
information about him while at Lane.233[233]
Out of this growing dissatisfaction sprung the American Missionary Association in 1846.
Treasurer of this new organization was one of the ubiquitous Tappan brothers, who happened to
be a close friend of the Rev. Charles Grandison Finney, noted evangelist and a Professor at the
new Oberlin College (an institution that also enjoyed Tappan largess.) Oberlin was created from
an abolitionist splinter group broken off from the more conservative Lane Theological Smeinary
in Cincinnatti. The “Oberlinites” were another group Kent instinctively distrusted, probably more
over theological issues than on the slavery issue. None the less the wedge was being driven
deeper between Kent and a growing number of his missionaries. Kent wrote to Dr. Badger:
I have written to Mr. Bowen234[234] at Savanna the following this evening.
“Dear Sir I have just heard a rumor that your minister Calvin Gray is an open and
strong advocate of the Oberlin Theology. If this is so I think that Christian candor should
have constrained him to avow it as his as his letters recommendatory gave no hint of it
and I thought it necessary to give you notice of the fact that such a rumor was afloat lest
you should be induced in my recommendation to commit yourself further than you
would...”235[235]
Kent went on to have a long and stormy relationship with “Brother Gray,” but he relented on
his early opposition to Gray after a meeting with him:
I wrote you as I thought I ought in regard to Br. Gray. Since that I have conversed
with him and with Br. Eddy whose installation at Mineral Point I attended last week.
Br Gray satisfied me that though he dissented from the course professed by ministers
and presbyters, yet he did not wish to advocate the peculiarities of Oberlin Theol. And he
left the impression on my mind that he had now no inclination to agitate that subject. And
it appears to me wrong to drive him from us by refusing him the aid he seeks. 236[236]
The third [to join Asa Turner in Iowa] was Oliver Emerson, Jr., from Watervllle College and Lane Seminary,
lame but tireless, "with one foot like one of Lord Byron's, and a heart like that of the Apostle Paul," a gospel ranger and
explorer in Jackson County and neighboring Illinois and throughout Tama County, (1840-1883). Magoun, G.: “The
Iowa Band of 1843.” Annals of Iowa, Third Series, Vol. 1, 1893. Kent may, indeed, have misidentified Emerson in his
report. There were many preachers named Emerson in the area in those years.
234[234]
David L. Bowen was an early Savanna pioneer. His wife”s My recollections of Pioneer Life is perhaps the only
memoir of early Savanna. Mrs Bowen (maiden name Dow) attended Caroline Kent”s Sabbath School in Galena: “I
think it was at this time that I attended Mrs. Kent's infant Sunday school, where the little ones all knelt around a young
girl about 15 years of age, who also knelt and we repeated in unison with her the Lord's Prayer. Once I toppled over
against the next one by me and she toppled also, but it did not go any farther, and I was very much ashamed of myself
for my great ambition was to keep upright at prayer time. At this place I saw for the first time a picture. It was a large
oil painting of the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve in the midst, half hidden by trees and shrubbery, and looking
very beautiful, and my ideas of Heaven were made to correspond with this picture and the explanation given by Mrs.
Kent. I do not remember that she said anything about the serpent, but I am sure there was none shown in the picture.”
Bowen, Alice M.: The Story of Savanna. Savanna, Illinois. 1828. p. 78.
235[235]
Kent to Badger, Oct. 2, 1844.
236[236]
Kent to Badger, Feb. 17, 1845.
233[233]
Finding a congruancy of views between congregations and pastors on the slavery issue was
not easy. In 1848 Kent reported that Bother Norton at Sycamore had “left...their church which
stands with only a roof to cover the timbers and yet it is the only church of our denomination in a
county [DeKalb] of 6 or 7000 inhabitants...because he would not say Shibboleth to their
antislavery creed.”237[237]
By 1851 Kent was convinced that a formal declaration of opposition to Slavery was required
if the A.H.M.S. was to retain any influence in Northern Illinois, but the political need, not the
moral requirement, seemed to be his motivation..238[238]
Rockford, July 12, 1851
Rev. Dr. Badger
Dear Br.,
At my request when met at the parsonage under the shadow of the old Oak Tree in
Beloit at 5 am on Thursday last. 4 of the devoted friends of the A.H.M.S. solicited Brs.
Clary (mine host) Pearson, Savage and Kent to review the actions of the Missionary
Convention at Chicago on the 20th ult.
These Brethren (all present at that meeting except Br. Pearson) expressed their regret
that one of the secretaries was not at Chicago (though your explanation was satisfactory)
and they all saving myself were disappointed in the action or the body as having come
short of that progress which they had hoped it would reach.
The remark of Dr. E. Beecher was quoted that the question before them was one of
time. The time will come when the A. H. M. S. must take the stand that they will not
commission men to labour in slaveholding churches. These brethren (or 2 of them Brs.
Clary and Savage) thought the resolution adopted did not meet the views of the
Convention and that if another had been thrown in desiring the Society to announce that
they would not here after commission men to churches that tolerate salve holders
(excepting those who are already on the list of beneficiaries) that such a resolution would
have been adopted by the Convention and approved by the great body of our western
churches.
It seemed to me therefore that these views should be communicated to your
Committee and we agreed each in his own way to express his views to our Brothers in
New York.
Much as I may be stigmatised as a Proslavery man, I still am constrained to say that
whenever your Committee feel prepared to take that stand, they may count on me as one
who would welcome the announcement. And if the distant echo of so feeble a voice
should contribute anything to hasten such a result, I am quite ready to give utterance to it
either in the closet or on the house top.
I have however more confidence in the judgement of your committee than in my own,
and I consider that if the opinion I have expressed be an embodiment of western
sentiment it may not be so of the churches at the east, and that constitutes another reason
why I should rest satisfied with your course, whatever it may be.
Affectionately yours,
A. Kent
237[237]
238[238]
Kent to Badger, Aug. 29, 1848.
Kent to Badger, July 12, 1851.
_________________________
It gives me pain to think that I have been so long in the field without witnessing more cheering
results because I believe that it is to be attributed to my own unfaithfulness. I do not doubt but
that good is done by my instrumentality and that is well worth all the expense by which this
mission has been sustained but I am perfectly certain that I have not accomplished what even I
might have done if I possessed more of a self-denying spirit.
In visiting the sick I meet with two very interesting cases last week : they are included in the
11 married women in the village and 5 in the vicinity who have died within six months : of these
Mrs. Strother (the wife of a man who has purchased 7/8 of a steam boat and who will command it
himself and observe the Sabbath strictly) was very satisfactory. She seemed as tranquil as if going
to yield herself to the influence of an ordinary sleep.
I think myself happy if I can assist in smoothing the dying pillow of a saint.
But I cannot pass over the case of this excellent Brother of the Episcopal church. He is a
Virginian of noble blood If I may judge of the blood from the disposition for uncompromising
obedience which he evidences. I regard his purpose to run a Sabbath keeping boat on the
Mississippi as one of the boldest and most important adventures that individual enterprise could
attempt.239[239]
We have no arrivals and no conversions of late but we have the promise of arrival in less than
a year according to the fruits of one of our visits in the country. The church seems to possess
more of the elements of efficiency, for they are disposed to work in the Lord’s vineyard. We have
a monthly concert, and a good collection as you will see by the amount $45 of which was
contributed by the Female Bible Society. We observe the Sabbath school concert. We have also
commenced the monthly distribution of tracts in the village and vicinity and we have adopted a
method which promises what I have long desired but have never been able to accomplish before a
more familiar acquaintance of the members with each other which is ordinarily attended with
difficulty is a village like this.
At our Sat night prayer meeting of the church it is presumed that the absentees necessarily are
detained and accordingly the role is called and those who are present volunteer to visit one and
another of the absentees, until we have a promise that each one will be visited during the coming
week. And we cannot doubt but that such a plan adopted by the churches in your city with some
little variation would be attended with most beneficial results.
Our Sabbath School continues to be very interesting and we hope in a few (5) years to have 10
young men preparing for the ministry. We think this a spiritual and very important movement.
Please charge me one dollar and give credit to A.G. Hawthorne for the Home Miss.
During the year our church has recruited by certificate 4 by conversion 4 and now numbers
45: 1 Sab Sc, 75 scholars... the new members of the Church have subscribed over 1000 dollars
toward the church.
This country will grow with rapidity. We shall need greatly a preacher for Cassville or
whatever place is made the seat of territorial government, and one more south to visit the
settlements on Rock River and its tributaries.
With much esteem I am yours in the bonds of the gospel
Orrin Smith was the wealthy steam boat captain who was so pious as to stop and tie up his boat where ever it
migth be on midnight Saturday and not more it again until after midnight Sun. His brother Samuel was Kent's associate
in the day school and the perpetrator of the beating of a student that caused Kent to be indicted. Orrin Smith was mayor
of Galena in 1844 (Kett, p. 492).
239[239]
Aratus Kent
________
Galena, Ill., July 6, 1836
Rev & Dear Sir,
The time is past when I am required to give an account of my stewardship to your committee
and the time may be very near when I shall be required to give an account to God, in view of
which I contemplate my labours here with very little self complacency.
Our population and my domestic cares are increasing and render it every year more difficult
for me to be absent itinerating as formerly. Few ministers ever probably have more company than
we and love to “use hospitality” but it is a tax upon the weak vessel.
There is hardly a day passes but we have calls or visits from persons from New England who
dislike the confused state and Sabbath breaking of the public houses and they are not infrequently
persons who broke the Sabbath on their journey hither.
The prospect of gaining ground by the conversion of sinners in Galena becomes only more
dark but there are other ways in which good may be done.
The wheels of the temperance car are clogged by the men of influence who are engaged in the
traffic. We have had monthly meetings but these men will not attend or if they do attend it is only
to return to their ???? course. Mr. A Turner has been with us, and after lecturing 3 evenings he
obtained 72 names to his tee-total pledge, but this makes no perceptible impression on the
drunkenness of Galena.
I also accompanied this indefatigable agent in a visit to the principle places in the country. At
Dubuque I preached in the day time and he lectured in the evening of the Sab. and obtained 30
names. We hope this minister will speedily return and have the pleasure of organizing a church
there for the religious aspect of that village is brightening. Being disappointed by the Sab.
keeping. Steamboat is going to Rock Island to spend the last Sabbath in June as I had proposed.
I went to Belleview a little village scarcely six months old on the west bank of the Mississippi
about 12 miles before Galena. The back country is settling rapidly by agriculturalists: I had a
large congregation most of whom had been there but a few weeks. They were the first sermons
ever preached in that place.
I suggested a Sab. School; three apparently efficient teachers volunteered. I proposed if they
would raise 5 dollars I would furnish $10 worth of books. They immediately collected $11.50 and
paid over and I have forwarded a library. They urged me to come again. But there are 6 or 8
places on this side equally important that I have not visited for many months.
There are 20 places around me where a Sab. School of 20 or 25 scholars might be secured if
but one pious family would come and settle down in each neighborhood and take hold of this
work but for the want of them these children are growing up in ignorance.
I have little charity for those professing Christians who profess to come to this country to do
good, but who say “Be ye ...[last two lines illegible].
Your brother in the bonds of Gospel,
Aratus Kent
[on the address leaf]
Our Sabbath School is increasing in numbers and interest. Our celebration on the 4th was
attended by 130 children. They were furnished by their teachers with an address and each a good
piece of cake, a bunch of raisins and a flagon of water.
The Captain of the Sabbath Keeping boat has succeeded so well that he has bought another
and employed as captain and clerk 2 of the best men in our church, who are determined to keep
holy the Sabbath. Would that the friends of Zion would pray over this experiment for it involves
the last hope of the west and of the world.
______
Galena, Ill., Aug. 2, 1836
Rev. & Dear Sir,
As I know not who is the agent in New York, I request you sir to pay over to the agent for the
A.B.C.F.M. one hundred and thirteen 50/100 Dollars being the amount of our collection at
monthly concert for the last 14 months and charge the same to my account. To accommodate a
fried I gave him an order on you a few days since for 5 1/2 dollars.
Rev. Albert Hale is with us and tomorrow we go on an exploring tour in the Wisconsin Ter. of
which he will give some account perhaps in due time.
Yours with best bonds,
Aratus Kent
_________
Dubuque, Aug. 9, 1836
Rev. O. Watson
My Dear Brother,
I have sat myself down at Mr. Lockwood’s table (While Mrs. L and Rev. A. Hale are
conversing) to tell you 2 or 3 things.
Brother H and myself have just returned to Galena from a tour in Wisconsin as far as Helena
and finding our Sabbath Keeping Olive Branch in part, we have come over to your parish and
have had the happiness to see a Presbyterian Church laid up of rock as far as the middle of the
basement story windows. And the contractor said that the walls would be finished up by the first
week in September. These facts will doubtless gratify you as they did us and you will also be
pleased to learn that there is a prospect of having materials to organize a small church. I have no
doubt but it is the duty of some body at the East to give you a 1000 dollars for building the
church. And you are authorized to receive collections.
Brother Hall will spend 4 weeks in exploring and visit Galena again in Dec.
Mr. Lockwood's family are well and indeed the whole village seems to be enjoying health
except some cases of measles and a few of scarlet fever.
My own family and people are blessed in like manner and we hope that the effort at Dubuque
will provoke us to emulation in building a house for the Lord.
Dear Brother hasten back. Brother Hale preaches there on the next Sabbath.
Yours affectionately,
A. Kent
Rev. A. Peters
Dear Sir,
Fearing that this would not overtake Brother W in Connecticut I thought good to forward it to
you. And I wish also to state that 3 days ago I visited a German Mr. John Messersmith Iowa Co.
Wisconsin Ter who in conversation concerning Der Raush insisted that a German could not write
so well in English but I assured him it was his own language and promised to ascertain by writing
if he would pay the postage.
I could wish Der ???? would write to him in German giving a brief history of himself,
inquiring about the Germans....
In Haste Yours,
A. Kent
_______
Galena, Ill., Oct. 4, 1836
Rev. & Dear Sir,
The flight of time admonishes me that another report is due, but I seem to myself to have little
else to communicate except it be the echo of the former statements, presenting nothing to animate
or encourage.
I have been long in the field and still it seems the aspect of the vineyard of the slothful for it is
all grown over with thorns and nettles have covered the face thereof. We have an increase of
people but there is no apparent increase of worshippers on the Sabbath and we have more
professors of religion but no evidence of increasing spirituality and the preacher apprehends that
he is becoming every year more faithless and discouraged. The Spirit of worship overpowers
every good influence and as a community we are hurrying fast to distraction without the least
prospect of escape unless we receive special aid from above.
The Sabbath School presents a brightening prospect and affords a ground of hope in future
years.
After 6 months of apathy we have waked up again to the effort of building a house for God.
We expect to obtain in Galena 4,500 and our house 20 by 40 with a basement of stone and a
superstructure of brick will not cost less than $7500 but we think we have now a reasonable
prospect of making up the deficiency. There is a great opening for good by men of Academics in
Galena and the Territory north, and some intent awakened in their behalf. There is a considerable
Catholic influence and we wish to preoccupy the ground. There is great room for labour in the
Territory but I cannot bestow that labour without neglecting my work at home. Brother Hale has
spent several weeks in exploring and he concurs with me in opinion that a preacher or two are
greatly needed in the Mining country. As one illustration we visited one neighborhood 50 miles
from Galena where we had a congregation of 50 including 8 or 10 Presbyterians who had not
heard a sermon since I visited them about a year before
_______
Springfield, Ill., Oct. 29 [1836]
For the purpose of attending Synod I left Galena in the Sabbath Keeping:anti-gambling
temperance boat for St. Louis. We had a quiet and pleasant passage with the privilege of family
worship daily and daily in the Ladies cabin. The Captain said he enjoyed it much and I am sure it
was refreshing to my own soul. On Sabbath I heard the Senior and Junior ??? preached myself
and visited 3 Sabbath Schools including a German school of 75-150 learning English in which I
was greatly interested.
The meeting of Synod was : one of which I shall not now speak particularly: My visit to
Jacksonville was very pleasant and I obtained a promise of a visit this fall from Prof. Beecher and
also from Mr. Baldwin to attend a protracted meeting and to inquire into the prospects of
education.
I have forwarded a draft for monies due on the missionary year now closed. I have increased
my expenses this year by building a small house of 2 rooms for female schools. The schools in
our village are now encouraging.
Yours,
Aratus Kent
________
[January (?)] 17, 1837
[first page missing from microfilm]
...A plan has been formed to have protracted meeting this spring at Buffalo Grove and
Rockford on Rock River (in Ill.) and at Elk Grove (Wisconsin) and Brother Gridley has been
invited to come with the Big Tent and labour at these meetings and we expect at that time that 2
or 3 churches will be formed. But alas what avail the labours of 1 or 2 missionaries among so
many. We want at least 2 on this side and as many on the west side of the Mississippi. Brother P.
will go home soon and he thinks of returning in the fall. His eye is fixed on Mineral Point 40
miles north wither he has gone exploring and in the neighborhood lives Mrs. Rey whose exercises
have excited attention in this region. It is more than 2 1/2 years since she said to me there would
be a great revival in all this country to begin at Galena in the winter of 1837.
There have been during this year 17 added by letter and 6 by profession and we calculate on
about 10 more at the next communion by profession : 15 converts 100 Sabbath scholars : 7
converts among S Scholars of whom 3 united with the church.
We have raised for foreign mission $112 at monthly con. : for the bible society 42 and for the
tract soc 40 for supplying the Boats with bound vols.
My people think they can support me in future and a committee is appointed to write a letter
of thanks to your society and it seems due from me also to review the past.
I have been seven years a recipient if the bounty of your society and am deeply and painfully
conscious of the Christian and ministerial unfaithfulness. But I have had difficulties to grapple
with and burdens to bear which cannot be well be estimated by those who have occupied a more
highly cultivated field. For more than two years I laboured alone, without Christians enough to
form a church or to maintain a prayer meeting.
Our church now numbers 63. We have morning and evening meetings for prayer, a formal
Benevolent Soc., a Maternal Association, and prayer meeting. The monthly distribution of tracts
has been in successful operation for a year. We have commenced a house for public worship and
have $4000 subscribed.240[240] We have good schools taught by members of our church.
We have had during the whole time an interesting Sabbath School and man are now scattered
over the country who were once under our influence. Last fall I met in one day at a distance of
300 miles 3 of its earliest pupils, two were merchants, and one a mechanic, 2 hope they are
Christians and all, so far as I can learn, sustain a good moral character amidst the crowds of
vicious people with whom they are in daily and hourly mingling.
The corner stone of the Catholic Church was laid September 12, 1835. p. 44. A number of “firsts” were
occurring in this period. On Sept. 8, 1838 the first circus license was issued to Mr. Miller for $20. (Hist Jo. Davies, p.
471. On Dec. 3, 1838 the first recorded license for a theatre was granted to McKenzie & & Jefferson for one year $75.
p. 472. Their first performance was “Wives as they were, And Maids as They Are”. Tickets were $1.00. p. 481. The
Galena Library Association was organized in 1835 and by 1838 contained 835 volumes. p. 476.
240[240]
In taking my leave of your society241[241] I must express my grateful acknowledgments for the
promptness with which every wish has been met and my growing conviction that your society is
performing a service for the West and for our country, and for the church which none can so well
appreciate as those who witness its happy results.
Yours in the fellowship of the Gospel,
A. Kent
______
[Extract from a letter by A. Hale to Absalom Peters. Jacksonville, Illinois, September 27,
1836.]
My journey was principally in the lead mine district & east of the Mississippi River. Br. Kent
& myself visited the principal villages & settlements. We found no ministers of our denomination
& very few of any other. Indeed, we have no missionaries N. West of Rock River except Br.
Kent, at Galena, & Br. Watson, who I suppose has returned to DuBuque. In the Wisconsin Terr.
with a population 25,000 of there are not more than 4 Or 5 ministers of all denominations i.e. not
more than that number that we could hear of- Br. Kent has long been calling for aid, & if men of
the right sort can be had his call ought to be immediately attended to. The population of the Terr.
is somewhat peculiar. A far greater portion of them are foreigners, than of the people of Illinois.
They are as a body more intelligent. There is more open wickedness, such as intemperance &
gambling, &c., more infidelity, or rather it is more bold & open, & there is more money. We need
immediately, two Missionaries to plant within 40 miles of Galena- but they must be men-men of
sound minds & warm hearts -men who can meet opposition & bear insults, & are willing to labor
hard & bear reproach for Christ, men who might do well in many parts of this state, I am
persuaded could not succeed there. I hope you will be on the lookout & as soon as you can find
the men send them to Br. Kent & he will go with them to their places of destination. It must not
be forgotten that churches in Wisconsin are as scarce as ministers -all is new- a few professors of
religion scattered over the field panting for the bread & water of life & a large number who once
were enrolled among the people of God & are now twice dead & among the most formidable
obstacles to the progress of religion.242[242]
_______
Office of the A. H. M. S. 150 Nassau St243[243]
New York Jun 20th 1837
Rev. J. G. Simrall
Carlinville, Ill.
Dear Sir, . . . You speak of a renewal of your commission for the current yr. It is in accordance
with our rules, that there should be an application from the people in order to have the request
This marks the beginning of a five year hiatus in correspondance betweeen Kent and the A.H.M.S. Since he was
financially independent, he no longer made quarterly missionary reports.
242[242]
Sweet, William W.: Religion on the American Frontier, 1783-1849; Vol. II The Presbyterians. New york, 1964.
p. 684-5.
243[243]
Sweet, p. 688-90. The Old School group favored the Board of Missions of the General Assembly to the
American Home Missionary Society as the proper channel through which home mission work should be carried on.
The General Assembly of 1837, which was controlled by the Old School group, passed a resolution requesting the
American Home Missionary Society to "cease to operate within any of our Churches." The author of this letter quite
evidently belonged to the Old School party. Baird, Samuel J., A Collection of the Acts, Deliveranees, and Testimonies
of the Supreme Judieatory of the Presbyterian Chureh, Ete. (Philadelphia [1859]), p. 754.
241[241]
come regularly before us. If your people are really needy, I doubt not our committee would
readily comply with their request in extending to them continued aid. But we cannot forbear to
express the hope that they will find their own resources, the current year, adequate to their
necessities- We cherish this hope from the very liberal collections they have made the last year to
benevolent Societies the amount they have raised for their house of worship, and the amount they
have pledged for the Theological Seminary.
Those nearer by can judge of the circumstances in the case better than we can & our
committee have referred the matter to our agency at Jacksonville, Ill. If your people will forward
their application to Rev. Albert Hale at that place it will receive the action of that Board & we
shall then be prepared to act intelligently & rightly, I trust, in regard to it....
MILTON BADGER
Asso. Sec. A. H. M.S.
----------Carlinville, Ill.
July 7th I837_
Rev. Dr Peters
Dear Sir,
I received on yesterday the letter of your Assistant Secretary in relation to my commission for
this year. I am glad you have not sent it as I should have had the trouble to return it. I determined
after seeing the proceedings of the Convention and Assembly to have nothing more to do with
your Society, and informed my church here to that account. I have received a commission from
the Assembly board. You need not therefore consider me in any way connected with your
Institution, although I believe it has done much good - yet under all the Circumstances - and in
view of the Sate of our Church at large - I am satisfied with my present views I cannot again
sustain it.
Yours respectfully,
Jn. G. Simrall
_______
Galena, Feb. 11, 1842
Dear Sir,
It is almost a year since I received a line from you respecting Mr. Emerson (whether it is the
same as that man whose letter is published in the Home Miss. for Jan., I have no means of
knowing but I suppose it is. He told me of another man of the same name who came out to Iowa,
but he was then an open Baptist, who, I was informed, has since become Presbyterian.) I feel
quite dissatisfied with him. And I will relate what has given me the dissatisfaction. He borrowed
10 dollars of me when he first came on, he has never come nigh me again, though he has been
near Galena and I believe in town. I mentioned the circumstance to recently to Brother Dixon of
Platteville. He had borrowed 10 dollars of him. He is but ill able to spare money to such men. He
called on Brother K?? upon my introduction (about 12 miles out) and told such a pitiful tale that
he promised and afterwards gave him a valuable horse, then Emerson had the meanness to say
that he wished he had money to buy a carriage also for he did not know how much riding he
might have to do and he wanted to be very choice of that horse! Putting these things together, and
comparing them with what Brother Wright said who was in Lane Seminary with him, I have no
expectation of any good report and I am afraid to have him enjoying your patronage ... I do not
wish to burden you but I thought you ought to have the light you can get That Brother Wright is a
Missionary near Knoxville, Ill. He could give you information about him while at Lane.244[244]
We, Bros. Farnam, Bascom,245[245] & myself tried to get Brother Wright to come up as a
Missionary between Rock & Miss. River. we offered him 500, he seemed inclined to come and I
found a Brother Graham in our Church about 20 miles south east (a central point, a bachelor who
was to furnish his family a good house and abundant provisions if he should only burse his board.
But alas we found the people cling to him and he could not get away. I have communicated to Dr.
Hawes appealing to the ministers of my native state for help and to Andover stating to them that I
am alone in a distant country of 20,000 inhabitants.
I have written to Brother Peet in relation to Fair Play and Potosi 30 miles north and he has
written back that he came 10 miles this side of Rock River (half way I should think) and turned
back for fear that the snow would [envelop him] in the mean time. I left my people to visit each
of those places twice this winter, next week I have to go 20 miles south to preach a formal
sermon. It is hard to see a harvest lost for want of labourors and I sometimes want...[to travel]
trough this whole country and preach on the duty of the churches to raise ministers in despair of
getting any from the East.
Yours Truly,
Aratus Kent
________
Galena, Jan. 24, 1843
Rev & Dear Sir,
You have doubtless been apprised by Mr. Ripley that we have taken up a collection for the
A.H.M.S. to the amount of $40. To this you may add $50 which is deposited with Dr. H. Newhall
subject to your order, contributed by A. Kent.
If an angel should be deputed to write the history of our country, some 20 tears hence, I have
no doubt that he would place your society in the foreground among the agencies Providence
employed to elevate the moral character of the Western States.
Among the missionaries you are helping sustain in this vicinity there are some choice spirits
who count not their lives dear unto them that they may finish their lives does not undo them, that
they may finish the course with joy and the ministry of the Lord Jesus. Two of whom have
recently called on me and refreshed my bonds with the Lord, and one of them so awakened the
The third [to join Asa Turner in Iowa] was Oliver Emerson, Jr., from Watervllle College and Lane Seminary,
lame but tireless, "with one foot like one of Lord Byron's, and a heart like that of the Apostle Paul," a gospel ranger and
explorer in Jackson County and neighboring Illinois and throughout Tama County, (1840-1883). Magoun, G.: “The
Iowa Band of 1843.” Annals of Iowa, Third Series, Vol. 1, 1893.
245[245]
Flavel Bascom. D.D., was born in Lebanon, Conn., June 8th, 1894, the youngest of ten children. He graduated
from Yale with honors in 1828, and then became principal of an academy in New Canaan, Conn. He returned to Yale
as a tutor and to attend the Theological Seminary there, graduating in 1833. Early in his Yale career he pledged himself
to the “New Haven Band,” a group of young men who agreed to go to Illinois as Home Missionaries. After a few years
preaching in central Illinois, he was called to become Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago in 1840. He
participated in the first anti-slavery meeting held in that city. In 1850 he was appointed pastor of the First Church of
Christ in Galesburg, where he remained six years. He then spent a year as a missionary for the American Missionary
Society, the anti-slavery Congregational competitor of the A.H.M.S.. He then spent several years as pastor of the
Congregational Churches at Dover and Princeton, Illinois. Late in hid career he served churches in Hinsdale, LaSalle,
and Ottawa. He was one of the founders of Beloit and Rockford Colleges, and served at various times as a trustee of
Knox College, Wheaton College, and the Chicago Theological Seminary. His son was for many years the pastor of the
Congregational Church in Peru, Illinois. The Biographical Encyclopedia of Illinois. Philadelphia: Galaxy Publishing
Co., 1875.
244[244]
sympathies of our brethren that unsolicited they furnished him with an overcoat, pantaloons and
buffalo overshoes. But his dress was not the only thing that reminded us of John Baptist for he
too is preaching in the Wilderness and preparing the way of the Lord. I have had such accounts of
a third (Holbeck) to think that perhaps God was preparing him for an Evangelist. He was to be
installed to day but the weather and the state of the River is such that I presume there will be no
meeting of Convention.
Concerning a fourth, (Dipow) I have had such representation from his physician of his
arduous labours and enfeebled health as to induce me to write recommending him to desist for a
time from preaching.
You will rejoice with me that Dr. Waterbury has planted himself at that very point where we
sat down together to mourn over the desolations of Zion and devise ways & means for her relief.
I am impatient to find a suitable man for the region south of us in this country : It is a hand
full. And it is hard because it has been so long neglected.
I have been appointed commissioner to Gen Assembly. It will be 11 years since we were at the
East. But it seems very desirable that this people should have a supply and I see not how it shall
be affected. I have though that if some good brother near New York would exchange with me for
2 or 3 months in would be a great accommodation and I have thought of Brother Hat field
because he has been here before.
It may seem presumptuous in me to make such a proposition but I think the reasons are
plausible.
1) Our Synod have requested that our ministry brethren at the East should visit us. 2) They
need such a tour for their information and health. 3) They are in the habit of leaving the city in
summer and such an exchange would afford them more leisure. 4) If they wish to find an
important point where they may labour with great good effect, this city affords ample scope. 5) no
man can appreciate this country til he sees it, and a trip by Cincinnati, St. Louis, Galena, Chicago,
and Buffalo may now be made in 20 days time and with 100 dol. expense. And, if not as
fashionable, it be as useful as the tour of Europe. 6) We need the counsel of the fathers. I think I
could urge reasons why either of the following clergymen would do well to take that tour and be
made welcome Dr. McAnly, Dr. Spring, Dr. Patton, or Dr. Peters.
It would greatly facilitate my plans if they could secure a supply and allow me to plead there
for the west. I have but little hope that any one will volunteer, but I thought it a duty to make the
suggestion to you and hope you will have the goodness to drop me a line as soon as convenient.
I remain yours affectionately,
A. Kent
_______
Galena, Ill., Aug. 30, 1843
Dear Brethren,
I hope to see Mr. Lewis next month prepared for a campaign on Apple River, and I have
written by advice of Brother Dixon to persuade Brother Hicks (now supplying Br. Bascom) to
come to Fair Play & New Diggings and require answer soon. And I thought I should write to a
young Licentiate Calvin Terry of Enfield visiting a little for Br. Peet & see what he is doing to
supply the little churches north. Now I have concluded with your approbation to write to Br. A.
Pomeroy246[246] once a labouror on the Ill. River. He is said to be very useful and efficient in Con.
as an Evangelist, tho Br. Hale said he was not quite the thing in Ill. Having been for the time
rather worldly minded. He took me aside at the Con, Association and said he was ready to go [to]
Ill. if duty called (his wife is very feeble). I thought from all that I could learn that he would be an
asset: could adapt to this region particularly to the mining region. And if he was commissioned to
come to labour in different places at his and our discretion he might be very useful in promoting
revivals organizing churches and doing that preparatory work necessary to our calling and settling
of ministers. But I distrust my own judgement and hope that you have means of knowing him
better than I do.
I commit the accompanying letter to you to forward or not at your discretion.
Brother, I remain your affectionately,
A. Kent
Brother Norton is about to leave Rockford, I know no good reason.
Galena, Aug. 30, 1843
Br. A. Pomeroy,
Dear Brother, I have reached home in safety after an absence of near 4 months in which I have
experienced many miseries, found my family well except the death of a child of 14, given to us :
a pious child of great promise. I have been pressed with cares and calls and greetings and have
had no time to survey the field, but am well persuaded there is an opening around me for you to
labour with great prospects of success in gathering congregations, organizing churches and
promoting revivals and preparing the way for introducing young ministers...According to your
own suggestion I now invite you to come on and “occupy”.: Come this fall as soon as you can: by
the northern route, from Albany to Buffalo 25 hours & 10 dollars: from B. to Detroit, 30 hours
and 7 dollars, from D. to Chicago 39 hours $8.50, from Chicago to Galena 48 hours & 8 dollars.
If you will come and labour for 2 years, I think I may venture to say that we can raise you 200
a year on the ground and the Home Miss. will do the rest. And I think that in 2 years time you
may do great good and be ready to stay permanently. There [are] many things of interest in this
region and I have come to the conclusion that you are ??? to this country.
Please to give me a definite answer as soon as convenient.
Yours etc. A. Kent
________
Galena, Ill., May 14, 1844
Rev. M. Badger247[247]
Dear Brother,
Augustus Pomeroy organized the Presbyterian Church of Lacon, Illinois, on May 12, 1837. Pomeroy also served
the chrch in Hennepin. He resigned from the Lacon Church in 1839 on account of ill health. Ellsworth, Spencer:
Records of Olden Time. Lacon, Ill: Home Journal Steam Printing Establishment, 1880. p. 345-6.
247[247]
Milton Badger, clergyman, b. in Coventry, Conn., 6 May 1800, died in Madison, Conn., 1 March 1873. He was
graduated at Yale with honor in 1823. After spending a year in teaching in New Canaan. Conn., he bagan his
theological studies at Andover theological seminary, but in 1826 removed to New Haven to become a tutor at Yale
College, and finished his preparation for the minisrty there. He was ordained 3 Jan. 1828, as Pastor of the South
Congregational Church in Andover, Mass., ands remained there until 1835, when he became associate secretary of the
A.H.M.S. He was soon, by the resignation of Dr. Peters, placed in the position of Senior Secretary, and for thrity four
years he performed the duties of that office. Appletons, Vol. 1, p. 133.
246[246]
Brother Holbrook requests me to write to you and state the situation and wants of this region
the probability of his usefulness in the field which he contemplates the views of our church and
what they will do etc., and ask you whether you will become responsible for $400 per an. on
condition that he raises what he can where he labours (say $100 perhaps less) his commission
being to act as your agent in Western Wiskonsan, Northwestern Ill. and Northern Iowa and
labouring as an Evangelist and supplying destitute places at his discretion, it being understood
that he preach in Galena 1/4 of the time while I labour among the destitute as far as possible. He
wishes you to reply as soon as maybe that it may reach here by the 2nd Tuesday of June when
this convention meets at Platteville.
This plan falls in with what I have contemplated as far as giving me a little breathing time. My
weekly preparation which is now burdensome in connection with its pressure of other duties. My
work is increasing amazingly aside from pastoral duties, my correspondence is becoming
formidable. I can also occasionally preach about the country where I have extensive
acquaintance. One of us will be always on the ground to supply the calls in Galena. He will need
as a young preacher time for rest and for study but will feel it no burden to preach on the Sabbath.
Our people have become greatly attached to him and he certainly possesses some peculiar
talents for an evangelist and when I proposed that he should ask in that capacity and in that of an
H.M. agent and locate in Galena and supply them 1/4 of his time they voted unanimously to
invite him and to be responsible for 200 dollars - which together with what you will give will
make him 600 and in my opinion that is not too much but perhaps you will think me extravagant
and I shall submit my opinion to yours.
I hoped to have seen Br Waterbury this week but shall be disappointed (not going to Rockford
until next week) I believe he fully approves of our plan. We think that Tom Peet’s field is too
large and he neglects western W[isconsin] and I think that Br. Holbrook has marked out too much
ground. I should have preferred that he be restricted to the east side of the Mississippi, i.e., unless
Br. Peet should prefer to continue to take charge of Wisconsin. My opinion has been that your
agents should be multiplied so as to make them less riding and to do more work. I am obliged to
write in great haste: if you should commission him he wished that two laymen together with Br.
Holbrook and myself might be a committee through whom all applications for aid shall come.
And I would suggest Dr. Horatio Newhall and Edwin Ripley as suitable men.
All which is respectfully submitted.
Yours,
A Kent
_________
Galena, Ill., Aug. 14, 1844
Dear Brother,
It is not an urgent case the settlement on Apple River is 10 years in advance of the other
settlements in Northern Il. It is within the mining district and for 15 years I have preached there
occasionally. About 6 years ago 100 dollars was raised and appropriated for the support of a
Missionary there but it has never been used.
More recently the flourishing village of Elizabeth has sprung up around which there is a
settlement of farmers & I have been told that 600 miners are now digging within 4 miles and the
amount of lead raised there this year 2,000,000.
The returns from the late election in the village gives 598 votes in that precinct and it is safe to
reckon the population within a Sabbath days journey as exceeding 2000.
There is a little church in the village and they need a minister : a minister of some moral
power and some moral courage for it is a hard field and no suitable man has yet been found
willing to engage. Such men seem to shun the place. I took a journey of 80 miles last week to
obtain a missionary for them but he preferred locating in a new village of New England people in
the midst of a sparse settlement (the whole number perhaps 400.) I came home to sympathize
with a lay brother on the ground who has sustained a larger Sabbath School single-handed &
alone for 5 or 6 years and who told me some weeks since that he was quite distressed.
I have spread the case before our church and they will meet tomorrow morning at the rising of
the sun to pray that God will send a minister to Elizabeth and I propose to carry in this letter and
like Hezekiah spread it before the Lord:
There are 2 ways of showing the power of the Gospel and the influence of your society.
One is to look at the prevalence of infidelity & vice where no effort is made and the other is to
mark the progress of truth the march of improvement & the triumph of benevolence where a
judicious expenditure of your funds is made.
Br Lewis entered a field as hard as this one year since...already he has secured the confidence
of the people, the Sabbath is recognized, a nice house of worship is being built, a church is
organized and some young men have been hopefully converted & have joined ...to the lord.
I doubt not that if an efficient man had been sent to Apple River 5 years ago and 500 dollars
expended in his support he would now be well sustained, a large church gathered and they
propose to send back 100 dollars a year in aid of the destitute : such is the economy of your
system.
This church was for several years dependent on your bounty, and yesterday we sent off 180
dollars to your society and 24 dollars in aid of an academy being built to prepare ministers &
teachers for the west by another church dependent on your funds & this in appendix to
considerable contribution the same day for the suffered on the American Bottom.
Now if you will find the suitable man we will find within the country 400 dollars for his
support for one year....
Yours affectionately, A. Kent
We do not want a lame duck for that field nor a broken winded animal that has been 1/2 dos
times run off the track.
________
Galena, Nov. 21, 1844
Dear Brother,
I received your letter Monday and went the same day to fill an appointment I had made on the
waters of Apple R. because Mr. Littlefield’s labours were not acceptable in that neighborhood.
There is was confirmed in my opinion that he is very unacceptable as a preacher and several
Presbyterian families were mentioned who did not desire the continuance of his labours among
them. Mr. John Strong who was his main support and with whom he boarded has fallen out with
him and is making efforts in connection with some others to get an old school man I understand. I
have ever felt that it was most unfortunate for this country that he returned to it. But I have
wounded the good mans feelings by expressing my opinion. I think I cannot do the cause of A
better service than to recommend that further aid be with held for other men are prevented from
taking the ground while he occupies it. I have no doubt of his superiority to me in personal piety
but he is doing no good as far as I can judge. I think if he would return to Indiana or engage in
other employment it would be well. You will understand that the region about Elizabeth and I
used to designate as Apple River is 10 miles from Mr. Littlefield’s location, which he now calls
Apple River Church. Mr. Graham of Elizabeth a judicious young Irish man and Christian has told
him that he cannot do any thing there.
I was disappointed that our project of building a 2nd church had not made so much impression
upon your minds as it does upon ours who see it in all its bearings. We think that there is a great
opening for a new effort and we apprehend that if we do not move soon an Old School Br will
and we do not wish that issue to be introduced into Galena. Mr. Seely of Bristol, Con., who
preached here one Sab. has been sounded a little and the response was rather favorable and
another letter will probably be sent soon. I have never seen him and it seems like a marriage on a
short acquaintance. My back aches literally and if it did not my cares and responsibilities are
enough to make it ache.
I should not be ashamed of this letter if you could know the circumstances under which it is
written.
Our excellent friends the Ripleys have been greatly afflicted in the death of Lucy, aged 15:
Yours, etc., A. Kent
Write immediately if you can give us any light in regard to a man to build a 2nd church here.
Nov. 23 Our movement as yet are in conclave (session) but that they are in concert you judge
when they talked of raising 500 for the first year beside 200 from A.H.M.S.
__________
Galena, Ill., Oct. 2, 1844
Dear Brother,
With no ordinary anxiety and I trust sincere prayer we have ventured to agitate the question of
communing a new congregation in this city. It is agitated by the session in conclave, It involved a
responsibility we fear to assume and which we dare not longer postpone. Three questions have
come up: Whence shall we find a house? Whence find the man to undertake it? And, whence find
the “vara avis” to lead the enterprise? The first we can secure by renting a public room in the
heart of the city. The second: we have marked off the names of about 15 whom we shall
recommend and invite others to volunteer. And now comes the third. Where is the man suitable
for the most inviting but very arduous field of ministerial labour?
Who is there like yourself that has the whole country before him and is accustomed to judge
of the mental and moral power of clergymen and who better than yourself knows whether the
suitable man would consent to enter upon this new and deeply responsible achievement.
Brother Badger will you come. I know your answer. I would gladly undertake it, if other
duties would permit. Will you look about and send an answer as soon as convenient. We think
that this operation ought not be delayed. All this by way of preface.
Yours, A. Kent
And here I introduce you to my excellent Brother Campbell
Rev. Mr. Badger
Dear Sir,
I write by direction of the session of Mr. Kent’s church to urge upon your attention our want
of a minister to supply a second Pres. Church now in contemplation. Our new stone church is full
: The revival last winter brought into our church a great many young men whose spirit and good
requires that they should be set upon some new effort for the extension of the Redeemers
Kingdom. There is a large class in this community who do not attend church at all. Clearly all of
the legal profession : many of the physicians & more of the merchants are of this class. Now sir if
you can inform us how & where we can find the man of some experience who can interest such a
class & with the help of the old church & a few working men & women can build up a second
church you will materially aid the cause.
A Mr. Eaton, a graduate of the Union Theo Sem & now if we are rightly informed labouring
in some church in N. York city has been mentioned to us. Do you know him? Is he the Man? Can
he be obtained? About a year last summer a young man by the name of Seely or Ceilly, a native
of Ridgefield Conn also a graduate of Union Theo Sem (if I recollect right) spent a Sabbath here
with whom we were much pleased. Do you know him? Is he such a man as we want? Can he be
had?
I am also directed to inquire if the new congregation can obtain aid from the Home Missionary
Soc for a time. The persons who will compose the new church will be mostly young men :
mechanics and journeymen of limited means who will hardly be able to sustain the effort without
aid. We hope to hear from you as soon as you can give us the requisite information. we have
delayed this effort too long I fear. To delay longer seems to us after prayerful deliberation on the
subject to be only giving the ground of which we may now take easy possession up to the
Universalists: The Campbellites: or somebody worse.
Respectfully yours on behalf of the session,
A.B. Campbell
___________
Dear Brother,
I have written to Mr. Bowen248[248] at Savanna the following this evening.
“Dear Sir I have just heard a rumor that your minister Calvin Gray is and open and strong
advocate of the Oberlin Theology. If this is so I think that Christian candor should have
constrained him to avow it as his as his letters recommendatory gave no hint of it and I thought it
necessary to give you notice of the fact that such a rumor was afloat lest you should be induced in
my recommendation to commit yourself further than you would.
I am sure our Presbytery would not receive such a member. You will please to show him this
and assure him of my high esteem of him as a man and my great grief at this rumor and my
earnest desire that he may feel entirely free to contradict it.” Yours etc. A. Kent”
The information I received from Br. Eddy of Mineral Point who has a commission from you.
He says his (Buffalo) presbytery would not give such a man a letter as Geneva Presb has done. I
thought it right to inform you immediately as it may influence your action if you have not acted
already.
Yours, etc.,
A. Kent
David L. Bowen was an early Savanna pioneer. His wife”s My recollections of Pioneer Life is perhaps the only
memoir of early Savanna. Mrs Bowen (maiden name Dow) attended Caroline Kent”s Sabbath School in Galena: “I
think it was at this time that I attended Mrs. Kent's infant Sunday school, where the little ones all knelt around a young
girl about 15 years of age, who also knelt and we repeated in unison with her the Lord's Prayer. Once I toppled over
against the next one by me and she toppled also, but it did not go any farther, and I was very much ashamed of myself
for my great ambition was to keep upright at prayer time. At this place I saw for the first time a picture. It was a large
oil painting of the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve in the midst, half hidden by trees and shrubbery, and looking
very beautiful, and my ideas of Heaven were made to correspond with this picture and the explanation given by Mrs.
Kent. I do not remember that she said anything about the serpent, but I am sure there was none shown in the picture.”
Bowen, Alice M.: The Story of Savanna. Savanna, Illinois. 1828. p. 78.
248[248]
_________
Galena, Ill., Feb. 17, 1845
Dear Brother,
I wrote you as I thought I ought in regard to Br. Gray.
Since that I have conversed with him and with Br. Eddy whose installation at Mineral Point I
attended last week.
Br Gray satisfied me that though he dissented from the course professed by ministers and
presbyters, yet he did not wish to advocate the peculiarities of Oberlin Theol. And he left the
impression on my mind that he had now no inclination to agitate that subject. And it appears to
me wrong to drive him from us by refusing him the aid he seeks.
Br. Eddy after conversation with me thinks he ought to be commissioned and Mr. Bowen in
his answer received this morning says Mr. Gray has made a very favorable impression on the
whole community and to a much greater extent with some of our hard-hearted tight-fisted antireligious people than I supposed and good Christian could.
I do therefore renew my recommendation that he be commissioned.
I have signified to Br. Lewis that if he is about to draw on you for money I can furnish him
$100.
Yours, etc.,
A. Kent
_________
Galena, March 7, 1845
Rev. & Dear Brother,
Your letter is before me and was long in coming. But I hasten to answer it as soon as I have
my instructions. Our Session met last evening and I laid it before them.
We are well pleased with Mr. D. on paper and should like to see him on the ground. But we
are embarrassed and hardly know how to act. The Session are unanimous but we have not yet
breached the subject to the church. And we anticipate some difference of opinion about the
propriety of the movement but think that they will come into our views when fully explained. We
have corresponded with Mr. Seely of Bristol, Conn., (who spent a Sabbath here once) he has
declined coming. I received a letter this day from Rev. T. Castleton of Syracuse offering to come,
having succeeded in gathering a Church in that village within the last year, but I showed it to
some of my brethren who thought he was rather “green”. We expect very soon to lay this object
before the church. We have been rather private about it lest agitation should arouse other
elements by which we might be circumvented.
There are Brethren in and out of the church who would prefer an Old School minister, which
we fear would make disturbances in our harmonious community. We want greatly to see Mr.
Downes, but how is it to be done? After long consultation we have concluded to request that he
be appointed missionary within the bounds and under direction of the Galena Presbytery, with a
view to his labouring at Elizabeth which would bring him under the observation of this church
and enable them to act understandably. There seemed to be entire unanimity on the part of those 4
who were present.
Let me then show reasons why he should come to Elizabeth. It is becoming the most densely
populated spot in the missionary district except our city and 2 or 3 villages. I judge there are 2000
souls within 2 or 3 miles of that village (perhaps 3000). It is an old settlement I have preached
there occasionally for 15 years. I have tried in vain to get some man that is willing to go and
labour there. Mr. Lewis you will recollect was destined for that field but was prevented by
another having stepped in before him. Mr. Langdown from Hartford came this winter, but a letter
from him today states that he prefers to remain where he now is near Chicago It is an exceedingly
hard and wicked field and therefore just what Mr. D has been seeking for. “I choose to go where
help is needed most and obtained with most difficulty” : It is an “Old Waste” and “a settled
region which has hitherto been without spiritual cultivation.”. It is however no worse than New
Diggings was 1 1/2 years ago but under Br Lewis’s transforming influence it has become greatly
changed. Indeed no where have I seen faithful labour so uniformly and largely blessed as in this
sinner Mining Country. I would not exchange it as a field of ministerial labour for any other spot
under the sun.
It would be exceedingly interesting to read a history of some 20 men I could name as disciples
of Christ who were once among the hardest cases. Several are now members of our church and 4
or 5 have been just received at Mineral Point. I have conversed today with 2 excellent brethren
who are talking about removing to Elizabeth I am very sanguine in the belief that within 2 years
Br. Downes would build a good church : gather a large congregation, and witness a revival that
bring in great numbers who are now wretchedly depraved, and obtain his entire support from the
people and it seems to me it ought not be neglected any longer. It is a healthy place beyond doubt.
There is no question but that our Presbytery would most earnestly request this appointment if
it were suggested to them, but it will be impracticable to have any Presbyterial action until they
meet in May.
I hope you will understand our views from what I have now put down. We want to bring Mr.
D. before this community without seeming to be officious. We think it immeasurably important
to commence another church and know not how to effect our object. The city is steadily growing
and is destined to grow and if we do not multiply ourselves other sects will as certainly as like
causes will produce similar effects. It is impossible for one man to do the work that is
accumulating here.
Yours Affectionately, A. Kent
P.S. It is the wish of the session that Mr. D. be commissioned and sent out as soon as he can
come and we shall strive to make him welcome.
Mr. L. Eddy who has just settled at Mineral Point and has a powerful revival. Said he had
written a Brother to come visit here who is equal to any. Do you know him? Br. Lindsay also has
written and thinks he should like to come west. Confidential. [marginal note]
________
Galena, Ill., April 8, 1845
Dear Brother,
Br. Lewis to whom I sent word that I had money he might have has made no reply and I have
spent most of the money appropriated to his use 50 of which I paid to Mr. Gray which will be put
to the credit of your society if he is commissioned. Perhaps I shall be able to furnish Br. Lewis 50
in the course of the summer.
It will not be thought strange that we should attach importance to what is going on around us
when intelligent Christians at the East and in Europe are watching our movements with intense
interest.
If we look only at the salvation of the present generation the preaching of the gospel is the
great means on which, under God, we should rely. But when we look to ultimate and far reaching
results the great desideratum toward which we should bend our utmost efforts is to establish and
sustain a system of thorough Christian Education, and render it acceptable to all. And to effect
this, and to effect this we must have local agents stationed at all points in the great field. But all
history shows that there are no agents so efficient in promoting Christian educations as
Evangelical Ministers. Hence, we are conducted obviously to the conclusion that Home
Missionaries should be multiplied to meet the demand. And perhaps in the Western country
where so little interest is felt in the cause, they should be especially instructed to carry this point
but using every means within their reach: such as lecturing in education, visiting schools,
procuring competent teachers, and using their influence to establish primary schools and
academies.
We want also a few general agents like your late superintendent at the East who shall who
shall travel from county to county delivering lectures on education and diffusing information on
the subject. Have you not a few educated, accomplished, eloquent, splendid men who have
enough if Howard’s spirit to devote 10 years or a life to an untiring effort to raise to a pitch of
educational enthusiasm that they would be honored throughout the state in all time as highly as
St. Patrick is in Ireland. Could not something be done also toward furnishing libraries like those
in N.Y. State schools on specific conditions.
Your anniversary is approaching, It is a fit occasion to inquire, Is anything accomplished? It
might be said in reply that we cannot count up the results of moral as we can those of Military
achievement. When the soldier kills his man, he is there until he is counted, but the soldier of the
cross cannot tell how many under his preaching have been slain by the law and made alive by
Christ. Especially is this true among the roaming population of a newly settled country.
But it would be ungrateful to God not to acknowledge what he has permitted us to witness
with our own eyes.
Without any forecast on mine I was sent to this place 16 years ago. I remember the Sab.
morning I walked over the ground and for the want of a better plan for retirement and there
pleaded with my master his own promise Lo I am with you always & before I went into the bar
room to magnify his office and asset his claims to this service. I remember too that on one of my
preaching tours I ascended a high ridge over looking the Mississippi for many miles. It was a
magnificent sight. And I made my reflections audible: Lord Jesus I take possession of this while
land for thee and if Father Hennipin had previously claimed it for the Virgin Mary, it was a
usurpation which had long ??? given up for there was no one in all the region to defend his claim.
Now if we take the log cabin which served me 10 years for a church as the center of a circle
whose radius measures 200 miles, that circle 16 years ago would enclose not another clergyman
either Catholic or Protestant devoted exclusively to the cure of souls as far as I can recollect.
Now if we should reckon up only the Presbyterian & Congregational Ministers we should
doubtless find on that area from 1 to 200 and these intelligent self denying me 9/10 of whom have
been or are now sustained by your society and that to at less expense than the Florida War I trust
moreover in the eternal result that more souls will be saved than there were Seminoles killed. It is
the more economical investment!
In this mining country we have had a reinforcement of Missionaries within a few months
which has made our hearts glad (though we need more) and a work of grace has followed this
labour in 4 or 5 places. At Mineral Point God has wrought wondered for his name sake and in
looking over the country I cannot but admire the triumphs of divine grace in the recovery of some
who were among the most hopeless cases in our early history. From this meagre outline of what
God has done in our little corner of your great field, should not the friends of the missions thank
God and take courage.
Yours, etc.,
A. Kent
_________
Galena, Ill., Aug. 8, 1845
Dear Br.,
I have just had an interview with another student of the Mission Institute whose judgement I
respect. I inquired respecting Mr. W. Nichols. He said the Big Platte church where he belongs
were about to employ him, but he made inquiries concerning his success where he had laboured
(at Columbus) and found that he was very unacceptable. He was consulted by Mr. Nichols about
coming up here and he did not encourage it. Mr. Marks observed that his own report would
exhibit him as the most useful man in Presbytery. c.c. He has too high an idea of his own
usefulness. He does not doubt but that he is a good man.
I thought that this information might be seasonable is he should apply. But I shall expect that
he will come up here first : perhaps :
Mr. Parks babe is dead & we are well as usual:
Yours, etc.,
A. Kent
I think there is a disposition in our session to move toward colonizing - and that Mr. Marks
has made a favorable impression. Have you or Br. Badger a better man in your view for this
post{?}
_________
Galena, Ill., Sept. 15, 45
Dear Br.,
According to your request I give my opinion in the negative (see 873 case of Mr Warner.)
I have not heard much said about his labours at Mount Carroll. But I understand that he was
doing nothing and from all who know of his past efforts I have heard but one opinion that is
entirely inefficient. He said to me last time I saw him that he thought of quitting the ministry on
account of his health and I encouraged the idea as far as he gave me the opportunity. Br Peet
wrote me & expressed the wish that he would resign the ministry or take admission to some other
body.
Yours etc., A. Kent
N.B. I have heard that Br. Gray has preached at Mt Carroll but a letter from his wife recently
states that she was recovering and that he was quite sick with fever.
_________
Galena, Oct. 17, 45
Dear Br.,
Having returned in safety after a fortnight absence in company with Br. Downes to attend
Presbytery & Synod I will make a record of matters & things.
Presbytery met at Shannon we spent the Sabbath & Saturday previous there by request of Br.
Bliss but he was sick and his wife very sick and the whole settlement sick so that we could gather
scarcely a score to preach to. Br. B. brought a letter signed in due form by Elders & Trustees
requesting that he might be commissioned again. But a request came soon after by one of the
signers that we would not act until further instructions. We then (cc Br. Downs has been added to
the Com.) made some inquiries and ascertained that he was not acceptable as a preacher. And the
testimony was uniform both there and at Moline.
We had very small meetings both at P. & Synod at Galesburg. Sickness has prevailed to an
unusual extent in this region particularly about the water courses. It has been excessively hot and
dry i.e., the showers have been sufficient to keep the surface moist but the little streams are low
and many entirely dry.. I saw in my journey several old settlers sick who never had been sick
before.
On our return we came to Rock Island and there followed up the River. Dined with C. Spring
who was sick called on Mr. Hickcock at Moline who is well and from all that appears was doing
well. Called on Br. Jessup who with his family are well though every family in town is sick.
Spent a night in Savannah : All sick there : Br. Gray and wife & child are sick and have been
for 2 or 3 months. A child to be buried was brought to the house for religious services, he spoke
for 5 minutes and was exhausted. He has begun to build a house and had moved into it, but they
were obliged to be removed to the neighbors, for they could not take care of themselves and
others could not leave home to take care of them. So now they stay a few days in a place. He had
tried to work at his house until the Doctor has forbidden it., He cannot finish it and the neighbors
cannot help him. I believe that if some of our good people at the East knew his situation, they
would sent him 50 Dollars extra to finish his house for he cannot finish it himself and he cannot
do without it. The people there and at Mt. Carroll are anxiously waiting to have him resume his
preaching. He seems to have made a good impression where ever he has gone. I have felt it my
duty to make this representation.
But I have another statement to make as one of a Com. on Home Missions.
The subject was brought up in Synod and we are unanimous in the opinion that Agencies for
Home Missions are too large, and that if 4 or 5 were sustained in Ill., it would be a measure of
economy. We have therefore resolved to petition that the territory which is covered by our Synod
be divided from North to South and that Br. S.G. Wright be our Missionary agent and his labours
be confined to that district, and that another man be sent into his present field of labour. We think
that he will prepare the way of the Lord for introducing other labourers and that our church will
contribute towards his support.
The other members of the Com will report officially as soon as they have corresponded with
the Congre[ga]-tional bodies.
A remark was made in my hearing that Br. Badger sympathized strongly with
Congregationalists and in conformation it was said that he is endeavoring to give circulation to
the Puritan. I replied that I had never seen nor heard any thing of the kind. But I may observe here
that I do not think the Puritan is calculated to promote harmony, unless is changed from what my
limited reading has conceived.
Next week I propose Deo Volente to go in company with Br. Powell to Beloit to attend
another Col. Convention. Br. P. has preached here 2 Sabbaths during my absence with great
acceptance.
I was asked if he could not be had for the winter to supply our new Church until they can have
Mr. Marks of Quincy in the spring. I should regret having his mind diverted from his other field
and I regret that they should think of drawing Br. M. away.
Yours truly, A. Kent
__________
[Galena] Oct 12, 1846
At a meeting of Synod held at Belvidere, Boone Co., a committee consisting of Brethren Kent,
Bascom, Kellog, and Pendleton249[249] were instructed to renew the application made at their last
meeting to H. Miss. Society to appoint 3 agents in place of one for our state.
We think that our State is large enough and sufficiently populated to afford work for 3
efficient men and that one man labours to a great disadvantage in travelling over so large a field
without affording time to labour in any one place long enough to secure the object.
We think that each of the districts contemplated contains a multitude of churches and
settlements just in that condition as to need attention and that the labours of a judicious agent
would develop resources which would ultimately refund all that is now required for their support.
All of our experience proves that delays are prejudicial on account of the growing influence of
error and sectarianism and that it would be a saving of labour to furnish those agents while these
young communities are in the forming state.
A. Kent, Chairman of Comm.
The Brethren have left without aiding me much in preparing this communication. But Br.
Kellog expresses his opinion decidedly that Br. Crane is needed here more than in his present
field of labour.
__________
Galena, Ill., Oct. 19, 1846
Dear Brother,
I have been appointed a committee to request your committee that your agent Rev. S. Peet be
allowed to devote 2 months this winter in aid of “The Beloit College”. The facts stated in Br.
Hale’s letter have induced us to think that we ought to move with accelerated velocity towards the
commencement of a regular College course. And the trustees with much anxiety and trembling
have resolved by the blessing of God that they will commence next year. We hope therefore you
will see the propriety of granting our request. Br. Eaton preached once for me yesterday and is
gone this morning to visit his Brethren Downes, Powell and Lewis.
Yours in bonds of the gospel, A. Kent
_____
[Chapin papers- Beloit College]
Galena, Ill., Ap. 14, 1847
Dear Brother,
The Ex. Com. of Beloit College have requested me to call a special meeting of the Board of
Trustees at Beloit on the 8th of June at 7 p.m. to be present at the laying the corner stone and to
attend to such other business as may come before them.
Rev. H.G. Pendleton was a graduate of the Lane Theological Seminary who became the preacher of the
Granville Presbyterian Church at its inception in 1839. In August, 1844, a resolution of the Church was as follows:
“Resolved, That Br. H.G. Pendleton having served four years as stated supply, and at the end of the fourth year it was
decided by a large majority that he was not satisfactory to the Church on account of his pro-slavery sentiments, a
portion of the church deeply sympathize with him, and he had proved himself a laborious and faitgful minister.”
Pendleton served other churches in the same central Illinois region, for example he was at Henry and Providence in
1848. The Henry Female Seminary was founded on the efforts of Rev. Pendleton, and Kent was very impressed with
Pendleton”s energy. Teachers for the Seminary were brought west from the Holyoke (Mass.) Female Seminary. The
Henry school flourished until the financial collapse of 1857, after which the rise of public education supplanted the
need for such schools. Ellsworth, Spencer: Records of Olden Time. Lacon, Ill: Home Journal Steam Printing
Establishment, 1880. p. 283-4.
249[249]
They also request me to suggest that the meeting on the 4 Monday will not be necessary and I
shall dispense with it so far at least as to stay away myself.
The reasons assigned are that they will not be ready sooner and they look for better
attendance.
They have appointed Mr. Hinman financial agent and Superintendent of building.
Yours affectionately,
A. Kent
___________
Freeport, April 23, 1847
Dear Brother,
There is no little suffering endured by some of our Brethren in consequence of not receiving
the aid which they have anticipated from your society. Brethren Gray and Powell are among the
sufferers the latter you will hear from in 2 or 3 weeks, the former must be heard now. He made
application in due manner and time to receive an appropriation of 200 dollars from you
commencing with the 3rd of November, and has come to the conclusion that you did not intend to
grant his request for he thinks from a clause in some letter he has received that he has evidence
that you have received his application but we presume that his letter has never reached you.
We think therefore that we should urge you to grant his request and forward the money
immediately as he has been compelled to leave his appropriate work and labour with his hands 6
days in the week. We have entire confidence in this Brother’s ability and acceptableness and
should be grieved if his wants were not relieved without further delay. We have experienced
much difficulty in consequence of applications for aid being sent to individual members of the
Com. without their having opportunity to consider with their coadjutators or to get additional
light by seeing some person resident in the neighborhood.
To remedy that evil we have requested their applications to be handed into us at the stated
meeting of Presb.
A. Kent
John Downer
C. Waterbury
______
[Chapin Papers- Beloit College]
Galena, May 5/47
Dear Br.,
It is my official duty at the request of the Ex. Com. to inform the Trustees of the Beloit
College that the meeting of the board will be postponed again from the 8th to the 22nd of June.
They seem to have some to that decision reluctantly for reasons which they deem sufficient.
Great questions in their estimation will come up.
Yours in the best bonds,
A. Kent250[250]
The Board was in the process of attempting to found the Female Seminary. They obtained a charter from the
state of Illinois on Feb. 25, 1847. The charter icluded this important clause: “also, to have power to confer on thise
250[250]
_____
[Chapin Papers- Beloit College]
Galena 29 June 47
Dear Br.,
After spending the Sabbath at Winslow to supply Br. Hazzard’s lack of service, I reached
home and had a long conversation with Br. Spees, which I though worthy of reporting.
He manifested a lively interest in the west and the College effort. And in answer to his
enquiries I stated to him confidentially of whom we had spoken for president and professors that I
might avail myself of his knowledge and judgement.
He rather gave preference to Dr. Riddle and at my particular request he expressed his opinion
that Dr. William Adams of the Brown St. Church New York would be the best man in the U.S.
for that office. He named Brainard of Philadelphia.
In the course of conversation he indicated that he was disposed to some to the west as the field
of greater usefulness. That he had looked forward to a professorship of Languages (and had been
shaping his studies for it) if he could be situated as to go out and preaching on the Sabbath and
that he would be willing to take that office in our college with the understanding that he should
first spend a year in obtaining funds while his services might not be needed in the institution. For
this I should think him particularly fitted on several accounts.
I thought it important that this should be known to my coadjutors and that it might influence
their movements in another direction.
For qualifications he referred me to Dr. Nott and Professor Yates of Union Col., Dr. White
and Dr. Adams of New York,, Hon. Willard Hall of Delaware.
Dr. White might be consulted as to the expediency of appointing Dr. Adams and the
probability of his accepting.
Brother Chapin, what think you of these suggestions? I thought I would whisper them to you
and if it should meet your views you may name it to our secretary.
Br. Spees is going to St. Louis - his address is Cincinnati.
Yours in haste for I have piles of letters to answer.
A. Kent
____
[Chapin Papers- Beloit College]
Galena July 28, 1847
Dear Br.,
I send this to you as one of the Committee of Correspondence and you can bring it up at our
next meeting.
whom they may deem worthy all such honors and degrees as are usually conferred in similar institutions.” This opened
the door to the possibility of college degrees. Competition for the seminary came from Pecatonica, Elgin, Belvidere,
and Freeport.Townsend, Lucy Forsyth: The Best Helpers of One Another: Anna Peck Sill and the Struggle for
Women”s Education. Dekalb: Department of Leadership and Educational Policy Studies, Northern Illinois University,
in cooperation with Educational Studies Press, 1988. p. 37-39.
I received your letter in reply to my former letter and am not disposed to dissent from the
views you expressed, but we must endeavor to get all the light we can obtain and we shall have
enough of darkness to wade through even then.
It is very likely that after our utmost care a few years will reveal many mistakes that will
admit of no cure and will only tax our patience.
Yours truly,
A. Kent
__________
Galena, Ill., Sept. 10, 1847
Dear Brother,
Your letter is before me, and it must be answered. I have revolved the subject over and over
and regard it a very responsible agency.
I have not felt at liberty to answer in the affirmative but I should mistake the favorable opinion
of men whom I respect for the will of Him who placed me here and who only is authorized to
remove me. I am afraid to answer in the negative lest I should seem to be more concerned for my
personal comfort than for Zion’s prosperity.
There are difficulties that weigh with me and I will state them and wait for further light.
I am settled down comfortably in one extreme corner of the field and cannot transfer my
family to a central frontier. My wife is reluctant to remove and is feeble and not likely to enjoy
good health soon. My position therefore will render it necessary that my expenses should be
greater and my periods of absence longer than if Galena were more central.
I do not covet notoriety but on the contrary shrink from those sever strictures which such men
are obliged to endure.
I am not adapted to the work. It requires a man of great fenestrations and I am not quick in any
pleasing human character. It is the business of your agent to find the man and adapt them to the
field, for to go over the ground and report the distributions will avail nothing. You have already
more vacancies than you can supply. Am I not right in saying that the apportionment of ministers
at the West is so unequal to that in the Eastern States that we should be justified in taking almost
any man from his post at the East because they can easily obtain another to fill his place. An
agent then should explore his field and having ascertained its wants, should go to the East and not
only visit the Seminaries to obtain young men but should be justified in persuading the best
pastors to leave their work where they are restricted to township limits and come West where they
can mould the character of whole counties whose population is doubling every 5 years- justified
in saying to such men the “Lord hath need of thee” But I am not eloquent in that line. It demands
the soul of Peter and the energies of Cornelius or Evarts to plead for the west and persuade them
to the self-denial of such a removal.
You have misjudged in respect to my acquaintance and influence. I am known is 2 counties in
Wisconsin and 3 or 4 in Ill. You think I should be acceptable to the people generally. The
Congregationalists will suspect me of favoring the Presbyterians and the strong abolitionists
would turn cold shoulder, I have read over what is said of the duties of an agent but yet on a
closer inspection of the office I am at a loss to know how to act without more specific instructions
and if my own mind was satisfied it would still be a problem whether I could satisfy the people.
My theory has ever been to go where Providence shall direct but it is not easy to distinguish
between the leadings of Providence and the bias of my own mind.
I shall hope to hear further from you and myself to be guided aright.
Yours as ever,
A. Kent
There are many beautiful localities in this Prairie-land but there is one spot that I have always
admired. It is a ridge of prairie which puts into Elk Grove from the north and from which you
look off upon the 3 Platte mounds that lift their bald fronts to a southern exposure. The landscape
exceeds in beauty any I ever saw, At that point, when a missionary of your society, I once
alighted from the fatigues of my journey to spend the night on the log tavern. I was annoyed with
the practices which prevailed and I succeeded in persuading the proprietor to abandon the traffic
in ardent spirit and afterwards as I occasionally preached in the Grove I regretted that so
delightful a spot should be wholly devoid of any good moral influence and that its leading men
stand aloof.
Years rolled away and 2 days since I again visited Elk Grove, and entered that log-house. The
tavern has become a sanctuary and its whitened walls and temporary accommodations presented
an aid and comfort.
It was an Ecclesiastic meeting, Six of your missionaries were there and 4 of them have the
prospect of being soon installed as pastors. Twelve or fourteen churches represented there were
organized by their instrumentality and all within the district which once constituted my
missionary field. It was then a moral waste, for we could gather at that time from the whole area
but six individuals to organize The First Presbyterian Church.
It was a Communion season. They had come together to break bread. The company of
disciples were enlivened by the return from his journey of the Pastor of this church and 2 of those
leading men who once stood aloof were office bearers in the church and brought in the
sacramental elements.
My eyes affect my heart and when called to administer at the Lord’s table I could not but
exclaim, What hath God Wrought.
The labours of your missionaries have, with God’s blessing, produced these results; and that it
is a genuine work of God’s spirit I will cite another incident to prove.
At the house where I spent the night found one of those converts in alot of pain and distress.
She had suffered long, but she was cheerful. I saw her sometime since when she was full of
apprehension that she might be deceived. But now her doubts were all removed and she had no
choice whether to live or to die. Her feelings were similar to those of a coloured woman who said
to me last week on her sick bed: “If my Lord would but come for me, I would hardly look back to
see whether earth’s iron gate were shut after me.”
If there be one of your patrons who doubts whether his contributions to Home Missionary
Society are well appropriated I would that he could have been at that communion table. For
myself I can say that the most splendid Gothic structure with it marble and cushioned seats and
curtained pulpit and silver toned organ could never yield me the exquisite please I enjoyed in one
hour spent in that sanctified tavern.
A. Kent
_________
Galena, Ill., Oct. 23, 1847
Dear Br.,
I have just returned from another tour (to Beloit & to Stephenson Co. where our Presbytery
met) and was disappointed at getting no answer to my letter of enquiry which I perceive you have
had published (and in which there is a typographical error- “If my Lord would come for me”makes the sentiment beautiful- “comfort me” spoil the sentence.) I think if your mind laboured as
mine has done with the question which you have sprung upon me you would not long delay an
answer.
We have dismissed from our Presbytery Brs. Norton and Waterbury. And we have need that
God should strengthen the things that remain and are ready to die.
Br Henry[?] was with me 2 weeks since. He has been very ill for 2 months, and I suppose
from fear of giving others trouble - I have urged him to stay with me but he declines. One night
he went went, after preaching, to find a lodging with his brother and at the lights went out he laid
him down on a pile of manure (supposing it hay) and from the dampness he caught cold which
brought on the sickness and has prostrated for the time his iron frame. I have urged him to come
over and explore this region where I suspect he could accomplish more than at Dubuque, but he
fears to do so without your direction. Please advise him if you judge best to spend some weeks
exploring Northern Ill. and perhaps some in Wisconsin.
Yours affectionately,
A. Kent
[Margin] I regret that I cannot copy and remodel this whole communication.
____________
Galena, Nov. 17, 1847
Rev. & Dear Brother,
The subject of our correspondence has been long now before my mind to demand of me a
definite reply. After vacillating from one side to the other according as various reasons and
influences have operated I have gradually inclined to one side until the conclusion has been
reached that the providence of God seems to me to foresee my acceptance of this agency, which
in flattering terms you have repeatedly pushed upon me.
At the same time I regard it in light of an experiment and consent to spend 3/4 of the time for
one year, reserving 1/4 to serve my own people, because they utterly refuse an immediate
divorce, in the present internal posture of our affairs. Our church having been greatly reduced by
the diversion of members not only to the 2 churches in town but also by great numbers having
gone to churches which have started into being within 2 or 3 years in this vicinity.
The project they have hit upon is to employ a young man as an assistant for the present and
Mr. Neil has already been informally invited to serve them and he has taken it into consideration,
which will [put] Elizabeth in a state of destitution, which must be supplied to quiet Br Downer.
I have come to this decision under the full view of responses to which I shall be
subjected.......[a long passage is illegible due to faded ink]
[On verso] I break the seal to say that Br. Neil has refused to preach for us and I know not
how long I may struggle to supply our people.
A. Kent
__________
Galena, Feb. 14, 1848
Dear Br.
A considerable time has elapsed since I wrote signifying my decision to engage in the work
which you suggested and I have also declared the decision to my people, and this situation is one
of no little embarrassment in the struggle it will involve to sustain 3 Presb. Churches. They
depend in me for present supply and I cannot break away from them without some previous
notice. It seems to me therefore important that I should understand the views of your Committee
more in detail that I may have time to make arrangements without unnecessarily prejudice to
other interests.
I should not however have written you but I thought possibly my letter has not been received
or had been overlooked amidst the many letters you receive, for I believe that it is some three
months since I wrote.
Yours, etc.,
A. Kent
_________
Galena, March 16/48
Dear Brother,
I have received your letter requesting me to give some account of Northern Ill. with a view to
publication. But I cannot think that I ought to attempt any such thing short of a year from this
time. It would certainly be out of place for me to appear in your report again until I have
something to say.
I feel greatly embarrassed also from the position in which I have been left for some months.
I was requested by Br. Badger to accept an agency for your society and assumed that when I
has consented to serve, the further preliminaries would be settled. I examined the question of duty
and decided to engage in your service and was obliged of course to notify my people of the fact
and since that time hence waited for a commission, until my friends here as well as myself are
wondering but what is the cause of the delay. I anticipate a good many unpleasant things in such
an agency and not the least that some will be willing enough to say ye take too much upon you ye
sons of Levi, especially if I begin to move before I have a formal commission. I have had one
such rebuff already which is quite enough to serve me for some time.
I wrote on the 14 of Feb. to remind Br. Badger of my embarrassment but as yet have heard no
response, and began to think that perhaps objections has come in from some of the Br. on the
field, which led your committee to hesitate about the expediency of the measure. And I travelled
over the ground last fall in order to give the Brethren the fullest opportunity to object of they
should see cause. And if such objections exist I have a little field, formerly occupied by Br.
Littlefield which I have been cultivatng this winter and to which I can retreat with the hope of
being both useful and happy.
But a decision I must be allowed to insist on as soon as shall comport with the convenience of
your respected Committee.
The people here will depend on me as long as they can and that without the prospect of pay or
usefulness or at least the prospect is but dim.
I have written in great haste but hope that amidst the press of business you will not over look
their considerations.
Yours affectionately, A. Kent
P.S. I thank you for naming Mr. Atterbury. I hope you will continue to think of us. Dr.
Newhall’s wife was buried today and I have not communicated with him.
___________
Galena, Ill., April 8/48
Dear Br.
We seem not to understand one and oother and I will explain.
In the first letter of Br. B. I was told that if I would consent to asct as your agent, the details
would be made satisfactory afterwards and in his second letter the same thing was repeated. I
offered my consent to the society in reply to which I heard nothing more until I received your last
inviting me to provide something for your annual report, and in that you gave me no details
except some suggestions about the limits of my field to the south.
I then wrote espressing my surprise and embarrassment that I had waited 3 or 4 months and
had received no details and no commission, expressing my unwillingness to act until I received a
formal commission, and giving (hastily indeed) some reasons for this unwillingness.
In your last of March 22 you supposed I have received all the necessary details and then add,
“Please to make then (i.e., other details) the subject of special inquiry and we will do our best to
answer them.”
Now I begin to see where the misunderstanding is you have taken for granted that I understand
fully the very thing and the only thing on which my mind laboured. I have no trouble about
raising collections for your society, for I feel willing to preach on that subject whenever it seems
to me to be a duty, and I think I can raise enough or nearly so to pay the agent.
I have no trouble about the salary for if you give me too much I can refund it and if you give
me too little for the support of my family (which you will not be apt to do being yourselves
dependent on the same means of support) I can fall back upon the income of my patrimony which
is devoted to purposes of general benevolence and which you will not feel at liberty to draw upon,
and here I might throw in a few words to show that our accustomed economy will not sustain us
when I am away from home more of the time.
I have a sick wife and 5 children to provide for at an expensive age, one 22, one 18, one 14,
one 13, one 10 and one 8 years old, and within 24 hours this week I had 5 of your missionaries
together with 3 of their wives, along with 3 horses. I have to practice hospitalityand make no
complaint, and only glance at other things to show that my expenses will not be lessened by the
agency. But I am entitled to a living while I labour for H[ome Missionary Society] and if it is not
furnished by H. Society, it will still be within my reach.
I have but little trouble about the limits of the field, though I still think that I can do more
good by confining my labours to the 14 northern counties. But I do not intend to be obstinate. But
the one thing that bothers me is that you do not define my position further. The details I expect
were in your report on the duties of an agent. I supposed that in my commission you would
instruct your agent to do certain things, so that when he was thought to be taking too much upon
himself he might produce his credentials. I have read over the duties of an agent in your last
report, but I imagined that the details to which you refer would be a more particular enumeration
of an agent’s duties.
I would gladly be excused from giving an opinion of Br. Gilbert's probable usefulness. He is a
good Br., so dar as I know, and I know nothing to his prejudice, but a lamentable destitution of
energy. He can preach well and I should think that if he were to fall in with a substantial working
church who would stand by and encourage him, he might yet do well. But he is not fitted to guide
a ship in a storm, and hence is nothing else at Buffalo Grove. You may smile at my illustration,
but if we could place him under an exhausted excercise and supply him with pure oxigen [sic] or
let him breathe ether, he would become efficient.
Agents duties: Let me explain my embarrassment by an illustration. In approving a
missionary's application I suggested that he should visit some out-posts more and rewrite his
report and give you a more detailed account. He was quite displeased and intimated that I was
wanting in sympathy for poor missionaries. The only thing I dread is this treading on the toes of
good men, and I thought it would aid me to have instructions as much in detail as might be.
A reason (which you perhaps do not appreciate but which has greatly influenced my
judgement) for confining my labours to the 14 northtern counties is that the rail road and canal
going through them will occasion a rush to northern Ill. for the next five years. This will require
attention of an agent to take advantage of circumstances and act promptly. Dear Br., I hope I have
given you a clear view of my difficulties and embarrassments.
Yours affectionately,
A. Kent
__________
Galena, May 29, 1848
Rev. & Dear Sir:
I have just reached home after an absence of 19 days and while I regret having taxed your
patience with writing so long a communication I am happy to say that it is quite satisfactory, for it
gives me the authority to which I can appeal and upon which I can fall back when I have occasion
to say things to missionaries and churches which they will not like to hear. Indeed the suggestions
will be of great use in guiding my agency.
In respect to salary, $500 will be sufficient to cover our annual expenditures (for we mean to
practice economy as a virtue), and I do not wish anything more than a support. My eyes are very
weak and I cannot write or read much at present. I am apprehensive that I shall not be able to
cover much during the long hot days of summer, for several days past I have rode from 5 to 9 and
laid by during the middle of the day.
I have made you some trouble in removing my embarrassments, but I will give you a brief
summary from my journal as a specimen of my way [of] operating.
I have travelled during the last 19 days 300 miles (98 of which was along the banks of Rock
River), visited 32 families and 8 ministers, preached 10 times to 7 different congregations
destitute of the regular administration of Presbyterian preaching, distributed a respectable
quantity of tracts and bound volumes, and engaged 4 or 5 persons to undertake the work of
systematic monthly tract distribution in the country which will serve 100 families. I have also
visited the 2 departments of the high school at Geneseo and addressed the pupils and prayed with
them. I have moreover spent 2 days at Beloit, during which time we appointed 2 professors for
the College and took measures to move forward boldly in the great and responsive effort of
establishing that infant institution on a permanent basis.
You will not expect so minute a report ordinarily, but I thought you would be interested in
what has greatly interested me.
I obtained one subscription for the “Home Missionary”. His address is Dea. J. Powers, Gap
Grove, Ill., and the dollar which he paid I expended in paying my expenses at the tavern in Dixon,
Lee. Co., whence I spent Sabbath (May 21), and I accomplished something for I not only
preached twice in the Methodist Church, but I shamed some of the people and obtained a standing
invitation to partake of the hospitality of God : and that may be of use to me as I pass the river at
that point in future journeys. That 120 cents, together with 20 cents for toll there, was all that I
expended during the trip including 4 times crossing Rock River. If you will therefore send the
Dea. your paper for one year without charge to me, I will charge nothing for expenses on my first
trip as your agent.
Yours, etc.,
A. Kent
__________
[Freeport, Ill., July 26, 1848]
[Salutation missing]
There is a beautiful spot in the prairie on the side of a grove, where a discreet and devoted
missionary of good abilities may find a home and a hearty welcome. It is in the immediate
vicinity of 2 intelligent families who know the heart of a stranger and who will not suffer him to
want any good thing. It is an eminently healthy situation and one to be desired for its prospective
natural advantages. It is presumed from present appearances that the population on that prairie
will increase 50 per cent annually, and the assurance is boldly given that such a preacher will
secure a congregation of 150 at his regular Sabbath appointment. Where is the hardship of Home
Miss. life when such a fields lie neglected for want of labourers?
There is another center of 5 or 6 miles distance where a Presb. Church is organized, and where
such a minister might gather another congregation equally large in the afternoon of the same
Sabbath, and where he might obtain 50 or 100 Dollars for his services. Such a minister might
reasonably expect, with God’s blessing, in 5 or 10 years to build two strong churches where is
chaos, (or at least at one of those points).
Should the missionary be a single man, one family offers to furnish board and a study without
charge.
I dare not mention the locality lest it should induce men to throw churches in there who cannot
find a support at the East, and who come out to this country without commission as
encouragement from your committee.
We wish all who come to fall in with existing ecclesiastical organizations, whether
Congregational or Presbyterian, and not disturb the peace of the churches and wound the feelings
of the old settlers by requiring us to conform to their views.
The field I have described is Waddam’s Grove251[251] 15 miles west of Freeport and 35 miles
east of Galena, and, next to Freeport, is the most populous precinct in this populous and wealthy
county. Its county (not Freeport) is building 100 brick houses this year.
If Mr. Geo. Clark is still in the city, Mr. Hallock will be pleased to show this to him. If not, I
shall have relieved my own mind by making this statement.
Yours truly,
A.K.
________
[Not in Kent's hand]
Galena, Aug. 14, 1848
To the Secretaries of the Am. Home Miss. Soc., New York
73
The second claim in Stephenson County was made by William Waddams of New York in 1832, where he built a
small “claim house”. Johnston, W.J.: Sketches of the History of Stephenson County, Ill. Freeport, Il. 1854. In Erin
Township of Stephenson County a few miles from Waddams” Grove was the Village of Kent. According to a forty year
resident of Kent, the town was named “...for an old preacher boy from the horse and buggy days.”
Dear Brethren,
The Rev. Charles A. Behrends, an ordained minister of the German Reformed Church, having
lately come among us to labor at Galena & other places on the vicinity among our German
population & there being a necessity of obtaining some missionary aid in order that he may be
sustained in his work. We wish to make a few statements in respect to his mission here to the
Executive Comm. of the A. H. Miss. Soc. through you.
There must be in this city between five & six hundred Germans. It is proposed that Bro.
Behrends also labor at “Small Pox” - a precinct eight miles east & at Tete de Mort in Iowa, six
miles west, where Bro. Henry has heretofore preached, coming a distance of sixteen miles. At
Small Pox there are two hundred Germans & at Tete de Mort about a hundred more. This
excludes the Catholic Germans. Altogether about a thousand Germans can be reached, more or
less, directly by this Mission. The prospect is, too, that Tete De Mort will be exclusively settled
by Germans ere long.
Many of these Germans at all these points have been connected hitherto with the “Reformed”
& “Lutheran” Churches. They will probably unite as in other places in an “Evangelical” Church :
to induce those who give satisfactory evidence of piety : to unite in a church organization & there
is a disposition to do so.
The congregations at all these points are very encouraging. Sixty attended on the first Sabb.
Bro. B. preached here : and eighty the next. Bro. Henry has had here in the winter season : as
many as a hundred & forty & a hundred & fifty. At Small Pox Bro. B. had sixty yesterday : and at
Tete de Mort : Bro. Henry had a congregation of seventy or eighty before the Bishop forbade the
Catholics to attend & now has forty or fifty. Many more will attend these places when the
appointments become settled & regular.
Yesterday Bro. Behrends requested a subscription to be taken up by those willing to sustain
Evangelical preaching : $43 was subscribed in the city congregation & $24 at Small Pox. At Tete
de Mort nearly $50 was subscribed for Br. Henry. Altogether something on $100 will be raised in
the three places. In a year or two they will do a great deal better. The last year & present are
difficult years in respect to raising subscriptions among an emigrant population owing to lands
coming into market, etc. etc.
Bro. Behrends comes to us from Pennsylvania having been ordained by Lebanon Classes of
the Ger. Ref. Church at Palmyra 13th of May. His theological studies during the past year have
been persued at Mercersburg, but previously at Arnhem in Holland in a theological school which
grew out of the ejection of certain ministers by the National Synod in 1834. We have confidence
in him as an Evangelical, pious, & devoted minister of Christ. He has commenced his work
energetically in this city & his prospects of usefulness are promising. The Germans have hitherto
been almost entirely neglected, and as their number and importance increases, it is very important
that they be supplied with suitable ministers. We think Bro. B. such a one & calculated to do a
work exceedingly needed among them. In additon to his Sabbath labors here in the forenoon & at
Small Pox in the aft, he has commenced a Wednesday evening prayer meeting & a friday evening
lecture. At the latter service some infidels attend.
Now : Brethren: can you not pledge to this Misision $300 for the coming year? You know
something of the importance of this point as a commercial city rapidly increasing in population,
wealth, etc., etc. The Germans form a doubly interesting & exceedingly important portion of our
population. They are in the main industrious, prudent, orderly artisans & offer peculiar
opportunities of usefulness to a faithful minister of Christ. We are persuaded that upon no field in
this vicinity occupied either by American or foreign emigrants could your liberality be more
wisely bestowed & we hope that this earnest appeal may not be in vain,
Geo. Magoun (2nd chh.)
F. Henry (Dubuque)
Monday afternoon. I concur fully with the views expressed and had previously arrived at the
same conclusions with respect to the man and the field so far as opportunity had been afforded
me but I thought better to defer action for 2 or 3 weeks that we might know more of the man and
he more of the public and their ability and had made provision to supply him in certain necessities
(He has a wife and 4 little boys). I know no reason however to defer action.
Yours, A. Kent
p.s.: I has a long conversation upon his religious views and regard him truly pious.
[not in Kent’s hand]
As Bro. Henry happened to be present coincidentally we have requested him to join us in this
testimony & recommendation. He will write further on the subject in his next report.
Bro. Behrends commenced his labor July 30th, a commission had better last from that time or
the first Sabbath in August.
I think it proper to say further that Bro. Behrends does not share at all in the speculative High
Churchism which as is very well known prevails at Mercersburg to some degree. He was advised
by Don Schass not to apply for aid to the A. H. M. Soc. : but he choose to do so from a liberal
evangelical sympathy with the denominations who sustain the Soc. He is in the New England
sense an evangelical man.
G. M.
_____________
Napiersville, Aug. 29, 1848
Dear Br.
On my return from Chicago I wish to say things which I shall be in danger of forgetting if they
are not passed on.
I spent a Sabbath at Byron in exchange with Br. Gemmel who had engaged to explore for me,
Como, a village springing up below Dixon on Rock River. The people ar Byron say in
exculpation of their continuing to ask aid :they are poor: they have been building a church and
they intend to reduce their draft 50 dollars a year.
Being obliged to return by that route to get a lame horse, I made an opportunity to spend a
Sabbath at Sycamore 30 miles east where Br. Norton preached. He has left because he could not
say Shibboleth to their antislavery creed. A minority are greatly grieved and all are quite
discouraged about finishing their church which stands with only a roof to cover the timbers, and
yet that is the only church of our denomination in a county (Dekalb) of 6 or 700 inhabitants.
I thought it would be opportune to spend a Sabbath there and attend their church meeting the
day before.
I called on Br. Savage and spent a night with Br. Sikes and reached Chicago next day and
preached on Home Missions to the 1st and 2nd Churches.252[252]
The AM. H. Miss. Soc.'s attempt to staddle the issue of slavery, and Kent”s own thinly veiled distain for
abolitionists caused some Ministers to decline contributing financial support. See, for example, the following letter the
Soc. by Deacon Philo Carpernter of Chicago:
Chicago, March 6, 1849
Gentlemen:
252[252]
I had several interviews with the Brethren Walker, Peterson and Bascom and obtained
information. I urged Br. Wilcox to resume his ministerial duties and visited him to return to our
part of the state. Br. Walker stated that the application from B?? grove had been rejected. This I
regret as the report has reached us that Br. Gilbert is acceptable and useful there and Br. Gillam of
the church in Bristol, Kane Co., states that he has labored there 2 years and boarded with him and
that he was an acceptable and useful preacher though not energetic. Br. Brown with whom I lodge
has not received an answer to his application for aid.
We rode out together to call on Br. Porter of DuPage, but we was out visiting his people. They
are agitating the question of building a church.
In distributing your reports I gave one to Br. H. Brown, who expressed surprise that Br.
Coleman had reported a revival at Big Woods as he lived within 5 or 6 miles and has heard
nothing of it.
I spent a day or two with Br. Bergen at Big Rock and engaged to visit him in October and
assist in a protracted meeting if it should be thought best, and I hope at that time to get further
north on the canal and below, but in the Providence of God “I have been let hitherto.”
Galena, Sept. 6: I filled my appointments and reached home Sept. 6 in time to attend
Presbytery for the installation of Br. Magoun : Br. Geo. Clark was waiting for me. He has visited
St. Louis and Rock Island and Shullsburg and inclines to locate at R. Island, to which I have
earnestly urged him as things are at a crisis there which makes it exceedingly important that they
should be supplied instantly. In my judgement (and I have spent a Sabbath there) there is a great
door of usefulness opened and Br. Osborne (backed by Bro. Purventon, firm of Purventon &
King, formerly of Warren, O.) writes that he is the very man for them and he thinks they can raise
500 or more for him. But I think he should be commissioned and helped by your society because
they may be obliged to make an immediate and very great effort to build a meeting house.
Sept. 14: Br. Clark leaves tomorrow for Boston to bring out a help-mate.
Sept. 10: Spent Sabbath with the little Church on Apple River where I have engaged to
administer the Communion of the 24th. The next Sabbath I am to preach at Waddam’s Grove of
A circular setting forth the wants of A.H.M. Society has been received. In reply permit me to to state frankly that I have
deliberately formed the purpose not to aid any society hereafter which in any way directly lends it influence to build up
or support a slave holding Christianity.
This I believe your Society is doing as far as you furnish Missionaries to labour with and for slave holding churches.
Not that these Brethren design to accomplish this object. But in the same way with a negative influence, that those good
men have dome in the Cherokee and Chactaw nations. Do you say that if the slave holding states are passed by in your
missionary labors, a large field is left uncultivated? That is true, but were not the Apostles instructed that when they
were not permitted to preach the tracts in one place, to go to another? The field is wide and the salvation of men is as
important in other localities as in the states where Christian men buy & sell human flesh.
In a personal conversation with one of your missionaries who has labored for years in the slave states, now in Missouri,
he states to me that a missionary could not preach faithfully more than half of the Gospel in a slave state. Now in my
opinion it is this kind of preaching & negative influence that has caused slavery to propagate itself, and spread its
controling & withering influence so extensively throughout the land and church.
Yours for the purity of the Church & the conversion of the world to Christ,
Philo Carpenter]
Philo Carpenter was born in Savoy, Mass., in 1805. He received some training in the medical field as a preceptee of a
physician in Troy, New York, but used his knowledge to enter the drug trade. He went to Chicago to enter the
merchantile business in 1832. When he arrived he found no evidence of Sabbath keeping, and he established the first
Sunday School. He entered into the real estate business in Chicago and amassed a sizeable fortune. He was active in the
founding of the First Prebyterian Church of Chicago and later joined the Third Presbyterian Church. In 1851 a major
conflict erupted in that Church over the slavery issue, and a portion of the membership was expelled. Carpenter was
then the major financial benefactor in the organization of the First Congregational Church on May 22, 1851. He
donated more than $50,000 to this church, so his withdrawal of support from the A.H.M.S. was not inconsequential. He
also was an early leader in public education in Chicago and was a founding Director of the Chicago Theological
Seminary. The Biographical Encyclopedia of Illinois. Philadelphia: Galaxy Publishing Co., 1875.
which I wrote to you recently, We want men adapted to go into new fields and willing to labour
in such fields.
I have engaged to visit the Pinery on the St. Croix and assist Br. Boutwell253[253] the first of
October. Perhaps a church may be organized.
Yours affectionately,
A. Kent
_______________
Galena, Sept. 7, 1848
Rev. Chas. Hall, D.D.,
Dear Sir,
Brother Jessup is embarrassed with the conditions of his last commission, and he has applied
to us for advice in the case.
We do not consider the church at Elk Horn Grove blamable for the delay of the application.
One was forwarded to one of us in due season, but it could not be acted on properly till our
meeting of presbytery at the last of April. It was then found defective and another was presented
with suitable promptness.
We have considered the circumstances of this case and do advise that the appropriation
amounting to seventy five dollars for the first six months of the year be paid Br. Jessup without
regard to the action of the church with respect to the salary, but that the condition of the
commission shall hold good for the last six months; viz that he receive $75 for that term on the
condition that the church pay him Fifty Dollars for that period.
Yours truly,
A.J. Downes
A. Kent
_____________
Upper Mississippi, Oct. 1848
“Men of Israel help.” Send us a pioneer missionary for “there remaineth very much land to be
possessed.”
After repeated solicitations, I have made an exploring tour into the borders of the new territory
of Minnesota. It is pronounced Mena-sota and its meaning is given me by an intelligent traveller
is “water slightly turbid”. It is a name which the Indians have given to the stream canonized by
the Romanists as a Saint (St. Peters River). I question if St. Peter or St. Paul or St. Anthony feel
themselves complemented by such associations with the vices of the Indians and frontier whites
and more than Washington does by having his name painted over a grog-shop.
This territory is beginning to attract attention and affords inducements which will ensure the
rush of adventurers in that direction for years or until the railway continues from Galena on and
on towards the Pacific shall invite immigrants again in the accustomed western course . Since the
land was opened in July $9000 has been paid in.
W.T. Boutwell was an early missionary to the wilds on Northern Minnesota. He accompanied Schoolcraft on
the expedition to discover the source of the Mississippi River. His knowledge of Latin suggested the words “veritas”
and “caput” for “true head”. Schoolcraft then “invented” the contraction “Itasca” for the name of the lake that is the
headwater of the Father of Waters.
253[253]
It is eminently a healthy region, the southern border being in latitude 43 30'. The winters are
severe but the air is dry and bracing and a residence there is on the whole as comfortable and
pleasant as at the South where the humidity of the atmosphere and the frequent alterations of
weather render exposure more dangerous. The summers are short but vegetation comes on with
great rapidity, and the productions of the earth arrive sooner at maturity. The extensive lumber
business offers great inducements to farmers who in supplying so many consumers will find an
excellent market for many years.
In going up, our boat, 175 feet long, discharged its emigrant passengers at every important
point together with their “plunder”, provisions & implements of husbandry “according as every
man had need.” At one place mill irons, at another flour and materials for a house, and at several
places oxen for the Pineries. In one instance their was just equal to those driven by Elisha, when
elisha cast his mantle upon him, and when I think how difficult it is to secure a minister adapted
to these distant out posts, I am ready to cry out, Would God that some of those teamsters might
become prophets, that would as rapidly leave their occupation and go forth to reach the Gospel,
and mould the character of these infant communities. And, methinks, the change in some of them
would be as surprising as in that notable instance when it became a Proverb.
On the St. Croix River there are 4 settlements, one of which Stillwater at the head of the lake
(or expansion in the River) 25 miles long contains some 200 inhabitants and promises soon to be
a considerable village where a church of 15 members may be gathered and where a ministry
permanent residence is greatly desired. On the Mississippi 18 miles west of Stillwater is St. Paul,
a french village which is beginning to excite notice. From its relative position being equi-distant
from Fort Snelling and St. Anthony Falls, it promises to be an Albany when St. Anthony becomes
a Lowell. It is the landing place for the government stores that go up to the new fort which is
being built at the mouth of Crow Wing River 120 miles above Fort Snelling on the Mississippi to
convey which 60 wagons are now employed.
It is expected also that St. Paul will be made the seat of territorial government and already
within a year the American families here increased from 3 to 20.
It seems desirable that a missionary should be sent speedily and there are some 8 or 10 little
settlements which he might visit occasionally until others could be sent to his aid. The great water
power at the falls of St. Anthony is already used for making lumber. I should have mentioned that
a Methodist minister has established a circuit and Red Rock some miles below St. Paul is the
place of his mission.
My trip up this river has been delightful. The scenery is grand and beautiful i the summer
season, But there is a finish of autumnal beauty at this moment that no description can equal. I
have tried to describe it to my friends but will not occupy you with my fancies, Do but send us
the missionary and I will leave it to others to paint the landscape.
__________________
Galena Oct 11, 1848
Dear Brethren:
I have just had a long conversation with Mr. Behrends and the German colporteurs and they
state that a minister is greatly needed at Davenport as Br. Adams has written in the Aug. No. The
Col. refers you to his letter. He says there are 50 protestant German families in Davenport and 50
or more in the vicinity and 12 at Rock Island and about as many at Moline and 20 families up
Rock River 20 miles. He says that the Methodists and Allbright preachers have been there
repeatedly but they will not hear them. Rev. Mr. Behrends says there is a minister by the name of
Madoulet at Lawrenceburg Indiana who is an Evangelical man and who would come west. And
that a German Minister at Cincinnati by the name of Kroh who said he would supply his lack of
service at Lawrenceburgh. You have the facts and can judge. I should think that it was an
important opening for a minister.
Yours & etc.,
A. Kent
______________
Galena, Nov. 15, 1848
Dear Br.
I yesterday returned from a tour of some 400 miles and perhaps you would like to go over the
ground with me and notice some things which may be pointed out as we pass along. After being
detained some time by my trip to the north and by waiting a week or more for answers from Br.
Spees and Br. Clark that I might know what advice to give Mr. Dwinell, I determined to take him
on an exploring tour. We spent the first Sabbath at Rock Island and I left him to tarry there
another Sabbath. We have heard at last that Mr. Spees has accepted the call to this church and Mr.
Clark goes to St. Louis so the way is open for him to go to R.I. and he left with his wife yesterday
an hour after I arrived. He and Mrs. D. have made an exceedingly favorable impression here. In
the mean time I thought of sending him to Peoria but learned from Rev. Blanchard254[254] that the
Peoria Ch. was remodelled with Congregationalism and had called Mr. Spooner of Bloomington.
I obtained such information about Mercer County that I saw no occasion to visit that county,
and in passing over to the east I took Galesburg, Knoxville, Toulon and Henry in my way. Br.
L.K. Hawley has been invited to the Church at Knoxville. Br. J.G. Wright is apparently doing
good work (he preaches at 4 points) in Stark Co.
Br. Fowler gave me information that Br. Perry of Bloomington was dissatisfied and I thought
he has some reason to be. He complained to his Presbytery last June and they appointed a
Committee of 2 Presb. & 2 Cong. ministers to go out to the ground and investigate the case. Br.
Wright refused to act and the matter has slept until now. It is likely that he and his church will go
over to the Old School Church but still he ought to have a hearing and I urged the Committee to
move, for I thought he has been injured 1st because I was told Mr. Spencer stepped in and made a
division of the church after he had been invited there as a stated supply; 2nd and I saw letters
from Mr. Perry an Mr. Spencer on the subject in answer to Mr. Fowlers inquiries. It is out of my
district and I intend not to interfere except to urge his own Presbytery to do their duty and I
thought it quite probable that the Ex. Com. and the agent might both have been misled by not
having access to all the sources of information. It may be too late to unite the two churches and it
may not be best to grant aid to that Presb. residuum but I am satisfied that misrepresentations
have been made.
I visited Br. Pendleton at the flourishing little village of Henry and failed in my attempt to
arrange for him to preach half the time at Henry. I spent the Sabbath at Providence that Br..
Pendleton might supply the vacant church at Hennepin and in passing through Hennipin I called
on a German member of the church who assured me that there were 20 families of Germans about
H. and 40 families 12 miles west, and if they had a good Presbyterian minister who could preach
both in Eng. & German they could raise 200 dollars for him and if a single man he would board
Jonathan Blanchard (1811-1892) was born in Rockingham Vt., and at the age of 14 was a school teacher entered
Middlebury College at 17. He taught for two years at Plattsburg Academy in New York, and then studied at Andover
and Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati. He became pastor of the Sixth Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati in
1838. From the time of his youth Blanchard was a violent abolitionist. He also detested secret societies and was an
active anti-Mason. In 1845 he became the President of Knox College in Galesburg and held that position until 1857.
Controversy followed him where ever he went, sometimes accompanied by bitter strife. In 1860 he became the
President of Wheaton College and held that position for 22 years. DAB.
254[254]
him gratuitously. Some one had suggested that Rev. Roland Galloway of Springfield Clark Co.,
could inform whether such a man could be obtained from a seminary in the vicinity, of which you
probably have knowledge. I spent 2 hours at Greenville with Br. Clark and spent the night with
Br. Classon at Lowell. Visited Ottowa and heard what is the position that Br. Basset and his
Presbyterian secession occupy. I think Br. Whittling is labouring faithfully. I attended an
interesting prayer meeting there.
And while here winter came on with such a frown that I reluctantly gave up my intended
expedition up the River and into Will Co., and set my path homeward. I passed by Peru and saw
Br. Dubinson. He is somewhat discouraged with his hard field. He represented the district about
Troy Grove as affording an important opening for a missionary. And gave me a little history of
the movements; Mr. Cady during the last year who is now preaching at Geneseo, which led me to
think that he was unstable as water and would not prevail. I visited the Church at Palestine Grove
or Lee Center intending to spend the Sabbath there but learned that Br. Pearson had yielded to
their solicitations to still give them half his time and I passed on to Elk Horn.
They are greatly afflicted in the recent death of one of their best members, Elder Woodruff
and they think it impossible to raise the 100 required by your comm. I encouraged them to make
the effort and promised if they sent for me to spend some time with them about New Years. I
suppose that assisting my Brethren at Communion seasons may be quite in the line of my duty
this winter. Called on Br. Gray at Mt. Carrol and Br. Neill both of whom and especially the latter
seem quite encouraged.
I do not attach much importance to the report to you of the details yet I thought they might not
be devoid of interest.
Yours affectionately, A. Kent
P.S.: A Mr. Loso has engaged to preach at Sharon, Henry Co.
Success in missionary efforts depends very much on little things.
I rode 16 miles against a severe prairie wind from the N.W. to preach to a little church aided
by your society (Providence). In the morning I urged upon 2 male members of the church the
importance of having the house warmed in good season. At an hour after the appointed time some
little boys came and after shivering a while they made a fire and when service began which was
not until 12 the room was so heated that the stove pipe which was within 2 feet of my head was
well nigh red hot. And they were still crowding in wood until I begged them to desist. Such a
course is admirably calculated to ensure dull preaching and small assemblies. Editorial comments
upon such little things as fire & notices : punctuality : and if one quarter part of the time spent by
the missionary in reaching the place of meeting had been spent by the people in circulating the
notice we might have had 4 times as many hearers.
_____________
Galena, Ill., Dec. 12, 1848
Dear Br.,
I perceive by the last Home Miss. that I have trespassed upon your rules by giving draft in
favor Br. Dwinell and Br. Atherton. I now wish to pay to Charles Gould of Hanover twenty two
dollars, and to the Tract Society (W.A. Halleck) twenty five 75/100 dollars and it is not
convenient to get drafts here now without loss. If it suits your views please pay these bills and
charge me, if not, send me word and I will arrange it. I have not made out any regular reports and
supposed it would not be expected of me except as you would expect to hear from me before the
annual meeting. If you prefer to have a quarterly report I shall cheerfully comply with your
wishes.
Please to hand over the enclosed to the Editor and pay the additional
1.50
25.75
22
in all 47.25 and Oblige yours affectionately,
A. Kent
__________
Galena, March 9, 1849
Dear Br.,
Reporting missionary service of 9 months I propose hereafter to begin my year with March.
I have received Home Missionary Money equal to $312.35 and my expenses, not before
settled up, amount to
17.25
deduct
295.00
From Salary 450.00
155.00
100.00
55.00
In view of the pressure upon your treasury I wish to make a donation of 100 which will leave
me a draft of 55. Please forward this when you are in funds. Regretting that I have not succeeded
in raising money for our cause, I hope that the next year will be more successful, I collected but
about 125 most of which will reach you through the ministers of the place. I have preached the
subject at Freeport, Chicago, Rockford, New Diggings, Napiersville Ottawa, & Hazel Green &
expect to do so soon at Galena, Elgin, St. Charles & Belvidere.
As to expenses I mean always to pay my bill whenever there is a disposition to receive it. And
besides that, I generally have publications of the A. T. So.: so I have in this way scattered to the
amount of 30 or 40 dollars and there no part of my agency from which I anticipate better results.
Certainly none afforded me more pleasure. I have assisted my brethren in healing dissensions in
visiting from house to house and at Sacramental occasions. I have assisted in 4 instances this
winter at continuous meetings where the spirit of the lord was to work.
I intend to come more in contact with Home Missionaries in future at Ecclesiastical meetings.
According to my diary I have travelled 3145 miles since last may and of this I have rode in a
sleigh 1259 miles within 3 months.
The Home Miss. field committed to my supervision is limited to the 23 northern counties of
Ill. The population of which approximates to 300,000. Facts are sometimes stranger than fiction.
Sixteen years ago this field was a desolate wilderness. Now it is a Garden of Eden. Sixteen
years ago our friends were 3 weeks in transition from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. Soon we
shall make the journey in 3 days. The, our thoughts were 20 days in passing by letter with
manifold perils of bad roads and swollen creeks, Now a thought may outstrip the sun and stretch
across the continent. When, in 1833, I first travelled on an exploring tour from Galena going
Eastward, there was no settlement after leaving the mining district until I reached DuPage 20
miles from Chicago. There was no road but an Indian trail, no lodging place but such as
California affords to the rush of adventurers there. There was no food for my horse but the wild
grass and none for myself but the delicious strawberry in June.
Now the surplus of provisions is oppressive. It is estimated that 100,00 bushels of wheat was
furnished for market last season from one small area, whose radius us not but 5 miles long. So
abundant indeed is the produce of this Prairie State, that it is impossible to carry off the annual
crop before it is overtaken by the growth of another year. To describe the laborious process we
may accommodate the language of Isaiah in reference to the idols of Babylon: “Their carriages
are heavy laden, they are a burden to the weary beast. They stoop down, they bow down together
(in the mud). They cannot deliver their burden” : at Chicago. But a rail-way will soon remove
their difficulties and then this prairie 160 miles across, once regarded as forever unhabitable, will
show a succession of thriving villages within cannon shot of each other, How important then is
that agency which shall seize the opportunity to plant churches and introduce an evangelical
ministry along that line or light and influence.
In describing the attractions of this district, therefore I do not magnify my office and yet I can
barely glance at the progress of improvement. Farms are multiplying every year and the people
are wearing more comfortable garments. The school-house is everywhere making its appearance
and every year an improved appearance. Many of them are now being made large and convenient
for public worship. There are already some 40 or 50 churches either finished or in progress and
there are in this field 30 or 40 villages whose population ranges from 300 to as many thousand. A
commendable zeal for the higher branches of learning begins to develop itself in the founding of
10 or 15 Academies. The missionaries are about 46 or 2 to a county. Some of whom I have never
seen and some of the counties I have not yet visited.
A few of the churches have enjoyed seasons of special refreshing during the year and some of
our Brethren who report no revivals are yet striving manfully to maintain their found in spite of
that confederation of hostile influences which are sure to cluster around our new villages. These
villages have more than their share of that class of persons who flee from restraints of Christian
society. It ought to be known by our patrons at the East that there are periods in the history of our
feeble churches when utmost that can be achieved is to sustain life amidst the fluctuations of
western society and the powerful opposition they are obliged to encounter - periods when to
maintain existence demands more faith, costs more labour and puts in requisition more true moral
heroism than is needed to urge forward the case of salvation with great celerity when public
sentiment and every collateral influence are combined to multiply the triumphs of the Immoral.
Several of your missionaries in the midst of discouragements enough to beat back a tired spirit are
urging their way onward with undauntable energy. Others are not equally zealous and self
denying and it is comparatively easy for them to find an excuse for some apparent delinquencies
in missionary service. They are not so ready to rebuke sin, to explore and cultivate their own
appropriate field by family visitations nor to decry a new opening for preaching and to rush into it
before the ground is occupied by errorists.
There are some whose usefulness is abridged by the presence of worldly cares. In would seem
that pensioners upon the charity of the Church should be wholly ingrained with the duties of their
sacred calling and yet when we sit down and listen to the tale of their trials, they are poor or sick
or in debt or their families are inefficient and expensive and their people wanting in attention to
them. It is not easy to say, you must withdraw your mind from every secular care.
Aside from our prospective want along the lines of the canal and railroad, we are in immediate
want of 10 efficient men of self sacrificing spirit to enter into the field already ripe with the
harvest: men that work up the raw material and gather a congregation. Men who like Paul are
ambitious to build on a new foundation, I pray god that Christian Parents and Churches may
consecrate their young men to the ministry and send them out into the harvest fields.
Yours in the bonds of the Gospel,
A. Kent
The Items of Receipt & Expenses
J. Keeler
1.50
forage
1.20
Mrs. Keeler
5.00
lodging at Chicago 3.25
Rent of Mission
expenses to house
10.00
St. Croix
5.00
Collection atFreeport
lodging
0.75
of Br. Dwinell
32.00
toll gate
0.20
of Br. Atherton
116.00
5.60
new Hills,other exp. 3.00
of Geo. Campbell
40.00
exp at tavern
0.75
Annual list
22.00
exp at Union Grove .025
Tract So. money
27.25
other
2.35
D. Pinney, Kane Co. 1.00
17.55
Rockford Coll.
52.00
312.35
_________
Platteville, Wi., March 13, 1849
Dear Br.,
I have had some misgivings this morning about what I did last night, and if it was wrong
please tell me so explicitly and then I shall hope not to do so again. I gave a draft on you to Br.
Atherton contrary to your instructions, but I excused myself on the score of obliging a good
Brother and of giving you unlimited time to pay it. Still, on reflection, I have thought it might
embarrass you in some way that I do not understand and if you shall have already relied to my
letter by a draft for that amount I will not use it.
Yesterday just as I was stepping into the stage to come an help Br. Lewis, I received a line
from Br. Dwinnell which looks very much as though we should lose him from the center of moral
influence, and that he was in danger of being drawn away into a little corner called Salem.
(Prospectively this is so for the star of Empire is moving W.)
I do not wish to turn that dear Br. aside from duty but to aid him in discovering it. And if duty
calls him to Salem I will do all I can to help him off and if duty requires it I will pay the expenses
of his journey there. My only object in writing to you is that you may not be under
misapprehension (and give wrong counsel) from his despondent representations. I say to you
what I would not to him, that I regard him as one of the best men you have ever sent over the
Allegheny Mountains and most happily adapted while he thinks he is not adapted at all to this
new field of ministerial labour.
And in regard to Rock Island I presume he has totally misapprehended his prospects. It is my
misfortune that I am not particularly informed except from himself for though I was near there 3
weeks since I denied myself the pleasure of visiting them to avoid the “remarks of certain Old
School Gossip” who have ventured to charge me with being officious. But I hear from there what
lead me to predict that the present rival in that place will not continue long and that if Br. D. will
persevere 5 or 10 years he will mould that community and make his influence felt from
Burlington to Galena : a district certainly more considerable in its moral bearings that a single
congregation in Salem, Mass.
It is a mysterious providence that he did not reach Galena a few weeks sooner.
I do not know that this communication will be of any use, but I thought I ought to show mine
opinion. And if I was acquainted with the church in Salem I should be tempted to write and point
out their sin and the mischief to which they are accessory in having their own large flock and
carrying off our lone lamb. Will it not prove to the Eastern churches that we cannot appreciate
ministerial talent and show that no effort is wanted to raise up ministers for there is no call for
them at the West.
Please to burn this letter and then it will do no harm.
Yours affectionately,
A. Kent
___________
Galena, March 27, 1849
Dear Brother,
I have received a letter from Rev. Mr. Pendleton informing me that he has arranged with the
people at Henry to preach for them one half his time as formerly, and as I thought I ought to be
done when I was with him last fall. And he states also that what is raised for his support at Henry
will be deducted from the amount subscribed at Providence. This arrangement seems to me to be
quite desirable and I presume will meet your approbation. And I notify you of it as he requested.
April 16
I have just returned from the meeting of the Galena Presbytery which met at Elizabeth. We
had a pleasant meeting, but the abundant rains prevented many from attending when we expected.
Our German Br. Behrents (who has grieved us by marrying again 3 weeks after his wife died)
attended and brought a request from the United German Evangelical Church to be received under
the care of the Presbytery, and brought a young man who was taken under the care of Presb. and
examined through an interpreter on Evg. religion with a view to the ministry. Br. Neill255[255] asked
Edward Duffield Neill, clergyman and author, b. in Philadelphia, 9 Aug. 1823, d. in St. Paul, Minn. 26 Sept.,
1893. After studying at home, he was graduated at Amherst. He studied theology at Andover and Philadelphia, was a
Presbyterian minister in St. Paul, Minn., in 1849-”60, and pastor of the Reformed Episcopal Church of that city since
255[255]
the advice of Presb. whether he should remain at E. or go to Minnesota. It proved a very serious
question. On the one hand he has stolen the hearts of all the people there and has done nobly
amidst discouragement. On the other, he thinks the place is running down and becoming a very
limited field. He cannot bear to be dependent from you and your A.H.M.S. for 300 dollars, and
there is little prospect of much better support from this floating population for a good while to
come. There is an impression on his mind that he must go to Minnesota which has rested there for
six months and I have frequently tried to persuade him it is best to remain at Elizabeth for the
present for his own ultimate usefulness. We think he wants some, but he possesses other and rare
qualifications for that frontier position, especially at St. Paul, the seat of Gov. on account of his
social qualities. And after much thought I am decidedly of the opinion that is the position to
which Providence is directing him. He is going to Gen. Ass. when you will see more of him no
doubt. It is thought but that I should accompany him up the Miss. next week which will occupy
two weeks and prevent a joining I had contemplated across the state to attend to several
applications about which we feel embarrassed : thought it best that he should go up and spend a
Sabbath before he goes to Gen. Assemb. to take possession of the ground before it is preoccupied
by other sects. We have now a Sabbath keeping boat that will materially aid us.
Your attention may have been directed to it by a communication I sent to the Evangelist
recently.
That which I have received from Batavia I think you can decide upon as well as if I went
there. If, however, you wish me to visit Batavia before you act on the case, drop me a line and I
will go there on my way to Gen. Asso. of Ill at Ottawa May 17.
I ask if Br. Walkers allusion to Benolds case and others does not call for explanation. I should
be sorry to have him refuse to aid in this service. It suggests itself to me that the Batavia
application might be granted for 6 months, c.c. from the date of their application. Does not such
disregard of your instructions deserve that rebuke? The case of Momence and Rev. E.G. Birge. I
have written to Br. Porter who has gone to Wilmington to inform me in regard to the efficiency of
that Br., but have received no answer and I have concluded to forward the documents, presuming
you already are acquainted with him. I have tried repeatedly to go to Will Co., but “have been ley
hitherto.” I intend to go there within 2 months.
I have still another application in hand from Big Rock Creek Church asking aid for Rev.
Spencer Baker, “of whom I have no certain thing to write,” except I have received an impression
that he managed to get himself into the field over Br. Burgess’ head. But as you may know
nothing of the man I withhold it until I know more of the case. Br. Porter’s reply has just reached
me and I enclose it.
I hope you will get through the approaching anniversary with comfort to yourselves. I do not
want the position when there 100 or 200 great letters every month to dispose of. But it is said that
the back is fitted to the burden.
Yours, Etc.,
A. Kent
1884. He was superintendent of public instruction, and chancellor of the University of Minnesota in 1858-”61; chaplain
of the 1st Minnesota regiment, and hospital chaplain in 1861-”4, secretary to the president of the United States for
signing land patents in 1864-”9; and U.S. consul at Dublin, Ireland, in 1869-”70. He was president of Macalester
college, Minneapolis, in 1873-”84, and since 1884 has been professor of history, literature, and political economy in
that institution. He has received the degree of D. D. from Lafayette College. His principal works are “History of
Minnesota” (Philadelphia, 1858); “Terra Mariae, or Threads of Maryland Colonial History” (1867)” Virginian
Company of London” (Albany, 1868) “English Colonization of America” (London, 1871) “Founders of Maryland”
(Albany, 1876). “Virginia Vetusta, the Colony under James the First”
(1885); “Virginia Carolorum”(1886); and “Concise History of Minnesota” (Minneapolis,
1887). He has written many articles for historical magazines, and has been a frequent contributor
to the publications of the Minnesota historical society.]
____________
[Chapin Papers- Beloit College]
May 9, 1849
This circular is no child of mine but in its present shape I could not withhold my name.
A Theological Sem. will be begun ere long. I am not in favor of connecting it with a college.
Perhaps Galena is as good a point all things considered as any other.
Yours affectionately,
A. Kent
______
GALENA, ILLINOIS, MAY 5th, 1849.
REVEREND & DEAR Sir:
.
The subject upon which we address you, is that of a Theological Seminary proposed to be
located in this city, under the auspices of the Constitutional Presbyterian Church. The subject is
not altogether a new one. It has for some time past been under serious and prayerful consideration
by some of the friends of Christ's kingdom, both at the West and at the East. Fully persuaded as
we are in our own minds, of the expediency, necessity, and feasibility, of establishing such an
Institution we are unwilling to put forth any positive efforts for the accomplishment of the object,
until we shall have asked counsel of those at a distance, in whose wisdom and judgment we can
confide, and whose paramount regard for the Church of Christ we cannot question.
With a map of our country before you; you will at once observe that this vast region of the
Northwest is, to some extent, an isolated district, separated from the East by distance and our
inland seas, and from the more central Southern portions of our country, by distance also, and
non-commercial intercourse. This region embraces Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa,
Missouri and what is soon to be the Territory of Nebraska. Scattered over this vast territory, is
already a population amounting to about two millions of souls. This number is rapidly increasing.
Especially is there an increasing tide of population pouring into the fertile and healthy region of
the Upper Mississippi. Missouri, Minnesota and Iowa will soon number their Millions of people.
Illinois has already a million.
Now, that this wide-spread territory of the Northwest, and its teeming population, should be
supplied with an adequate ministry from the East, is, in our opinion, out of the question. Indeed,
Such a supply cannot even now be had. Many of our most thriving villages and most populous
agricultural districts, are without a Presbyterian or Congregational ministry, nor can our young
men go to the East for theological instruction. The distance and the expense are alike too great.
Had we a Theological Seminary here at the present time, it is believed that young men would be
found in it, many of whom must relinquish the hope of entering the sacred office, by reason of the
want of such an Institution. We are furthermore persuaded, that other things being equal, it is far
better that the men who are to labor in this Western field, should be trained upon Western ground.
The reasons for this are obvious.
As has been intimated already, it is proposed that this Seminary shall be founded and
conducted under the auspices of the Constitutional Presbyterian Church. We are fully persuaded
that while this branch of the Church is unimpeachable in the soundness of its faith, its polity is
most happily adapted to the prevailing qualities of Western mind and Western society, and that
under its energetic and plastic influence, the most salutary and desirable type will be given the the
ecclesiastical character of this region. By the foregoing observations, we do not mean that the
Seminary shall be purely and exclusively of a denominational character. We mean simply this,
that while in matters of Church polity, the largest freedom of opinion shall be allowed, the
Institution shall be under the immediate supervision of the Presbyteries of the Northwest, its
Board of Trustees being chosen from those Presbyteries, and that its Professors shall be
connected with the Constitutional General Assembly.
The location proposed for this Institution is the city of Galena. The advantages of this location
are numerous and obvious. Galena, including its suburbs, already numbers more than six
thousand inhabitants. It is destined unquestionably to be the largest city of the Northwest,
Chicago excepted. It is to be the great depot of the Upper Mississippi. It is a healthy city. It is
central to the region proposed to be supplied with a ministry by the Seminary in question. It is
central also to a vast and fertile agricultural region, to whose sons we are to look for the future
ministers of the Northwest, and for missionaries to the territories lying still farther West. It is very
soon to be connected by rail-road with Chicago, and eventually with the head-waters of the
Missouri. It is the principal port of the Upper Mississippi, and at every point of the compass is
connected with thousands of miles of water communication. The expense of living here, is as
cheap as in any other city of the Union. This city is already possessed of great wealth, and that
wealth is on the increase. It is central to the mining region, where thousands arc to be employed
in the production of lead, and among whom the students of the Seminary might be usefully
employed as transient missionaries. Indeed, with a map of the Northwest before you, you cannot
fail to see at once the advantages of this location for such an Institution as that proposed.
The plan contemplated for the establishment of the Seminary is this: To raise ten thousand
dollars on the field designed more immediately to be benefited by it, for the purchase of the
necessary grounds, and for the erection of suitable buildings. We have encouragement to believe
this can be done. The grounds and buildings being thus provided for, it is proposed to raise
twenty thousand dollars elsewhere, for the endowment of two professorships. It is further
proposed that the Seminary shall not go into operation until the thirty thousand dollars shall have
been actually realized and appropriated as above. In this way, all embarrassment from debt will
be forestalled.
Such is a brief outline of the plan proposed for the establishment of a School of the Prophets
for the North. west. To us it appears not only exceedingly desirable, but a matter of inevitable
necessity, that such an Institution should be founded either at this city or at some other point, for
the region of the Upper Mississippi, and for the regions beyond. Our Seminary at Cincinnati,
from its remoteness, and its geographic location, cannot meet the wants of this field. It is less
accessible to us than New York or Andover. Moreover, the students going from that Seminary,
are wanted for Ohio, Indiana, and the Southern States. The Northwest alone is not provided for.
Aside from Lane Seminary, we have no theological school West of the Alleghenies.
Now, sir, with the map of this country before you, we ask you to give the subject of this
communication your prayerful and candid consideration. In proposing it, we assure you we are
not actuated by motives of mere local benefit. We look simply to the future welfare of this vast
region, so soon to be the dwelling place of millions of men. Do you, all things considered, think it
advisable to make an effort for the establishment of such an Institution as that above
contemplated, and at this city? Do you think the plan a feasible one ? And shall it have your
hearty co-operation? An answer at your earliest convenience is solicited.
Yours in the bonds of the Gospel,
S. G. SPEES,
A. KENT,
E. D. NEILL,
W. C. BOSTWICK,
C. S. HEMPSTEAD,
H. NEWHALL,
GEO. W. CAMPBELL,
JAMES SPARE,
WM. H. BRADLEY.
_______
Ottawa, May 17, 1849
Dear Br.,
I have come here to attend the Gen. Association of Ill. and to see the Brethren and to be
somewhat filled with their company. And also to after certain cases that the Com. of Fox R.
U[nion]. have referred to me.
And I will report journal-wise.
Having started on Thursday I returned with my lame horse and started with another on Friday
morning for Belvidere, 93 miles & in despite of mud and rain and swollen streams I reached there
Sat. Evening and preached & administered Com. to Br. Wright’s church. It was a good day to me
and I see what the Lord has done for them since I was there last winter, paid me well for the
effort.
Monday I called on Br. Reynolds and though his Brethren think there is no evidence to
convict him of licentiousness, yet he is in bad repute, i.e., he commands no respect and possesses
no qualifications for usefulness and does many things that evince an utter want of common sense.
I agree with the Br. who said to meÊyesterday he had better go on to one of his farms.
I went next to Virginia Settlement and spent some hours with Rev. J.H. Baldwin. I received a
very favorable impression. Hence to Crystal Lake at the request of Br. H. Brown to form a
judgement concerning the application of behalf of Br. Beech. Br. Brown wrote that he was not a
member of Fox R. U. and that his course last year was not satisfactory. He has explained
satisfactorily why he did not get his letter before and he is now ready to join the Union. He was
employed last year in building at Dundee: has now let out his place and moved his family to
Crystal Lake and I hope he will now give himself wholly to his work. The enclosed letter to you
was forwarded to the Com. and they sent it to me and requested me and requested me to open it
and as your agent I did so, thinking perhaps it might throw light in my path. I see no cause to
object to any thing it contains except the reflection upon others. I could not attend to that without
knowing that I had opened your letter (which I should have told him if there had been any
sufficient occasion). But I heard the same thing from many of my people, and I asked who they
were that were receiving aid who could do without it and he mentioned Elgin & Belvidere,
neither of which are now aided by you.
I suppose the church there is very poor and I inquired diligently if he could not get aid from
other neighborhoods. There are 2 or 3 openings for preaching but no one of them that affords any
prospect of contributing to his support at present.
Hoping therefore that he will give himself wholly to his work I recommend that they receive
150 or 200 dollars.
The application for aid to sustain Rev. Spencer Baker I cannot recommend until some things
are explained which now lie against him. Such as neglecting to account for money of the Bible
Soc. in his hands after being repeatedly solicited. Engaging to preach at McHenry without
consulting the church, saying at one time that the Presbyterians had nothing to support their views
and 3 days after applying for admission to Presbytery and affirming that he was Presbyterian
from principle & such like.
18th Conferred last evening with Br. Brown & Clark. They agree to recommend that the
Church at Crystal Lake receive 150. We did not feel at liberty to so less, and so not like to name a
greater sum than the people themselves raise.
I conversed some time with them in relation to Br. Farnum’s case. We think he is truly a godly
man but somewhat “set in his way” and in as much as Esq. Farn. talks of removing from Batavia,
we think it would be better that Br. F. should be commissioned for his removal will probably put
an end to the existing opposition. Br. Farnham wishes to have the Home Missionary sent him &
says it has ceased to come for some months.
The Gen. Association of Ill. has just closed its annual meeting. There are in this ecclesiastical
body many excellent Brethren and this narrative of the state of Religion furnished us with
abundance evidence of the prosperity of their churches. A number of which have been favored
with times of special refreshing from the presence of the Lord. The meeting was very pleasant
throughout and I trust we shall all look back to it as a season of Christian fellowship long to be
remembered. They kindly requested the 2 agents of A.H.M.S. to occupy the Sabbath Evening and
the occasion was improved to urge the motives for increasing our Home Miss. efforts.
Yours in the bonds of the Gospel,
A. Kent
I trust you will commission Br. Mill for St. Pauls and Br. Whitney for Stillwater if they apply
(and they will range up and down their respective rivers).. I think that the wisdom of the measures
will appear. I am satisfied there is a wide field opening for both. They soon gather churches and
raise a good share of their support.
Application will be made by Br. Basset, I understand. I have no judgement formed in the case.
Father Cook is associated with him. He says the Old Church is prospering and this they divined in
public meeting. He says it was that which created the difficulty.
____________
May 28, 1849
Facts and Incidents in the experience of Individuals will best illustrate the trials of faith to
which Home Missionaries are subjected.
There is a large settlement about 14 miles from me where I have spent some 15 or 20 Sabbaths
within 2 years striving to resuscitate a declining church. They have never offered to make me any
compensation. And I cannot ask a passing clergyman to visit there because there are but 3
families and these on the outskirts of the settlement who ever think of inviting me to lodge with
them and the best of those has now mover away. At the close of an evening meeting I might have
spent the night out in the rain except as an old country man had invited me home to his cabin of
logs about 12 feet square. At another time I slept very sweetly among heaps of swine slaughtered
for market, not without some annoyance however from the cast going out and in at the broken
windows.
There was a precious revival years ago in which many were hopefully converted & towards
which my labours had with God’s blessing materially contributed, but other sects, by
intermarriages and various other maneuvers drew these off while I could be with them but a part
of my time and but one convert united with our church.
Still I have believed that God would yet turn their captivity if I persevered. Accordingly I set
out on Thursday last to ride from a meeting of the Association (100 miles) to meet my
appointment there. My route lay over an infrequented road, familiarly known as “The Old Sucker
Trail,” and on Friday I found myself in a slough, my waggon buried almost over the fore wheels
and my horse, poor fellow, struggling till having broken a shaft and thrown himself broadside
into the mud. He was utterly unable to move further. But by the good Providence of God, in
answer to prayer, and putting my own shoulder to the wheel Hercules came to my assistance by
proxy (i.e., 3 men and a yoke of oxen) and helped the poor waggoner out, for I had sunk in the
mire until my own clothes abhorred me, and I emerged from the place in a plight that would
furnish a sketch for a painter. Having gathered up my “beggar plunder” and tied up the shaft I
went on my way like Bunyon, singing and admiring the incident for it rendered me more thankful
to God than before.
On Saturday I rode through the rain and the mud towards my appointments until I reached the
nearest family in which I thought I should be welcome and comfortable for the night and on a
bright Sabbath morning I set out in season to ride the remaining six miles, but when I had come
almost within sight of the log school house I was stopped by a swollen stream and was obliged
after all to give over the attempt.
I turned the horse towards the place of my afternoon appointment, thinking that I could at least
assist in the Sab. school. There I met with a preacher whom I regarded as essentially heretical.
But I could not well avoid hearing him, for it rained again, so that could not return to the thicket
and there was no house near. I assumed he would call me Brother and ask me to make the
concluding prayer, and so he did. I could not refute without making a wrong impression on minds
unused to discriminate and I prayer thinking that I would take him in my buggy and converse
with him alone, but he did not give me the opportunity. After he had finished there was yet 1 1/2
hours to the time of our meeting. Most of the audience went home, and though hungry and
fatigued, I must nicely make myself agreeable during the intermission. And I sat down and read a
tract and attempted to administer appropriate counsel to the father of 7 children who had buried
his wife 2 days before, and a wife whom he has often treated as a Brute. I then went out, and
having “shut the door” I knelt down on the fold of my umbrella and sought aid from on high, after
which I preached with some freedom to 17 persons, including 2 infants and one church member,
and endeavored to supply what was lacking in the heretical preacher’s account of faith.
The meeting dismissed, I waded through several sloughs till I reached the house of Gaines,
mine host, and at 5 p.m. I sat down to meat which I ate with good relish and a thankful heart. I
ought perhaps to add: this Gaines is the old white-headed man whom I Baptized a year ago. His
daughter the 8th of April last united with the Church and received the Lord’s Supper on her dying
bed. She had delayed making a profession on her husband's account. And her father gave noble
testimony when he leaned over her and whispered, “I thank God that you have been spared to see
your father a sober man.”
You may say that the prospects of this church are dark, and yet I have strange confidence that
God will yet build up his church there and my object in this statement is not to complain of
hardships, for I have no feeling of the kind, but it is to show what are the embarrassments
connected with preaching in the new settlements and if the missionary happens to be tossed about
from one field to another before he has time to witness & report the good results of his labours,
your committee may honestly draw the conclusion that he is either unfaithful or unskillful and
should no longer be sustained by the charities of the church.
Pilgrim in Progress
_________
Galena, June 4th [1849]
Dear Brethren,
Br. Gould’s case has prompted me to make this communication. I spent 3 days with him and
preached 3 times in his fields last week, and he made out as strong a case as the above and I really
felt at the time that he was hardly dealt with. Communication with some of his former hearers
has somewhat modified his statement, and yet I am not sure he should be utterly be precluded
from aid. He now proposes to leave Troy Grove and confine himself to the eastern field. Br.
Gould has been through thick and thin in meeting his appointments on the frontier.
I throw out these things for your consideration though I am not yet prepared to recommend
him to receive aid.
I spent last Sabbath at Hazel Green to supply Br. Phillips. He having recently bled at the
lungs. I preached morning & evening for him and in the afternoon at Fair Play (6 miles off). Br.
Chaffee has preached there in the morning and wishes to be employed there and at Menominee,
as I am informed. Perhaps it is best he should.
I had a long conversation with the trustees at Hazel Green Sat. evening, and Sab. morning
preached my ox sermon (Doth God take of Oxen). It was a powerful sermon in defense of
supporting ministers, for many members went home caught up again of new milk and carried it
over to Br. P. saying, If Jesus alone must feed oxen I will not be behind the rest.
Br. Rood said he signed 35 on condition they should not ask but 100 of your society. But the
burdens are heavy on a few. They have a large congregation but many are English who think that
one dollar to such an object is a great amount. On the whole I advise that they receive 100 dollars.
Yours affectionately,
A. Kent
_________
Rock Island, June 10, 1849
Dear Br.,
I came down last week to spend Sabbath here and to attend the Gen. Association of Iowa at
Davenport.
It was my desire to see the Brethren, and to be some what filled with their company, and I was
not disappointed for we has a very pleasant and I trust profitable interview. I rejoice greatly to
find gathered together so large a body of excellent men whose great object seemed to be to honor
the Lord and extend the Savior of his Name over the state of their adoption. I am no longer on the
Frontiers by my position from being a far distant outpost so soon to become an important center
commercial and ecclesiastical, irrespective of the Theo, Sem. of Galena, which is no hobby of
mine.256[256] And I have only to regret that my name is not where I put it, c.c., after all the rest
except that of Br. Neill.
Br. Dwinell has left and I am quite sure that if he had stayed another 6 months he never would
have left. I am confirmed in the opinion that a New School P. Church should be sustained here.
The Galena Theological Seminary was chartered in February of 1853. In May of 1849 a circular signed by three
clergymen (Kent was one) and six ruling elders of the Presbyterian Church residing “in and near the City of Galena”
was published and distributed on the frontier and in the east. The purpose was “raising up an adequate Ministry for the
Northwest”. Why Kent here disavows a particular interest in the project is not explained. See: The Charter and
Constitution of the Galena Theological Seminary. Galena, Power Press of H.H. Houghtom & Co., 1853.
256[256]
But it will be a handfull and embarrassing for a time. I wish we had a suitable man for it is
prospectively a very important position to be occupied by your society. There seems to be a
determination to put up a temporary house of worship. But they greatly need the man. Perhaps
you know where he is to be found.
Yours truly, A. Kent
Mr. Hildreth preacher here in the morning and I in the afternoon. Right glad was I that you
consent to commission 2 men for Minnesota. I think it wise.
_________
Ottawa, La Salle Co., June 19, 1849
Dear Br.,
An expensive week.
I must be allowed to report from day to day in order to preserve information before it is gone
from me.
I left Rock Island on Monday last and having made about 10 miles, my horse died. It is one
very serious trouble that I am obliged to entrust any horse to the mistaken kindness of the warm
friends of your society, who show their good feelings by feeding any horse to satiety and often
contrary to explicit instructions. Had I taken care of my own horse he would have been alive now
but I left him at R.I. to go over to Davenport. I offered to put him into the care of the Livery
Stable but was forbidden. It has cost me more than 80 dollars to make his place good.
I state this not to awaken your sympathy, but because you ask to know the lights and shadows
of your missionaries. The cholera is abroad and a traveller here and there falls a victim (I think
travellers are particularly exposed). I have had symptoms 2 or 3 times of late that made me feel
that I might be carried off suddenly and it chided a feeling of reluctance to have the missionary
field.
Having promised Br. Loughead that I would visit his field (at his request) before or after
Synod, I crowded sail to ride across the state and visit Morris and spend the Sabbath so that I
might be at Buffalo Grove the Sab. after Synod.
The church has informed him that his services were not acceptable (rather hastily I think). He
felt aggrieved. I listened to the tale of labors and trials there and the interference of Mr. Comons
to unsettle him. I called on some of the Church. They complain that he does not study: does not
visit the people and strangers. I called on some of the Old Settlers, not professors, who have
offered to sustain him and heard their statements. They say he has been useful and if removed it
should have been done more deliberately and with more regard to his feelings.
Finally, I approved the decision to which he had come that he had better not preach there any
more but still remain in Grundy County and in the house he has built and occupy the destitute
places. There are 4 or 5 points north of the Ill. River where preaching ought to be furnished and
the south side the largest and most populous part has never been explored. In all that county I was
told there was no preaching of any kind except as there is one feeble Methodist class 10 miles
south. I should have spent more time in exploring but the vertigo in my head yesterday morning
admonished me not to make any such new efforts and I must be at Synod at Lacon on Thursday. I
had planned to visit Wilmington and Momence but the loss of my horse threw me back 3 days.
Br. L. spoke of Marsailles or Grafton Ch. where he & Br. Basset have laboured. I availed
myself of the opportunity and called on Giles Jackson and proposed that Br. L. should preach
there and at his Brothers neighborhood 8 miles apart every other Sabbath and the alternate
Sabbath at one or two other points from all which I hope he will get 1 or 200 dollars. Mr. Jackson
seemed pleased with the suggestions, spoke well of Br. Loughead, alluded to the trials he has
gone through in years past, and promised to write him immediately and invite him to come. Br. L.
has felt quite discouraged of late and thought of going to farming. I encouraged him but urged the
importance of more study and visiting form house to house as essential to the success of a Home
Miss. And I may ass that on Sab. I preached to the people of Morris on the importance and
permanency of the pastoral relation, a discourse prepared for Synod by appointment. And the
Baptist Br. struck off 1/4 of his bill for shoeing my horse “for the good I had done the day
before.” This same little village of Morris should be occupied: its prospective importance
demands it. Do send us men. I have 15 fields in my district that call loudly for ministers. And
how can one sleep when his children are crying to him for bread. “Send us a minister or dissolve
the church” says one.
Grand Detour, June 27, 1849
On my way home I rest a few moments amidst the heat & dust and fatigue of “journeying it”
to finish this letter.
Recent alarm about the cholera made attendance at Synod small, but we went trough our
business and the sessions were very pleasant.
The Church at Lacon will you dedicate a fine church. We met in the basement. We have tried
the experiment and return to fall meetings of Synod.
Br. Gould : I did not intend to allude to him again so soon but I can conversed with several of
his nearest neighbors within the ministry and they agree with me in opinion that he ought to have
missionary aid. I talked with him (without at all committing my self to him) urged the duty of a
H. Miss. being wholly devoted to his work, He said it was his purpose to be. And, on the whole,
if I should get encouragement from you, I should encourage the church to renew this application,
This in no reflection upon the Ex. Comm. They can only act upon the light they receive. He has a
family of 7 children, one is now the wife of Br. Lord of Sharon and Br. Clark257[257] of Granville
spoke very highly of him. He has lived in his family. He will not apply again except he is
encouraged to do so. Should you still hesitate and demand more full evidence of his usefulness, I
will undertake in all of the next 6 months to examine the matter and give you reasons more in
detail.
Yours very sincerely,
A. Kent
_________
Galena, Aug. 2 , 1849
Dear Br.,
I have just received a line from Br. Neill in which he represents his necessities to demand a
salary equal to 700. I am sorry the necessity exists but I should not be willing to refuse the
appropriation, for I am anticipating that with the divine blessing he will be useful there.
I trust that provision will be made at Stillwater so that Br. Whiting will not now need so much.
He will be here soon I presume, as his goods have arrived: a small box, 270 c charged $7, which
the merchant said should cost but 2 if it had been sent in company with others.
Not having much to write, I will entertain you with the account of my Sabbath Services for
some months past and the distance of the paces from each other.
R.C. Clark was the stated supply of the New School Presbyterian Church at Granville, Putnam Co., beginning
April 10, 1845. Records of the Olden Time. p. 281.
257[257]
[March] 25. Preached for Br. Phillips
[miles between] 9 miles
April 1. Preached on Home Miss. at home and in the country in the p.m.
9 miles
8. preached to Apple River Church & administered communion
18 miles
15. Attended Presbytery and held a Communion
15 miles
22. Preached to the Apple River Church and In Lafayette Co., Wisconsin
18 miles
29 Preached in Minnesota at Stillwater
408 miles
May 6. Preached at the Apple River Ch. and in Wisconsin again.
408 miles
13. Preached at Belvidere on Home Miss. and administered the Lord’s Supper
23 miles
20. Attended Cong. Gen. Ass. and Preached at South Ottowa
123 miles
27. Preached to Apple River Church
121 miles
June 3, Preached twice for Br. Phillips (sick) and once at Fair Play
100 miles
10. Preached at Rock Island
150 miles
17. Preached at Morris, Grundy Co.
71 miles
24. Attended Synod at Lacon : preached on the pastoral relation on Friday
145 miles
July 1. Preached at home and administered the Lord’s Supper in exchange with Br. Spees who
preached at Buf. Grove
15 miles
8. preached at Elizabeth
91 miles
15. Preached at New Diggings, having assisted at Br. Downes’ installation during the week
70 miles
22. Preached at Waddam’s Grove and Mr. Consell’s[?] school house
115 miles
29. Preached at the same places on my return from Meeting of Trustees of Beloit College
55 miles
Aug. 5 I am to preach at Elizabeth
I have given you these statistics as showing a greater distance travelled between Sabbath
Appointments and that without failing to meet my engagements (except in case of swollen
stream) than I expect to do very often. In going to Minnesota I used a public conveyance. You
may ask, how much I have studied. It is but little that I can do in that way.
I presume that there are other correspondents of yours that are glad of the opportunity to
letting off some of their egotism, but amidst the dry details of your office work you ought to have
some entertainment occasionally,
So farewell until I have occasion to write again.
A. Kent
I have received Br. Hale’s letter in relation to Br. Gould. I do not wonder at all at your
decision, and yet I may bring up his case again.
I have received applications for aid in support of Rev. Mr. Hodges for another year but shall
detain it for 2 or 3 weeks until I pass through his place or residence & inquire.
_________
[Letter from Rev. George Gemmel in reference to the Hodges case]
To Secy. of A.H.M.Society
Byron, Dec. 24th, 1849
Dear Brethren,
It is made our duty to address you on the case of Br. James Hodges. By a vote of the
Winnebago & Ogle Association. Therefore without apology we will perform that duty assigned
us.
In July last the church of Otter Creek & the church of Westfield made out a joint application
for aid in sustaining Br. Hodges in preaching to them (which application is herein enclosed) & the
same was endorsed by the Missionary Committee of this Association. As you will see by
reference to the enclosed, it was then forwarded to your agent Rev. A. Kent, who having heard
some reports concerning Mr. Hodges refused to endorse the application & it was ultimately
returned to Mr. H. The matter at the request of Mr. Hodges was taken up by the Association &
investigated & the following minutes placed on our records.
Certain reports having been circulated affecting the ministerial & Christian character of Br.
Hodges in relation to a certain horse trade made by his son who is under age & the matter having
been brought before the Association for investigation & the Association having duly considered
& investigated the reports in question declare that in opinion of the Association the charges
brought against Br. Hodges are destitute of the least foundation in truth & are fully persuaded that
he has done nothing in relation to the matter brought against him derogatory to his Christian or
ministerial character.
Also a resolution was passed instructing the Missionary Committee to forward the application
of said churches directly to your Society with the recommendation of the association to grant the
aid solicited in the application of said churches (this resolution is not now in my hands). But the
above is the amount of it. We therefore in behalf of and in the name of the Association would
ernestly recommend & request that the application of said churches should be granted & Br.
Hodges commissioned according thereto which we believe will advance the cause of Christ in the
region. Praying the Lord to bless & guide you in all your relations & duties, we remain as ever
your Brethren in Christ.
George Gemmel
In behalf of the Committee on Missions
Br. L. H. Loss having removed his connection from us I was appointed in his place on this
Committee & this was left in my hands by Br. Pearson for me to make out & forward to you.
Geo. Gemmel
I wrote to you last week & made out my quarterly report in that alluded to this. The above is
the action of Association. I may hereafter give you a history of this whole matter & detail the
course of Br. Kent with reference to this & some other matters. We are Congregationalists &
some of us also Antislavery Men which make some jar in some matters. But I hope Br. Kent
means well.
Geo. Gemmel
_______
Granville, Putnam Co., Sept 8/49
Dear Brother,
In the present state of my wife’s health our physician recommends constant riding and if she
can ride over Northern Ill. it will enable me to serve her and serve the church at the same time.
Thus far we have succeeded as well as I expected and she is rather improving, notwithstanding
the heat and fatigue and notwithstanding we are pursuing a track where the Cholera has but lately
spread consternation and death.
The application is renewed for aid to support Br. Hodges, but a hint was given me to inquire at
Rockford and providentially I fell in with the very man who had cognizance of the facts- from
information thus received and backed up be a man from his own vicinity, I saw my way clear as I
thought to write him that I was ready to sanction the applications which were endorsed by Br.
Loss & Pearson until I heard a rumor of a trade in horse-flesh which came to me in such a manner
that I could not forward it until there was some explanation or acknowledgment.
I preached last Sab. at Elgin and took up a collection of 20 dollars for Home Missions, which
please charge to me also at Dundee on the same subject in the afternoon. But Br. Wills deferred
the collection for a month or more. Br. Clark said that another application had been prepared for
aid for Rev. S. Baker. But he refused to recommend him. I invited Br. Bergen who is much
interested in the field which employs his alternative Sabbath (Little Rock & Sommonouk) but he
is not satisfied with the prospect of usefulness where he has spent the other Sabbath and I made it
my business to go through Shabbony and PawPaw Grove to inquire if he could be employed
there. The prospect is unfavorable. He seems to have no other object before him, but to labor a
missionary.
I spent the night with Br. Baldwin of McHenry Co. who is now with his brother a few miles
south of Paw Paw. He thinks a field presents itself there which is suited to his health where he can
occupy new ground and preach without much study on 3 or 4 different places including the 2
little churches Br. Gould has left. I could not dissent though I had gone out of my way to
persuade him to visit Buffalo & Gap Grove, where a prudent & judicious man is needed.
Sept. 10. I preached yesterday on Home Miss. at Granville and took up a collection which Br.
Clark will obtain. In the afternoon on the permanency of the pastoral office, there being a
disposition on the part of some churches to turn away their excellent minister. In the evening...
spent the night a Lowell. You are aware that our dear Br. Gleason has been suddenly taken by
Cholera. I visited his house that is left desolate and in which I saw them healthy & happy a few
weeks since. I looked into his study where I lodged last autumn, I looked over his library and
selected some of the books which were present to him from Dr. Nettleton of precious memory,
and obtained the loan of his last sermon which we read while riding across a broad prairie (Ion.
10.23). It is rich in thought and written in a neat & Christian style. Indeed with a few closing
remarks from another hand it would have been an appropriate discourse for the funeral of a most
excellent minister such as he was regarding his bereaved church. After 4 years of ministerial
service among them he had won their confidence as a zealous preacher and a faithful pastor. The
day appointed for his installation was observed by the church as a day of fasting & prayer on
account of his untimely removal and while their “tears are on their cheeks” they have applied to
you again to know where they shall find a successor who may prevent the divisiveness which his
removal gives them reason to apprehend.
But their loss to him was gain and his last sermon revealed the power of his faith. During the
closing service he was uniformly calm and cheerful except as he pulled through a period of
depression when the powers of darkness assailed him and he said the adversary had got the
advantage of my soul. I don’t feel the sweet presence of Jesus and I have done. Many pertinent
passages of scripture were repeated throughout effect. After some time he broke silence. “Well I
know that God is upon the Eternal Throne and there I must put my track. I have no where else
that I can go. Though he slay me yet will I trust him.” After a few hours his distress passed away
and his countenance assumed again the expression of tranquillity when he remarked “The cloud is
gone and I enjoy the sweet presence of Christ.” ...Once he fixed his eyes of his wife and with an
effort said farewell. Then he commenced moving his lips as if in prayer but the voice was gone.
He kissed her repeatedly and held her hand tightly until the muscles relaxed in death.
Sept. 18/49. Having passed through Ottawa, Morris, Lockport, Jolliet, Napiersville, visited
Chicago (via the rail cars) and called upon Br. Farnham at Batavia who is again unsettled. I spent
Sabbath at St. Charles and preached on Home Missions. I intended to go to Wilmington &
Momence but the time was too short.
Shall I give you the names of some of the principle points where preachers are wanted in my
field for which we have no supply. Waddam's Grove, Buffalo Grove, Gap Grove, Como, Lower
Rock Island, Providence, Lamoille, Marengo, Batavia, Oswego, Marsailles, Morris, Hennipin,
Magnolia, Lowell and Lockport or Wilmington according as Br. J. Porter shall remain at W. or go
to Lockport.
Since I discovered that the price of the Home Missionary was reduced to 50 cents I have
promised several copies to be subscribed for, which you will forward and charge to me paid (for
one year). 1) Gen Geo, McIlvive and 2) Daviess Hewitt, Elgin, Kane Co., 3) P. Hatch, Kane Co.,
4) Reuben Pritchard Dekalb Co., Shabbona Grove.
I have written to Rock Island that they may expect Br. Holt there.
Yours as ever,
A. Kent
_________
Galena, Sept. 21, 1849
Dear Brother,
I respect to Rev. S. Baker, I have heard that he had renewed his application to your society. I
have not changed my opinion nut have said to me of his Presbytery that his conduct ought to be
inquired into. And my references are not to Mr. Bergen but to Br. Clark of Elgin, Br. Baldwin,
Isiah Walkup, Allen Baldwin, and others, in McHenry County.
Br. Chaffe’s case I will inquire into next week, if God permits.
The Guernsey Frocks, I have received and shown a sample to one man who thinks that has as
saleable though not as good an article which he purchased 7 /1/4 per dozen. And it is too large a
lot to sell soon. Another man thinks he can put them off but will not buy them and I engaged to
let him have one box, and he will report progress. He will dispose of them if any can, I think.
I am obliged to pay 265 dollars in New York on or before the first of November and I shall
authorize Mr. J.W. Phelps to call and inquire if you can furnish it, if not, he will write me and I
shall provide for it here.
I have received letters from Br. Hall that Messers. Holt and Munroe are on their way. And a
letter from Br. Whiting stating that he shall leave Brownsville for Cincinnati as soon as the
Cholera and expenses will permit. Price of steamboat fare to Cin. 15 Dol. each.
Yours affectionately,
A. Kent
In a recent letter mentioning vacancies I omitted Elizabeth which I supply whenever I have a
leisure Sabbath.
________
Galena, Ill., Oct. 30, 1849
Dear Brother,
I reached home in safety Monday morning (having spent the Sabbath at Elizabeth) after a
fatiguing journey of 626 miles and an absence of 4 weeks. My own health good and that of my
dear wife essentially improved, for which I continue to be grateful to our sleepless Supervisor.
Your encourage me to report freely my observations in passing over my field and beyond its
limits. I wrote from Iowa : and I continue my report. I spent a Sabbath with Br. Gaylord, his
congregation numbered 90 and the same in the afternoon. He enjoys the confidence of the people.
But as they reported their agent in feeble health and had not visited them in 2 years. I used some
freedom in conversing with Br. G. and raised the inquiry which is applicable to other churches,
whether a people unable to contribute no more than they do and who have been aided so long
should not allow their missionary to give part of his time to other destitute fields. He felt the
propriety of the suggestion and said he was surrounded by missionaries etc. But a prominent
member afterward said to me that there were neighborhoods where he had formerly preached.
I spent a night at Williamsburg, Mercer Co., where Br. Crittendon (O.[ld] S.[chool]) is
preaching and where I spent a Sabbath 2 years ago. I could get no more light in regard to
openings for preaching in that county except it should be at New Boston and Keithsburg a very
young village on the Miss. midway between Oquaka and M. and a rival in its claim to county
seat.
I failed to reach Edgerton to spend the Sabbath as I had planned all along, but was happy find
Br. Strong on the ground and building a house. I am obliged to Br. Reid for introducing him,
though I had corresponded with him and I think it better that the ministers of Presbyterian
Churches in Ill. should belong to Ill. Presbyterys rather than Iowa Associations. I found him quite
sensitive in relation to the letter of the Chocktaw Miss. to the Am. Board and quite disposed to
give his views to the public. I tried to dissuade him from garnering up and igniting the [anti-
slavery] fire brands which when tied to the long rails of little foxes may spoil the view & burn it
both “the shocks and the standing corn.”
At Rock Island I was surprised and pleased to meet with Br. Holt. He had not yet preached
there. There I heard over again how the people grieved that Br. Dwinell left them. I regard him
equal to any station and as he had expressed a doubt in a letter to Br. Osborn about remaining at
Salem, I wrote inviting him to return and named to him Rockford and the first church at Chicago
and also wrote to Br. Bascom and Loss who goes to the 3rd church in Chicago. They are finishing
a neat little chapel at R.I. and I am invited to assist in dedicating it 3 weeks hence. I spent a night
at Port Byron 16 miles up the River - found Br. Bullen there- just in from the east and gave him a
hearty welcome. Br. Reid has located him to preach half his time on each side of the Miss. There
was no church in either village, but Br. Reid has formed a small Congregational church at Port B.
I attended a prayer meeting. They were encouraged by the increased attendance: there were
present 4 men, 2 Presbyterians & 2 Methodists besides women & children. In reflecting upon the
circumstances I concluded that the restrictions to Agents not to organize churches did not hold
when they are out of his appointed bounds. One of the Methodist Brethren recognized me as an
old friend and I had spent a night at his new cabin a mile above on my way to Synod at St. Louis
20 years ago and when I described the first prayer meeting in Galena he said he was present at
that time. I called upon Br. Copeland who is about to leave Albany. I told him he could go to
Minnesota whither his inclinations led but I thought there were more urgent calls in Ill. and I have
pointed out several promising and appropriate fields. It occurs to me that Minnesota is as well
supplied for this year as any part of the land.
I called on Br. Gray. He is in doubt whether he should make a new application for aid to
labour at Mt. Carrol and asked me to visit & counsel with him which I intend to do on my was to
R. Island. He was going to preach at Savanna next Sabbath: said the church was in disorder as he
foretold would be the case when Br. Emerson organized it after lecturing on Congregationalism.
We both thought that things were not ready for Ch. organization.
From what I saw and heard at Elizabeth, I suppose the people are dancing for joy at the arrival
of Br. Childs. He spent 2 Sabbaths here waiting for me, and made a very favorable impression.
One of the best judges reckoned him far before Br. Dwinell!
I am getting my head under water and hot water too. Br. Behrends wrote to Br. Spees
reflecting on me for silencing him. But now he has written to me enclosing your letter and
ascribing to it his reputation & confession which is indeed most humiliating : says he is an
adulterer: begs me to forgive and try him again that he may undo the mischief which he has done
to the cause of Christ. We shall forward the documents to his judges who have ordered their
session to take the testimony.
Br. Hodges has written me letters of complaint that I am unfeeling to condemn him without a
hearing. I have been to see him, he was not a t home. I could not stay at his house all night with
my sick wife but told his wife that I should stay at Deacon Brewsters 2 miles distant. He did not
some to see me. Br. Gemmel and Mr. Reed of Byron take sides with him and their testimony is
quite contradictory to that of Esquire Robertson of Rockford. Deacon Brewster & several of his
neighbors living between Westfield & Byron and I have written him again that in view of the
facts he ought to demand an investigation from his Association. I cannot do it for I have no
jurisdiction. But I am compelled to withhold my commendation until he is acquitted.
I have called on Mr. Blanchard who was sanguine that he could sell the Guernsey Frocks. He
has not sold any, and this is in accordance with what Mr. Corwith said at first. He has been here
longer and better knows the market. The article finds no favor among our minds.
We are very thankful for the name you have just sent but we want a great many more. Br.
Humphrey is lodged at Milwaukee and Br. Monroe is gone to Wisconsin and I have not seen him
yet.
Yours, Etc.,
A. Kent
_________
Union Grove, Whiteside Co., Nov. 20, [1849]
Dear Br.,
Enclosed I send you a letter from Sharon and improve the opportunity to mention several
other matters.
I spent the Sabbath (18) at Mount Carrol by request of Br. Gray preached twice and twice in
the country and the 2 previous evenings and gave my advice as he has solicited it in consequence
of the revival made by the Methodists, Swendenborgians, etc. After inquiries made (as he
suggested) I told him if he would give up his school and other secular employments and give his
whole time to the ministry : If he would direct the people and make himself familiar that he
would gain ground in despite all existing opposition: that he was respected in the country and
village and that his preaching was uniformly very acceptable. That is so doing I should feel
justified in urging him to stay and that he need feel no solicitude about his adequate support. He
has dismissed his school as I recommended and proposes hereafter to have a small school of
misses to be taught by his wife.
Monday I made my way a cross to Beloit and while there I had a conversation with Br.
Chapin President Elect of Beloit College concerning a change of my field so as to confine me to
the west side of Northern Ill. and Wisconsin. I have no objection though it may easily be seen that
such changes should not be made often because when one has become acquainted he can operate
to better purpose and with less expense than in a new field.
If such an arrangement is made we have thought (Br. C and myself) that Br. Clary would be
the suitable man for the other field. And the Providence of God has seemed to point him out and
we each fixed upon him without a knowledge of the others voice. I wish not to continue that
appointment but I thought a suggestion from us could not be improper.
On my way home I called on Br. Howell, He has closed his labors at 12 Mile Grove and
proposes to himself to attend for a time to his secular affairs that afterwards he may visit his place
and give himself wholly to his work, He says he loves his work and has no disposition to leave
the ministry. His people seem quite willing to have a change and say that he is uninteresting as a
preacher and that his family cares have been such as prevents him from pastoral labours. I
conversed with Deacons Weld and Woodruff they are determined on an effort to build a
sanctuary this winter. I spent the next Sabbath at Elk Horn Grove in aid of Br. Jessup who is
disabled from preaching now 4 weeks by the state of his throat and lungs. They are trying to build
a church. I had intended to spend that Sabbath at Como, a thriving village on Rock River.
..Wednesday evening I preached at the dedication of the little neat chapel (25x40) at Rock Island.
It was a deeply interesting occasion and the house was well filled. Br. Holt seems to be well
satisfied to labour there, and I regard it prospectively as a vastly important place.
My pen, as you will perceive, makes it difficult to write. I remain as ever your servant in the
Gospel.
A. Kent
____
Kent to Chapin, 29 Nov. 1849
[When calling Chapin to Beloit:]
“We repeatedly united in prayer for we felt that the future growth and symmetry and
usefulness (not to say the very life) of the infant we were nursing would depend very much upon
the man to whom we should entrust its early education and subsequent discipline.258[258]
____
Aurora, Kane Co, Jan. 9, 1850
“In committee of the whole” we voted after talking with Br. Drake of Elk Grove and
questioning him about devoting all his energies to the work, that we should recommend the
application be granted.
A. Kent
Br. Whitney of Oswego Co. N.Y. who brought a commission from you (as he affirms) wished
me to say that he thought that 400 would not support him and his family of 8, and I replied that if
your committee allowed him more they would probably do it in the form of “out fit” to enable
him to bring them to this country.
The sum asked from you by Lockport us large, but the circumstances seemed to require it. we
did not dare to cut it down. Br. Bergen has consulted long with me and I have been at loss to
know what advice to give him.
Br. Loughhead has presented his case before the Com. and we recommended that he receive
200 dollars for a year commencing Jan. 1, 1850, and that he close his school as soon as his
engagement permits.
__________
Galena, Dec. 18/49
Dear Br.,
I have just returned from a broken trip having gone no further than Mt. Carrol where I spent a
week with Br. Gray partly waiting for snow, and intending to go across Ill. River : broken by a
wild horse who kicked my sleigh all to pieces and allowed me to return safe and sound to get
another horse which is the fourth I have been obliged to exchange this year.
A letter from Br. Pearson states that their association have investigated the charges against Br.
Hodges and decided unanimously that he had done nothing in relation to the matter derogatory to
his Christian character. My object therefore is fully answered for as the association have
addressed the responsibility of vindicating him I am now prepared to recommend him to aid and
to meet his accusers with a voucher which will sever me from responsibility.
You made me not any trouble by your letter to Mr. Behrends but it has led to a confession
which superseded the necessity of a painful examination. I have had the same reflections
respecting foreign clergymen and it seems to me that special efforts should be entered on
systematically to find out & bring forward young men from the families of foreigners to be
educated and trained for the ministry. Cannot some one (of those who can) be induced to write
articles for the religious papers that shall hold up this subject in all its length and breadth.
Chapin took the job only after he had been offered the job of secretary of the A.H.M.S. quoted in: Townsend,
Lucy Forsyth: The Best Helpers of One Another: Anna Peck Sill and the Struggle for Women”s Education. Dekalb:
Department of Leadership and Educational Policy Studies, Northern Illinois University, in cooperation with
Educational Studies Press, 1988. p. 68.
258[258]
I did not intend to object to the location of Br. Bullen and Strany, but I fully approve it and
when a missionary is in sight of his field on the opposite side of the river they can easily
understand one another when the river is impassible. In what I said of Br. Gaylord’s field, I said
no more that I would have others say of my field. It is not to be expected that we can be every
where: but you seek light from any quarter.
If there was any implied reflection on Br. Reid, it was not intended.
Br. Copeland called and I told him there were no openings for more missionaries in Minnesota
but I pointed out several here. He has returned but I was not at home when he called. I consider
we have a doz. openings in Northern Ill. more urgent than Minnesota can furnish in a year or two.
But there is less of Romance about entering these.
The people of Rock Island could do no more for preaching while making the effort for a
church edifice and my impression is that if the Exec. Com. withholds aid entirely that it will be
assumed in part by Br. Osborne who has become responsible for the house. He has done nobly
and I felt for him and have aided him 25: They said all along that they should depend on the
Society to furnish them a pastor but under their trying circumstances they thought it indispensable
to secure a present supply.
Yours, etc.,
A. Kent
___________
[Chapin Papers-Beloit College: letter to Professor Joseph Emerson]
Galena, Jan. 29, 1850
Dear Br.,
Your letter of inquiries is before me. And it seemed at first to be a complete puzzle. But the
more I have reflected upon it the more I have become confirmed in the conclusion that we as a
Com. (and through them as a Board of Trustees) are shut up to one course.
It sees to me that in view of the present posture of affairs and indeed in view of our own past
action, we are compelled to throw our Female Seminary into the market and to give it to the
highest bidder.
There it is true some restrictions. Its location must be in Ill. and it must be contiguous to the
state line and it should be in a healthy atmosphere both physical and moral. We ought (other
things being equal) to prefer a location where we have reason to believe that it would be not only
patronized by the community but where there is that high tone of moral and religious influence
which would satisfy the most scrupulous parent.
Considerations of this kind should not be lost sight of nor should we disregard the
anticipations cherished by Rockford people nor the noble efforts of those at Rockton. But after
all, I think there is no way for us to get out of the labyrinth of difficulties which beset is on every
hand but to make the whole thing turn upon the largest and best subscription. We are more
completely tied up to this now at this second effort then we were at first.
Certainly you ought to attend that examination and encourage that school but you cannot
locate the seminary we have in charge. But the committee ought to act and act promptly if there
no prospect of light from the east as we had anticipated.
It strikes me that the reasons you suggest are forcible for postponing any effort at Rockford to
raise funds just now, but there is of course a matter over which we have no control, and divine to
have none. In fact, we cannot foresee what and how many and how great rivals may appear on the
field of honorable competition for the tempting prize.
I must confess while waiting for an answer from the east the whole matter has been so quietly
and so completely laid on the shelf that I cannot even recollect all the committee. I think that Br.
Person and yourself were associated with me and and further than this I do not recollect.
I have declined attending the examination because Br. Peet has requested me to be at home of
the 5th. I wish I has some copies of your annual catalogue, etc.
I expect to be over that way again in a week or two, Deo Volente.
Yours very Truly,
A. Kent
An after thought - I think Br. Chapin was on that com.
--------[Chapin Papers- Beloit College]
Comm. of Trustees of Beloit College
Feb. 7, 1850
The undersigned as a committee of the Board of Trustees of Beloit College are instructed to
receive propositions for the location of a Female Seminary in Northern Illinois according to the
original understanding upon which the college was founded.
They accordingly invite proposals upon the following basis:
I. That the Board of Trustees of the Seminary will be legally & perhaps in part personally
distinct from that of Beloit College.
II. That the seminary shall be under the immediate charge of an Executive Committee residing
principally in the vicinity of the institution.
III. That this committee do not feel authorized to determine details as to permanent plan of
management, precise site, or any other matters which can remain open for consideration of the
trustees of the Seminary though the establishment of the school upon a temporary basis is
contemplated as soon as practical after determining the location.
IV. That subscriptions to be applied to the erection of buildings & other expenses necessarily
incidental to the commencement of the undertaking be made in the form of promissory notes,
made payable in such installments that the necessary buildings shall be ready for use by the first
of Sept. , 1852.
The committee deem it proper for them to state that after taking into account religious, moral
& social influences their recommendation to the board will depend principally
upon the position of places which may compete as being central, healthful, accessible &
pleasant.And especially- upon the amount of subscriptions. This is regarded as important not only as
furnishing means for the commencement of the enterprise but ever more so, as indicating the
interest of the people in the plan and in order to meet the just expectations and claim the support
of other places of the object in other quarters.
The committee understand that the desire and to the extent of their ability the purpose of the
originators of this two fold enterprise is that the contemplated institution shall not be inferior in
grade, importance or usefulness to the college.
Propositions addresses to Rev. A.L. Chapin, President of Beloit College will be received until
the first of June next.
A. Kent
Wait Talcott
R.M. Pearson
Joseph Emerson
______
Winnebago Co., Feb. 5, 1850
Dear Br.,
It appears from the letter of Br. Hildreth that your Com. refused entirely the application of the
Church in his behalf. I am surprised at this, as I believed he acted in good faith upon the
invitation given him by Br. Osborne (I did not know or did not recollect that Br. Reed was
consulted). I did not “solicit” for I knew nothing of it so far as I recollect till after he began to
preach there, but I did “sanction” or approve it for I thought the church could not be held together
except they could have preaching. And I should always fell he that he was wronged if he was
entirely refused aid.
I have never been absent from Galena more than 4 weeks at a time. My only question was
whether he ought to have the full amount asked. On one side he is living in a village where 400
would be but a poor support for such a family as his, and on the other I was under the impression
that he did not give much more of his time to go over on Sat. & preach on the Sabbath. But
according to the representations of the letter he did more. And I intend to write to Br. Osborne
and if his views correspond : [lined out] On reflection I think I need say no more to Br. Osborne
on the subject. But I never engaged “to pay him as Mr. Dwinell was paid.”
If I had been living at Davenport and had merely performed Sabbath services, I should not
have felt at liberty to receive more than 150 dollars for six months. I have drawn on you for
ninety eight dollars because I should soon want the money and the colfporteur was anxious to pay
its owes to the society. If I have done wrong I wish you to let me know, but I put in a month
distant that it might not embarrass you.
Br. Whitney writes that he wants more money, a new church and ordination.
Br. Childs has found trouble enough from a Millerite who has now run off with a widow. He
will no doubt give you the history of the thing. He is going over to Br. Savage for sympathy and
refused to labour among the miners.
I am on my way to McHenry County and perhaps Kane and Cook.
Feb. 12. I passed through Belvidere on Sat. They are sadly bereaved, and their loss is ours. Br.
Wright was growing rapidly in public esteem.
I reached Br. Smalley in the twilight and found my letter has not reached him. And the Free
Will Baptist occupied the house in the morning with a sermon on Baptism, a class meeting, and
the Lord’s Supper and the Seceders in the afternoon. But I was invited to preach in the evening. I
compelled my text to bring out the necessity and duty of finishing their neat little church (24x30)
(which is enclosed and painted and stands there a mere shell) notwithstanding their wheat crop is
cut off and they feel they gave done their utmost, I inquired and they said they needed 50 dollars
to finish it, I header the subscription and we raised 27 1/2 on the spot and they think it will be
made up. And that is better than so much to Home Missions for your missionary will accomplish
double when he can have a house.
I called yesterday on Br. Wilson and on Br. Milhouse (one of his elders at Virginia
Settlement) and endeavored to prepare the way for Br. Wilson to preach once every Sabbath to
that church also to that at Crystal Lake with the hope that they might together do more to sustain
him. But did not meet with anyone who belonged to Crystal Lake Ch. and did not find time to call
on Br. Beech. I apprehend that he will not easily find employment in the vicinity.
Elgin, Feb. 15. Br. Clark has organized a church at Algonquin or Oceola, 5 miles from Crystal
Lake and proposed to have a man take charge of the 2. Perhaps Br. Langdon will go there.
Last Saturday Br. Beech explained to Br. Clark the reason of his ceasing to preach at Crystal
Lake to be the fact that the house was not warmed. But the people refused to warm the house
because they did not wish him to occupy it. He explained the reason of his saying that he should
“have no support from his farm” : that he probably has in his mind at the time the idea he should
get nothing from it because the crops had been cut off in previous years. Br. Clark stated these
things to me and I thought it would help you. Br. C. also said “According to my best recollection
of the minutes of the Crystal Lake Church it was previous to the close of his third quarter that
they voted unanimously that would not hear Mr. Beech. On Tuesday I took the cars and went to
Chicago where I heard Br. Savage in Br. Peterson’s Church and spent 2 nights with Br. Loss and
saw Br. Childs who came there to find Br. Savage. I think him justifiable in having come. There
are meetings every evening in most of the churches in Chicago and quite a number attend the
evening meetings in the 1st and 2nd churches.
Big Rock Creek, Tuesday Feb. 19. I reached Aurora on Friday and found I has outrun my
appointment as I did also on the previous Sabbath. It is of little use to send letters by cross mails
through small post offices, For example when I called on Br. Miller Sat 16 he was crying over
news of a brother in law having died in Rockton more than 2 weeks before. This is a sore evil to
an agent. Br. Miller has been holding meetings in Aurora with most flattering prospects, as I
learned from several. But the Methodists brought into their Church Elder Puffer, and he by his
puffs and anecdotes drew off the ??? and Br. M. began a meeting 4 miles west and spent the
Sabbath there among Universalists and reported a very profane man as having begun to pray that
day. While I preached 3 times & on Home Miss. once but took no collection. It was not
expedient. But if I had not supplied in town that country congregation would not have had
preaching. Br. Miller labours with all his might, I judge. Dea. Strong of Aurora in reply to my
enquiry concerning Br. Bergen said that I might inquire of Dea. Johnson & Mr. Pierce who
belong to the Jerico Church to which Spencer Baker now ministers, for reports unfavorable to Br.
Bergen’s character. So In have been over to Jerico to hunt up the story of his appropriating to
himself a pig, which when traced back to its origin was not only wicked but contemptible, but
other stories related to his refusing to lend his horse which we could not trace out because the
man was gone to LaSalle Co. Another was more grave and contains an insinuation of forgery.
The statement is that the application for aid to which you responded as dated Dec. 1 1847 was
subscribed by Issac S. Fitch whereas Dea. Issac Fitch avers that he did not put his name there.
Please examine by whom that application is signed : whether Fitch is one and is so whether it is
Clark Fitch or Issac Fitch and if the latter, I see no way but to send us the document.
Please send the Home Missionary to H.F. Kingsbury & Deacon Strong, Aurora,. Kane Co., for
one year and charge me one dollar.
_________
Buffalo Grove, Feb. 25, 1850
Dear Br.
I intended to rewrite the enclosed journal but the prospect now is that I may be detained here
so long that this is not expedient. You are aware perhaps that the cause of Christ in this place is in
chaos and I am urged to stay a while and see If I can do any thing to reconcile the jarring
elements.
There is some little indication of seriousness which led a prominent individual to encourage
me to tarry a while without knowing any thing of the very interesting case of hopeful conversion
which is reported this morning. I have just left his wife in trouble and in tears. I could not see him
but he is praying and confessing and exhorting others as I have heard from his father in law Dea.
Perkins.
To resume my journal, I preached there week-day evenings for Br. Bergen to good
congregations at Little Rock, at Somonauk and at the Sc. house near his present residence. One
object was to explore the field and give him the advice he asks. He has a good library and appears
to think of nothing else but to give himself to his work and though perhaps not very energetic, He
seems to be respected and his labours valued, particularly at Somonauk. I passed on (Friday
evening) to Four Mile Grove where I spent an hour or two with Br. I.H. Baldwin. I trust
Providence has placed him in a position where he will be very useful. There is an extensive
distribution around him. I am confirmed in the judgement I gave Br. Bergen, that for the next six
months at Somonauk and Little Rock and for the alternative Sabbath he should visit the expiring
church between Paw Paw and Ross’s Grove and labour to resuscitate it. But if the door should be
closed against him (as is quite probable) that he should explore the neighboring groves such as
Johnson’s, Shabbony, Knox and Meligin and report prospects and progress.
I spent the night (22nd) at Lee Center with a view to ascertain whether Br. Pearson was likely
to remain on his field and after spending 2 hours with him at Grand Detour on my way to this
place (23) I regret the conclusion to which I have arrived that he will
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***************************************************pts them to a removal; for a
transient Christian is incapable of exerting any considerable influence for good, and the rage for
gold threatens to cut off our means for supporting ministers and even to destroy the weaker
churches.
It is a great evil in this new country that ecclesiastical instruction no longer is made a part of
Sabbath duties in the domestic circle.
It is a sad thing that the churches evince so little concern about the increase of ministers and
that pious parents would sooner have their sons go into a lucrative business than into the ministry.
We have dome but little on this field towards raising funds. The failure of the wheat crop for 2
years is complained of extensively. I do not discover that I have received any except $64 from the
first church of Galena and $4.55 from Mount Carrol and 1.50 donations from 2 individuals
besides what I have taken for the Home Missionary. Perhaps I have not urged as often and as
zealously as I ought. Many prefer to return their collections in their own hands, some take up
collections monthly, and some ministers themselves preach on the subject of Home Missions.
My expenses for losses, repairs, and contingencies the past year will approximate to $150. But
I have kept no accounts and shall render none. I shall, however, need the balance due me after
deducting what stands charged against me for which please sent a draft.
If the multiplication of roads is an indication of improvement, the field of my supervision is
assuming an important position for we have rail roads and plank roads in abundance in agitation.
On this field there are now located fifty missionaries of your society located. And among them
there are some excellent men whose devotion to their work sustains them in the performance of
great labour and under the pressure of having trials. I know them for I have shared in their
straitened accommodations and witnessed their self-sacrificing spirit and the courage they evince
in urging forward moral reforms in advance of a timid public sentiment, I have admired too the
fortitude of their companions in sympathizing with them and even cheering them on.
Take a single illustration. It was the last missionary with whom I have spent the Lord’s day.
Many with the exhausting labours of preaching daily for 2 weeks. He would not relax even for a
Sabbath when Providence had sent him help, but tore himself away and preached 3 times in a
distant place and came back on Monday rejoicing that he has won for his divine master a notable
trophy of redeeming grace and established one more family alter, while I was left to conduct the
public services for him without so much as a study or place or retirement for there were but 2
finished rooms in his house and the principal one of those was occupied by a stranger whom in
her sickness they had taken in.
Eleven new laborers have been introduced and thirteen have changed their fields and 2
brethren of precious memory have fallen asleep. Five churches have been organized and none
houses of worship have been built or are in progress. It gives me pleasure also to observe as I pass
along that school houses are multiplying and edifices of brick and stone are fast succeeding to the
rude shanties of the pioneers - so fast indeed that “the stone school house” no longer serves as a
term of discrimination.
Three academies have also gone into successful operation numbering the first year of their
existence near 200 pupils in the more advanced stages of education. Each of these occupies a site
of surprising beauty on which 17 years ago the tawny Indian fixed his filthy lodge and by the side
of a stream where he sought his food an trapped his furs. Last spring I witnessed in Minnesota a
scene of revolting heathenism. It was a company of Souix at their stupid and idolatrous dance.
Last month I witnessed the examination at one of these academies of 100 or more Messers and
young ladies answering questions on history, philosophy and botany or performing with accuracy
on the blackboard the problems given them in astronomy, physiology and the various branches of
mathematics. These, thought I, afford no developments of a tendency to barbarism, but they are
the legitimate results of an enlightened Christian ministry such as your society aims to establish
and sustain and indeed almost every church in Northern Ill. shows the foot prints of the Home
Missionary in its early history.
It grieves me that I can report so few tokens of God’s special presence with the churches but
there are some Sac. worshippers enjoyed during the year extraordinary manifestations of divine
grace. We hail with joy these gracious visitations, but to narrow down the estimated fruits of an
Evangelical Ministry to what is achieved during these brief periods of refreshing would be like
measuring the usefulness of the Solar Orb by reckoning the value of a single shower produced by
the overpowering heat of a mid summers day but forgetting all the time the dews of every night
and the countless benefits which in other ways be communicated, but the precise value of which
we are unable to gage.
We need in this limited field 17 more to occupy the points of importance which claim
attention. There for the most part are scattered settlements which require much preparatory work,
i.e., preaching to small congregations gathered in log cabins, exploring the ground to find the
central point where the largest number can be accommodated and visiting from door to door to
compel attendance by winning their confidence and esteem until a love for the truth shall become
a motive superseded to the personal influence of the missionary and are there no men at the east
who can be spared for this department of service. It is an important work for before the
missionary shall have reduced to order the heterogeneous families located there, others will come
in faster than he can win them to advantage.
I have laboured to impress upon my younger Brethren the importance of preaching from house
to house and in some instances have accompanied them in the detail of this service.
During the year I have travelled according to my log book 4977 miles in the stage, steamer,
waggon and the last 913 on horse back. I have preached 97 times and in most instances to the
destitute, and I have been looking after young men for the ministry and turning the hearts of their
fathers to his children with special reference to that subject.
Yours in the Gospel,
A. Kent
Br. B & Br. H, Confidential
From your silence and from hints of his earlier history I suspect you do not appreciate as I so
the present value of Br. Clary as a discreet and holy man. If you deem it worth your while, make
inquiries of his Brethren in Wisconsin.
[marginal notes]
Charge me with $2.50 just handed me by Col. Loomis of the Army.
I have distributed about half your reports and of Barris sermon.
_________
Galena, March 16, 1850
How to cure a cold.
Under the conviction that abstinence and exercise are the best inducements to carry off a cold,
I left home last Saturday only half sick and minus my dinner; rode 25 miles in the face of a strong
east wind.
There I met a joyous welcome and having secured my horse in a “sucker stable,”* and “careful
& sparing ate my bread.” I followed my guide for a distance of 2 miles to the place of my
evening’s appointment on foot and in the dark over morasses and bogs where a single misstep
would have plunged me in the slough of Despond.
Our synagogue was void of a ceiling except as a few boards were thrown across the joists and
these but partially covered with shingles and the heavens. A fire already burnt down was still
flickering upon the large hearth which extended well nigh across the end of the building, while
the rough wind was coursing joyously between the logs and through the broken windows.
A congregation of 24 sitting in darkness quietly waited our arrival and while my guide was
gone in quest of a light we spent the half hour in remarks about the California excitement which
son ran into a discussion upon the merits of those Reverend gentlemen who are gone to the land
of gold. With a great unanimity we arrived at the conclusion that ministers were men of like
passions as others, and the preacher himself pushed the matter yet further and affirmed that God
had of purpose employed those earthen vessels that he might have all the glory of what ever good
was done by their instrumentality, which is in fact the leading thoughts in the text (2 cor) which
he that day been studying as the basis of his sermon on the morrow and which they were invited
to hear.
Two candles were at length procured but they proved to be of little service, for their was
neither table nor chair in the house and the frolic wind forbade their resting on the writing shelves
which were attached to the logs. In attempting to preach, therefore, I held my bible in one hand
and my candle in the other which prevented me from displaying any of the graces of oratory,
except as I now and then set down my candle upon the floor. One of the kind neighbors made an
effort to relieve my embarrassment and to construct a chandelier by thrusting a bit of a rail into a
crevice but failing in this as - as frontier life is inventive of experiments- he then thought himself
to reach up and set the light upon a board over our heads. This seemed at first a lucky hit, but
soon failed of its object for the wick was too large for the candle and the light became so dim as
to be of no service. And I was obliged to lay aside my meager skeleton and trust entirely to such
ready thoughts and brilliant scintillations as the excitement of the occasion would elicit.
Having dismissed the congregation we retraced our steps over the same bogs and marshes but
not with the same light, for the crescent moon had gone down. Thick clouds muffled the stars and
we only the faint and inky glimmering of the prairie fires in the distance.
Fatigued as I was with the ride and the walk and with my exertions to interest and instruct a
company of pioneer worshippers, I was soon snugly recumbent in the loft of the cabin and
protected from the wind by quilts neatly pinned around my bed. I was presently locked in the
embrace of a delicious repose : thus verifying the passage of holy writ. The sleep of the labouring
man is sweet whether he eat little or much. (But instead of the Proverb, the north wind driveth
away rain exciting circumstances suggested another, the east wind is sure to bring rain. True this
is apocryphal but it is the result of my own observation. I awoke in the night, and heard the drops
pattering upon the roof just above my head, and this would have been soothing as music but as I
looked forward to public services, and as I reflected that my saddle was perched for safe keeping
upon the poles which should have supported the roof of hay, had it not been eaten away by the
animals which it was designed to protect.
The Sabbath came and the clouds hung heavily over us. The place of meeting was 1 1/2 miles
distant and there was no conveyance for that Christian sister whose hospitality I had shared. The
ground was full of water and she could not walk thither as she had done when I preached there
before, and it was one of the coldest days of winter. As I took leave I cheered her disappointment
by saying that it was better to be denied the privilege of public worship than to despise it as so
many do.
We had another open house and another strong east wind but in lieu of the large fire place we
had a box stove capable of containing about six gallons of smoke besides what escaped from its
broken sides and which would have rendered the place a Bochim but for the wider breaches in the
sides of the house.
I enjoyed some comfort and experienced some enlargement for the time being on setting forth
the glory of the gospel-treasure, and the wisdom of God in employing human agency to reveal it
to mankind.
But when the heavens gathered blackness, I remembered the message of Elijah to Ahab: “get
three down that the rain stop thee not.” And having dismissed my congregation abruptly that they
might escape the shower, I mounted my horse there being 10 miles distance between me and my
second appointment. And I was apprehensive that by a little delay I might be arrested in by course
by the streams, which were being rapidly swollen.
In the event it proved to be a heavy storm of rain & hail accompanied with the frequent peals
of thunder immediately over and around me.
Drenched by the shower, I reached the church in time. But they did not expect that I should
encounter the storm, and we spent a little time in reading the scriptures and prayer with the few
that were assembled when opportunity was afforded me to dry my clothes. In the evening I had a
small congregation and after public service I retired to rest early; and this morning I awoke
refreshed by sleep and rode home on the frozen ground against a cold west wind evidently
humidified by the medicine I had taken albeit the doses were unpalatable and heavier than I had
thought necessary. I had the satisfaction also to reflect that I had preached the gospel message to
more than 60 souls who are destitute of the state of religion. Pardon this egotism.
*
An enclosure of logs with leaves and branches thrown over some poles intended for a shelter
from the storm but which by its drippings keeps the animals as wet longer than if they stood out
in the open air.[Kent’s footnote]
____________
Galena, April 13, 1850
Dear Br.,
Your letter asking permission to have a deed of Mr. & Mrs. Hopkins executed to me is
received and I give my permission. But if that is all that I have to do in the matter you might have
presumed this far as a friend and much more as your agent.
Br. Holt is to be installed Ap. 24.
The Guernsey frocks are still in hand. I deposited 6 with Mr. Blanchard [Galena’s Methodist
minister] who was sanguine he could sell them, but he has sold but 3 and thinks they will not go
off here at all.
Mr. Whitney declines being ordained at Stillwater and prefers coming down : does not give
his reasons. I do not know therefore as I shall go up there except you think it best. I can form no
better judgement than you, at this distance, of his necessities. I have enough to do nearer home
but will cheerfully go if it is thought best.
I expect to go across the state in 2 or 3 weeks and shall make it in my way to call on Br.
Loughead. I think his application has been prepared and has failed to reach Br. Badger.
At the meeting of Galena Pres. just closed I saw Br. Lord & Powell. They both expect to leave
their present positions. I pointed out to Br. Powell 7 vacancies continuous, Sharon, Prophets
Town, Union Grove, Garden Plains, Como, Lynden and Gap Grove, exclusive of Buffalo Grove,
Dixon, (and Grand Detour if Br. Pearson leaves). “Men of Israel help” send us some men that are
willing to occupy these new fields.
We want more than any others some men like Br. Wright of Stark County. We want a
missionary under direction of Presbytery. We want a Bushnell or Williston, a man of experience
and some tact for that species of labour.
Yours enclosing a draft for $81.48 is received.
Your Brother,
A. Kent
_____
[Chapin Papers- Beloit College
Letter from Kent to Professor Emerson]
Galena, April 17, 1850
Rev. & Dear Sir:
Your son has given and I accept the challenge to write you a few lines. This is undertaken on
my part, in consequence of his confession that he brought not a line from you which he never
delivered.
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.
I have a 1000 times been distrustful of myself, but I do not recollect that I was seriously
repentant of having entered upon the duties of the sacred office but I do repent daily and sorely of
delinquencies. I did not intend to write about myself but egotism most naturally comes up when
one is at a loss for a subject. I will only add that we should be very happy to see you in Galena
and “to bring you on your way” to Minnesota if you have courage to venture so fay into the
American forests.
With sentiments of great respect and affection, I remain your brother in the Lord,
A. Kent
I must be allowed to enter my protest against men being employed to make ministers for the
West who never come to the west. Come and stand on some ??? top and look over the land.
_________
Barber’s Grove, Alias Crete, May 8, 1850
Rev. Mr. Badger D.D.
Dear Br.,
In accordance with your request for information concerning Brs. Loughead & Birge and
agreeably to my own preconceived plan I have made investigation of the circumstances of both so
far as I have been able.
I called on Br. Loughead on Thursday - rode with him about 20 miles on Friday in the south
east part of Grundy County in the rain. On Saturday I rode to Nettle Creek whence John
Loughead resides and where he expects to organize a church. I preached there on Sabbath and
rode over to the Unitarian Church near Marsailles (alias Grafton Church) where Br. Basset
preached a while and preached there in the afternoon to a large congregation (i.e., 75). That
church is offered him to preach in and I have advised that he supply those 2 churches each
alternate Sabbath. We sent Br. Phillips (my travelling companion from Hazel Green who was not
well and needed a journey) to the south west part of the county : to Vienna where a church is soon
to be organized. Br. Phillips returned and preached for Br. Henderson in the evening (10 miles).
Br. Langhead preached at Dresden & Au Sable.
After the best judgement I could form, I have advised that Br. L. preach on the alternate
Sabbath at Vienna one part of the day , on the other to the Brookfield Church where a Br. Marsch,
a licentiate, lives if they should desire his services. It is some 6 or 8 milees from Vienna. If not
wanted there, he will preach at some point more to the east where there is a heavy settlement. We
have concluded that Dresden does not offer inducement to occupy a whole Sabbath & perhaps Br.
henderson will preach on week days to them.
Br. Loughead seems encouraged and I hope that he will now give himself wholly to his work
as he promised to do. The 4 churches (2 not yet organized) are Marsailles & Nettle Creek,
Vienna, and Brookfield. If it should be judged best to have him occupy the latter field.
Monday I went by a straight course to Wilmington, and had much conversation with Br. J.
Porter, Col. Stewart (Scotch) and Br. Cowan (colporture) respecting Br. Birge. He labours in W.
and they know his capabilities & indulge no sanguine hopes of his success and yet seemed
unwilling to advise that he be dropped at once. Br. P. thinks him penurious.
I reached Momence (50 miles due south of Chicago on the Kankakee and near the south line
of Will co.) about 10 am and made full proof of the doctrine of the saints perseverance in my
efforts to get information untrammeled. I ran about on foot all the rest of the day, probably 8 or
10 miles, to see the men whose names were appended to the paper and others. And the views of
those men whom I saw may be summed up in a few words that though Br. Birge is inefficient and
too much taken up with his family cares, yet they admit that society has been improved since he
came and that “it was as well as they could do for the moment.” Momence is a thriving little
village that is expected to become the depot for a larger district south and east.
Br. Birge came home in the evening was very glad to see me, had forgot to send his
application to the committee. He gave me a long account of his labours & prospects and to my
inquiries about his spirituality, his studies, & his pastoral visits his answers were general and
indefinite.
The next day I visited Br. Gilbert at Barber’s Grove and preached in the evening. They are
threatening to build a church worth $1500 at Crete or Woods Corners where village pride and
cupidity wish to figure. I advised him to persuade them to be content with a smaller house or to
sell the pews before commencing which he thought might be done. I did not get all the
information I wished but think Br. G. is doing pretty well, I urged them to be more prompt in
their applications. There is a great disposition to put off these applications. I think a short article
on the subject would be appropriate.
I attended the convention at Chicago, having some misgivings about it. They were overcome
by the indications of Providence, that I should come near them about that time and I was invited
to preach the installation sermon for Br. Loss.
We had a pleasant and interesting meeting the results of which were more satisfactory than I
anticipated. They will appear soon in the Herald.
We spent a night with Br. Drake and conversed with him and his deacon about their prospects
and I administered a gentle rebuke to them (as I did Br. Gilbert) for their lack of prayer meetings.
They are building a church but in the mean time hold meetings in 2 places 2 1/2 miles apart
preaching twice in one school house the same day. I recommended once every Sabbath at each
school house and a prayer meeting & S.S. to fill up the day.
I passed through Dundee and spent an hour or two with Br. Wells, passed through Marengo or
Pleasant Hill where Br. Reynolds officiated and spent the night with Br. White 4 miles this side.
He said the last 4 ministers who had laboured there would not equal one of ordinary talents or
words to that effect.
There is a great & rich settlement about there and the fragments of an Old School and of a
Cong. Church which might by a judicious and efficient N.S. minister be gathered into a strong
church. Cannot you send us such a man?
Rockford May 10th: Having been one day with the Gen. Association and seem Br. Kirby a
moment I [am] ready to ride westward.
Yours & etc.
A. Kent
After inquiry of Brs. Clark & Brown, I presume it was my fault that you did not receive an
application in behalf of Br. Longhead.
______
[Enclosed with a letter from the Batavia Congregational Church applying for support for Rev.
George Hubbard.]
Rockford, May 18, 1850
Dear Brethren,
The Com. Brs. Clarke, Brown, and Wells all agree to recommend the sum of $200. They think
they could not cut down this application and that notwithstanding I laboured some time to show
that our churches were asking too much, i.e., too large appropriations, and too many of them
insisting on having the whole of a ministers time. There are several churches near this at Batavia
where I thought the missionary might preach there a day and go to another church and have them
there to fill up the Sabbath with S. Schools, Bible Class & prayer meetings.
But they are afraid of the methodist influence etc.
It is Saturday an I must go to Freeport without staying to hear the discussion whether they will
any longer patronize Missionary Societies that tolerate Slavery.
Your servant in Christ,
A. Kent
____
[Chapin Papers - Beloit College]
Galena, June 24, 1850
Dear Br.,
Br. C.R. Clark of Granville, Putnam Co., in a letter of business, enquires rlative to Mr.
Squire’s appointment to the Professorship of Int. and Mor. Philosophy & says “I suppose you will
be thoroughly satisfied as to his being the man for that department before you install him. Allow
me to enquire how it would be to induce him to endow the professorship and divide the
department of Intellectual from the Moral - I have a friend in Bellvue, Huron Co., Ohio by the
name of S.H. Waldo who is emminently qualified for an instructor in Int. Philosophy. He is also a
thorough linguist & I would take the liberty to introduce him to your notice and if you think
proper to correspond with him.” This from Br. Clark.
I should be happy to converse further about the Theo Sem but am too tired to write it. I think
you would not have taken umbrage at any thing said or done at the Chicago Convention.
Yours very truly,
A. Kent
P.S. I intend to be at Beloit on Monday before Commencement on Sem. business,
I regret I had no opportunity with Mr. Gridley. Some thought him rather terse: Some and good
judges of preaching thought he was superlatively excellent.
________
Galena, Ill., June 24, 1850
Dear Br.,
I have signified to Br. Clark of Granville that I approve the action of his Presbytery
recommending him as a Missionary labouring within their bounds to have his whole support
assured for one year provided that you approve of his remaining at Granville at present for six
months or a year in view of the relative position of the fields and his wants of a better knowledge
of their relative importance.
Br. Clark seems to enter cheerfully upon that itinerary which I regard as very important for the
region which he is serving, but says it will involve some wear and time.
In reply I stated to him that I strive to preach to the destitute when not on the duties of my
agency : that I am now staying at home for some time being somewhat enfeebled by reason of the
hot weather, but yet I go out, 18, 20, 25, 30, & 12 miles on the two last and the 3 following
Saturdays and return on Mondays. Last Sabbath I preached in 2 vast places and had congregations
of near 100 in each besides visiting and talking a half-hour with the Sabbath Schools and
travelling in all near 12 miles - a pretty good Sabbath day’s work for a sick man.
And I may add in “a parenthesis to be read in a quicker and weaker tome of voice” and not
any wise to be published that Mrs. K. and myself called on Saturday night at 9 o’clock (having
rode late on account of the extreme heat of the day) at the house of a family recently from
Victorias dominions, and were deposited in the hottest and filthiest place I ever encountered.
Having our buffalo robe along we used it as a partition wall between us and the residuum. I rose
early went and went out [and] took a long breath of some of the sweetest fresh air I ever inhaled.
My horse complained a little that he had but a short supper (grain being exceedingly scarce in all
these parts) but I told him to hush for he fared vastly better than we did. And we rejoiced
afterwards for it enables us now to appreciate our own mattress and other fixings which is one
vast improvement upon the feather bed which must have been picked off Noah’s geese and the
cotton comfortable an inch thick, our only cover and which might have served Methuselah for a
considerable portion of his protracted life. I write this for your amusement and because you want
the lights and shadows.
I ought to have mentioned before what is now is a measure slipped from my mind. Br.
Whitney said that it was a condition of his going to Minnesota that he should have something to
pay off old debts, or words to that effect. I believe with this addition I have said all I need to day
in reference to Br. Whitney’s case in a previous letter. I thought it not necessary to visit
Minnesota this spring. But I would go very cheerfully in August or September should you deem it
necessary.
In as much as I thought myself more poetical than fanciful in this letter I read it to Mrs. K.
who said I ought to have added that my afternoon congregation was crammed into a little school
house 18x20 : there she counted 77 inside including 11 babies and were told by some who had a
body outside that there were more than 35 standing by the windows and that one woman who
came 20 miles to the meeting having previously lived in the neighborhood said “it was good to be
there.” I may add this was encouraging for I have [been] holding on at that point amidst more
discouragement than I ever met with at any other place. And now every time I preach there I feel
compelled to make another appointment.
And here I wish to raise the question which you may answer if you have any advice to give.
If matters continue as interesting here and on Plum River as they now are, ought I not go &
dispose of my agency as to devote some weeks or months of continuous labours to those very
destitute and neglected fields next fall or winter : fields too so badly provisioned (with straw &
providence) that I dare not ask one of our city ministers to go and stay all night. (I enclose a bill
of 7 dollars I paid...)
Yours, Etc.
A. Kent
I have just been writing a letter of rebuke and affectionate entreaty to one of my old church
members now a rowdy in California but once a remarkably firm and as I deemed faithful and
worthy servant of Jesus.
It appears to me that there is one thing remarkable in relation to the California Emigration. I
doubt whether a new country was ever settled by a people possessing so large an admixture of the
two elements of enterprise and evangelical piety, as is embodied in the rush of adventurers who
hence this year have gone across the plains in pursuit of gold.
You may conceive of their enterprise a indomitable perseverance from the fact that poor and
inefficient men cannot go and lazy men will not go.
And as to the piety of the emigration you may judge of that from the pledges most of them
have entered with that they will not travel on Sabbath and from the complaints of the churches in
all this region that they are greatly weakened in moral influence and pecuniary ability by the loss
of their best men who have gone to California.
This of course constitutes a powerful argument in favor of sending out missionaries to watch,
rebuke and strengthen these erring disciples until they shall have come to themselves and become
convinced of the delusion that now bewilders them.
I have counted up 13 once members of this Presbyterian Church are now in California or on
the way thereto. A.K.
P.S.: I remind you of the Guernsy Frocks lest they be forgotten. They are deposited safely in
my cellar. They won’t sell here.
________
Galena, Ill., July 8, 1850
Dear Br.,
Having an appointment for the Sabbath at Fair Play and Menominee I deferred answering your
inquiries concerning the Wisconsin Agency until this morning that in the circumstance I might
consult Brethren Phillips, Warren and Lewis which I did on Friday & Saturday.
I am slow in forming a judgement of men but my judgement of Br. Clary (as also of Br.
Chapin) was matured by the frequent and protracted discussions we have had (in committee of
the whole as Trustees of Beloit Col.
There I learned to regard Br. Clary as a careful, discreet but sometimes independent thinker
who acting as secretary usually said but little, yet whenever called out by some knotty question
was ready to give his own views and seemed to appreciate and approve all that had been said but
would throw out new thoughts and thus “in conference add something to me.”
But I have admired most that spirit of deep toned piety which attempered with a vein of
delicate pleasantry, renders him an exceedingly agreeable companion.
In conversation with the three brothers above named, I propounded the question distinct, Do
you need an agent. They were unanimous in the opinion that such an agent was needed and
equally so in relation to the qualifications of Br. C. They thought him a suitable man and knew of
no one in the state more generally acceptable. I think $600 and travelling expenses a sufficient
salary for me and I think it would be satisfactory to him.
Yours,
A. Kent
I have hesitated whether to copy off the speculations that follow but I have concluded to send
them to be used at your discretion.
I still think that an agent having a small field which he can supervise with and still leave him
time to throw himself for a few weeks of missionary [work] in an important opening and occupy
until other arrangements can be made is true economy. Since March I find by my log book that I
have preached 20 times to the destitute besides 3 Sabbaths spent in presenting Home Missions,
one Sabbath occupied with Mr. Loss’ installation and I have found great encouragement to
continue these labours. My congregations yesterday would range from 75 to 100.
An agent is needed to have a general oversight for various reasons. I will specify on that I
picked up in my trip to Platteville.
Various motives prompt men to organize churches and they often act hastily. Br. Chaffee is
doubtless a good man : “a better man than I” said one Br. and it was hard to tell him he can’t
preach. But the conviction is gaining ground that he had better go into other business. He spent a
good deal of time some 5 weeks since attempting to show that Br. Peets prejudices had injured
him with the Committee in New York.
Since that time it is reported that he has gone over the Wisconsin R. and organized 2 churches.
And, if so, they well be likely to be reported to you. But the newness of the field and the rapidity
with which Wisconsin is filling up and the importance of occupying at the earliest practicable
moment every centre of influence constitutes a special plea for sending them an agent. But I will
not enlarge for it is very hot and I am very faint and I am only saying things which you have
become familiar with.
Br. Raymond is here and is going into Wisconsin. Br. Neill has gone up to Minnesota.
________
Galena, Aug. 14, 1850
Dear Br.,
I have received a letter from Rev. W.J. Murphy who has located himself in a farm in Grundy
Co. as a sick man but is so far recovered that he is anxious to preach in the vicinity on trial of his
health, sends me a copy of testimonials very satisfactory from W. A. McDowell and adds that he
has no preference between Old & New School issues but would be employed in missionary work
where it would not be necessary for him to study much on account of health. I wrote back
encouraging him to find a field and labour in it.
I have now received a line form Br. Loughead requesting that he should give up his plan the
south side of Ill. River and he will occupy in addition to Marsailles & Nettle Creek Churches,
Dresden, Kankakee & Au Sable destitutions. I was pleased with the suggestion for I anticipate
from the recommendation that Br. Murphy will make a valuable Pioneer Miss. There is work
enough in the county for both and appointments on 2 sides of a River as large as the Ill. should be
avoided in winter.
I replied to Br. Loughead cautiously but advised him to try the experiment for a few weeks or
months of exploration and then we cam better judge of the case.
In such a case what could I do but encourage an experiment with the implied recommendation
that a commission would date back.
Sept. 7th Elgin, Kane Co. I left Galena 2 weeks since in the midst of the cholera and have
been quite sick myself. The tendency is with those who have not the cholera to diarrhea &
dysentery.
Under the circumstances and in despite of the floods consequent upon the unprecedented rains
of late by which the swamps are filled and the bridges carried off, I have been over the flat
country along the Lake and into Lake Co. which I have never visited before. I brought my wife
along because I feared to have her at home alone amidst the Cholera (feeble and extremely
nervous) and we have forded streams and waded trough morasses that might have deterred is had
we known what was before us. And the result is that we have returned here (where I am to preach
on Home Miss.) much improved in health & spirits.
I spent a night with Br. Drake, He has been quite sick but is better. He is rather discouraged
and does not know but he should leave his field. But I see no better way than that he should
continue there. I called on Br. Mills, a good man in the Half-Day Cong Church to whom Mr.
Cook preached. He is the brother to Father Cook who is the ultra abolitionist associated with
Belfast at Ottawa and is playing the same game in trying to draw off the churches from all
connection with Missionary Societies except American Miss So.
Dr. Mills is anxious I should preach on Home Miss. and I expect to visit them again in Nov.
I called on Br. Payne of Libertyville and finding my time too short, I turned west without
visiting Father Dodge, Br. Downs, and Mr. Parson of Little Fort (until Nov.) and called on Br.
Hart at Greenwood a little village just being started (on account of water power improvements) 7
miles north of Woodstock, County seat of McHenry.
The next day I came to Virginia Settlement and Crystal Lake and called on Br. Wilson &
Langdon, and was rather confirmed in the opinion previously formed that the organization of the
Cong. Church at Algonquin was premature,, and that they should have remained connected with
the Crystal Lake Ch. which in that case have been associated with the Virginia Ch. under one
minister. As it is, Br. Wilson and Langdon will draw largely upon Miss, funds.
The Brethren what I have seen most of them complain of the great difficulty of sustaining
prayer meetings by reason of the distance of the Brethren from each other. But on the other hand I
expect but little will be achieved where no prayer meeting is sustained.
I spent the Sabbath before last at Buffalo Grove and found Br. Gray had engaged to spend half
his time with them. They were anxious to retain his services. There is a feeble hope that he may
unite them and he is not accomplishing much at Mount Carrol. Perhaps providence will point out
that a change of field is expedient on Br. Gray’s part.
Br. Bergen at my suggestion has visited Paw Paw & Shabbony Groves and it has resulted in
organizing one Presbyterian Church in the vicinity.
Sept 14. Having preached last Sabbath at Elgin & Union and taken up collections, I went on
Monday to Napiersville, spent an hour with Br. Brown and spent the night at Downers Grove
where Br. Atwood is preaching, also talks of getting up a school of high order : doubt of his
success in either effort. Spent 2 nights at Chicago and inquired about what was doing for Home
Missions. The first Ch. is likely to be vexed as other such like churches in all this region by the
labours of Mr. Cable a new agent for “free missions”. Thursday night I spend in their bounds of
the ??? Church where Br. Henderson preaches. It is weakened by removals and is destitute.
I reached Br. Langdon Crystal lake Friday : and thought to spend a day there in trying to raise
a prayer meeting Br. Langdon consulted me about buying old building; but I advised him not to
move in that direction until they should show more disposition to sustain him.
I found on inquiry that he was discouraged about preaching at Algonquin and had resolved to
give up that part of his field and after six months spent at Crystal Lake they have not yet filled his
subscription above 48 dollars. They all profess to like Br. Langdon but they plead the misconduct
of Br. Beech as an excuse for giving nothing.
Sept. 15. I preached yesterday for Br. Wilson and Hart on Home Missions and took up
collection at Greenwood 22 dollars, at Virginia Settlement...
Br. hart showed me an application they had made out asking $150 for his support which I shall
approve if the committee do.
Rockford, Sept. 20: I shall be obliged to send these notes “by the way” without copying
because I cannot do it now and I want to say a word or two about an application for Br. Lawson
which I heard was being made. He has been received into the Winnebago & Ogle Association in
the absence of Brs. B. & Pearson and his application will (I suppose) be endorsed by Br. L. Porter
one of the ministers of this place. If you need further light you may write to those brethren just
named...
Yours, etc.
A. Kent
______
Galena, Sept. 25, 1850
Dear Br.,
I have received a letter from Daviess Grove asking me to as agent to sanction the application
of the Ch. at Weathersfield, Henry Co. and giving reasons which appear to me quite satisfactory. I
intended to go to Mercer Co. and through those parts to the villages of Henry, Ottawa, Newark,
Lisbon and Lockport but I must first attend Synod & Presbytery and shall not reach them short of
5 or 6 weeks. I therefore enclose a letter from Br. Farnam. He expresses a wish to have Lockport
and I have thought perhaps he has better and Br. Smith of Princeton (who has a commission from
you) take his place. If you have any suggestion on that subject please write me at Chicago care of
Rev. Mr. Curtis. And also I would ask for instructions concerning the Geurnsey Frocks. Shall
they remain in my cellar. There seems to be no call for them. I have room enough for them if you
choose they should remain for the present.
Br. Smith has preached once in my hearing at Buffalo Grove (but Br. Gray occupies that
ground). He has expressed a wish to become permanent in some growing village. Lockport is a
hard spot but important as I suppose. Br. Farnum has not succeeded in his ministry as I think a
man of his power ought to do.
26th. In reading Dr. Todd’s dream narrated before the Board, I was reminded of a dream I had
some nights ago and of the reflections consequent. It was to the effect that I might go east next
year & after General Assembly visit the churches I am acquainted with and raise some what for
Home Miss. The plan was suggested by the dream and the dream was recollected by Dr. Todd.
I should detain this letter longer but it might be too late for your action on Br. Gore’s case.
I am ready to depart on the morrow for a trip of 5 weeks and I propose to report myself.
Yours, etc.
A. Kent
The request of Br. Hatch will explain itself.
Oct. 3
I regard it as quite important that our missionaries should have the 5 thousand pages of tracts
voted them by A.T.S. but they do not get them on account of the want of communication, but if
some 10, packages were deposited with the Editor of Prairie Herald, they would post a suitable
notice in their paper and the missionaries would obtain them.
A. Kent
________
Freeport, Oct. 21, 1850
Dear Brother,
The Presbytery of Galena at out late meeting at Elk Horn Grove resolved to employ the Rev.
W.F. Wheeler of Wabash Congregational Association a missionary to labour within our bounds
in the direction of the committee of Home Missions and to request the Ex. Committee to give him
a commission dated Oct. 16 accordingly with a salary of $400 hoping however that the half of
more of this sum will be raised among the people where he labours.
The place immediately in view are Como, Union Grove, and Garden Plain constituting parts
of a wide field of destitution in Whitesides County on Rock River. He will be subject to a change
if Como should not present the opening for his labours which we anticipate. From our limited
knowledge of Br. W. we have high hopes of his usefulness in that region.
His Post Office address will be Freeport, Stephenson Co. until otherwise informed to the care
of Rev. J.G. Downes.
A. Kent
Eld. F. Wagoner
J.S. Downes
Having disposed of this item of business, I take occasion to say that we have had a very
precious meeting of Synod. Our own Presbytery at least came home praying that as God has gone
before in this bustling village so we might promote and not hinder it and we have adopted one
new measure which was received with favor and was attended with a blessing. It was the
adoption of a rule to devote an hour between 10 & 11 to devotional exercises. The reasons given
were that it would secure a more general attendance of the members. It would facilitate the
transaction of synodical business and be more likely to reach and bless the community. Those
reasons have very greatly refreshed our hearts and when the Sabbath comes it fount the Synod in
a frame of mind to appreciate and enjoy the preaching the Lords Supper and the Prayer meeting,
which filled up the day. I heard several corresponding members express high gratification and I
do not hesitate to say that yesterday was the best day I have had for many years, and I anticipate
great results to the members of our body from the holy convocation.
Perhaps it might instruct you to follow my track for the last week or two and I have scarcely
found a moment’s leisure for a week past.
I spent Sabbath at Como (a village starting up around an extensive flouring mill) with a view
to determine whether it was best to send a missionary there. “The chief man and one of the
proprietors of the island” belongs to the German Reformed Church and would prefer a minister of
that denomination, but perhaps he will welcome our missionary. from Como I went by a straight
course to Paw Paw and Shabbony Groves.
It is a very new field and if I could have sketched the incidents that occurred while they were
fresh in mind I might have given an amusing description of the “rough and tumble” of missionary
life in a new field.
Suffice it to say that one dark night after meeting I was obliged to drop into the nearest tavern
and “wish for the day”. Another night we has a regular fight before the school house and the
preacher was interrupted in his discourse by a rowdy and when on Sabbath morning he went out
into the grove to find a place for prayer he was disturbed by two young men who were out
hunting. He reproved them so kindly that they could not be rude but they had gone a few rods
form him they called out to inquire if he was hunting timber.
Nevertheless we had a very good sacramental season. A lad of 15 was received who I hope
will study for the ministry and Br. Bergen has great reason from present appearances to be
encouraged. when I arrived here to explore that field I did not suppose that he would find so
many professors as he has there gathered up.
Yours very truly,
A. Kent
My health which was very feeble during a very hot summer has greatly improved.
P.S. Charge me with $8.86 collection after preaching on Home Missions at Virginia
Settlement and acknowledge it in Home Miss. Also charge Br. Hart with 22 dollars collection at
Greenwood.
______
Chicago, October 30, 1850
Dear Br.,
In conversation with Br. Clary a few days since he inquired if I made out quarterly reports. I
told him I did not, but communicated very frequently and very freely my thought and
observations.
I have supposed that a “running fire” and a record of my observations as made at the time
would possess a freshness that might best comport with my habit of mind and your information.
After leaving Synod where I was “combined with much serving” in matters pertaining to
Presbytery, Synod and Home Missionaries I reached Monday evening Twelve Mile Grove and
the next day went out of my way to call on George Bibb of Ohio (he spoke well of Br. Hodges
who is 5 miles off) who has purchased a large tract 5 miles south of that Grove and expects to
settle around him many families from Ohio. This brought it in my way to call on Br. Hodges who
lives about 10 miles from Rockford and for whom I had a bundle of clothes sent out from Mass.
and which I divided between him & 3 others. Br. B [sic?] lives in a log house about 15 feet square
(I judge). He has a family of 6 children between 10 & 20 besides a laborer and 2 sons who were
gone away from home. He is attempting to build him a house at this late season, the frame of
which is not yet raised, and he has injured his breast lifting so as to be confined to the house. (He
said that the barrel of clothing formerly sent him had been a great & essential service in his
growing family.) It seemed strange to me that a man should be caught in such a plight but then I
remembers that “the destruction of the poor is their poverty.”
At Rockford I spent a day on business pertaining to the Female Sem. located there, and was
urged by the other members to the Ex. Comm. to remove my family to Rockford. I have been so
officious from the first in gathering up that Institution that they seem determined to put me on all
the business committees. The gentlemen composing that Comm. stated distinctly they did not
intend to throw the labour on me but they wished me nearer for consultation It would be vastly
better to be at R. as a center of Home Miss. operations provided that I should be continued in that
service. But then on the other hand I feel no little reluctance at leaving “my old stamping
ground”, and I have no idea at present what decision will be arrived at on the subject. But I allude
to it that my counsellors at 150 Nassau St. may express their wishes, it they choose. There is a
good deal of variety (which is “the spice of life”) in my present employment and I often think of
Paul’s experience and moral elevation. Phil. 4:11-13. But amidst the storms and sloughs, the
diurnal and nocturnal annoyances incident to constant travelling, my heavenly father affords me
many soft Indian Summer days, many smooth roads and enchanting passages and in his
Providence gives me an introduction to many excellent families where I have every substantial
comfort that the most princely hospitality could furnish and what is more than all, I am daily
thrown into circumstances the very best I could have to exert a personal influence in favor of the
Religion I profess to love.
If poets have license allowed them to make out their meaning, I suppose that letter writer must
have license too to develop their innate egotism, but to return from this digression.
From. R. I went to Belvidere which I reached a few hours after the installation services of
Rev. Mr. Fanning were over. They seem greatly pleased with their new pastor.
On Friday I called on Rev. J.C. Downs at Richmond, a neat and thriving village 1 1/2 miles
from the State Line and 30 from Little Fort. I spent an hour or two very pleasantly with that Br.
He too seems to be compelled to build a house, but has managed it well (I opine) and will soon
have it ready for occupancy. We walked out to see it, He was just then laying the underpinning.
We knelt down among the shavings and consecrated it to the Lord. I was much leased with the
account he gave of the condition of things at R. and at Ringwood between which he divides his
time.
I passed through McHenry Village and reached Waukegan where I spent the night with Br.
Parsons, I was surprised at the amount of wheat going into market, the number of inhabitants
(3000) and the prospect if that sea port. It is becoming an important center of influence and I
regretted that I could not yield to his request to spend the Sabbath there and preach the cause of
Home Missions. On Saturday I made my way northwest to Father Dodge whom I failed to find
the day previous. I spent 3 hours with him. And taking his own account (for I had no opportunity
to see any of his people) I would exhibit him as a model Home Missionary. Having been 40 years
a teacher in Salem Mass, he is 67 years of age, has been now 6 years preaching to a missionary
church which from 20 has grown to 60 members. He would not stay with them except they build
a sanctuary. He preaches twice and superintends the Sabbath school. They have also Bible
Classes for the adult males & females. He lectures some on the Sabbath on the new Testament in
course and in answer to my inquires, I learned that he has weekly prayer meetings, has 3 classes
in the shorter catechism and preaches on weekday evenings in the adjoining settlement. He
showed me a circular signed by Brs. Bascom, Los, Farnam & Miller of Aurora & several laymen
proposing a Convention to unite Presbyterian & Cong. for sundry reasons and especially to throw
off the responsibilities of Gen. Assembly for action or inaction on slavery & asked my opinion. I
expressed the opinion that it would not meet the views of the body fully and therefore would only
make another division in place of union. And I have no doubt that if we should go into it
unanimously it would not satisfy the agitators for one half year before they would next demand of
us to cut loose from the Home & Foreign Board.
At the setting of the sun I reached Br. Payne’s and found that my appointment to preach for
him had not been received and he had gone to exchange with Br. Drake.
Sabbath morning I started with the earliest dawn and rode to Half Day (25 miles from
Chicago) 11 miles and preached on Home Miss & took up a collection of $3.50 which please
acknowledge as coming from Cong. Ch. at Half Day and charge to me. The preacher Br. Cook of
Ottawa Presbytery informed me of his preference for A. Miss., but was willing his people should
contribute to A.H.M.S. From what was told me afterwards I think a favorable impression was
made and that some of them as least will not be prepared to abandon a society that has made the
moral condition of Northern Ill. what it is. While I have been detained here under the Dentist’s
hands I have seen several of our Home Missions and counselled them and am now ready to depart
for Lockport.
A great effort is being made to prejudice the common mind against the A.H.M. & the
A.B.C.F.M. under the pleas that they are lending their mighty influence to sanction slavery.
Yours very truly,
A. Kent
I wish this communication was handsomely copied but should I do that it would be detained or
applications with held.
______
Morris, Nov. 5, 1850
Dear Br.,
I have had an interview with Br. Henderson and also with a leading member Br. Parmeder and
though their application is not as full in its statements as required yet I have gained the requisite
information by inquiries. Their strength has been weakened by removals and they had a hard
struggle to make out the sum pledged but they have paid all but 1 1/2 dollars and they have had
some good men added lately from whom they expect to receive aid.
They think it is the utmost they can do this year to raise 200.
They express intense satisfaction with their minister and earnestly desire to retain him. I
would therefore recommend the appropriation asked. Brother Henderson has just entered a small
neat house which he thought himself competent to build.
A. Kent
This village grows and is likely to be the commercial center of a comparatively new but
growing county.
______
Galena, Nov. 20, 1850
Dear Br.
I have reached home in safety after 6 weeks absence and having made a long journey over
almost my whole field. I have just read your letter which from circumstances was particularly
timely at least to my own feelings and was gratified that you thought of me when you were too
sick to be at the office. I am oppressed with the work that crowds upon me as I return home and
what must your correspondence be!
I am almost afraid to open my budget to you at this time for I have assumed and presumed
more that I ever had occasion to before.
It is in a word to commission to men for exploring services in Grundy Co. and the region
south of it.
I think I wrote you concerning Br. W.J. Murphy who had been connected with the Old Sch.
Body and has a certificate greatly commendatory of his zeal and success in missionary labors. His
health failing he settled down on a farm in Grundy Co, but he has so far recovered that he has
commenced preaching and would labour in our service if it is divined as he has no preference for
issues. I encouraged him and engaged to meet him at Morris Nov. 5 but he did not arrive until just
at night and 1/2 hour after I left.
In the mean time he misapprehended some remarks made to him by Br. Henderson and
thought he was not wanted. But now expresses a desire to join us because he can labour near
home and near his feeble wife. And on my part I am anxious to retain him in our service and send
Br. Day to the field where the Old School brethren would send Murphy if he should enter their
service, c.c., up and down the Vermillion River presenting a vast destitution in the counties south
of Will & Grundy. It is represented to me that the harvest is white there and has been neglected.
Br. Pendleton whom I have seen since states that he visited Middleport and found materials there
3 years ago for a Presb. church which has not yet been organized.
Br. Alva Day is a man in middle life, his sons are grown up and he has left Lisbon because of
the Slavery agitation there had divided them.. He has engaged in this exploring work for which I
think he has some qualification (though I may have misjudged) and I believe that we need that
kind of labour more than any other. And another consideration that has had great influence with
me is that the Central Road from Chicago to Mobile will probably pass along that route which
will give importance to a district now comparatively valueless.
I ask that Br. Murphy and Day should be commissioned to labour, the one in the south part of
Grundy Co., and Br. Day to labour on the Vermillion River and its vicinity while Br. Loughead
will occupy the north half of the county perhaps go into the edge of Kendall Co. I have had no
conversation about the amount they will receive but suppose the Society will assume their whole
support for the first year.
I have another application, it is for the support of Br. Pendleton who occupies a position at
once unique and interesting. I have spent a Sabbath there and have looked carefully into his
movements and am well satisfied that he is going a great good work. Two years since I visited
him and he showed me a beautiful spot where he proposed to build a Female Seminary to educate
teachers. I visited him 2 weeks since. He has finished his edifice 40x40 with 21 rooms and it is
occupied by a family of 40 and at an expense of some 300 dollars. He has preached in the
Sabbath at Milo at the Seminary also where he has a congregation of 75 including some from the
Village of Henry where he would preach but they have not even a school house but he hopes to
be accommodated there by & by/ He has two other points for preaching and having now secured
3 teachers he hopes to give himself to his appropriate work. I had much conversation on that point
and warned him against worldly mindedness. He told me that there was a good deal of interest in
the school last winter and 8 or 10 hopeful conversions and the whole management of the school
was calculated to promote a high tone of moral feeling.
I shall propose an account of his movements there and send you, which will excite admiration.
He asks for $100 for the Milo Church and $150 to sustain him in his labours at Henry and
vicinity which with 50 which he expects to receive from the people there will male in all $300
dollars and I would certainly hope it may be granted.
I spent the last Sabbath at Lockport by appointment and assisted at communion but did not
present the cause of Home Miss for they has an agent of the ??? Union to preach in the evening
and take a collection and that took precedence, besides there are in a broken and divided
condition by reason of the Codding259[259] influence. The great antislavery lecturer Codding has
become a disorganizer and is out against every body & any thing that does not fall in with his
views and is doing incalculable mischief at Lockport and Joliet, where I called yesterday to
confer with Br. Reed and Br. Woodruff, a leading man in the church. It is said that he pleases the
infidels and Universalists and worldly men and a large number, say 1/3 if the members at
Lockport leave their own church to follow him. Under these circumstances Br. Farnum decided to
leave and I have been authorized to recommend another man to visit them. They have lost several
of their best men by death and removals (to California) and are greatly discouraged.
But Lockport is an important point and with its Home Church and good bell260[260] it ought not
be given up.
Ichabod Codding, clergyman, born in Bristol, N.Y., in 1811, died in Baraboo, Wisc. 17 June 1866. He became a
popular temperance lecturuer at the age of seventeen and and during his junior year at Middlebury, where he entered in
1834, interested himself so much in the anti-slavery movement that he obtained leave to speak publicly in its behalf.
His addresses raised such a strom of opposition that his life was several times in danger, and the college faculty, fearing
the popular fury, represented that his absence was without permission. Codding compelled them to retract this
statement, and then, leaving the college served for five years asagent and lectturer for the Anti-Slavery Society,
speaking continually in New England and New York. It is said that he never lost his self command, though often
assailed by mobs. He removed to the west in 1842, entered the Congregational Ministry, and held pastorates at
Princeton, Lockport, Joliet, and elsewhere. He also continued to lesture in the west where he was greatly admired and
loved. Appletons, Vol. 1, p. 673.
260[260]
Kent obviously had a fondness for bells, and a high regard for their importance to a sucessful church. In this
regard, the success of his church was equally dependent on his versitile and legendary Black Sextant. “And what
259[259]
I written suggesting to Br. Pearson to go there. I have this day had an interview by
appointment and a precious session of praying with Brs. Henderson, Loughead and Day and was
disappointed in not having Br. Murphy also present of whom I wrote you that he was Old School
but wishes to join in with us. After a long discussion we formed the plan to experiment.
Henderson to confine himself to missions he wishes to do, Loughead take the north side of the
River which ought to afford him ample field, especially if he extends it to a destitution in Kendall
Co. Murphy to occupy the south part of the County and Brookfield in LaSalle and Br. Day to go
on an exploring mission on the Vermillion from Lowell up to Pontiac and its head waters. This
plan will involve a heavy expense...But I think the field is white and ready for the harvest & I
have great hopes that those two men will be efficient as explorers and that is a kind of service that
few are willing to engage in, and, of those, very few have the required qualifications. Br. Alva
Day is man of some years and experience and I think it an acquisition to get him to engage in
such a service. Br. Murphy misunderstood what was said to him by Br. Henderson thinking he
was not wanted, has partly engaged himself to the Old. Sc. Presbytery. But from what has
transpired we think he may yet be secured to our service : quite an acquisition I judge from the
certificate of Dr. McDowell. The Vermillion Country is growth as yet unbroken and being along
where I suppose the Central R.R. from Cairo will run it is important to occupy it because the Old
School brethren have already got their eyes upon it.
Should you prefer to have him commissioned to labour within the bounds of his Presbytery it
be so arranged if you so direct in the matter and in that case I should wish to hear soon. I was
Galenian can ever forget Barney Norris? Genial, courteous Barney! He came to Galena as servant for Captain Thomas
C. Legate, Superintendent of lead Mines, in August, 1834. He was footman for John Quincy Adams, President of the
United States, from 1826 to 1828. The following sketch from the pen of Captain G. W. Girdon will be read with
interest when all now living shall have passed away:
Upon the occasion of the "wedding feast" this whitened head has reigned supreme at every wedding of Galena's belles;
ever attentive to the guests, with light steps and dignified presence, seeking those who are most congenial to sit
together and enjoy the feast. What wedding would be perfect without Barney Norris, the prince of caterers? There is a
gifted and talented lady among us, who, when at those wedding feasts, says that he reminds her of a " butler of ye olden
time." And when spring-time comes, and house-cleaning is the order of the day, the ever dreaded time when we “lords
of creation," are banished from '“the old arm chair” the mother tells us that Barney Norris is coming to paper and
whiten the parlor. And she has no anxiety, for Barney handles his brush with as fine a touch as a Landseer. Do you
want to go fishing? Tell Barney that at break of day you will be ready, and it will not he his fault if you do not bring
home a heavy string of finest pike and bass. There is a trio of friends, fishermen of old, who for many years have made
up a fishing party. Of that party, one is a great banker, who once claimed home here (Henry Corwith) and who still
comes in the golden summer time, to go fishing with Barney. Another, that genial “gentleman of the olden school,"
whose presence commands respect from all (Daniel Wann). Every one knows him, and the younger and happier he on
returning from one of those day's fishing down by the " cut-off " with Barney. The other, whose hair has been whitened
by the touch of old time”s ever busy fingers - the veteran "Izaak Walton" of the party (George Ferguson, senior) but
who world rather Barney would catch all the fish than not, so that he has a good days recreation. These are all old
friends, old settlers, the busy cares of life have made tern old, but they all go back to youth again and Barney with
them, when they go down the river for a day of sport.
Far fall thirty years has Barney Norris rang that old church bell, calling together the faithful flock to hear their honored
shepherd read from Holy Writ, and in strains of eloquence divine soothe their sad and anguished hearts. Full many a
bereaved heart-a mother or a daughter, or perhaps a father or a son, has found hope and consolation there where Barney
rings the bell. Yes, full thirty years has the faithful Barney tolled the bell for some loved one who has gone, never more
to return.” Hist. Jo Daviess, p.
“Silence whilst he marks the hour
By the bell of yonder tower.”
Many whose willing feet have hastened to the House of God when Barney rang the bell, have gone to the higher house
above. Some who have occupied that pulpit have gone to their reward; Others to other fields of labor; but Barney still
remains faithful at his post, in sunshine or storm, opening the doors of God”s house alike to rich and poor, neglecting
no duty, and beloved by all. No Galenian will ever forget him. He still lives among us, hale and hearty, although the
frosts of many winters rest upon his faithful head. "Faithful to duty" has been his motto ever, and ever will be, until he
tolls that bell no more.
obliged to leave without seeing Br. Murphy and have requested that Br. Day & Henderson see
him and ascertain whether he will concur with the arrangements and then shall make a more
formal application for one or both.
Having ridden 12 miles in the rain and mud this afternoon I am lodged with Br. G. Jackson of
the Grafton Church who represents Br. Loughead as very acceptable to the people both in the
pulpit and in private conversation.
I should have stated that Br. Day was one of the Ottawa Presbytery who seceded but he is now
heartily sick of the movement and will return to his Presbytery.
I intend to give some further particulars of my tour when I get time but these applications
could not wait. Br. Murphy’s commission should date back to Oct. 7 as he has been some time
preaching in his field. Br. Day should commence about the 9th of November.
All which is respectfully submitted by your unworthy Brother in Christ,
A. Kent
P.S. Br. Pendleton is in Br. Kirby’s district but as I was acquainted with the man and the facts
and Br. Kirby has never visited him, I thought I should be pardoned in the thing.
On reflection I conclude to enclose also Br. Murphy’s last letter.
______
Galena, Il., Nov. 26, 1850
Dear Br.,
I will add some things from the journal of my late tour in which I visited every county in my
district.
Leaving Ottawa where I mailed a letter, I visited Lowell to which I believe I have made
reference. And I should have then gone to Peru & Lasalle & to be at the ordination at Dover of
Br. E.G. Smith, but I have promised to carry a little girl to Henry to school and I intend to give
you some account of that school hereafter. Having spent a Sabbath with Br. Pendleton I made my
way Monday to Wethersfield and spent a night with Br. D. Gore. I attended a meeting of their
Library Association and made an Address in their neat new church on the progress of
improvements in Ill. since I came to the state. Things look well, very ell here.
Tuesday I passed through Cambridge (County seat of Henry) and while waiting to see Br.
Osborne I attended a meeting of the R.I. & Peru Rail Road Directors. This road will soon give
life & breath to the great desolate prairies I have passed over coming the last 2 days and have the
necessity of occupying the important points here as well as on the great Central R.R. and the
G[alena] & Chicago R.R.. But where are the men to perform the work of exploration?
I spent the night at Andover and in the morning called on your Swedish Missionary Rev.
Esbjorn, but he was not at home. That day I passed through Preemption in Mercer Co, and
reached in the evening Edgington where Br. Strong preached. Elder Parmeter is dead and they are
discouraged and threaten to disband. But I tried to rally them because the Old School
Organization is not likely to accomplish any good. I have no man for them and none for Mercer
Co, which is but poorly supplied by one Old School Br. I persuaded Br. Hold (Br. Ripley will
supply for him) to go down and spend a Sabbath at Keithsberg (County seat) where there is now
no preaching.
If we had an efficient man for the field I would send him to preach half his time at Edgington
and to occupy the other half in exploring the west half of Mercer which is entirely neglected by
Old & New School Presbyterians.
Worldliness threatens to destroy the church at Edgington. I saw an affecting exhibition of it in
the family where I was directed to make inquiries, They evidently at first shrink form a visit by
the agent of H.M. so intent were they on securing the crop of 100 acres of corn estimated to yield
50 to 60 bushels tot he acre. I called on several of the members. Br. Cady left a bad impression by
disappointing them after they twice came up to his own terms, Such was the representation. The
next day I rode to R. Island and conversed with Brs. Osborne, Holt and Porter, and having heard
that the Ch. at Port Byron had secured the services of Br. Thompson of Iowa, I passed directly up
Rock R. to Shannon & spent the night with Br. Martin. He is disappointed in not having his
commission date back to July when he commenced his labours. And in view of this fact as well as
from personal observation of their straits which they bore without complaining, I volunteered to
request him to make out a list of such things as he would by if he was in Galena and the money.
He did so, after stating the case in two prayer meetings, I collected what was given with great
cheerfulness enough to fill a large box of things both old & new and almost everything he put
down, and sent it off yesterday. I did this the more readily because from my own observation and
reports from Indiana I hope much from him. I think he will be an exploring labourer.
I reached Lyndon the place of my Sabbath appointment Saturday P.M. They are quite anxious
to obtain a minister & a part of them think they did wrong to permit Br. Blanchard to leave them.
His labours were blessed. They have a fair church building which will soon be finished. It is a
gravel house. Rock River furnished the finest gravel for that purpose. There are some ultra men
there which will make it more difficult to unite on a good man. I preached on the Home Miss. but
did not think it expedient to “lift” a collection. On my way home I passed through Union Grove
and met Br. Wheeler, who inquired after his commission, He is by instructions preaching at
Garden Plains, U. Grove and Como at which he is to make his principle effort. I spent the night at
Savannah. Things are all “at loose ends” there. And as Br. Emerson has signified his wish to
withdraw from the field I am very anxious to occupy the ground, for though now a small village
(say 500) yet at the point where the central RR is to unite the upper Miss with Iowa it has a
prospective importance and in the meantime Br. Hildreth came along and expressed great sorrow
for past events, great anxiety to resume pastoral duties and a readiness to go where ever I would
send him. I felt embarrassed, named over various point and finally recommended him to go to
Savannah and after surveying the ground & spending a Sabbath to write me.
I enclose an application from R. Island which I overlooked when I closed my last letter. I have
received a box of bibles and will write to the donor Mr. Ed. Taylor. I paid 250 cents freight on the
box. I will let Br. Day report progress in his own words.
Yours as ever,
A. Kent
______
Peru, Lasalle Co., Dec. 10, 1850
Dear Br.
It is winter “and no mistake” to use a phrase in common use. I left Galena about 12 days since
under a conviction that I ought to visit this place and Lasalle having been requested by br.
Dickinson to visit and advise him concerning these two rival villages. And thinking it probable
that my journey would be more pleasant...I have had a rough and stormy trip thus far but with
good health and the back of a good horse I got along very well where is would be impossible to
travel as fast on wheels.
I made my way past Ottawa because I hoped there to find (at Presbytery) Brs. Dickenson,
Williams, Day, Henderson, Murphy & Gould, each of whom I wished to see. I found only
Williams and Day there. And anxious to take Lowell and Granville on my hither I went across the
Ill. River. I spent a night at Lowell with Br. Williams in that part of his present field. He thinks it
his duty to confine his labours to South Ottawa and vicinity and at his request the Lowell Ch. has
written Br. Bristol to visit and preach to them (they have heard him once.)
Having called on Br. Ware261[261] and inquired about affairs at Granville and dined with Br.
Clark and inquired about the fine points of his field, I started Friday P.M. for this place and
having rode 5 miles was told that the ice on the River was running so that I could not cross. I
returned over the same road, the roughest I ever travelled to Granville and spent the Sabbath,
sorry to fail of meeting my appointments at Peru and Lasalle. I wondered why Providence had
hedged up my way. The discussions that detained me Monday morning may yet show why.
The condition of things on this wise, Lowell is feeble and Granville and Hennipin are very
feeble. The latter us ground occupied by Methodists and Universalists giving but little promise of
success to our efforts. The former weakened by the secession recently of a majority of the Church
on account of their abhorrence of the Home Miss. So. Describing the reason on their dislike to Br.
Clark who has embraced Cedar Point as one of his posts of missionary service. Br. Swan of Cedar
Point being present the question of the propriety of organizing a church which would weaken still
more the Lowell & Granville Ch. This brought up a survey of the whole field. And the Brethren
at G. said they were agitating the question of giving up the ground to the majority and uniting
with Father Dickeys Ch. at Union Grove. Brs. Clark and Swan and myself opposed that plan for
the following reasons. Granville is central, they have a flourishing academy having 60 scholars
and a pious excellent teacher. His valuable auxiliary is now in the sails of the ministry and would
go down or go under another influence. The minority has bid off the meeting house at $1000
which is less than its value. And the united judgement of the caucus was that if they could get
under way and show the aspect of strength the other party would break in pieces from its own
inherent evils..Hence the conclusion was reached unanimously (whether Br. Clark should be
employed again or not in that field) that Granville church must be sustained (at present at least).
After this discussion I came to the River (9 miles) and crossed in safety. Called on Br.
Lathrop and Baldwin of Lasalle and spent the night with Rev. McMillan by whose comfortable
fire I am writing, and to whom I will give a letter of introduction to be delivered in Feb.
I has a long and anxious conversation with Br. McMillan respecting the state of Religion in
Peru and in their church. Here is a population of 1500 or 1800 and no other centers of moral
influence but a feeble Methodist and a very feeble Presbyterian Church which last exhibits but
little vitality and exerts but little influence. There is a doubt on the minds of ministers in this
vicinity on the mind of McMillan and my own and on that of Br. D. also (evidently from his
letters to me) whether he ought to occupy this field. He is greatly respected but seems to fail in
the energy, tact and boldness and directness and pungency necessary for such a station as this. He
has laboured under a great depression of spirit since the death of his wife and he is apprehending
another similar trial which has taken him away to South Port and prevented me from meeting him
here and I have left a line for him suggesting that in view of his trials and the embarrassments of
his field, he ought to feel at liberty to change his position if he thinks it promotes his usefulness
and comfort and to presume that another man may occupy his place at Peru, or at least if his mind
inclines him to but he can ask advice of his Presbytery, I have conversed considerably with Brs.
Baldwin and Lathrop who tell me that ..they want a Cong. minister of some force and experience
to come and organize and build them up. They have written to Br. Clark of Elgin. he has
Ralph Ware and Thomas Ware were both early elders of the Presbyterian Church at Granville. Records of Olden
Time. p. 280.
261[261]
consulted me about leaving his people and I advised him first to them and state his
embarrassment which I understand he has done. The question of relative importance of these rival
villages is an open question. You have doubtless heard one side from Br. Baldwin. You can if you
choose, hear Mr. McMillan’s views. I feel anxious for Peru. They want a man there who can
move a heavy load and carry it along.
We have at this moment several vacant churches where Congregational Ministers of great
promise may find fields of usefulness worthy of their attention and other vacancies where
ministers of other denomination would be alike acceptable. But what shall we do? we cannot get
men from the East and we are opposed in our project to establish a Theo. Seminary among
ourselves. What means the apathy of pious parents that there should be such a decrease of
candidates for the ministry. Have they forgotten the prayer the Redeemer has put into their
mouths. Hence they lost sight of the territory stretching off northward and southward and
westward to the Pacific.
What means the sad tidings which are wafted to us from California. why are the intervening
barrens strewed with deserted waggons, and the...I feel for our increasing destitutions and I am
painfully reminded of a remark in a letter of our lamented Br. Dr. White: “Young men must be
brought into the ministry in greater numbers of Salvation must wait.”
My dear wife has forwarded here several letters. I forward Br. Hildreths letter. He came to
Galena to see me. he appears heartily tired of his present situation and very anxious to be
employed. I could think of no field adapted to him but told him of Savanna, its present destitute
and unpromising condition and its prospective importance as the point on the Central R.Road
where it touches the Mississippi.
Br. Pearson’s letter I enclose as it contains information but which you need not presume.
Having done all I can here in the absence of Br. D. I am ready to go and call at Dover and
Lamoille.
Yours affectionately,
A. Kent
______
Peru, Lasalle Co., Ill., Dec. 11/50
Dr. Badger, Dear Br.,
I take pleasure in making you acquainted with Mr. John H. McMillan an excellent Brother
who goes to New York to purchase goods in Feb. and will give you an opportunity to make
further enquiries respecting the moral condition of this village of one who is able to answer them.
Yours very affectionately,
A. Kent
[1851]
For the [Prairie] Herald
TO THE HOME MISSIONARIES OF NORTHERN ILLINOIS
The Agent of the American Home Missionary Society after expressing his unfeigned regard
and tender sympathy would remind them that much is expected of them. The community expects
they will be upright and exemplary men, that they will be honest, benevolent, diligent and self
denying, meek and forbearing.
The churches expect much. They look to them as leaders in every good work, and will be
disappointed if they do not speed the progress of benevolent enterprise by every practicable
means. They expect them to be spiritually minded themselves, and to be foremost in every effort
to promote the higher tome of piety in others.
The Society expects that Home Missionaries will expend all their energies in the service of the
Church, while they draw as little as possible from the Lord’s treasury. True, they must provide for
their families and must be allowed seasons of relaxation. But yet it is expected of them that they
will practice a rigid economy, that they and their families will be examples of frugality, neatness
and thrift: that they will submit cheerfully to such privations or positive self-denial as Providence
assigns them, and that they will both in public and in private urge upon the feeble churches the
duty of making such strenuous efforts to support the Gospel without foreign aid, as will foreshow
and foster their future growth and efficiency.
The Society expect[s] they will be so devoted to their appropriate work that their minds and
their hands, their professional studies and their general reading, their public services and
parochial visits, their cogitations by day and their dreams by night will all lead of in that
direction.
They will be expected to preach with plainness and pungency, in season and out of season, on
Sabbath and on week days, by daylight and by moonlight, and by private visits and exhortations
to train their people to active service. By promoting Temperance and every species of moral
reform, by establishing Sunday Schools, Prayer meetings and Bible classes, and by laboring
unremittingly in the neglected work of catechising the children and youths, and thus furnishing
them with a knowledge of the doctrines and duties of our holy religion, and for their
encouragement they may be cited to Baxter’s R. Pastor, a volume which may be had of the
American Tract Society by application. They will be expected to advocate revivals and to foster
and direct them. In a word they will be expected to lay themselves out to advance the cause of
Christ by every practicable method and for these several reasons,
1) They are entirely consecrated to the work. They have not only chosen this service to the
exclusion of all else that may interfere, but they have been spart [sic] to it by the laying on of the
hands of the Presbytery, and we look for high achievements from one who devotes the entire
energies of body and mind, and that for a whole life, to a single object.
2) We have a right to expect that such men will be devoted and successful because they are
employed and paid to do that very work.
3) Much is expected of Home Missionaries because they have many facilities. It is then if ever
we look for zeal and efficiency when a man serves a good master and loves his work.: He carries
with him credentials which ensure respect and constitute his passport to a favorable regard even
though he presses unwelcome truths upon their attention, and indeed the church (not to say the
community at large) will complain of him if he does not visit them and converse upon personal
religion.
4) His efficiency is facilitated by the auxiliaries furnished to is hands. The publications of the
Bible, Tract, Sunday School, Temperance and Peace Societies are all coadjutators with him: The
officers and private members of the church are pledged to help him. He has moreover the
influence of the Divine Spirit and the public sentiment of a Christian nation and the conscience of
each individual transgressor on his side. And then he too is an agent of Government. That
government is an absolute monarchy whose empire is the universe and the whole power of the
throne is eternally pledged to sustain him.
He may therefore and ought to call often and loudly for help, and while he is thankful for
single drops he should expect and pray for bountiful showers. Such an one may well endure
hardships as a good soldier of Jesus Christ in the execution of his high trust.
The Agent of the American Home Missionary Society feels justified in addressing a word of
exhortation to the churches aided by its funds.
The men whose services you enjoy are either chosen by yourselves or sent you by that
benevolence which seeketh not her own. As messengers of God make them fell that they are
welcome. They have a burden of duty to discharge, and the churches owe reciprocal duties to
their missionaries.
Allow me then while I sympathize with you in the embarrassments which press upon feeble
churches of the West (for I know both how to be abased and how to abound,) allow me to suggest
some of these reciprocal duties which grow out of your mutual relations.
You ought to esteem them very highly in love for their work. As accredited Ambassadors of
your Sovereign they are entitled to respect, and if you love the Commissioner, you will love those
whore are commissioned by him. You may perhaps detect in them some foibles but throw your
mantle over them at once, for love covereth a multitude of sins, Let your conviction of their worth
and your high estimation of the value of their services induce you to obey their instructions, to
sympathize in their trials, and to exercise forbearance when they seem to you to have committed
errors and even when the time they are tenacious in adhering to them.
It will also be your duty to contribute to their support. If they are true men they will lay
themselves out to promote by all the energies they possess your spiritual advancement, and you in
turn will do what you may to facilitate their temporal comforts. You cannot indeed support them
alone. But you can do something:enough at least to show a willing mind, enough to lessen the
burden which the Society has assumed.
Be assured your missionaries will meet with many trials and some privations, but they will
seem much lighter if he perceives in you a desire to do all you can for his comfort. Make them
feel that it is a pleasure to minister to their necessities. When you give do it with cheerfulness and
when you curry provisions in payment of subscriptions be sure you give him a good article and in
good measure, pressed down and shaken together, and if you err in any way let it be as the
servant of Boaz was required to do, “let fall some handfuls of purpose.” A donation of a little
present from an individual will cheer his spirits like the clear shining of the sun after rain. One
thing more. Let me especially enjoin that you steadily cooperate in his plans of doing good.
United action is powerful and id a church would be efficient they must act in concert with their
pastor, and with one another. It may cost you some self denial especially when the service
required relates to the revival of spiritual religion or when it pertains to those nominal services,
such as preparing the house and the lights, which any one may do, and which are already enough
to neglect, and remember if your zeal falters here it will be as when a standard bearer fainteth.
A Word to Missionaries and Churches conjointly.
It is to urge the importance of meetings for prayer. Vain are our expectations that religion will
flourish while these are neglected; and I question the propriety of sustaining a missionary in
places where there is no prayer meeting or even where it seems to be a forced measure.
I am not unapprised of the difficulties which must be encountered where the population is
sparse, the members widely dispersed, the roads bad, their means of conveyance very illy
adapted to speed or comfort, and the purpose of secular duties very great. And there is but one
answer to all of these.
The prayer meeting must be sustained. It is essential to Christian fellowship and personal
sanctification, and all the sacrifices it involves should be cheerfully undergone. The want of such
a meeting is evidence of feebleness that should awaken apprehension. There is a leak in the ship
which must be stopped, or all will be lost. To maintain a prayer meeting no turn nor effort nor
sacrifice should be spared. If the roads and attendance forbid their approach in the evening they
should go by day, and if they cannot ride, they should go on foot. If they are so fatigued during
harvest that they cannot enjoy the meeting in the afternoon, let them assemble in the morning and
devote the best hours of the day to the best work. They will lose nothing by it, for with such
sacrifices God is well pleased. Oh what a refreshment to the tired nature of the harvest man to
leave his fields and go on Wednesday morning to the prayer meeting. What a rebuke to that
worldly minded professor whose zeal for money making hath eaten him up, and what an
impression of the excellence of our religion would those singular acts of sanctified Christians
make upon the ungodly around them. Will it be too much then to ask you brethren to review this
whole matter and enquire what are the means that operate to keep you from such a meeting.
Is it the distance, the pressure of duty, or are there not other reasons underlying these, such as
indifference, a positive dislike or perhaps an apprehension that if you attend you will be obliged
to take part and thus condemn the inconsistency of your ordinary conduct?
Agent
__________________
Galena, Jan. 29, 1851
Rev. Mr. Badger
Dear Br.
I returned yesterday (40 miles) in despite of a severe snow storm in my face from Stephenson
Co., where I have spent 2 weeks during which I preached 8 times and made 40 pastoral visits in
what has been known as Richland Settlement. The blessed work of grace at Freeport which added
49 (31 by prof. and 18 by letter) to the Church Sabbath before the last and 120 & the Methodists,
and a number to the Baptists, Etc. has extended somewhat over the County. Learning that the
Methodists at Cedarville (a village springing up in that vicinity) were great;y excited, I went
hastily to look after that part of the Presbyterian Ch. of Freeport who resided there and my visit
has resulted in organizing a Presb. Church of 16 members, all but 3 divided from Freeport. And it
was well I did for an Old School minister would have gathered them into his fold (especially the
Irish Presb.) He had been about informing them of our heterodoxy. I met him at one of the houses
and challenged him to prove his assertions as I claimed to have been orthodox 30 years ago (he is
a young man of 30), and he ought not to slander his brother. He cited me to Mr. O. Parker 262[262]
and Finney.263[263] I informed him that neither of them belong to our denom. The county is peopled
almost entirely by Pennsylvanians & foreigners. There are no Yankees there except at the county
seat.
“Mr. O. Parker” may refer to Rev. Theodore Parker, a Unitarian Minister and powerful worker against slavery.
Charles Grandison Finney, born in Litchfield, Conn. in 1792, was licensed to preach in the Prebyterian Church
in 1824. He was perhaps the greatest revivalist of his day. He joined the “unorthodox” Oberlin group, and became
Professor of Theology there in 1835. Aratus Kent clearly was antagonistic to this Oberlin movement, as he alludes to it
in a disparaging manner in several letters. see: Appleton”s, vol. II, p. 461-2. McLoughlin, W.G.: The Meaning of Henry
Ward Beecher. New York, 1970. p. 178. Ironically, Finney moved away from the abolitionist movement and toward
Aratus Kent”s position that if the population were converted to the gospel, slavery would die a natural death.
262[262]
263[263]
Br. Wheeler’s report will accompany the other applications, and I have written advising him to
make a vigorous effort to raise a subscription for his support and write us.
Yours affectionately,
A. Kent
_________
Galena, Feb. 4, 1851
Dear Br.,
Yours of Jan. 21 has been received and I have forwarded the Commissions of Brs. Murphy &
Day. Perhaps I erred in judgement when I encouraged then both to expect commissions especially
without first referring it to your committee. I approve the views your com. takes of the subject
and rather wonder why I should have taken so long a step and reflecting the matter over in
connection with your remark that the amount of expenditure is disproportionate to what you are
able to do for other destitutes. It has thrown me back upon the habit of my own mind. I have been
in the habit of cherishing the idea that the great want is that of more men and that whenever I
could lay hold of a good man I must not fail to secure him. I am inclining still to think that Br.
Day will make his influence felt and that we shall trace results that will be permanent. With
respect to Br. Murphy I know nothing but what is contained in the certificate I sent you. I have
tried 3 times to see him and have been “let hitherto.” And I was influenced too by a desire to have
him in our connection rather than to have an Old School Organization thrust into our field as they
seem determined to be at all hazards. And in every place in this and the contiguous states I am
willing they should do all the good they can but I feel somewhat indignant when they come to our
members (as one of their ministers did 2 weeks since when he was about organizing a church in
Stephenson Co,) and tell that we are not orthodox.
And with respect to the field they occupy, It is entirely new ground which has been neglected
and I has not there seen so fully as I now do the propriety and economy of restricting missionaries
to half pay and thus making it necessary for them to lean harder upon the people to whom they
minister.
In relation to Port Byron, I think the field is limited for so large an appropriation but as Br.
Reed had introduced a man there I did not feel at liberty to question the propriety of the course.
Br. Wheeler occupies a very larger field if we count up the destitute lairs that open around him.
I have been quite concerned but I should not do the right thing in relation to Br. Hildreth. On
the one hand I perceive there is a strong distrust of his adaptiveness to be useful in New York and
where he is best known, on the other such evidence of repentance and a desire to be at his proper
work that I could not refuse to point him to Savanna where the Com, have refused to sustain him
on the alleged ground that the appropriation asked is too much. They have made a vigorous effort
to raise a larger sum and are about to apply for 200 only. And unless his demerits are more
serious that I have supposed I shall hope he may be commissioned both on his own account and
the of the people there for it he is at all successful he will root out the influence of the Unitarian
whose persevering efforts threaten to lay foundations that cannot by and by be overturned. And
the fact that the very men who have sustained Woodward are so largely committed to Br. Hildreth
seems to indicate that it is not yet too late to redeem Savanna form the blight of Unitarianism.
Br. Pendleton's achievements astonish me. I spent 3 days with him and looked carefully into
his operations. How one little man & poor and withal a missionary preaching every Sabbath and
providing for a family could within 2 years have projected, gathered on a naked prairie all the
materials and all the labourers and finished a tasteful & commodious building 40 feet square and
containing 21 rooms all well arranged and could have more over filled it in every nook and corner
with the sons & daughters of serve at an expense of $3000 is to me a mystery.
At my request he has furnished a plain and unvarnished history of the enterprise which I
enclose. I do not perceive a high exaggeration. He consented to furnish this statement because he
wants by means of it to procure some aid from the East in obtaining beds and other furniture for
the pupils rooms without the trouble of bringing their own furniture from a distance.
I had much pleasant conversation and endeavored to be faithful in guarding him against
worldly mindedness. The church at Milo is small and poor and can raise bit $25 and he hopes to
receive the same amount from individuals at Henry. And he asks 250 (i.e. 125 for Milo and 125
for preaching at the Academy.) His school of 60 together with those that come from the village
make a congregation of 75. He has a very pleasant chapel and recitation room in the attic and a
more interesting congregation than usually falls to the lot of Home Miss. to address. Nor is his
preaching without effect for he reckons 10 as the converts of last winter, several of whom
incidentally came in my way.
The family arise at 5 and the young ladies assembly with Mrs. P. and spend 1/2 an hour in
silent reading of scripture and prayer (for want of room to be alone) 10 minutes being allowed at
the close for their questions on what they have read. After which 40 crowd around the breakfast
table, repeat each a verse and there family prayer is had before they leave/ It appears to me
therefore that novel and visionary as his project seemed at first that he is evidently doing great
work and he ought to have more rather than less than his modesty had solicited. And this token of
our confidence will stimulate him to increase his zeal in pastoral duties. And I do not feel wiling
to lose such a man from the ministry. I encouraged him to expect 250 on condition that he devote
himself to his professional duties. He replied that he had now got through building and secured
good teachers so that he could now give himself to his appropriate work. I do not say that your
committee should sustain such enterprises ordinarily but I do say that if there is one of their
members that can go and survey attentively the whole establishment and not say that he has
accomplished as much as ordinary ministers, I shall be disappointed.
Things are in a very embarrassing state at Henry. The church is exceedingly weak and they
have disposed of the school house so that they have not now any place for preaching except at the
Seminary which is a mile distant.
Yours in the best bonds,
A. Kent
__________
Galena, Feb. 5, 1851
Dear Br.,
I have just had a visit from an Elder in the church at Buffalo Grove saying that Br. Gray had
not received his commission and I told him that I had my doubts whether the people has done
what they could for his support and it was probably delayed because the Committee too had
doubts.
He seemed to think that they had done what they could and he seemed to be more than ever
encouraged in the prospect of Br. Gray’s usefulness. He says he has visited about and secured the
confidence of the community more than any one they have ever had. He further says, moreover,
that he draws so large congregations that they cannot get into the house and they will be obliged
to build greater. I hope therefore if they are aided this year they will soon be able to support him
without foreign assistance.
Since writing the above I have received yours of the 31 ult. from which I perceive you jogged
the wrong people. The Mount Carrol people are really feeble and unable to do much but it was
the congregation at Buffalo Grove that I suspected of being too willing too lean upon the H. M.
Society. I have however no objection to a jog from your committee now and then to most of our
churches that have had aid for 2 years or more years.
On my return yesterday from Babel (near Babel Diggings) and 4 miles from Chelsea, where I
preached last Sabbath and am engaged to preach again Friday, Sat. & Sabbath next hoping to
prepare the way to organize a church. I called at Shullsburg to say that they must do something
for Mr. r. of he must be removed. I found that Br. Esty considered himself pledged to pay all the
rent and some 30 dollars besides and he promised me immediately to circulate a subscription for
the year ending in Ap. He moreover seems resolved when the time comes to take hold of the
effort to build a church.
Your affectionately,
A. Kent
_______
Galena, Ill. Feb. 20, 1851
Rev. Mr. Badger
Dear Br.,
Br. Gray has sent me his commission and has declined acting under it : says 150 is 50 less
than the least sum that will suffice and 100 is no more than he ought to have and add “Do place
some man on this field whose integrity will not be doubted.”
In reply I have assured him that the reduction was no reflection on him but probably grew out
of my suggestion that the Buffalo Grove people ought to de more and I have expressed the
opinion that that larger congregation of people with farms (and not new settlers) can raise the
amount. And if the effort is made and they fall short I will pledge the Society to make up the 100
but not until they have subscribed at least 50. In saying these things I have been governed by my
knowledge of facts. I am informed that Br. Gray is labouring with unwonted faithfulness on that
field and is very useful there (Br. Magoun concurrs in these views).
I enclose Br. Days quarterly report. To me it is exceedingly interesting, especially in view of
the prospect that the Chicago Branch of the R.R. (Central) will go near that settlement. And this
render all those desolate prairies valuable. Br. Day is some what advanced in years (say 45), has
been moderator of our synod, and I think it an acquisition to get such a man for an explorer. And I
shall feel it my duty to retain him on that field this year even if he must have 300: for I regard the
200 pla as an ex post facto law!
Perhaps my patron Saints in N.Y. will think that I have presumed a little but this is the best
decision I can make without further consultation and I cannot consistently visit Br. Day in his
field and I should be glad to do so this winter.
Br. Powell’s application covers but half his time. I suppose he is yet undecided whether he
shall preach at Cedarville and cannot moe in these matters until some time has been consumed.
Br. Balwin in a private letter to me speaks of a revival and 20 converts. He has extended out
Br. Gould’s labours and I think that Br. G. has prepared the way for great goof to be done in that
vicinity.
God is blessing Galena but of that anon.
Yours, Etc.,
A. Kent
_____
Galena, Feb. 26, 1851
Rev. Mr. Badger
Dear Br.,
You ask your agent to give notices of changes which have taken place within given periods.
The first thought was that I have nothing new on that subject, but I began to reconsider ...
[illegible]...
Annual Report
You inquire how many churches have passed to a state of Independence. There are several
(Rockton, Providence, Princeton, Belvidere, Freeport & Galena and St. Charles, I suppose.)...I
have travelled 3905 miles & ...I have preached 126 sermons, have administered the Lord’s Supper
to distant churches 7 times, baptized 5 persons. I have visited every county (23) and spent one or
two Sabbaths (preaching to the destitute on our Home Miss.) in each of the following counties: Jo
Davies, 7 Sabbaths; Stephenson, 3; Winnebago, McHenry, Cook, Will, Grundy, Kane, 2;
Putnam,1; Lasalle, 2, DeKalb, 16; Marshall, 1; Whiteside, 2; Ogle.
Our “Condition”
is that of dependance and we in Northern Ill are drawing necessity upon your Society and you
think we are receiving more that our proportion, you must admonish those beneficiary churches
who have too willing to stint their pastors or to lean upon Eastern Benevolence.
Our Wants
are many. We need more men and better men. There are 12 or 15 churches that are
languishing for want of ministers. We who are on the ground need a new ??? from on high, and
we ourselves need a larger measure of Divine influence.
Our Mercies
are infinite and wile we moved over our destitutions and on account of the stupidity that yet
prevails, we cannot withhold our grateful acknowledgement for what God has done this last year
on this field. Especially in our Presbytery. The brethren.,,went up to Synod at Freeport praying.
We had a blessed meeting and it has been followed bu a precious work of grace...a revival of
influence in other places until within our bounds 12 churches of the Presbyterian &
Congregational denomination have been refreshed and 5 of them have received large accessions
to their memberships and ...Galena where a display of Divine mercy is being made at the present
moment in all evangelical churches. Among those who signified their purpose to be on the Lord’s
side and requested the prayers of the church, one was a lad of 12 who had been emphatically a
child left to himself:left to wander at will about the streets. It was not so much that he reminded
me of his brother of same age whom the cholera in 33 snatched away from our Sab. School:but
rather as a token that God is faithful to his covenent:a token that has a bottle for the tears and
register for the prayers of his saints. The mother of that lad, already 9 years in Heaven, was one of
6 who were gathered up form an area 40 miles square to constitute the first church that was
organized in the territory north of Sangamon River and west of Michigan Lake.
Our Prospects
Are flattering. The prospect is that the district which my agency covers will in 3 or 4 years be
so threaded with R. Roads that every area of our immense & fertile prairies will be within 6 hours
of as good a market as New York, and every person within 50 hours of the Atlantic and less than
that amount travelling time from the Gulf of Mexico. How rapidly will this section of country be
prospered, what number of villages & cities will start up as if by magic, and as suddenly almost
as the landscape now brown will presently be transformed into an ocean of wild flowers and I
allude to it only to show the responsibility of the church to lay broad and deep and quick the
foundations of civil literacy and religious institutions. Surely here if any where we may hope that
the seed sown by your society will produce an 100 fold.
Your Br.,
A, Kent
_________
Rock Island, March 14, 1851
Br. Badger
Dear. Br.,
My annual report has been delayed because I could not catch time to complete it. I was called
off unexpectedly to this vicinity and now I have persisted and forwarded it.
Enclosed I send credentials of Rev. M. Robinson who says his brothers address is Rev. N.G.
Robinson, South Wales, Erie Co., N.Y. and he will furnish like papers.
They wish to occupy new ground and operate together. I described Lee Co. (pop some 6 or
7000) as affording such a field. They are pleased with it and are ready to come on, one in May
and the other moves in June, or N.C, will wait 6 months if thought best.
It was my plan to locate one at Lee Center where they will raise probably 150 or 200, to
labour also at Mecgms Grove which is new ground but where a Presbyterian Church will be
organized in due time., also at Lamoille which is in Bureau Co.
The other my plan locates at Dixon to cover also the church at Grand Detour (6 miles) where
100 would be raised and Gap Grove Church 5 miles from Dixon in the other direction. But
having recently been through those fields, I found some doubt expressed whether the Gap Grove
Church should be disbanded and part going to Dixon and part to Sterling to meeting.
And at Dixon I could find but little encouragement. A leading merchant (Brooks) said he was
anxious to have Congregational preaching, but the time had not come quite yet. The prospect of
Dixon from its water power (they have a dam) and from its being on the line of the Central R.R.
is such as warrants early and vigorous efforts, and so far as I can learn the Baptists & Meth. are
not raising its moral Char. very much. Should those 2 men be encouraged to come on this spring
to locate both in Lee C., where we cannot expect they will raise more than 350 for both on the
whole field in first year, or shall one be sent to Lyndon where a Congregational minister is
needed or should one of them be told to wait 6 months. Please send me a prompt reply that I may
somewhat to answer.
My voice for the first time is hoarse from too much speaking last Sabbath.
Yours in haste,
A. Kent
______
Savanna, March 17/51
Dear Br.,
I sit down to furnish a little record of my movements the last 8 days. Having received letters at
Freeport on the 8th which were forwarded to me from Galena, and which seemed to require that I
should go to Rock Island, I engaged a layman to meet my appointment at Babel for yesterday. I
made my was across the prairie to Byron (Ogle Co.) and spent the night with Br. Pearson to get
all the information O could about Lee Co in which he has laboured. He favored the plan of
sending the Robinsons into that County. He thinks the prospects are flattering in this new field.
His prayer meeting is well attended and he was agitating the question of commencing a series of
meetings which I warmly advocated on the ground of a general seriousness in all this region.
I called at Grand Detour. They are anxious to get a preacher but have no one secured. At
Dixon I called and could find but little encouragement. I spent a night at Gap Grove. Their
spiritual states exhibits the necessary results of a long destitution. The O. School church edifice at
Sterling, build I believe with funds from the east, still stands without windows & doors.
At Como I saw Br. Wheeler a few moments as he was commencing the Exercise of a funeral
occasion. He will just raise the greater part of 200 on his field, but has made no effort at Como
but leaves that for the action of the church he hopes to organize there in April. He was about to
commence a series of meetings at Round Grove where 2 have recently been converted. And at
Lyndon they are still destitute and will not be easily accommodated as there are 2 sorts of people
there. Spent the night at Sharon. Br. Martin is gaining ground rapidly. He is just such a man as we
want to explore Mercer & Lower R. Island Co., and I have written to persuade him to spend 3 or
4 weeks there this spring while his brother who is coming out in May shall supply him.
After fording Green River and wading an abundance of mud holes I reached Rock Island and
spent a day in anxious deliberation about Br. Holts duty, concerning which he wrote requesting
me to visit & advise him. The Church esteems him and appreciates his worth, but many of them
think that he cannot be useful there on account of the coldness of his demeanor in private and
natural abruptness and apparent hardness in public. The best description I can give. They have
had some interest in religion there and some valuable additions. But they say that the
congregation is decreasing and families will not join if he is to remain, The church appears to
love and stand by him but they are disturbed and know not what to do. I have talked freely with
him but it is as hard for him to see his own “errors” as for me to see mine which receive the same
directions as I told him. I left without giving any opinion.
I called on Br. Hitchcock who is assisting Br. Hill at Albany. He has had a valuable accession
this winter. I called on Br. Thompson at Port Byron.. He has had a precious season of refreshing
assisted by Br. Cobb and there are some 50 converts, many of whom may join other churches.
I reached Albany Saturday evening intending after morning service to go over to Garden Plain
and preach in the evening to one of Br. Wheelers congregations but it prove a rainy day and I
spent the day assisting Br. Hickcock at Albany. There is good work going on there. Several come
forward to be prayed for and one young man at the Hickcock Monday morning prayer meeting
stammers aloud “I am happy: I have a new mind and a new heart.” I saw the tears in Br. Gilbert’s
eyes and he rose and thanked God for this and another conversion in his family. This young man
is an orphan and illiterate. This man Gilbert is a Methodist Br. who made one of that meeting at
Prairie du Chien who were gathered at Br. Lockwoods to pray that God would send them a
minister.
One who lead in prayer and exhortation this morning was a young man of 17 who said that 9
years since he lived next door to me in Galena. He is a growing Christian and wants to study for
the ministry. I encouraged him after he had mentioned the indications of Providence pro & con.
I forgot to suggest it at the time and after riding 2 miles I called on a member and left
“Norman Smith” to be given to the young man’s prayer meeting, hoping it might originate such
an exercises. Stopped at the end of 6 miles and called on the widow of O.S. Elder Mitchel and
had a very tended and melting time with her and her 3 sons 15, 17, & 19 and little daughter. The
eldest said he still had the book I gave him some 10 years ago after prayer. I took my leave and
called him out and exhorted him to remember his responsibility to his mother and Br. He was
greatly moved : he prays:
With such a variety of incidents you may imagine I had a precious season in crossing the lone
sand prairie between Albany and Savanna.
Spent the night at Bowen’s at Savanna. They seemed pleased with Br. Hildreth and he had bot
[sic] a lot and is to move there as soon as he can procure a house. I judge that the movement will
serve to break up the Unitarian effort.
25th The good work is still going on in the first and second Pres. Churches in this place.
Please to answer mt letter speedily concerning the Robinsons that I may reply to them.
Yours, etc.,
A. Kent
________
Galena, April 18, 1851
Rec. Chas Hall, D.D.
Dear Br.,
I have just returned from Boone Co. and from Presbytery at Buffalo Grove and I have first of
disposed of your letter and Br. Robinson’s 3 saying to him that I do not feel at liberty to invite
him to Lee Co. for the reasons that his ....
I feel myself embarrassed with your “ex post facto” law in relation to assuming the whole
support of a missionary (though I approve fully of the general remarks you make in support of it).
But I feel straightened in relation to my own past conduct for I have encouraged Brother Wheeler,
Day & Murphy in the fact that they would be sustained.
Br. Wheeler is doing well...
I would however suspend my judgement on these 2 cases until I have been over the field
which I intend to explore in May. Hereafter I intend not to encourage men to expect over 200
dollars unless your Soc. sanction it.
We have had many stormy Sabbaths and your missionaries and their agent have had to endure
hardness. We had a snow storm of 2 days. The snow blew so violently and fell so fast that was
impossible to face it but I went with the wind, rode 40 miles and preached twice next day at
Rockford on Home Miss. according to appointment but injured my weak eye...and it is not quite
well yet. It was allowed to be the severest storm we have had this whole winter past, many cattle
and sheep died.
I have been to Shullsburg attended the ordination of Br. Reynard and conversed with Br. Esty
who pledges as I understand $100 besides the rent of Br. R’s house but did not think best to
circulate a subscription quite yet. He is a man of noble soul and I did not think it best to insist
further at present. He also seems determined to make an effort to build a church at Shullsburg this
summer. Br. Raynard is very acceptable and laborious and in that part of his field which embraces
the Apple River Church (which I remember labouring to keep alive for 2 or 3 years) he has made
a favorable impression. It will however be impossible to raise anything there for a while. We
spent last Sabbath there and ..was quite astonished to find so large a congregation. ..
After surveying the ground and hearing all that they have to say at Buffalo Grove the Comm.
on Home Mis are unanimous in recommending Br. Gray should have 50 dollars more. I think
they will do more another year.
I have received application for aid to sustain Br. Sipes at Lamoille but think it my duty to
detain it until I pass that way and make enquiries.
I will give you Br. H. Brown’s remark accompanying the application. “I suppose that Br.
Sipes is a thorough-going Oberlinite and I am apprehensive is not fitted to be useful in any place.
Men who feel that they are perfect are sometimes very perverse.”
I have considered what you wrote respecting affairs in Minnesota, and I am very sorry that
such alienations should have arisen. I suppose you have seen Br. Neill now and I need say no
more except that I shall do and indeed have done already what I could to soften the temper of the
parties. I am persuaded that those..do not always discriminate between a zeal for God and a desire
to promote an ism.
One thing I marked, Br. Neill said he had offered to refer the whole matter to the decision of
the Secretaries but that method of arbitration was declined.
Last year I found that Brethren were not supplied with your reports on the Eastern part of my
field. Please inform me how large is the district which I am expected to supply and I will attend to
it. If any are to be distributed from Chicago a notice might be put in the Herald of the Prairies.
A. Kent
______
Elk Horn Grove
May 23, 1851
Rev. Dr. Badger
Dear Br.,
According to promise I hasten to inform you in respect to the application from the Church at
Lamoille.
We have most abundant rains hither the past week do that the country is flooded, the bridges
carried off and the sloughs in the flat country beyond the Ill filled to satiety and a history of my
exposures and escapes would be “a caution” to those who propose to be Home Missionaries. But
I will only say that I reached Lamoille Wednesday eve. after riding all the afternoon in a powerful
rain, and could not call on any but Mr. Bangs whose house was on my way. He represented all the
Ch. to be united in Mr. Sikes as I understood him. In the morning when I left the Bureau River
which ran between me and Dea. Bakers (on whom I would call) was impassible. And I was about
to leave the vicinity without getting any more light. I however by inquiry found one member of
the Ch. of whom I learned that Dea. Baker (brother to a Miss. in Bloomington) was dissatisfied
and 4 others whose names I have. And before I left the settlement I wrote a line back to Br. Sikes
to this effect, that I left his house under the impression favorable to his being commissioned, but
that I had since been informed that as many as ten of the male members would prefer another
preacher, though they all esteem him highly as a man. And they did not wish to wound his
feelings not disappointed expectations they had created - that I was in duty bound to report this
fact to the So. and I thought it would be both kind & Christian to state this action of mine to him.
He has built a very comfortable house but if obliged to sell it, he need not sacrifice anything
on it.
I judge that they are determined not to keep him longer than the present year and under all
circumstances, I cannot recommend that his commission be renewed and I suspect that a majority
of the church will be secretly pleased though they had not courage to express their feelings by a
vote.
Yours, etc.,
A. Kent
_________
[Ottawa] June [13th], 1851
Dr. Badger
Dear Br., I have just left Ottawa where I went to attend the meeting of Fox River U. I had had
experiences of perils in the mud. It is worse travelling that I ever saw before. On my way down
my horse fell over and I was obliged to release him from the wagon before he could get upon his
pedestals. I am now returning and I have that same 6 miles to go over tomorrow morning. There
is also swimming water between me and my Sabbath appointment at Lee Center where I go also
to attend the Winnebago & Ogle Association. But I am hoping I can follow down the stream until
I find a bridge. But in spite of perils I have accomplished some thing. I have seen Brs. Leonard,
Sikes, E.G. Smith, Dodge, Wells, Loughead and others I wanted to see, also I called on Br. Ira
Smith and engaged him to preach at Mechgms Grove hoping to supersede a Mr. Gardner who
has gone there but who does not give promise of being suited to the field.
My visit has also resulted in getting Br. Hubbard (of Batavia) to succeed Br. Sikes and thus I
hope to prevent a difficulty that was likely to grow out of the disclosures of my letter to Mr.
Sikes.
The meeting of the Fox R. U. has been harmonious and pleasant. I have had opportunity to
plead the cause of Home Miss., and to unite with these excellent Brethren in commemorating the
tragical exit of their leader and contemplating together his second advent in triumph. But who
may advise the day of his coming?
I have alluded several times to the Guernsey Frocks. I have recently taken them out and aired
them and unless I am otherwise instructed, I shall make another effort to put them off next winter.
If you should sent me your reports please to say how far I shall supply/ Last year I did not hear
that any were sent to Chicago.
I am hoping to see one of the secretaries at Chicago.
Yours, etc.,
A. Kent
The above was written hastily (I am obliged to write often) two days ago. I am now safely
across the swollen stream ready to preach on the morrow (June 15) to a feeble church fast asleep
and without a minister or prayer meeting. I have visited 5 families this morning and prayed with
them and intend to visit others.
I enclose an application from Chemung with my recommendation and that of the Com. of his
Presbytery (Brs. Hart & Eddy) who say however that they are not informed on the subject. I have
felt that Br. Smalley like many others has had “too many irons in the fire”, but he promises to
give ....to his work. It is my purpose of my experiment to go through there on my way to
Waukegan in July and press that point. I injured my weak eye riding in that dreadful snow storm
in Apr. to meet my appointments in Rockford and they have been when yesterdays ride injured
them again and I am afraid I shall be laid by during the hot weather and unable to go to Chicago
but I hope not.
Br. Bentley, the writer, is represented to be a very good man living 5 or 6 miles off and both
my visits there have been in such bad travelling that I could not see him. I am not yet satisfied
that he ought not to give so much of his time to Poplar Grove etc. But I know too is is important
to concentrate our efforts in these new fields.
_______
Aurora, June 24/51
Rev. Dr. Badger
Dear Br.,
Please pay the Bearer John E. Vassar eighty seven dollars and charge the same to my account.
$87Aratus Kent
I should not draw such an order but as this Br. is a colporteur about to return to the east. I
could get a good horse and then I should be able to accommodate a missionary many of whom are
unable to supply themselves.
_____
Galena, July 3, 1851
Rev. dr. Badger
Dear Br.,
Yours of the 14 ult directed to Chicago overtook me here yesterday. Like every thing else
behind the time its season of usefulness ....
We were greatly disappointed that the convention was deprived of a representative from 150
Nassau St. You would have been questioned as closely as Dr. Pomeroy was on the subject of
slavery. But your explanation was satisfactory. Had I dreamed that you had not been consulted
long before about holding such a convention I should have alluded to the matter in a very
different manner. One great object in going to Chicago was to see and consult the secretary about
various matters and things for which I had made little mention, one of which and the most serious
is the difficulty at Minnesota and allude to it again merely to say that I have just parted with Br.
Wheeler whose testimony is essential to a correct understanding of the case.
I have drawn on you for money to pay for a horse and in this way have supplied Br. Wheeler
who was obliged to travel on foot and his field is 20 miles in extent. I have engaged to furnish
him a horse for some years and by this means I have ...for my horse is obliged to keep up with his
driver and he finds that a pretty hard service.
At the convention I met with Br. Whitney whom I engaged to carry and introduce at Lee
Center & Grand Detour but while I was detained to hunt a stray horse and get another he engaged
himself at Batavia and As I passed trough Lee Center I told them they must blame the horse (who
was fastened in disgrace to the back of the waggon) for my failure to bring them a minister.
Indeed he has hardly dared to hold up his head since. But he is to have three months penance
upon green grass and that upon his bane forage and I hope he will not do so again.
Br Wheeler id making his influence felt at all his stations and there will be soon an effort to
secure more of his time in different parts of his field. He promised to be one of our most effective
men.
This letter will hardly deserve to be filed away but I will not assume the responsibility of
directing you to dispose of it. I think it will be my duty to make shorter journeys for the present as
travelling is so bad, but I have still 5 destitute fields within a days ride.
Yours very affectionately,
A. Kent
P.S. Perhaps I ought to add that if Br. Wheeler’s field should be divided one man could extend
his labours to resuscitate the Ch. at Gap Grove and make 5 o’clock appointment at Dixon which
seems to be difficult to reach in any other way without assuring the whole of his support, at least.
Existing denominations will not encourage aid nor abet. I spent Sab. June 8 and could only get
one elbow in.
______
Rockford, July 12, 1851
Rev. Dr. Badger
Dear Br.,
At my request when met at the parsonage under the shadow of the old Oak Tree in Beloit at 5
am on Thursday last 4 of the devoted friends of the A.H.M.S. solicited Brs. Clary (mine host)
Pearson, Savage and Kent to review the actions of the Missionary Convention at Chicago on the
20th ult.
These Brethren (all present at that meeting except Br. Pearson) expressed their regret that one
of the secretaries was not at Chicago (though your explanation was satisfactory) and they all
saving myself were disappointed in the action or the body as having come short of that progress
which they had hoped it would reach.
The remark of Dr. E. Beecher was quoted that the question before them was one of time. The
time will come when the A. H. M. S. must take the stand that they will not commission men to
labour in slaveholding churches. These brethren (or 2 of them Brs. Clary and Savage) thought the
resolution adopted did not meet the views of the Convention and that if another had been thrown
in desiring the Society to announce that they would not here after commission men to churches
that tolerate salve holders (excepting those who are already on the list of beneficiaries) that such a
resolution would have been adopted by the Convention and approved by the great body of our
western churches.
It seemed to me therefore that these views should be communicated to your Committee and
we agreed each in his own way to express his views to our Brothers in New York.
Much as I may be stigmatised as a Proslavery man, I still am constrained to say that whenever
your Committee feel prepared to take that stand, they may count on me as one who would
welcome the announcement. And if the distant echo of so feeble a voice should contribute
anything to hasten such a result, I am quite ready to give utterance to it either in the closet or on
the house top.
I have however more confidence in the judgement of your committee than in my own, and I
consider that if the opinion I have expressed be an embodiment of western sentiment it may not
be so of the churches at the east, and that constitutes another reason why I should rest satisfied
with your course, whatever it may be.
Affectionately yours,
A. Kent
______
Galena, Aug. 6/51
Rev. Chas. Hall, D.D.
Dear Br.
I have been led to enquire in view of the letter you wrote ,e sometime since and in view of the
doings of the Minnesota Presbytery the report of which had just reached me and in view of my
having been repeatedly urged by Br. Neill to visit there whether I had done right in not going up
there. I had excused myself on the ground of the pressure of duty and my desire to clear clear of
their difficulties as well as because on the secretaries was confidently expected out here this
summer and the offices of a subagent would not be accepted.
But after hearing and censuring some of the acts of the Presbytery as reported by Br. Spees I
blamed myself for not having gone up before and resolved to go directly to Br. Lecombe and get
a statement of his own views in order that I might form a judgement for myself.
Recalling an appointment 25 miles east of there, I went directly to St. Anthony, passing by
Brs. Hall & Neill and Whitney.
In his own quiet way Br. Lecombe stated his grievances very freely and yet I have regretted
since that I did not ask to see copies of his letter to the secretaries which Br. Holt told me as I
passed Dubuque he had seen and without which I am not qualified to judge in the case (and
certainly Br. Holbrook is not qualified for he went up and heard Lecombe’s statement but gave
Br. Neill no opportunity to explain.)
I then called on Mr. & Mrs. Crowell members of the first church in Galena and converts under
my ministry. They seemed to be very uneasy under the existing state of things and enquired what
would be done. I could give them no satisfaction as Mr. Mr. Lecomb;s movements are shaped
with a view to establish a Cong. Ch.
I returned next day to St. Paul prepared to point out what I thought had been harsh and
discourteous in Br. Neill, which I did and which he admitted as also the haste with which the
Presbytery was organized which he had repeatedly regretted in conversation with Br. Lecombe.
He then took down his reports and letters and traced the history of the movements and I was
silenced and can only say that I should be glad to see the two brothers together in a frank
interchange of their views, or what would be vastly better that one of the Sec. should come up and
adjudicate for Br. Neill feels that he has not been fully heard. He says he has offered to submit the
matter for arbitration but that Br. Lec. refused - has offered to discuss it but he refuses and yet
makes representations to the secretaries which are not correct.
Br. Lec. said to me that Br. Neill required that he should teach Presbyterianism as a condition
of membership in the Presbytery. I said at once that is a misapprehension as you will readily
account for in the heat of debate. His position is this. We (the presb) will install any man as pastor
over a Presb. Ch. who will be calculated to promote the plan of the church. we will not install Br.
Lecombe (if he is called which he is not) because he has imbibed deep prejudices against Pres.
etc. Br. Lecombe complains of improper interference in the hasty organization of the church. Br.
Neill says that during the year that he preached at St. Anthony he did not do any more than
ascertain and report to you the fact that there were 7 Presbyterians and one Cong. at St. An. Br.
Whitney states that he organized a Ch. (calling in Br. Neill to assist) because the interests of truth
were suffering by delay (other denominations were moving in to build and organize) and he
organized a Presb. Ch. because there were there materials for no other.
Br. Neill complains that the Church has been languishing for a year while other influences are
in full play which are tending to a change in church polity. br. Lecombe states that there are
enough Cong. to organize a church. I also visited Br. Williamson and Hall and preceded to Red
Rock on Sab. It has been a most painful and self-denying exercise and the only results I have
reached is that something decisive ought to be done to promote the interests of our H.M. Society
and prevent a division which would not stop at St. Anthony, I fear.
As matters now stand, either there must be 2 churches and 2 ministers at St. A. or the
Presbyterian Church must be advised to change its organization or Br. Lecombe must be advised
to leave and another man occupy the ground.
I have had long conversations with Br. Williamson and President Chapin (just returned) and
they do not wish to give advice, but I believe they would think a great object gained if Br.
Wheeler could be replaced as the Missionary of St. Anthony. ..
You have doubtless heard of the death of Br. Hildreth and two ...by cholera. I had begun to
hope much from his efforts at Savanna. Br. N.C. Clark will probably leave Elgin and leave an
important opening for a successor.
May God Almighty lead the Committee to such a course in Minnesota as shall honor God and
save souls.
Perhaps I should add that Dr. Potts of St. Louis came down in the boat with me and it has been
repeatedly predicted that if there is a congregational church at St. Anthony there will be also an
Old School Ch.
Yours,
A. Kent
_________
Sharon, Nov. 5/51
I have heretofore given my views of Br. Pendletons course. I am still of the opinion that he is
doing a great good work. he is not only nursing that little church at Milo but he preaches every
Sabbath (once) to a very interesting congregation in his house made up of 60 odd scholars and a
goodly number of others who have no preaching but his. I spent several days trying to introduce
Br. C.R. Clark and to get up a meeting house but failed. I wish however to leave it to you to
decide whether you can consistently aid him.
I enclose his letter which you may read and destroy I have no doubt but he will get along
without our aid, but it seems to me to be right that they should receive what they ask.
A. Kent
________
Cook County
Elk Grove, Sept. 25, 1851
Rev. Dr. Badger,
The enclosed application was forwarded to me with a request (which I enclose) that I would
visit Br. R[aymond] and enquire into the matter.
I went to Hampshire Settlement and understood that the Deacon had informed him (Father
Raymond) that his daughters had been guilty of “card playing and other improprieties” which hurt
his influence.
I called on him and spent an hour or two, but did not touch that subject presuming that if he
has influence with his daughters he will do his utmost to prevent anything of the kind in the
future. But I said to Dea. Ticknor that if any such impropriety occurred in that neighborhood I
wished him to inform me. And I hope he may do good there. I have come to the conclusion in
concert with the Committee to recommend the application, but Br. Clark who best knows the
history of the case thinks it doubtful whether he will do much good. Father Raymond is
“allowed”* (*Kentucky term) to be a very good man but he is not acceptable and efficient as a
preacher, still the is supplying a little church in a spot where there will be no preaching except he
labours there.
I am well aware that the secretaries have abundance of letters to answer and I do not suppose
that I shall have a reply to the 199 suggestions or inquiries that I make, but there are some matters
that I did hope would call forth a response.
The Guernsey Frocks I have kept two years and having received no answer to my inquiries I
have put 1/2 of them into the Auction book and mean to pass them all off this winter.
I have received the reports and am distributing them.
I have not heard whether you have sent them to other points or whether I am to supply the
whole country.
We feel great anxiety in relation to the present agitation of slavery matters. The excitement is
very great and a desperate effort is making to prejudice the people against A.H.M.S. &
A.B.C.F.M. and with very considerable success in all these parts but it does not reach our
presbytery. It seems to be very unfortunate that the secretaries did not come out this summer
particularly to the convention. And our best friends are anxious for the result. I have done my best
to promote peace in Minnesota, but it seems to me that nothing will be accomplished til come
change is made. And there is already so much jealousy on the part of the Presbyterians in this
region that if that little church is run over the prejudice will be greatly augmented. I have been
anxious about Peru for a long time and now that there is an understanding that Br. D. will leave
this fall, it seems to me that if there is a strong man to be had he should be sent to Peru.
I have just seen Br. Whiting who leaves Lockport Jan 1. And it is of little use : no use: to send
a 2nd of 3rd rate man to such a place.
We want then a Presbyterian for Peru and a Congregationalist for Lockport who can grapple
with the difficulties there and strong churches may be built up. And I am sure that so long as the
Theo. Sem, are so far east of us and we have only the refuse, it is no more than right that we
should claim some few superior men to be coaxed away from their limited fields at the East to fill
these important posts.
It has been suggested that the friends of A.H.M.S. should have a meeting perhaps next spring
to enquire what should be done in view of the excitement on the slavery question. Out friends are
desirous that the Society should take a step in advance, perhaps say that no church shall be aided
that continues to remain slave holders: then the evil will come to an end in time. How would such
a step be regarded? This but enquiry is a sort of echo of the state of feeling here.
Waukegan. Sept 27. I came here on Friday to preach on Home Miss but Br. R having waited
long for me had preached himself and taken up,a coll. a part of which $6 he has paid over to me.
We had an interesting Sabbath. Here is a wide field for ministerial service.
I am now ready to leave for the meeting of the Belvidere Presbytery at Ring wood and thence
to Galena Presb. the development of which I dread but dare not anticipate. Synod meets also at
Galena the same week.
On review of the last page, I think the word “refuse” describes rather the tendency of things
there the facts as they stand connected with the efforts of our friends at the Home Missionary
rooms.
I enclose the confidential note of Br. Brown to be destroyed as soon as it has communicated a
hint or two on which I have nothing to add.
I believe I never reported Coll in First Cong. Ch in Rockford
$23.00
and same day (Ap 6) Coll in 2nd Cong Ch Rockford
$25.66
and Sab School Coll in 2nd Cong Ch do
3.20
And Coll at Fair Play Nov 1850
1.00
Donation from David Wild
1.00
to this add Coll at Freeport First Presbyterian Ch Sept 21
and coll in port at Waukegan
17.21
6.00
Subscriptions to Home Missionary John Rice
John Bukley
J.K. Brewster Freeport
3.00
O.W. Brewster
E.H. Hyde
Ester A. Hyde Rockford
80.07
Charge me then with $80.07
The freight on boxes I do not recollect and probably I shall not make any charge.
Yours very sincerely,
A. Kent
___________
Galena, Oct. 11, 1851
Br. Dr. Badger
Dear Sir,
Br. Neill has just stated to me that his application made 15 of July has not been noticed. Please
to attend to his case without delay.
An Elder of the 2nd Presbyterian Church Mr. Charles S. Hempstead requests men to say that if
a promising young man who is destined for the North west could be sent here as an immediate
supply and while they are looking about to secure a pastor, they would regard it as a great favour
and if the church in the meantime should not be already supplied they would be glad to avail
themselves of his services.
We have just passed through a severe trial. The presbytery having passed sentence opposing
the pastor of that ch on the charge by his own confession of lascivious conduct so flagrant as to
require this at their hands.264[264] The presbytery and synod both meeting here this week I have
George Frederic Magoun was born in 1821 Bath, Maine, where his grandfather was a shipbuilder, and his father
a well to do merchant and banker (and an author of the first of the famous Maine prohibition laws). George graduated
from the Bath Academy in 1837 and then graduated from Bowdoin in 1841. He studied theology at Andover and Yale.
In 1844, he went to Galena, Ill. to serve as the principal of an academy, and then was the principal of the Academy at
nearby Platteville, Wisc., in 45-46. He then returned to Andover to complete his theological training. He was ordained
Jan. 24, 1858, at Shullsburg, Wisc., where he founded a Home Mission Congregational Church. He then served for
three years (48-51) as the Pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church of Galena. Though he left Galena under a cloud,
he served five years each the Congregational Churches at Davenport and Lyons. Between 1851 and 1856 he also
studied and practiced law. In 1862 he was appointed President of Iowa College, later merged with Grinnell. He served
264[264]
passed through such a week as I never saw before. I hope you will reply in a line to Br.
Hempstead.
The applications from Downers Grove and from Sharon I shall retain until I visit there which I
propose to do at once.
I had quite a variety of documents and among others my episcopal charge.
In a recent conversation with our excellent and devoted Principal of the “Rockford Female
Seminary” Miss Anna P. Sill265[265] she expressed a wish that she might have the “Home
in this capacity for 20 years. Magoun was known to have something of a combative personality, and was staunchly in
the anti-slavery camp. He somehow merited inclusion in the DAB, while Aratus Kent did not. [DAB]
265[265]
Anna Peck Sill arrived in Rockford in the spring of 1849 to teach school. She began in an abandoned court
house and finished her Rockford career by pushing the Rockford Female Seminary into the ranks of the nations
colleges. Few such frontier femal seminaries survived even a few decades and almost none provided the nidus for the
formation of a college. Anna”s grandfather, Jedidiah Peck was a farmer, preacher, carpenter, mill builder, and judge of
the Court of Common Pleas of Otsego Township on the frontier of Western New York. He served in the New York
State house and senate, where he introduced bills to abolish slavery. Perhaps his greatest contributions came as a
champion of public education. Anna received a public education, and was an avid reader.
Following the dictums of Catharine Beecher, a champion of the concept that single women should take up the
profession of teaching, Anna went in 1836 to live with her brother on his homestaed in far western New York, and
began to teach. During vaacations she attended Albion Femalse Seminary, where she untimately became a teacher for
several years.
She remained single, and her views of marriage are perhaps best revealed during a conversation with a student”s
mother:
[The student”s moter] as happily married women often are, was concerned
about Miss Sill”s spinster state, and said to her with some feeling, “Anna Sill,
you should marry. Your should accept one of these good chances.”
Quickly as a flash came the answer, “Emily Robinson, I”m not looking for a
chance, I”m looking for an opportunity.”
But Anna did not wait for opportunity, she seized it. To a family fried who was an A.H.M.S. minister in Racine,
Wisconsin, [Hiram Foote] she wrote:
“I have thought perhasp I might be useful as a teacher and if possibly establish
a female seminary in some of the western states. Pecuniary considerations
would have but litle influence on such an undertaking. My principal object is to
do good.”
From Rev. L.H. Loss Anna Learned that Aratus Kent and others were interested in establishing a college at Beloit and a
female seminary in northern Illinois. Loos offered no promises, no salary, and only could hold forth the rent freee use of
an abandoned court house as a inducement for Anna to head west. It was enough.
Sill had a long battle to become principal. Twice the Executive Committee of the trustees, with Kent as chairman,
recommended Sill”s appointment, but the board was slow to act. They still hoped to recruit a prominant male educator
from the east.
But Anna Sill built the Rockford Female Seminary into a successful institution. Once Aratus Kent became satisfied of
Miss Sill”s piety and evagelistic zeal, he gave her great freedom in running the school. He attended board meetings
regularly, and most of the important ceremonial occasions, but he remained a strong back ground support for Miss. Sill.
Others might criticize her for her blunt asssertiveness, but he always referred to her as “the excellent principal.”
see: Townsend, Lucy Forsyth: The Best Helpers of One Another: Anna Peck Sill and the Struggle for Women”s
Education. Dekalb: Department of Leadership and Educational Policy Studies, Northern Illinois University, in
cooperation with Educational Studies Press, 1988. Ms. Forsyth found Joseph Emerson”s statment that Aratus Kent was
“the man to whom, more than any other man, the enterprise owed its inceptions and all its developments” erroneous. She
apparently felt the satement was intended as a slight to Anna Sill. Yet the double use of the word “man” leaves room for
other interpretations. Certainly no other male did more to create the institution, and there is some doubt that Miss Sill
would have survived a Board of Trustees headed by a less sympathetic man than Kent. Joespeh Emerson, Quarter
Centennial Address.”, in Sill Scrapbook, p. 84-5. RCA.
In later years when Sill struggled to raise Rockford to collegiate status, Sill invoked the memory of Kent:
“Let Beloit College steadily pursue its course; it is the Yale of the West. Can it not afford to be the gallant brother to
defend and aid the younger sister. I write eith conviction that good Father Kent, if alive would say, “This lket us do, ye,
and to this end Brethren let us pray.” He used to tell me that “of the two institutions, the Seminary was his pet.” SIll to
Emerson, 3 July 1879. RCA.
Missionary” to use in her monthly missionary meeting. I said certainly you shall have it. Rev.
Harry Curtis of Chicago said I used to have the H.M. Please send your paper to each of them.
Yours affectionately,
A. Kent
__________
Chicago, Oct. 24, 1851
Rev. Dr. Badger
Dear Br.,
While waiting on the Dentist I cannot make calls and I will give you some of my observations
in coming across the country.
I left home Sat. noon, rode to Plum River, preached in the morning and preached at 4 at a new
point 10 miles distant: had a congregation of about 60. An old school Br. preached in the
neighborhood in the morning. I left appointments on my return at those two places and Elizabeth
in the evening, making 3 sermons and 20 miles Sabbath day journey. In urging our missionaries
to work hard I do not mean they shall have occasion to say that I do not walk by the same rules I
urge on them.
At Melgems Grove where Br. Ira Smith preaches once in 3 weeks I found a good deal of
awakening and a great anxiety that their missionary would hasten to their aid. I spent the night
with Br. Gould but failed to see the men in his parish of whom I hoped to get information. But
my impression is that Br. Gould is doing good and might be sustained. He has been bereft of his
wife and is left with a family of six besides a married daughter in the neighborhood (Mrs. Long).
I spent a night with Br. Bascom and had a long conversation about the missionaries in that region.
It seems to be generally understood that Br. Wells is going to send the A. Miss So. when his time
is out with you! I have thought a good deal of the “curious conscience” in the New York
Observer.
Some of us western men are very conscientious but we have curious consciences.
We are building in troubled times but still the wall is being carried up and I try to thank God
and take courage. I am well persuaded that I lack many qualifications for the post I occupy but
yet I am persuaded that there is a great work to be done here and that I am better furnished for it
than when I began the agency. My experience and increasing knowledge of the field and of the
men ass greatly to my means of usefulness.
But my destiny is accomplished and I am ready to depart.
Yours affectionately,
A. Kent
__________
Peru, Nov. 1, 1851
Rev. Dr. Badger
Dear Sir,
I have been so favoured this trip that I have fairly outrun my own plans, and your letter
forwarded to Chicago did not overtake me till I arrived here last evening, and now I notice it. I
will give a few of my observations by the way.
I spent a night with Br. Leonard at Flag Creek who informed me that he has returned his
commission, but still was very desirous to obtain Dwight’s Theo. I promised to state the case and
leave it for you to decide.
I spent the Sabbath at Lockport as urgently requested by Br. H. Brown and found everything
in a state of dilapidation. Rev. Mr. Whiting has been away 2 Sabbaths to find another place, is
discouraged : cannot find a place to board short of his own family at Oswego (14 miles) cannot
get the members together to sustain a prayer meeting, and the people say that he is hard to please
and is there only on the Sabbath. They have a debt of 1200 Dol on their stone church. It occupied
the time (Saturday p.m. of two agents, Br. Montgomery & myself to put up one of the stoves and
then the house was very cold) and about 25 only were out in the morning. The Home Miss. So.
must employ a sexton or they cannot have a congregation. And I told them more over that in my
judgement it was not right to send a missionary to a church who would not maintain a weekly
prayer meeting and if they could not meet in the morning they should devote an afternoon to it. I
am not without hopes that an efficient ,man among the people might succeed. I told Br. Whiting
that a prayer meeting must be maintained: I preached on the Home Miss at his request in the p.m.
and took up a collection.
I called on Br. Loss and Br. R. Reed at Joliet. Br. Loss has made a good impression. But the
trouble is that they have the basement of a church but it is thought to be on the wrong side of the
river. Br. Reed will go to Lee Center if the man they have invited from Vermont fails there.
I am disappointed in not getting down into Iroquois Co. taking Br. Gilbert and Birge in my
way. Br. Birge us making a good impression and his labours in the vicinity of Momence are in
demand.
At Morris I turned off my way and accompanied Br. Henderson . I rode in the rain to visit
some persons in the Nettle Creek & Grafton Churches to enquire how far Br. Longhead labours
were acceptable. After which I wrote him back, Kindly admonishing him of the importance of
increased spirituality and more active devotion to his work especially in his pastoral duties. And
after that letter was put off, I called on one leading man who thought that though nothing was
contributed to Br. L. yet an acceptable preacher and pastor might get a good part of his support
from the people in the region of those two churches.
I called on Br. Whittling of Ottawa and preached. Evangelical influence is very feeble along
the Ill. River. I think Br. O.A. Williams of South Ottawa is one of the best pastors we have.
Another letter overtook me here which has filled my heart with sorrow. “Union Grove, Oct.
17, Dear Sir, Our brother Wheeler has gone to his rest. He died this afternoon at 3 o’clock quiet
and happy. You will be surprised. We are overwhelmed with the greatness of our affliction. It is a
mysterious Providence:...Here are now 4 churches including the one he formed left without the
ministrations of the word. I hope as agent of the A.H.M.S. you will not forget us. Yours truly, A.
Abbott” a beloved physician.
I am sad:sad because I not (could not well) go to see him when he sent for me. But I hoped he
would be better soon & wrote him to the effect: sad when I think of those 4 little churches he was
fostering as man cherished his children: and they all lover him as a father. And sad to think how
rapidly our members in Northern Ill are being reduced. In about 4 months we have lost Hildreth
and Bliss and Wilcox and Wheeler, 4 by death, and one is defamed. You have doubtless heard ere
this of that bitter disputation of Providence which imposed on us the necessity of withdrawing our
Ministerial fellowship from our Brother and fellow labourer George F. Magoun. 266[266] Br.
Kent was not the only Galena Minister who suffered the pain of having to renounce a close associate. Rev. John
Mitchell, the Methodist, went to Chicago from Galena in 1835, Mitchell”s presiding elder was Wilder B. Mack. No
sooner had Mitchell arived than Rev. Mack was caught in an adulterous relationship with Mrs. Whitney, the wife of
266[266]
Hildreth you knew. Br. Bliss (died of cholera) we thought did right to keep a public house. Br.
Wilcox I had visited once and again exhorting him to resume his pastoral duties, and he was ill at
ease in Chicago and looking out for a place for him to preach. It was only 8 days since I called
and heard from his widow the brief history of his sudden removal by cholera.
If you complain that I have but direly written the name of the reposed brother, I plead a high
precedent. The master himself could not bear to name the man that betrayed him but he gave a
sign by which he might be recognized. But this last event leaves a whole cluster of churches to
mourn. As I passed through Garden Prairie I learned recently that they wanted to secure more of
his time. And at Union Grove they were making arrangements to secure his installation.
According to my promise is a letter which never reached him, I am going to these bereaved
churches next week. Br. W told me that he was too poor to buy a horse and to meet his
appointments 20 miles apart. He was obliged to travel on foot sometimes and wade through
sloughs that were very full of water during this very wet season. By his death I shall be put in
possession of the horse which I had loaned him for a year & if he has found a seat in Elijah’s
chariot I conclude he will no longer need such poor facilities for travelling as I could furnish.
Now for your letter. I had not the least idea of the pressure that has been laid upon you and
now that you have let me into the consideration of it so much in detail, I shall certainly
sympathize with you more. And If in any thing I have been unreasonable in my demands, I hope
you will attribute it to an honest zeal for the little section of the great field assigned to me. I am
sorry to hear of Br. Halls’ feebleness and if he will come and see us I will leave him the Old
Horse that Br. Wheeler has left and perhaps a journey to Council Bluff or to Minnesota on horse
back would have a recuperative effect.
We should have welcomed you at our executive meeting and with the exception of the painful
trial to which I have referred, they were very pleasant meetings. I do not know what I should do
with a hundred lives. But I am well content to wear out this one in a good cause as that of Home
Missions and you will allow me to say that shut up as I am in a rowdy tavern right over the bar
room and within hearing of the “song of the drunkard” I have been “some what filled with your
company” as reported by letter and when I tell you that I can find no better accommodations in a
population of 2500 where I am to spend my Sabbath you will see the need of doing something for
Peru*. And I am happy to hear that there is a prospect of getting them to invite John Eastman of
Hawley Mass to come and labour here : & of his coming.
The Guernsey frocks are in a way to be disposed of: I should not dare to warrant them thru
another summer against moths.
I have diligently circulated the reports..over all my field. Scarcely any missions but have been
supplied and the rest I shall give laymen.
I feel very forcefully the necessity for making my communications more distinct and the
several items of business should be kept separate : I had not thought of it in the same light before.
Nov. 5th Sick with ague which I have not had before in 20 years. I shall make out quite a
package for you.
Your letter to Br. Neill is entirely satisfactory to me and I trust it will be to him.
Yours affectionately,
A. Kent
*After spending the Sabbath and 2 days more I got off with a tavern bill of $3.
another Methodist minister, Rev. S.F. Whitney. The other Methodist ministers were so incensed that they voted to give
an account of the matter to the newspapers. Magoun apparently escaped that humiliation. Log Cabins to Steeples, p. 73.
___________
Galena, Nov. 15, 1851
Rev. Dr. Badger
Dear Br.,
I have just received a letter from Rev. A. Day, from which I quote.
“I have just returned from Livingston Co. having been absent from home 3 Sabbaths in
succession. On arriving at Morris learned that you had been there : was so sorry I could not have
seen you : In relation to staying on that field another year. I know not what to say : from what I
hear Br. Clark of S. Ottawa (a farming minister) is not the man for it. I am not clear at present that
it would be right to leave them destitute. I am some inclined to stay : And yet to do so involves
some self-denial. There is much wear & tear of both body & mind involved. My year is now out.
I have just forwarded my 4th report and I wish soon to decide about my future course. If I
continue there it will of course devolve on Br. Kent to apply for a commission for me and the
same appropriation will be necessary as last year. I should receive from the people there between
70 & 100 Dollars. I have just closed evangelizing the Co in the bible cause. Have visited most of
the families there and raised on subscription $111.00 and some will yet be given. I wish to
determine soon on my field of labours for the ensuing year.”
To which I have written the following reply.
“Your letter has been rec’d. with great interest and pleasure and I hope you will continue to
labour in that wide field of destitution for I am extremely reluctant that the information you have
gained and the influence you possess should be lost. If (as I understand) you have received 70 or
100 dollars for the last year I shall hope you may raise $150 next year. It is the wish and
expectation of the society that the people where the missionary labours should make the
application after the first year, but as there is no church as yet organized, I suppose you have no
one on whom to rely. I should be ready to aid you in starting a subscription among the people for
next year if I was there but cannot see my duty to go down there at present as I have not been well
for some days.
How would it be for you to try their feelings of attachment to you by inviting them to circulate
subscriptions in each neighborhood where you preach as condition of your remaining with them. I
throw out this suggestion but leave it to your better knowledge of the people to judge of the best
method of reaching the object. I shall recommend to the society that you be commissioned as
before, hoping that there will be one or more churches organized during the year who may here
after become applicants. I should like to hear more definitely what the prospect at present is of
having churches organized on that field.
My dear Br. I regard you as the Bishop of that young country which if I do not misapprehend
will from the influence of the Central R.R. passing through (or nearby) it soon become 4 times as
populous as it now is and it is a noble sphere of usefulness to be permitted to mould that mass of
mind as it come within the range of your influence, for these persons come in single handed and
alone and will readily yield to any extraneous influence which is brought to bear upon them by
the older settlers especially. Try it brother and if at the end of 5 years you do not rejoice in having
persevered in your labours there, then you may regard me as a false prophet or at least a bad
advisor.”
I regard Br. Day as quite competent to the work of exploration in which he is engaged and his
sons are married and capable of taking care of themselves. If you prefer to have an application
from the people that can still be accomplished. He has a whole county to himself and I am
anxious to retain him as one who will make his influence felt for good.
Monday morning Br. Raymond has just called and says he has not received his draft due Oct.
1. I told him of your pressure. He brought in a lovely boy of 16 a son of members of my church.
He has been lately converted under his ministry, wants to study for the ministry. We have agreed
to send him to Beloit and Br. Esty is out with a paper to see what we can raise.
I hear Br. Marsh and Br. Phelps both preach yesterday in the 2nd church.
Yours,
A. Kent
Business matters
Robert Jameson Lockport Ill has paid 50 cents for the Home Missionary. Please forward and
charge to me. Also, collection in the Cong. Ch. at Waukegan, $3.00; in the Cong. Ch. at
Lockport, $.75.
Rev. C. Gray, Br. R. Whiting, Rev. Hope Brown and Br. Francis Leonard ask a set of Dwights
Theology. Br. Brown is no longer a pensioner upon foreign aid and Br. Leonard has refused to
receive aid on the ground of conscientious scruples, but seems to have so scruples about receiving
Dwight from the same polluted source. I promised to state his case and that of Br. Brown.
Rev. E G. Smith of Dover said he had applied but has not received Dwight.
Should you sent 5 or 6 more copies of Dwight to the Herald office Chicago, it would
accommodate 3 at least better than to have them sent to me.
I thank you for information relative to Mr. Eutler. Br. Wheeler’s last words were “sweet Jesus
it is not deep” alluding to the Jordan of death.
Br. Phelps has arrived. Br. J.T. Marsh is to supply the 2nd church 4 months I understand.
Yours, Etc.
A. Kent
____________
Galena, dec. 23, 1851
Rev. Dr. Badger
Dear sir:
I have just returned from a tour of 4 weeks and that replete with incidents of travel.
To turn to good account my residence in a distant corner of my field, I have some 6 points on
the different roads where I am cultivating new ground and distances varying from 8 to 40 miles
from Galena and by starting on Saturday I supply 2 destitute settlements and also lessen the
amount of travel on the next week.
I preached on Sabbath at 2 points to goof missionary congregations (say 50 each) and they are
points where the Central R.R. will establish depots and I regard it quite important to get foot hold
at all such prospective villages at an early day. I left appointments at the same places On Sabbath
(12 miles apart) on my return.
I had planned a trip to Lake Co to labour a while with Father Dodge by his request, but my
horse was taken sick at Belvidere and my plans were broken off.
I hired a horse and preached at Poplar Grove a thanksgiving sermon (on the 27th) on my war
to visit Br. Smally about whose labours I have felt solicitous for some time.
I spent the night with him and he was not a little annoyed by mu enquiries concerning his
labours and successes. He said he was amenable to his Presbytery. I assured him I had written
instructions and I had not travelled beyond them. I think he saw his error and became very kind
and conciliatory before I left. I suppose you would like to hear the light and shadows of Agents
sometimes.
Returning to Belvidere I took the cars and spent several days in Chicago : preached on Home
Miss. for Br. Peterson. But it was stormy and he gave notice that he would take up collection with
the next Sabbath.
Br. Curtis said he would preach on that subject himself, for if he asked me, he might be
expected to ask the free missionary agent to preach also. I preached for Br. Anderson and was
greatly interested and pleased with what I saw there.
On my return I called on Br. French by his request. he expects to seek a new field in the
spring. I also called on Br. Whitney of Batavia (he is labouring with youthful ardor. I preached
for him in the evening) and Br. Savage of St. Charles.
The next Sabbath I preached for Br. Fanning at Belvidere and took up a collection and
lingered there almost a week waiting for my horse to get well and visiting Br. G.S. Johnson who
has had a series of trials and up to the present time has been unable to find a field for his labours.
This winter his goods here have been well neigh wrecked and he could not get them until he had
given security to the amount of $65 as an average for the loss of others thrown overboard, in case
the insurance failed. He has been sick and his wife and child and in the mean time he has been
obliged to pay 5 dollars a week for his family and I have advanced $15 and felt that under all
these trials and extra expenses I ought to recommend that he have a donation for $50 in the shape
of an outfit or in any other way you can best furnish him.
I do not know that it will meet the views of the Ex. Com. but I cannot see how it would be
right to refuse it. Dr. Badgers letter was so commendatory of him that I thought he could not be
denied that aid. He will probably go to Twelve Mile Grove at least to winter.
I am sorry that you should have been troubled by the application for more of Dwights Theo.
than you has to give. There was some remark in one of your letters (now mislaid) which led me to
suppose that you had a quantity on hand which you wanted to dispose of and hence I was induced
to write as I did. I will correct the error by writing them that the supply is out.
My disappointment from the sickness of my horse was over ruled to give a better direction to
my labours than my plan contemplated and Father Dodge writes that God has passed out his spirit
there and 12 more already have been added.
Collection of the Presbyterian Church at Belvidere for Home Missions to constitute Rev.
Charles Fanning a life member, $31.18.
Charge the same to me. Should you vote an outfit to Rev. G.S. Johnson, please forward to me
as I cannot give you his address.
Yours, Etc.,
A. Kent
___________
Galena, Jan. 29, 1852
Rev. M. Badger D.D.
Sear Br.,
I returned yesterday from a fatiguing and severe trip of near 500 miles, encountering all the
exposure incident to travelling in an open waggon through snow drifts and unbridged creeks and
patches of prairie 11 & 14 & 18 miles over without a house or tree when the thermometer was at
one time 22 degrees below zero in an effort to explore Iroquois Co.
Having failed in 3 several efforts to get the work done by others, I left Granville, Putnam Co.
(where I had dropped Phillips as a supply) I made my way across Livingston to the state line
more than 100 miles. I was prompted too by the death of Br. Kirby whose lack of service I
wished thus to supply. I feel myself admonished to be diligent when younger and better men are
taken away and I am still spared.
I returned by way of Momence & Wilmington, Morris, Ottawa & Peru. During the trip I spent
a Sabbath in Jo Daviess, A Sabbath in Livingston, one in Iroquois, and one in Peru.
I found evidence that Br. Day has a very hard and discouraging field especially at Pontiac, the
county seat. I found the Presbyterians in Iroquois had been so long neglected that they had gone
over in part to the Methodists and they were not prepared to go into CH. organ. But Brother
Kingsbury has visited them and engaged to spend one fourth of his time there. A good deal of
interest exists at Momence among the Methodists and one precious trophy of grace has united
with the Church under Br. Brigat. We had a good prayer meeting at his house.
I spent a night with Br. Henderson and it appears that while the missionary is acceptable and
useful, their ability to support him is less than it was the last year. And this is true of the churches
at Albany, Byron, Elk Grove and others, or if they are not weaker they seem not to be gaining.
This looks discouraging and I was discouraged about Mt. Carrol and urged Br. Gray to leave but
when I called there yesterday he told me that there was a new interest awakened there and he
could not leave even to fill his appointment at Buffalo Grove.
But I ma tired :Êtoo tired this evening to do justice to these various applications claiming
attention.
Yours in the Lord,
A. Kent
Rev. Fisk Harmon on Troy Presbytery offers his services and sends along certificated from
J.H. Noble, Boardman Lambert of that Pres & J.J. Abbott of Cambridge Mass recommending him
as good for missionary labour & I shall recommend him to apply to you for a commission.
__________
[Feb.? 1852]
I shall write to Mr. Randall to come to Como and to Gap Grove. Both had just written calling
for a Minister.
Dixon, Como, Gap Grove, Buffalo Grove, Rome constitute quite a cluster of churches
destitute. Perhaps I have not mentioned that a good work of Grace is going on at Mount Carrol
and Br. Gray cannot get away from there and probably his commission for Buffalo Grove and
vicinity will need to be changed.
A. Kent
__________
St. Charles, Feb. 14, 1852
The Committee have thrown the responsibility upon the agent who thinks that their
subscription might have been 200 instead of 160 if he has visited as extensively as he ought the
people in the vicinity of his preaching points.
The agent therefore cannot conscientiously recommend this large appropriation only on
condition that he removes his family on the field and bu visitng Bible class and catehctual
instruction and all other appropriate ways give himself wholly to the work according to his
printed instructions.
A. Kent
[The Cong. Ch Nettle Creek & Grafton Ill apply for $240 renewed aid in support of Rev.
James Longhead 12 m from Jan 1 1852. Remarks by Rev. ... A. Kent.]
_______
Galena, Feb. 23, 1852
Rev. Dr. Badger
Dear Sir,
Your letter respecting the two churches at Savanna overtook me at Beloit and I was so careful
to lay it away where it would not be forgotten that I cannot now find it.
It is only necessary however to day that it surprised me for there never was any Presbyterian
Church organized there and no attempt to organize one. Br. Gray and myself often spoke of
organizing a church but did not think there was materials for it. But Br. Emerson after lecturing
upon Congregationalism as he stated to me organized a Cong. Ch. prematurely as we thought at
the time as as the events proved for he left it in difficulty. And when Br. Hildreth began his
labours there, he was advised (and he cheerfully agreed to it) to go on labouring to build up that
church and not to attempt any change of organization. I presume this statement will be entirely
satisfactory. But if any one calls it in question I will give all necessary information.
Miss Anna P. Sills, President of the Rockford Female Sem., expressed a wish that a set of
Dwight Theology might be given to their library to stand by the side of Channings works. I
though that if you would give men the name of the donors I would write them on the subject.
Br. John Raymond has called to see me and says that he has received nothing and heard
nothing from his last two reports on which $150 is due. His circumstances are straitened and your
speedy action is demanded.
I ought to have added in its place that the prospects of growth of Savanna are not as flattering
as they were a year ago, and in as much as they treated Br. Phillips rather coldly when I sent him
there, and seemed to prefer the Unitarian Minister, I thought I had done all my duty to them for
the present.
Yours as ever,
A. Kent
_______
Rev. A. Kent in a/c with the association
1852
[Debit]
by commission
6.00
March 1
Oct 22
Fr. Coll Freeport,
Il.
Cr.
16.00
“
“
“ Morris Con
10.68
ch
Dec 1
Home Miss Gaz
50, J.L. Moore 50
1.00
“
Coll Lacon Ill Pr.
Ch.
73.65
“
Peru
1853
Jan. 13
HomeMiss,A.C.
Chetlain
0.50
[not legible]
65.17
March 12
“
16
12.50
Coll
Rockford
West
97.42
Peru Mres keller,
2.45; Mrs. Long .23
2.70
Coll.
Rockford
18.00
Bal.
East
302.86
6.00
By Dol
6.00
302.36
Rev. A. Kent
Dear Dir,
The following items are not included in your account
Dec 1
Home miss
4.00
March 12
PC Am M Soc
65.19
_______
Galena, March 6, 1852
Rev. M. Badger, D.D.
Dear Sir,
In making my annual report it is an occasion of thanksgiving that my life and health have been
continued, so that I have travelled 5795 miles and preached 95 sermons, besides visiting families
and conversing upon personal religion with very many individuals. I have also distributed a great
many tracts and bound volumes of the Tract Society. It has afforded pleasure to converse with
children and to engage them in learning the Starter Catechism and Watts divine songs. I have
been somewhat successful in getting the youth interested in securing an education in the College
and Female Seminary on Rock River, which are now in active operation and promise much good
for “Christ & His church.” My preaching has been almost entirely to those that are destitute of
gospel ordinances except when I have preached on Home Missions. And with arrangements I
now have for statedly supplying several new settlements on my way to more distant parts of my
field, I can hardly regret that I am located in a distant corner. Especially as God has blessed my
labours so that at one point whence I have been supplying as I could for a year or two there is
now quite an awakening and some 10 or 15 persons are hoping they have recently embraced
Christ. And four of the men have set up the family altar.
I mention these things as matters of devout thanksgiving that am permitted to labour in the
service of Christ while others are now. And it is a solemn reflection that during the year five of
my personal friends and fellow labourers in the cause of Home Miss. have been called home to
their Father’s house. Of these all were younger than myself. But that which comes nearest and
speaks the loudest to chide my dullness is the untimely removal of Br. Kirby associated with me
in the agency of Home Missions in this State.
But it is a consolation to recollect that these under shepherds are but transferred to another
circuit while the Chief Shepherd ever lives to manage the affairs of his church.
The past year has been one of trials to the feeble churches, which are dependent for their being
and their well-being on the H. Miss. Soc. While some are too willing to be recipients of your
bounty, others grieve that they should be compelled from year to year to ask aid in place of
assuming the active support of the Gospel to go alone. And in several instances they require more
assistance that during the previous year.
There are 3 or 4 causes which conspire to work this result. In addition to the strong tendency
to frequent removals which always characterizes the inhabitants of the frontier settlements, the
rush to California has weakened the churches and reduced their pecuniary ability.
I think it would surprise the more stable communities at the East tp know how many Elders
and Deacons and leading men have deserted the post of duty and left their families to go on a
pilgrimage to the Pacific. They left indeed with a promise to return soon, but some have died on
their way, some while they sojourned in the dark land and not as few on their way back. While
other men have a ??? and Demas-like have made shipwreck of faith and good conscience.
The failure of the wheat crop for 3 years is the most common ground of complaint. But the
incessant excitement of the Ultra abolitionists is exerting a pernicious influence to cripple the
churches. If it had no other effect but to transfer their contributions to some other benevolent
association, we should not complain but there is reason to believe that very many take occasion
from it to withhold their pecuniary aid from the church in whatever way it is solicited.
It should not be omitted in the enumeration of causes of the weakness of churches that we
greatly need men who are qualified for the exploring service. We have men enough but they
cannot adapt themselves to the work.
They are goliahs encased in burnished armour and perfectly irresistible if you will allow them
to choose their field and have their own way of fighting. But they have their vulnerable points and
some tripping without learning but with a good share of the shrewdness and versatility of western
life by a short and a bold stroke will in the estimation of his fellows disarm and defeat them.
We need then for the exploring service men possessing the power of adaptation, which can
never be learned in the schools and can only be secured by much experience in mingling with
western society. And I am becoming more impressed with the necessity of training men at the
west for western service. We must not only have Theological Seminaries here but they must be
conducted after a new model.
But while I speak of trails and discouragements, I am happy to be able to report progress. The
Kingdom of God cometh not with observation and the parable of the heaven hidden in 3 measures
of meal illustrates but sure progress of the mission churches. When we compare the present with
the past we perceive the cause advances.
Our churches are increasing in numbers & strength and a good spirit is prevalent among very
many of them and in quite a goodly number there is gratifying evidence that God is pouring out
his spirit for the conversion of sinners.
Two of your missionaries have been installed as pastors and 6 houses of worship have been
erected during the year. The Sunday School cause is advancing. Increased intent is felt in building
good school houses and obtaining well qualified teachers. A new zeal is awakened on the subject
of temperance by the excitement in Maine and the circulation of Bibles and tracts being diligently
promoted and all their collateral influence are receiving the steady cooperation of your ministers.
May God grant us that during the ensuing year we may see greater things than these.
Yours in the bonds of the Gospel,
A. Kent
_______
[The Cong. Church Crystal Lake, Ill apply for $200 renewed in support of Rev. George
Langden 12 mo. From April 1, 1852.]
I have written to the Committee that I shall recommend theat they receive 200 when they shall
raise the smae amount and also enclose my letters that you may see my views and their response.
Port Byron, April 15.
A. Kent
_______
Elizabeth, April 19/52
Rev. Dr. Badger
Dear Br.,
To exculpate myself from the charge of neglecting Dr. Hall’s 2 letters concerning Mrs.
Hopkins’ land, I must be allowed to say that I cannot think I received the first letter and as to the
second, I supposed I had given my consent to having the deed made out in my name and then
instead of filing it away with others. I put it up in my room where I should see it, and there is
remained for many months, waiting further correspondence. I have conversed with Mr. Osborn on
the subject and understand the matter is disposed of.
I am on my way home from a tour of 3 weeks which had proved one of the severest I have
experienced in consequence of storms of snow and rain which have rendered this month and the
previous one famous, and have rendered the roads almost impassible. Indeed, it is not a whit
behind the difficulties of last year. I shall not trouble you with the particular adventures, but the
history of each day would be little less than a volume of “incidents of travel.”
I have spent 2 Sabbaths with 2 destitute churches, Como & Gap Grove, and 2 Sabbaths in
settlements where churches might be organized and if we had a supply for them.
I called on Brs. Hill and Thompson on my way up the Miss. but they were both absent.
There are some 9 little churches and 3 other missionary fields west of R. River that are
destitute of preaching, viz 3 in Jo Daviess, 3 in Carrol, 1 in Stephenson, 1 in Ogle, 2 in Lee, 2 in
Whiteside and 1 in Rock Island and 2 or 3 in Mercer. Most of these are of considerable
importance and calling constantly for help and several blaming me for not sending it.
Then there are Dixon and Peru and Lockport and Henry in Marshall Co. which are suffering
for want of ministers and to this may be added Dundee on Fox River (which is able to raise a full
support) and Momence in Will Co. Besides these 20 (and I am surprised to find the number) there
are many smaller and less important fields. But this northern section of the state is fast increasing
and the probability is that at least 1/2 dozen more villages will spring up and call for aid along our
numerous railways within a few years. We may calculate with confidence that 3 or 4 of these
projected roads will be completed with 2 years, and, it seems to me but a moderate estimate that
we shall greatly need 20 efficient men to be introduced into that field of my supervision before
the close of 1853. Can nothing be done for us? What shall I reply to their entreaties?
Yours Affectionately,
A. Kent
There is a program to Br. Wheelers memory which led me to preach at Como in the evening
from Feb. 13-17.
Please send the Home Missionary to Dr. Donaldson, Como, Ill. and to Joel H. Morse,
Elizabeth, Ill. and charge the same to me.
Mr. Morse ordered the paper 6 weeks since and it has not come. It is possible that I have not
forwarded his name:please inquire.
Galena April 20, 1852
I called on Br. Gray on my way back from Presbytery at Rock Island and found him feeble but
able to supply his people.
Providence has changed the aspect of things very materially at Mt. Carrol and glorious work
of Grace has been enjoyed there in which I think Br. G. had laboured faithfully and managed
judiciously in trying circumstances.
I was quite discouraged about his labours there but he seems to have pulled off his coat and
thrown off secular business and has done well at Carrol, I have no hesitation in recommending
that he have 200 for this year to be commissioned for Carrol County. In the mean time I have
urged him to supply Buffalo Grove for the present as he has great influence there. Our Presbytery
has recommended to Br. Holt to go to Buffalo Grove and Dixon, but it is quite doubtful whether
he would be acceptable and besides he is expecting a call from Montrose.
Yours affectionately,
A. Kent
________
Galena, June 18, 1852
In reference to Br. Reynolds, I am surprised at the statement of Br. Brown “That he has been
commissioned for Wisconsin” or else where for I have long regarded him as unfitted for
usefulness in the ministry. He has nothing about him to command respect and it was doubtless
owing to that fact that an evil report was gotten up against him at Marengo and although acquitted
by the Fox River Union, yet I presume none of those brethren would wish him to come again into
their bounds to preach. But in addition to that there was a general impression on my mind perhaps
as well expressed in the letter as I could do it by the phrase “not only dishonorable but dishonest.”
Before he is commissioned again then I would recommend an investigation.
A. Kent
I understood from Br. Downer as I passed along that Br. Jessup had consented to labour again
at Elk Horn Grove and that a commission has been asked for him by that church. They are
embarrassed by a debt for their church which has cost them a great strugged and on that account I
am constrained to recommend the larger appropriation they have asked. Br. Jessup is a good Br.
but rather inefficient but with great want of ministers It seems to be their only choice.
A. Kent
Since MAy I have spent 2 Sabbaths in Plum River & Waukegan, Ill, 2 in Washington, one In
New York and one in Connecticut where I preached on Home Missions and I should add one at
Dunkirk.
_______
[The Presb. Ch. Little Rock, Ill apply for $200 aid in support of Rev. Charles R. Fisk 12 mo.
from June 1 1852 to preach also in the vicinity.]
Little Rock, Aug. 4
I have made inquiries and after balancing conflicting views, I have concluded to recommend
the appropriation of $200 for one year beginning with June 1. And I think if you were on the
ground that your judgement would coincide.
I have recommended him to visit and distribute tracts extensively and preach once a Sabbath
in some settlement near by and 3 months before his year closes if they conclude to make a change
to have a definite understanding to that effect. The reasons in detail would be too long.
A. Kent
P.S. Mr Morris is preaching at Jerico and they have applied to the Free missionary Society.
________
[Church Otter Creek, Il. apply for $100 aid in support of Rev. James Hodges 12 mo. from July
1, 1852 to preach 1/2 the time. P.O. Howard, Winnebago Co.]
This application has been delayed to obtain information. I recommend that the church receive
100 dollars with the understanding that he spend half his Sabbaths on their side of the Pecatonica
and hold meetings at 2 other points.
There is a wild field for missionary effort in that region.
A. Kent
I regard it as a quite important arrangement that Br. Johnson should take charge of Lysander
Church.
_______
The Pres. Ch. Chemung, Ill. apply for $200 renewed aid in support of Rev. Seth Smalley 12
mo. from April 1, 1852. rec’d. by Rev. A Esty & S.A. Hart. remarks of Rev. A. Kent. P.O.
Chemung, McHenry Co., Ill.]
My mind has been burdened with this case a good while and when this application came I
enclosed it to Br. hart and told him it was his duty by exchange or otherwise to ascertain what are
the facts in the case. You have his reply.
I recommend the aid be granted accompanied with a somewhat a somewhat pathetic
exhortation to the diligent performance of pastoral duties, prefaced if you choose with the agent’s
apprehension that he fails there and suggesting that he would gratify you to have him report the
number of pastoral visits quarterly until he has explored that destitute region.
The endorsement of Brs. Eddy & Hart each shows pretty clearly that you need other
information than that of co-presbyters.
A. Kent
________
Rockford, August 2, 1852
Rev. Dr. Badger
Dear Br.,
I feel greatly relieved this morning by getting this communication which informs me that 2
little churches are supplied.
Yesterday I preached twice for Br. Porter and took up a collection and rode over to Westfield
and preached at 6 for Br. Hodges and has there a congregation of (say 90) and retired before 9.
Please charge me as collections
At the Cong. Ch. of East Rockford
$10.00
at the Cong. Ch of West Rockford
$97.42
$115.42
Yours truly,
A. Kent
Br. Esbjorn has lost 2 horses and wrote me such a moving letter that the 2nd Ch of Galena
raised $15 and invited him to ask for more if necessary and in another letter just received and
thanking them and asking more he said his wife had just died leaving an infant and 4 others.
Truly he is afflicted.
________
Crete, Will Co. Aug. 9, 1852
Rev. Dr. Badger
It gave me pleasure when I called today on Rev. Mr. R. to learn that when he preaches at H.
Creek he usually spends Monday in visiting: more pleasure than to have enjoyed his company at
home. My observation since I have been here acting as agent leads me to apprehend that some of
my Brethren do not employ that amount of time, and to their remissness in pastoral visits I
attribute their want of success, rather than to any defect in their pulpit efforts.
While on this subject, I would say that Br. Walter’s remark that he has visited 40 families
suggests an important improvement in the missionary reports, which is that they state the number
of families visited during the quarter accompanied with familiar conversation on religion and
prayer.
I am persuaded that our Missionaries would derive material benefit from the habit of keeping
a journal of such pastoral visits and I could wish that their reports should not be considered
satisfactory where this statement is wanting.
I attach more importance to this because to some of them it is an ??? service, and it is on that
account more neglected than they themselves are aware, but let them see more themselves to a
quarterly report of the number of such visits and they would be surprises to find how much it
would assist in the more faithful discharge of that self-denying duty. I know that people are often
quite unreasonable in their demands upon a ministers time. But I an constrained to believe that
many good men are criminally remiss in this work, and all my experience convinces me that
missionaries in new settlements will succeed about in proportion as they are faithful in this
department of labour. A man must have the eloquence of Whitfield and the fascinations of
Abraham’s visitors if he would hope to secure the attendance of some of our frontier men upon
public worship except he first gain their confidence and steal his heart by his personal attentions.
Please to take up your pen and write your very best article on this subject.
A. Kent
________
Morris, Grundy Co., Aug. 14/52 Sat. morn.
Rev. Dr. Badger,
Dear Sir,
I sent you a line and accompanying documents from Joliet, and wrote to Br. J. Porter of
Wilmington that I would supply his pulpit next Sabbath and requesting him to go to Momence
next Sabbath. I came here by appointment yesterday at 10 and met Br. Henderson, Longhead,
Murphy & Day. We spent the morning in prayer interspersed with accounts from each one of his
personal experience and the prospects of his field of labour, beginning with myself followed by a
dinner with Mr. & Mrs. Henderson. It was a very pleasant and some said they hoped it would
prove a profitable interview. And this morning I have “packed off” Br. Henderson to Wilmington
with my horse and buggy while I remain to supply him and preach on Home Missions at his
request. Br. C.R. Clark met me here yesterday afternoon with chance I had a conversation about
his field.
Here are 5 missionaries with each a family and a home to which they cling. Br. Henderson has
in two years made him a very pleasant home with the aid of his tactful wife he has gathered
around him comforts and flowers, etc. which render [his] house attractive. And his home is where
it should be: in the midst of his field. Br. Longhead has made his home equally attractive to him
and his wife but unfortunately it is 10 or 15 miles from his field of labour and he is unwilling to
see it & leave it though offered a great price for it ($1500 I am informed).
Br. Murphy has made him a home and is in the midst of his field. Br. Clark has a pleasant
home in Granville but it is 12 to 15 miles form his work and he thinks it is his duty to educate his
children and wants to be near a good school, but is unwilling to abandon his post (until some one
else can be secured) which is prospectively important as being along the Galena Branch of the
Central R.R.
And Br. Day has a pleasant home in Lisbon and is extremely anxious to get some one to take
his place that he may find a field nearer home. His work is some 25 to 40 miles distant from
Lisbon. But I regard him as a judicious and efficient man and faithful and his field is assuming
new importance from the prospect of a R. Road from St. Louis to Chicago going through
Livingston Co. and its county seat, Pontiac.
I have mentioned these cases in detail that you may have before your minds eye the position
of a group which represents the feelings and trials of a great part of our Home Missionaries. And
shall we say to them. It is right that they should have their families. It is right that every family
should desire to have a home and desire to make that home as desirable as possible for the good
of their own children and as a model to adjacent families and indeed some of them are pretty
enough to be worthy of imitation and pretty enough for a secretary of even for an agent to
occupy. And yet there is nothing faulty except where the owner is far away from his field. And it
is not strange that they should cling to them when we consider how migratory everything is in a
new country and consequently how uncertain if they give up the present home whether they will
ever be settled long enough to make another equally desirable.
It is very desirable that ministers should live among their people and they can never fairly
represent the pastoral office in its due proportions except they do. Nor can they reach and mould
the community at large nor properly identify themselves with the people while they live at a
distance.
The men whom I have named, 2 or 3 of them, would probably sooner h=give up their
commission s than remove their families into those fields and if they abandon their fields we have
no man with whom to supply their places. And to human view it would be a loss to Zion if these
important posts were to be abandoned. I have so many vacancies in my eye that I am becoming
covetous of men, and cannot think of losing a labourer for the fields are white until the harvest.
Such have been my reflections this morning.
Aug 16. Br. Henderson has been to Wilmington to supply Br. Porter that he might go and
give the people at Momence a Sabbath's preaching while I preached for Br. H. and took up a
collection of $10.68. Br. H. at my suggestion preached at evening at Shannahan, a village 12
miles from the confluence of Dupage, Kankakee & D’Plain Rivers & found a cluster of
Presbyterians there and at the request of Methodist Class leader had resolved to continue his
appointment here once a fortnight. (He now preaches 11 miles out every alternate Sabbath) and
intends if strength permits to return and preach in the evening a third sermon. That looks like
“one cannot ministry” : 3 sermons & 22 miles.
17th I am lodged in the house of Mr. Jackson, one of Mr. Longhead’s members from whom I
learn that he has laboured more faithfully the last year and that there is no house where he could
not live among the people better than to continue to reside at Morris.
18th Passing through Ottawa I had a pleasant interview with Brs. Whittley and Williams. The
latter has an irritation in the throat so serious that he has been advised to give up preaching for 2
or 3 months. Fully resolved to inquire after Br. Gould’s affairs, I called on the best man in the
church and was gratified to learn that “he is doing good work.” Besides his large American
Congregation he has a congregation of Dutch or French which from his account embodies
considerable piety. His house is not large enough by half and they are seriously agitating the
question of building a $1000 Ch on that newly cultivated prairie. My informant (Esq. Baker)
pledged himself and another for $100 each. I called in passing on Br. Lord (Son in law of Br. G.)
who had become a farmer and I visited Br. Bergen who is building him s house on the naked
prairie 4 miles north of br. G and about 20 north of Ottawa. I was sorry to hear that he had
become so secularized but he said he was sure it was not his duty to attempt to visit again in that
shell he now occupied and he could get no other. And the house he is building is on his own land
and but 4 or 5 miles aside from a range between 2 of his fields of labour. And there are several
pious families settling directly about him which will probably create a center for preaching just
about where he is. From Br. Gould’s house I could see Br. Bergen’s. I told them that there
aspiring Bishops in the Presbyterian ch who loved the preeminence, I called on Br. Phelps at Lee
Center and repeated what I had said before that so long as they could do no more for his support,
they should be willing to have him go to the destitute around after preaching once at the Center.
I called on Br. Todd returned missionary from Ceylon at Grand Detour and urged him to
preach at p.m. at Dixon (5 miles distant). It is time that ground is occupied but it is extremely
difficult to get access there.
I called on Br. Jessup but he was absent in pursuit of a lost horse. I called on Br. Gray and
found him labouring with his own hands in putting up the walls of a church. He thinks that is the
thing they need to compete successfully with opposing influences.
Yours Truly,
A. Kent
___________
[The Presb. Ch. Winslow Ill. apply for $200 renewed aid in support of Rev. James N. Powell
12 mo. from Jan 1 1853 to labor 1/2 time at Waddams Grove & New Pennsylvania.]
Dec. 28...I received this application and after consulting with the Com. of Presbytery I wrote
advising him to get definite pledges and write again. I heard nothing and called on him 3 days ago
and he told me that all that was subscribed at the two out-posts was but about 10 dollars and as I
found him teaching the district school and his wife having a school in her house I inquired
whether he hid not neglect visiting. He acknowledged it. And I urged him to engage in it
exhaustively. And told him about Mr. Pemberton and how Home Miss. aid was withheld . He is I
think somewhat discouraged from his unacceptableness. And yet the Winslow people from some
motive are anxious to retain him. And I should be sorry to have them left destitute. Whether your
comm. will vote the 200 or 100 or 200 commencing at the end of 3 months which closes his
school with an exhortation to give himself wholly to his work is more than I can divine. His wife
is bent on teaching and so far as I can judge is useful. He is a good Br. and I respect him as such.
A. Kent.
____________
[$200 renewed aid in support of Rev. A. W. Henderson, 12 mo. from Oct. 1, 1852. P.O.
Morris, Grundy Co., Ill.]
Dec. 12, 1852
Nothing is said about Br. Henderson’s preaching at other points a part of his time and it does
not appear that the 200 is actually subscribed but only that they will endeavor to do it.
I recommend that they be aided to the amount of 200 on condition that they pledge 200, for
400 is surely as little as his circumstances will admit. And if they cannot now make up one half
his support, I should think he ought to go to a part of his time to some other place to preach.
A. Kent
St. Charles, Feb. 12, 1852
I have carefully inquired concerning the ability of the church to do more but have become
satisfied that either the men whose names are on this paper are not truthful or else they have done
what they could. And much as I regret to mention so large an appropriation, I dare not assume the
responsibility of curtailing it. The village is growing rapidly and yet the pecuniary ability of the
church has decreased and at the same time they appear to be well ??? in their minister.
A. Kent
P.S. I have recommended that Br. H. spend one quarter of his time at a point formerly
occupied by Br. Longhead
_______
[The people of Momence, Rockville, & Bourbonais, Ill. apply for $245 aid in support of Rev.
John Peck 12 mo. from Oct. 20, 1852, Rec’d. by Rev. A. Kent.]
Having surveyed the field last summer and being acquainted with the Brethren Merrick & Kile
and having seen Mr. Peck I am prepared to recommend this appropriation of 245 dollars to aid
this effort. It is an outpost prospectively important.
A. Kent
______
Galena, Oct. 27, 1852
Rev. M. Badger, D.D.
Dear Sir,
I have just returned from a tour of several weeks and I wish to give you a brief notice of it.
I spent an hour at Savanna where Br. Hildreth died, and inquired about their prospects. They
seem to show very little zeal to procure a minister. Br. Phelps was sent there, but was treated
coldly and there seems to be but poor encouragement to send a missionary there except some
changes take place.
Br. Holt’s removal has left 2 churches at R.I. vacant. They have 2 or 3 men in mind.
I passed them to spend a Sabbath at Edginton. The church there has been neglected for 2 or 3
years since Br. Strong left there. He was formerly a missionary to the Indians.
I went next week through Mercer Co. exploring and left an appointment to preach at
Keithsburg (County seat) and near Boston and after spending 4 days in vicinity in Iowa returned
and spent Sabbath at those villages. It was a rainy day and I could not do much. I passed along
through the county and made all the enquiries I could, I found in a county of some 7000 no settled
minister of our denomination. The old school Presb. have but a minister who has just left from ill
health. And one of their ministers from another county supplies one of their 2 churches. It seems
exceedingly important that something should be done there and I propose to send Br. J.R. Smith
who holds a commission from you to labour in that field, that is, to be located at Edgington,
Rock Island Co . and to preach half his time at Keithsburg and other points in Mercer Co.
Leaving Mercer Co., I visited Henry Co., called on Mr. Esbjorn who has been afflicted in the
loss of his horses and then his wife. I went to comfort him, but to my surprise found another wife
there, the first having been dead but about 2 months. He was gone to the Lutheran Synod at
Chicago and when I reached that City he had just left. I called on Br. Baker recently established at
Cambridge and was much pleased with the prayer meeting and general appearance of things
there.
I called at Geneseo. They are vacant there. I spent a Sabbath and preached on Home Missions
for Br. Martin. he is a laborious and skilful missionary.
I attended our Presbytery at Buffalo Grove. They are destitute still of any stated supply since
Br. Gray has confined his labours to Mt. Carrol. Br. Walker applied for ordination which is to be
performed at Union Grove on Nov. 3.
I called on Br. Fisk at Little Rock. He was gone to Chicago and I am inquiries and learned that
he was unacceptable to some of his church. I informed him. He thought I had not been rightly
informed, and I concluded to let the matter rest until he had reported another quarter. In the mean
time I recommended him to defer house-building and give himself to visiting from house to
house. It seemed to be quite necessary for him to build. I recommended him to see what could be
raised by subscrition, which will show how they feel towards him.
At Chicago I saw Br. Stoddard who has been sick for a few days and left Momence to return
to the East! And Br. Peck has taken his field. He is from Indiana.
From Br. H. Brown I learned that Lockport is still unsupplied. And Batavia : Br. Whitney
having gone to Dundee. South Ottawa is vacant. I called on Br. Phelps at Lee Center. I think he is
gaining ground.
I spent a night with Br. Jessup and promised to spend some days with him in a protracted
meeting in December.
I called on Br. Gray who has been building a Church of cement 50 x 30 very much with his
own hands. I went next to Plum River congregation and spent the Sabbath prepatory to organizing
a church by appointment of Presbytery. Br. Waterman preached in Tuesday and we organized a
little church in despite of the rain.
Seven persons came 2, 3 & 4 miles, and as they convenented together and sat down to the
Lord’s table, the officiating minister related as how he has passed along there 23 years ago
following an Indian trail and leading his sick horse some 20 miles, and was overtaken by an
Indian hunter who walked awhile by his side and then with rifle charged, went across the hills in
pursuit of his game. Now behold the change. The pagan has passes away and the Christian had
succeeded to his inheritance & here we a little band of saints are seated to commemorate the
Lord’s death, to hold fellowship with our communion and to give pledges to each their of
brotherly love and fidelity as fellow-helpers to serve the Kingdom of God.
We reached home that evening at 10 after a ride of 26 miles in the mind thankful for the
blessings manifold we had received during a journey of more than 5 weeks. My wife having
accompanied me all the way (200 miles). It has been a tour replete with incident and affording
many opportunities to do good.
Affectionately,
A. Kent
P.S. I understand that Br. Stoddard charges me with an incorrect account of the healthfulness
of Momence. I cannot remember what I wrote. But I recollect that when I was there in August I
received the information that there was no serious sickness in the region, but here and there a
slight case of ague.
I did not want him to go there but yielded to the wishes of others and to my own convictions
of the extent of the destitution.
I am sorry to send so imperfect essays but I cannot copy them and meet other engagements.
A.K.
I thank you for the Independent which I have this moment opened.
_______
Nov. 7/52 Lacon, Marshall Co.
Rev. M. Badger, D.D.
Dear Br.,
Having been requested by their former minister Br. Fowler to visit this church and counsel
with them. I ventured to forswear an appointment to preach and suggested Home Miss & a
collection, if they thought best.
They has taken up a collection a few months before. But sympathetically with the Agent in the
formidable journey of last week in despite of the constant rain & increasing cold, they invited me
to present the subject in the evening as it was their M. concert when they usually divide their
collection between foreign & domestic Miss. And this morning they have paid over the amount
collected $73.65.
Nov. 14 After a stormy week in which I have travelled and explored somewhat in Tazewell
Co. I reached Peru and preached there on Sabbath and took up a collection of $12 50/100, 4
dollars of which will not pass here (Galena) but I shall send it back and run the risk of losing it.
My expenses (besides wear & tear) during three weeks of perilous travelling have been more than
5 dollars of which I make charge.
Yours, etc.,
A. Kent
please charge me with 73.65 paid by Presb. Ch. of Lacon
and 50 cents for Home Missionary address Gazette Lacon
and 50 cents for “
“
address J.L. Moore D.D.
Nov 14 Pease charge me with 12 50/100 paid by Presb. Ch. of Peru
$87.15
________
Tremont, Tazwell Co., Nov. 11, 52
Doct. Badger
Dear Br.,
In default of the agency I came down from Lacon for the purpose of inquiry and exploration.
And while lingering to wait for a termination of this long storm, I have had a conversation with
Br. Andrews about the region and the condition of the feeble churches. And it has strengthened
my opinion previously formed that many of them are entirely unreasonable not to say selfish in
requiring their missionaries to give them their total time white other churches in their
neighborhood are left destitute and while they are contributing but half and even less than half the
amount necessary for an adequate support.
Take for example Tremont, They raise about 100 perhaps a little more and receive 125 from
the H. Miss Soc while the church at Moulton once a part of Grove Church about six miles distant
is entirely destitute. And on the other side are openings to organize 2 churches within 12 and 20
miles. And yet the church at Tremont insists on having the whole of his time, whereas if they
were to told a once that they must consent to a decision of his labours it might develop increasing
ability rather than submit to this privation.. At the same time it has leaked out that Br. Gore left
the Groveland Church (now Moulton) because he thought that with a church of near 100
members they might support their minister without aid from abroad. The same train of remarks
substantially concerning other churches which I have lately might be made.
And I wish to call your attention to it not so much because they are receiving more aid form
abroad than they ought, as because in the present dearth of ministers there must be an “equality”.
And we must as ministers spread ourselves more or some of our feeble churches must perish.
I hope that the “Home Missionary” will give us such authoritative limits as will strengthen the
hands of the agent and rebuke the selfishness of which I complain.
Yours, etc.,
A. Kent
________
[Nov. ?, 1852 Marginal note on application for Br. Gray of Mt. Carrol]
I have repeatedly visited Mt. Carrol this summer. At one time I found your missionary putting
up with his own hands the walls of the sanctuary (building of gravel as I have said) and yesterday
I found him plastering the room overhead. It is to be finished at Christmas, 50 x 30. I recommend
250 for his year.
A. Kent
________
Naperville, Dec. 11, 1852
I recommend that the sum of $150 be granted to the church at Sycamore. Br. Hudson is a good
brother but he has not...and the church do not appreciate his worth and his literary attainments
and I supposed that they had finally dismissed him some months ago.
I am under the impression that his commission should date back or he will be robbed of his
pay for services for several months past and shall direct him to inform you when it ought to be
dated.
A. Kent
______
[Rev. W. J. Murphy Mezon, Grundy Co., Ill. applies for aid].
[Dec. ?, 1852]
I am well persuaded that we ought to hold on to this new ground although but has not yet
yielded much fruit. And I think that a careful estimation of the statements herein will bring the
committee to the same conclusion, The settlements are quite new as you will perceive from the
fact that are only now building the first school houses whereas most of northern Ill have
abandoned their log school houses and are rapidly supplying themselves with a new edifice of a
more substantial kind - generally brick or stone.
It is no easy matter to obtain good missionaries to occupy such a field as Br. Murphy
cultivates and I am disposed to think that he ought to be sustained. It has been a very hard time
with farming but this year their crops are tolerably good and everything brings a high price.
Yours etc.,
A. Kent
P.S. Mr. Longhead will probably leave his field.
______
The Swedish Evan, Luth Ch of Galesburg, Knoxville & Vic. apply for $200 in support of Rev.
T.N. Hazelquist]
Galena, Jan. 18, 1853
I should be sorry indeeed to refuse this moving appeal. I know no reason why we should not
respond to it most cheerfully.
A. Kent
_____
Beloit, Jan. 6, 1853
Rev. Milton Badger, D.D.
Dear Br.,
I have just visited Br. Dawson ay Freeport on my way to this place and there met with Br.
Robert Colston, a licentiate of the Chicago Presb. and very recently from England where he was a
sort of curator of the Episcopal Ch. He is apparently of 40 or more years, passed a god
examination says Br. Patterson, has the reputation of a good man, preached good sermons as the
people say and seems desirous of labouring in the Lord’s vineyard.
But his ways are not agreeable and he is not likely to change easily or conform readily to our
American notions. The Churches at Cedarville and Waddams Grove in Stephenson Co having
been a good while destitute seem anxious to secure his services and offer between them to raise
$100. And after consulting Br. Downs I have concluded to recommend that he be commissioned
to preach for one year from Nov. 16 at Cedarville and Waddam’s Grove Churches, to receive
$200 form your society on condition that they secure him $100 besides such aid in wood,
provisions, and other necessities as they can conveniently furnish for the support of his family.
I called on my way at Waddam’s Grove and there learned definitely how he was regarded in
both churches.
Should you judge differently and withhold aid, it will be desirable that I should be informed.
Your Br. in the Bonds of the Gospel,
A. Kent
________
Delavan, Tazewell Co., June 7, 1853
Rev. M. Badger, D.D.
Dear Br.,
Jaded and careworn by a long journey, broiled by exposure to the sun and bespattered with
mud I sit down in the public house to report progress.
I left home some 3 weeks hence resolved to execute what I have had in mind some 6 months
back, i.e., to explore the eastern half of the state below Ill. River. (Br. Kirby having been called to
take an agency nearer the king, I would fain supply his lack of service.)
I had selected May as the fittest season of the year for such a tour but was detained some
weeks by a lame arm, by the abundance of rain, and by an installation.
I spent a Sabbath and had a good congregation at Fulton City 50 miles below Galena and 8
above Albany. It is small now but promises to grow rapidly as the terminus of one of the 5 (or 6)
Rail Roads which are stretching their arms across our beautiful prairie State not only to gather up
the corn here grown but to draw into their embrace and conduct to an eastern market the immense
productions which are just beginning to develop themselves in the far west and the far north and
are already floating thicker and faster every year upon the broad busom of the Mississippi.
Having called on Br. Hill & Apthor and met Br. Hitchcock, I spent a night at Rock Island and
assisted at the installation of Rev. Dr. Hayes. I pushed out into the Prairies and called on Rev. Mr.
Esbjorn and Bro. Mr. Baker of Cambridge where I lodged.
I passed through Henry and made inquiries concerning it. The village is growing rapidly &
numbers 1100, a promising church might be gathered there if a man of some strength could be
thrown in. But as things are all will go to isolation for they have no man that will lead off in that
work.
I called on Br. Pendleton who was absent. I called on Br. Fowler of Lacon who thinks of
labouring in the field of Br. C.R. Clark, Magnolia & the “Head of Sandy Creek” ( a depot of the
Cent. R.R.) which I encouraged. Lacon, therefore a Presb. Ch. is vacant and able and willing to
give a good support but can get no suitable man. “Father Brown” is a present supply. These
churches being provided for when I intended to spend a Sabbath I preached on Sat. Morning to
find if possible a vacant church but by too full feeding and to hard driving I found my horse in
distress with colic when I reached Washington (Tazewell Co.) and as Br. A. Johnson and myself
had spent most of the day in administering to the horse, which was relieved before night, I
understood that Providence would have us preach for Br. J. on Sabbath.
My great object being to explore the route of the Cent. R.R. and its Chicago Branch, I made
my way across to Bloomington thence to Clinton, Dewitte County and thence to Decateur, a
thriving village that promised to become an important inland town where there is an Old. Sc.
Church and a minister just arrived.
At Clinton I found an old acquaintance (Sackett), an excellent Br. of the Methodist Ch. who
received and lodged me courteously. He gathered a congregation to whom I preached in the
evening and expressed the opinion that a Presb. Ch. of some 12 members might be gathered there.
I next turned my face to Springfield to call on Br. Hale who was gone to the east and contrary
to my expectations I supplied his supply on the Sabbath. It is a Mr. Thayer & son of an elder in
Br. Hale’s church. He belongs to the Old School but is liberal and has been very useful (I judge)
at Paris (near Terra Haute) and in that vicinity. But his health has failed. He gave me information
about all the churches in that vicinity east of Springfield. He said to me significantly that whoever
(Old or New) sent an efficient itinerate missionary into that region would get the churches.
Monday morning forced upon me a decision. Should I follow the directions of Br. Thayer, pas
through Shelbyville, Paris, Urbana & Danville or visit the Church at Taylorville, one near Paris
and one near Monticello and pass along the state line through Iroqouis to Momence or turn my
face homeward.
It was very hot and very muddy. It threatened to rain again as it had done from day to day. I
must encounter swollen streams (if I took this trip towards the east) I had already been twice in
waters over the sides of my buggy and once been obliged to jump into the slough & help my
horse to rise out of the mire into which he had sunk. My health is enfeebled by the summer heat,
my vigor of body and elasticity of mind are exhausted which rendered the prospect of being
encountered by the prairie flies by day and smothered in feathers and annoyed by too much
company in small tenements by night trebly formidable. Thus I was forced into the conclusion
that though now at the margin of the district I must give up the long cherished object of
explorations and move towards Home. Perhaps, however, I have made this trip to prepare the way
for a single suggestion.
Could not Br. Hales be secured to act as our itinerate in that neglected region into which I
anticipate an immense rush of people of another sort who will naturally go down into Egypt
during the next five years along those opening thoroughfares and who better than Br. Albert Hale
with all the wisdom of former experience could build the foundations of many generations.
The thought came bolting through my head as I heard one of his elders remark incidentally
that he often wished to leave his pastorate and return to missionary work. Would not his church
raise half his support on such a mission. Would they not at least let him go a year or more.
I appreciate the objections you have raised to random itinerancies, but when we can secure the
services of such a man as N.C. Clark and A. Hale may I not plead for this in partial supply for
some vacant churches in this state which are crying for bread and for large districts of many
contiguous counties where an awful silence reigns because they have none to cry for help.
June 9. Thinking that I could reach Pontiac and spend a Sabbath where Br. Day laboured a
while, I yesterday turned my face that way but soon met another amusing incident, c.c., amusing I
mean to those who contemplate it at a distance. In passing a slough my harness broke from the
severity of the struggle. And I has the prospect of being left alone but succeeded in quieting my
horse until I could strip off my coat and boots when I jumped into the soft black mus. But before I
could unloose him he made a violent effort which threw me down and he came very near treading
me into the mire (I had sunk so deep that I could not get out of his way). But though quite over
me he did not strike me with his feet and I crept out and released him. I then travelled back 1/2 a
mile and procured 2 men and 2 chairs. The buggy came out unharmed after which I went to the
pond and having taken off the outer coat of mud with my knife I performed strong additions and
what with riding in the sun and rubbing dry I made myself tolerably decent before night. It is not
indeed essential to a western mission to dress in black, But I can boast of one black suit and that
too with gloss on it, In view of this hair breadth adventure and another of recent occurrence I said
to myself in the language of harmony & to a desponding clergyman “Courage Brother, you are
immortal till your work is done.”
Having called on Br. Miles at Metamora, I closed the day by taking lodging with a hospitable
Old Sch. Elder (Dodds) where I lingered over one day and then made another move for Br. Day’s
field and after a fatiguing ride under a broiling sin across an open prairie during which I passed a
new depot building of the Cent. RR. the only object (except grass and sky) which I could see for
some 10 miles, I reached one of those stations and inquired for a lodging place of their former
missionary thinking that would be the best place for me to pass the night. It is not expedient for
missionaries to repeat all their trials yet they may some times give the lights and shadows
confidentially, Especially as our brethren at the missionary books have so little of the spice of
life.
I was greeted with a welcome and entertained with the various excellences of Br. D. We had
supper and the children (some of them) washed their feet. It was an exceedingly hot night and we
were all safely packed away (10) in the same room. The windows were closed to exclude the
mosquitoes and the fresh air and the doors to prevent the egress of the young dogs. But as a
special favor I had a window open 6 inches directly over my head. I had plenty of feathers under
me and no covering but a bed quilt over me which seemed quite indispensable under the
circumstances to me and my full grown bed fellow. There was powerful snoring there which
might have lulled me to sleep if there had been any sympathy between my soul and theirs. There
was a good house near by in which the widowed grandfather and 4 big boys might have lodged
comfortably. But it would not have been as sociable nor so warm as all to roost in the same nest.
The next morning I crawled out into the fresh air, crowded down some breakfast and too leave of
our affectionate family who showed me no little kindness, but such as if long continued would
kill me. But I felt full paid for the trial in the hope of having made some good impressions
especially on the lad of 14.
I reached Pontiac at noon after a warm ride hoping to get some rest in preparation for the
Sabbath. But I found there was another appointment which claimed precedence to mine and I
pushed on to spend the Sabbath with Br. Murphy in Grundy Co. and ay 8 1/2 p.m. I found
lodging 1 1/2 miles from his home. I called in the morning and preached for him which was the
more acceptable as he was unable to preach. Thus two Sabbaths in succession I supplied pulpits
rendered vacant by diseased throats.
Mrs. Murphy, who was bedridden when I was there is able to attend to her household
concerns...
June 14. The Fox River U met at Morris. I was welcomed with apparent cordiality and preach
the Communion sermon and was permitted to state without restraint in their animated
discussions. I was thankful for the opportunity of meeting there dear Brethren and learning the
condition of their respective fields. Several revivals were reported. It was interesting to attend the
5 o’clock prayer meeting. It was a rainy morning. I had conceived a little speech for my two grey
headed companions but when the third deacon with red head came in it spoiled my speech. He
however made some remarks upon entire consideration which pleased me so well that I thought is
was not a whit behind his brethren... After 3 prayers and conversation it was proposed that one
prayer should be offered for more spirituality, one for the minister of the place & his people and
one for more ministers.
We had there representatives of piety from Connecticut River bottom and a specimen from
Green Mountains...
Passing through Lasalle Co. I lodged with Rev. Ira Smith and listened to his brightening
prospects. I being now Friday I resolved to spent the Sabbath at Paw Paw & Mahgeams Grove.
At Paw Paw a minister is greatly needed.
June 20. I rode to Lee Center and though exceedingly hot it seemed to be my duty to take
charge of Mrs. Phelps and her babe and convey them to Galena that he might go for his widowed
mother. We called on Mr. Jessup but he was not returned from the East. I spent 2 hours with Br.
Gray and on the morning of June 22 reached home fatigued.
During the last tour I have seen some 16 of our missionaries and am quite grateful for a house
in which to rest.
Yours, etc.,
A. Kent
Rev. A. Bushnell, an old man, is grieved that your paper does not come to him. His address in
Lisbon, Kendall Co.
_________
[The 1st Cong. Ch. of Albany, Ill apply for $136 renewed aid in support of Rev. James. J. Hill
6 mo. from Dec. 1852]
It is desirable that this application be acted upon as speedily as may be convenient for I have
detained it to get information and Br. Hill will doubtless be anxious to arrange his affairs before
he goes east. With the facts before them your committee will form their own judgement. It is one
of many cases in which the small sum raised after much previous aid afforded naturally suggests
the inquiry. Have the Committee of the Church informed themselves of it merits. It may be best
to continue aid for a long period in special cases.
The Committee hence overlooked one little church. It is the residuum of the Original N.S.
Church out of which the O.S. Church and the Congregational Church was formed. They feel
themselves aggrieved and the Presbytery after refusing their request for a considerable time has at
length felt constrained to organize them into a district church and this was the result of some
investigation into the evil reports that were propagated concerning them.
I have avoided meddling with the matter lest I should seem to be proselytizing but I thought it
but fair that the Ex. Committee should have access to the facts in the case after which they will be
able to judge better.
A. Kent
P.S. I hope the request will be ranted though I cannot justify their want of promptness in
making application as I could in case of a people who apply for the first time or in behalf of a
new missionary with whom they are not acquainted.
________
The Swedish Evan. Luth. Ch. of Andover, Ill. apply for $200 renewed aid in support of Rev.
L.P. Esbjorn, 12 mo. from Dec. 10, 1852]
Although some prejudices have been awakened against Br. Esbjorn at Rock Island, yet I have
seen nothing except his too hasty second marriage to lessen my confidence in the man and his
story is certainly quite well calculated to move the feeling. I saw the unfinished church last fall. I
recommend the appropriation of 200 to his support.
A. Kent
_______
Udina, Near Elgin, Feb. 10, 53
Rev. M. Badger, D.D.
Dear Br.,
Having a little leisure I sit down to note some things in passing, for facts like fish are best
when they are fresh.
I have been greatly rejoiced to preach for Br. Clark 2 evenings in their new church just
dedicated and witness the displays of good grace in the conversion of sinners. There are some 40
indulging a very trembling hope of reconciliation to God but greatly fearful of self deception
from his cautions to them not to be deceived. In this I rejoice the more as I see so much of
erroneous practice among the Methodists, who seem to me never to put in a caution but on the
contrary to do what they can to persuade persons to come forward to be prayed for, which is all
right but no sooner do they come there than they inquire if they feel happy and then set them
down for converts so soon as any expression of that tendency falls from their lips.
Indeed I feel well paid for my rough and uncomfortable journey in what I have witnessed here.
I rejoice too that God should have afforded these cordials to cheer the heart of this good brother
under the depression which had afflicted him.
Galena Feb.22. By the grace of God I have reached home again in safety and have during the
2 weeks preached 11 times and attended 4 prayer meetings and visited some 20 families and
conversed with many on personal religion. I have just received your letter calling for an annual
report to which I shall give my immediate attention.
Yours, etc.,
A. Kent
__________
[Rev. H.H. Hayes to Rev. David B. Coe]
Rock Isl., Ill. 2nd Feb. 1853
Rev. David B. Coe
Dear Sir:
In answer to your inquiries of the 3rd inst. I feel unable to state what influence slavery may
have on Missionary labours in some parts of Mo. In our presbytery I know there was not a single
proslavery minister & I am confident that no minister of the Presbytery of Northern Mo. preaches
a proslavery gospel. On the contrary, I believe that they have done much to change public
sentiment & to weaken its hold on the affections of the people. I came to Mo. before the mobs
assoc. to drive Dr. Nelson & others out of the state because they were abolitionists. Then they
were sustained but now such freaks would not meet with favour. We have not felt that it was our
business to be forever assailing an evil that the constitution of the state & U.S. make a right &
that we could preach about nothing else, like one Bro. at Shelbyville, but give it occasional hits as
inconsistent with the spirit of the gospel & our natural rights. I never felt restrained in preaching
the gospel by it or in the freest manner to express my views in social intercourse & never felt the
slightest danger. I never thought it best to load it with harsh & opprobrious names but rather to
infuse a spirit of love to all men & to respect the rights of all.
I have preached at 2 or 3 places in Mo. a discourse from the text “If the Son make you free” &
in which I have endeavored to show that the tendency of the gospel was to give liberty & freedom
& that in its triumphs it would break the chains that enslaved men & that if its spirit should
become universal it would liberate all now in its bondage & given universal freedom.
I have preached on the fugitive law & on mob law just as I would in N. England & on the
slave trade as regarded now in comparison with a 100 years ago & that a similar change was now
going on with respect to domestic slavery & that the hands that were now laid upon it that would
never be taken off till it was annihilated. I head no murmurs about it.
At. N. Providence there were 3 slave owners. Dr. Thompkins had 5, but has moved away.
Joseph McAfee has a girl & Reuben Bohon has a girl. This is all remaining there I believe.
At Mt. Pleasant Mrs. Randolph owned a women & some children & Mr. M. Culla a man &
woman & child. This I think is all in that Ch. At Newark Mr. Porter owns a girl, Col. Bradshaw 2
or 3 which I believe is all in these churches.
There is now no obstacle in the way of giving instructions to blacks in Northern Mo. so far as
I am acquainted. In Palmyra the blacks meet every Sab. P.M. in the Methodist C. by themselves
for worship & in Hannibal they have a church of their own. They have also an order of the Sons
of Temperance in Palmyra of about a 100 members. Some live in the country.
We have never had any cases of discipline & I have never known any in all that region
growing out of slavery.
From these representations you perceive that slavery is a weak affair where I have preached &
my observations are not a fair expose of all the state. Those who know least of slavery are loudest
in its excoriations. The images before their minds are charicatures. Northern men are the worst of
masters when they come into slave territory. They do not feel the same sympathy for slaves as
those raised among them & set them farther beneath them & they do not actually know how to
use them. they seem to act on the notion commonly held at the north of what a master is.
I did preach my 4th of July sermon in 2 of my congregations & I think with good effect. The 4
pints which I discussed as having a tendency to undermine & destroy our liberties were- 1st
foreign immigration-2nd slavery-3rd Intemperance & 4th avarice.
If you want more write.
Your Uncle,
H.H. Hayes
_______
Copy of my remarks on slavery
“Slavery is a still more dangerous feature in our body politic. It is forever raising clouds &
storms in our political atmosphere. Recently all things looked dark, portentous, & threatening.
Ultra abolitionists of the North & ultra pro-slavery men of the South stand in an attitude of open
war & are ready for the most desperate conflicts and safety has hitherto been & must be in time to
come in the conservative spirit that holds these fierce spirits in check. The fires of angry passion
that have been kindled by this evil have been spreading wider & more intense from year to year
till is it hopeless to think of our putting them out. They are to burn on like deep volcanoes, from
time to time sending up their frightful eruptions till the nation is wearied down, - till ultimately
and that not a distant period, a crisis will come that will remove the bone of contention or sunder
the nation. We have reason to fear that all this rumbling thunder will not pass away without an
awful storm bursting upon our heads. The lord deliver us from what we have reason to fear.”
I wrote this verbatim as I delivered it to show you what the people will hear. It may be called
pro-slavery preaching:but missionaries to the heathens may be called pro-heathen & preach a proheathen gospel: to the jews pro-jewish & preach a pro-anti-christ gospel.
H.H. Hayes
________
Galena, March 2, 1853
Rev. Milton Badger, D.D.
Dear Br.,
The past year has been to me a period of unremitted toil and I desire to recognize the special
favour of God in that while others have been removed by death or enfeebled by disease or
afflicted in their domestic relations I have been able to travel and preach as much* as in almost
any year of my life.
A due regard should also be had & the agency of our fellow man, and I may with propriety
allude to the wise and considerate Christian benevolence which not only deals out a liberal
pecuniary aid to western missionaries but anticipates their wants by furnishing the publications of
the Tract, Bible & Sunday School Societies. Nor would I forget the princely generosity of
individuals in bestowing unsolicited the works of Dr. Dwight & Dr. Woods as also Barnes Notes
on the New Testament, Nettletons Visions and Spencer’s Pastoral Sketches.
Our sisters in Christ have continued to show their affectionate recollections of us by sending
out boxes of clothing without ever subjecting us to the expense of freight.
We are all thankful for these diversified tokens of sympathy especially because they assure us
of a remembrance in their prayers.
It has been for 2 or 3 years past a period of depression in this community by reason of the
failure of their crops, the low prices of their staples, their distance from market and the number of
persons who have gone from our churches to find a better country to the north or west of us.
But times are changed and everything the farmed can produce brings him a good price at his
own door. And when I remember with what disheartening prospects I laboured 3 years in Galena
because I had not one Christian brother to hold up my hands I am content that what we lose of
strength from the churches in Illinois will be great gain to the missionaries toiling on the shores of
the Pacific. I am more reconciled. I rejoice that the lead miners of the Upper Miss. should
contribute somewhat of moral power to the gold mines of California.
It may be well for us when so much effort is made to find occasion of censure against the
A.H.M.S. to gather up some of the evidence of its usefulness in a particular locality.
There are on the field of my agency 57 missionaries and 89 congregations supplied with the
word of life from their lips and on the assumption that each missionary is enabled to reach 75
persons by his Sabbath services and 25 persons by his pastoral visits during the week (a moderate
estimate surely) the soul-stirring truths of the gospel are brought in immediate contact with 8900
souls. And if we could take the exact measurement if its influence upon each individual in
restraining his corruptions in elevating his moral feelings and stimulating him to the discharge of
duty we should doubtless perceive an amount of good achieved which no arithmetic could
reckon.
Consider too that these 57 missionaries and these 8900 hearers are distributed among 250,000
(the population of the last census of the 23 counties which my supervision covers) imparting their
own views of truth and silently moulding the character of the communities among whom they
dwell. Let it be observed also that your missionaries occupy positions and have already organized
churches at most of the county seats or other centers of business and that they have been thrown
in so early in the history of settlements, not yet 20 years old, as to have exerted an extensive
control over the moral character and public sentiment.
Thus your benevolent association has, in Northern Ill and under my personal observation
contributed vastly to improve society. It has arrested and turned back the tide of error, infidelity
and vice. It has cooperated with other kindred agencies. It has promoted the rapid increase in
Evangelical literature. It has reached forth and gathered up the youth and brought them under the
sanctifying power of Sab. Sc. and has been foremost in every judicious measure of moral reform.
It has every where rallied up strenuous advocates for Sabbath conservation by Rail Roads &
Steamboats, by public offices and private citizens and last but not least it has laid hold of the
strong frontier mind. It has checked their roving habits, has subdued their iron wills - has
sanctified their depraved affections and led then in sweet submission to the Prince of Peace, so
that as members and officers of the Church they have abandoned the chase and are now
“following hard after God.”
If more were necessary as evidence of the countless benefits of Home Missions upon this
field, let the question be raised “What would have been our condition had this aid been
withheld?”
Imagine [what] would have been the state of morals in our village if no missionaries had been
sent out here, if no Sabbath serves had been held, if no churches had been organized, no bibles
scattered, no pastoral visits made, no funeral sermons preached and no prayer meetings appointed
- if no Sunday schools had been collected, no temperance lectures given by your missionaries, no
efforts made by them to promote and improve the cause of education in our colleges, academies,
and female seminaries and district schools.
Wipe out all they have done and how would Northern Illinois find its moral condition sink in
comparison with what we now behold.
We must go to the prophet to find language sufficiently strong to mark the contrast.
“The land is as the garden of Eden before them.” But without them it would have been “A
desolate wilderness.”
A. Kent
P.S. I had well nigh omitted to mention that there have been 6 house of worship erected and 4
churches organized during the year.
* [marginal note] My journal reads 6616 miles of travel, 95 sermons preached, 92 pastoral
visits. This of course does not include all that has been done in the way of visits, journals, S.
Schools visited, etc.
A.H.M. Society in account with A. Kent Dr[aw].
$600
1852
$18.00
July 10 by collection at East Rockford
25 “
“
Aug 1 “
“
15 “
Nov 7
14 “
“
“
at Freeport
16.00
West Rockford
97.42
Morris
10.68
“ Presb. Ch. at Lacon
“
“
“ at Peru
73.65
12.00
Mrs. Keller 2.45 & Mrs. Long .25
2.70
Jan 53 Home Miss to Mr. Chetlain
1.00
231.45
I do not recall it any acknowledgement of 73.65 (in the Home Miss.) from Lacon & if
not,please make it now.
Please send me a draft for the balance due after deducting other items which you have charged
which I have forgotten.
I make no account of travelling expenses and besides these my expenses are very heavy with
the most rigid economy. I have 3 boys and 3 girls in my family at an expensive age and one of
them ar College in Beloit, and hence I do not feel at liberty to contribute $100 as I have
sometimes done. I want only to live.
________
Galena, March 2, 1853
I have made myself somewhat acquainted with parts of the field [Plainfield] described by Br.
[Alvah] Day and his description corresponds with my previous estimate of it. I think him better
fitted than we can ordinarily expect to obtain for such service. He is now in the immediate
neighborhood of his wife and children which was the only reason of his leaving Livingston
County and I suppose his wife would not consent to remove them.
I would recommend that he be commissioned with aid to the amount of $250, but if you think
it better, write him to circulate a subscription first and report the amount to you and base your
decision on his report.
A. Kent
_______
Galena, March
1853 A. Kent in Account with the A.H.M.S.
Dr.
To Money paid by Rush Peabody of Grand Detour for Home Miss.
$1.50
“
“
“ by T. Robertson for 2nd Cong. Ch. of Rockford
39.85
“
“
“ John Buckley Freeport for Home Miss.
May 8
.50
“ Freeport Presb. Church
31.06
June 17
John Bush for John Addams
5.00
July 17
Collection at East Rockford
42.00
do
42.41
at West Rockford
Reported July 18, 53
Aug. 21
25
Oct 30
162.32
Jun. C. Kellog
5.00
Collection at Udina (Cong. Ch.)
8.75
“
at Elgin (Cong. Ch.)
8.70
“
in 2nd Presb. Ch in Galena
84.00
reported Dec. 9:
268.77
Dec 19
Mrs. Keller
28
1.50
H.A. Thayer Springfield to pay for Home Miss 2 years
1854 Feb.26 Col. at East Rockford (Cong. Ch.)
Col. at West Rockford (Cong. Ch.)
March 5 Col. at Belvidere (Presb. Ch.)
30.00
147.88
55.40
Not before reported
March 5
1.00
504.55
Collected in 2nd Prsb. Ch. in Galena and
pledged to be paid within 3 months
100.00
604.55
I shall need the whole of my salary this year as I must procure a new waggon and harness
which will cost over $100. And I make no charge for freight on boxes which altogether amounted
to $25 during the year.
Should you have other charges against me, please carry it over to the next year and oblige,
Yours, etc..
A. Kent
It is the wish of the Donor that the 30 dollars contributed by the Cong. Ch. of East Rockford
should be put down as making Rev. H.M. Goodwin their stated supply as a life member.
It is wished that F.D. Robertson Esq. be reported as making himself a life member; that Mary
A. Emerson be reported a life member by an individual that Deacon James H. Roegrs, Nora, Ill &
Mrs. Harvey S. Sage Rockford Ill be reported as life members by this collection at the 2nd Cong.
Ch. of Rockford.
It is wished that the Home Miss. be sent to Mrs. M.C. Emerson, Beloit Wisc. & to Deacon
Rogers, Nora, Ill. & to Mrs. Sage and to A. Emerson, Rockford and to Rec. H.M. Goodwin,
Rockford.
Also it is wished that the 100 paid by the 2nd church in Galena should make Charles S.
Hempstead a life director.
_______
Rockford, July 18, 1853.
Dr. Badger
Dear Sir,
I have received of Rush Peabody of Grand Detour for Home Miss. for the years 51, 52, 52
1.50
from John Buckley of Freeport
.50
for Home Miss which you will add to your subscribers
May 8 from the Presbyterian Ch. at Freeport
31.00
June 16 from the 1st Congregational Ch. at Rockford
42.00
From the 2nd
82.26
“
“
“
All which please charge to me
$162.32
________
[The Presb. Ch. of Little Rock and vicinity, Ill. June 14, 1853 apply for $200 renewed aid in
support of Rec. Charles R. Fisk, 12 mo. from June 1, 1853]
This is a case I wish you to bring up before the committee when they are fresh, for there is a
bone to pick.
I have been much tried to know what I ought to do. At the meeting of the Synod last October I
felt it my duty to tell Br. Fisk that there was so much dissatisfaction that he had better leave. But
he was just then building a house and I thought I ought to let him receive his quarterly draft
before he should be reported. In the mean time his letter was published stating that a physician &
wife had untied with the church, from which I perceived that the difficulties with Dr. Sedwick &
his mother and others were healed, hence I rested easy until the disturbance became so great that I
had complaints from both sides.
It proved to be a Dr. Long some miles off who had joined the Church and Dr. Sedwick had
become greatly incensed and they had made arrangements to form a Cong. Free Mission Ch. Mr.
Fisk & his elder had cut off one member dissatisfied, ostensibly because he did not attend church
while the Elder's son equally delinquent and allowed to remain. And the Doctor's mother, a very
worthy spiritualist, was formally cited to appear before Session for absences from church for 4 or
5 Sabbath's while she justified herself on the ground that she had always attended until the church
voted they would not employ him longer.
Under the circumstances I felt constrained to tell the dissatisfied party that I disapproved of
Br. Fisk's course and that I presumed that he would not apply for aid another year . Hoping still to
prevent a division but that church has been formed and was received into the Fox River Union
when I was present. In the mean time I understand that he has secured the sympathy of some
worthy men who care for none of these things and intent, as it seems to me to take that little
church "vi ot armis," over to the Old School if your society refuses them aid.
I enclose Br. Bergen's confidential letter who knows more about that church than Br. Gould. I
am suspicious that no other name could be easily procured from the Committee of Presbytery.
Whether you will grant of refuse the application or write back to know why the other members
of the committee have not signed it is more than I can divine.
A. Kent
P.S. Would [it?] not be well to request that the committee as a body carefully investigate the
case? A.K.
[ed. note: The application was marked "Information"{lined out}, "Inexpedient".
__________
[June 11, 1853; The Cong. Ch. of Savanna, Ill. apply for $250 aid in support of Rec. James G.
Hill, 12 mo. from 1853]
Galena, June 23, 53
I recommend the appropriation asked and also a strong paper Delegation to enforce the appeal
they raise money for Br. Hildreth and it is hoped that another year they will raise at least half his
support. A. Kent
________
Galena, Ill. July 23/53
Rev. Dr. Badger
Dear Br.,
Your letter respecting Br. Clark (also the one addressed to each agent) is received. Perhaps I
ought not the have made you so much trouble as to write me 2 long letters. But I cannot now do
less than to say that I am well satisfied of the correctness of your position and I trust I shall be
able to satisfy Brs. Clark & Savage.
My own observation confirms the views you have given and yet when we see little churches
suffering we feel constrained to give them an occasional meal. This however ought to be dome by
pastors at the expense of leaving their own flocks destitute occasionally. Each ecclesiastical body
ought systematically to supply their own vacant churches and I am trying to push that thing. Our
Presbytery appointed supplies for all their churches last meeting from their own men here, but I
have not yet urged it as much as I ought. Would not an article in the Home Miss. in connection
with this subject be timely.
Our larger churches ought to consent to have their pastors absent when it is necessary to look
after the destitute within their Ec. bounds. I think C[hris]t would so teach.
I enclose letters relating to Br. Fisk. I thought possibly you has not acted on the case. My
estimate of their value may be judged of when I say Dr. Long lives 3 or 4 miles off and probably
knows nothing of the case but what he hears from Br. Fisk. I have replied in a brief but kind letter
avoiding all insinuations.
Yours, etc.
A. Kent
____
[Chapin Papers - Beloit College]
Aug. 27, 1853
Dear Br. Chapin,
I have written after some sort, such thoughts as occurred to me in relation to obtaining aid
from the Col. Soc. I enclose them to you with the enquiry if you and your Brethren will not join
me in urging the claims of R. on them I do not recollect when their meeting is, but I send them to
you to make such use as you think best.
We are in a great strait, have appointed Br. Willis agent, are 2,000 in debt. We shall need the
Wings immediately.
Elgin Aug. 27. I have just received your letter and it puzzles me to answer it. I saw
Theodore[?] on Tuesday last, and he enquired what decision was reached. I told him that he could
not go to college again unless there was evidence of a decided and complete reformation, which
he has failed to evince during the vacation, thus far. I said this because I expect to be in N. York
next week (my address until Sept 10 will be car of Dr. Badger, Bible House, Astor Place.)
Should you think best, you may write and invite him to come to Beloit as you suggest. His
trunk of books, etc., left with Mr. Hooker, I wish to put in care of Wm. Works to account for and
use & I request Prof. Lathrope to pay to Wm. Works $2 which I left with him for Hatch if it is
still in his hands.
I do not think it desirable that Theodore should remain in Beloit any longer than is necessary.
While he submits to my direction I expect him to labor with Mr. Charles Works Rockford.
I shall write Mr. Works in relation to his going to Beloit at your request.
Yours with great respect,
A. Kent
_______
Freeport, Aug. 15, 1853
Rev. Milton Badger, D.D.
Dear Br.
It is excessively hot about these days and having rode 12 miles this morning after spending the
Sabbath with Br. Colston and assisting him at the communion table in the management of which
as an old man, an Englishman and a Espiscopalian he is quite awkward. I have obtained a dark
stable to screen my horse from the flies and a very comfortable place for myself while I sit down
to make out an application for aid to the Apple River Church and to the church which is to be
soon formed at Nora in the support of Rev. A.D. Laughlin who has left Wisconsin. Or rather has
located himself on the line between the two states. The application is for $200 to date back to the
15 of May. And the facts are these. He came by request of Br. Raymond to Monticello and Nora
which are some 12 miles apart and the former of which was one of Br. Raymond's out posts and
about 6 miles from Shulsburg. And after preaching there some 2 months he thought proper to
withdraw from Monticello and five up the ground to Br. R. There is a misunderstanding but
involving no blame as I see. In the mean time he had brought on his family and in want of a more
convenient place he made a temporary location at White Oak Spring where there is no church and
but little prospect of any permanent good being accomplished. The people of that village however
rallied around him and insisted on his giving them half his time. This was thought not judicious
and yet we did not feel at liberty to withdraw him entirely from that point lest a wrong impression
should be made. A compromise was recommended which was that he should preach 1/4 of his
time at White O. Sp. and at Apple River Ch. 6 miles apart and 1/4 at Plum River and Elizabeth 10
miles apart with the hope that he would ultimately locate at the place last mentioned. But after I
have spent 2 Sabbaths and rode a 100 miles to effect the arrangement, it has failed at last, and
now have given my consent that he should give half his time to Nora and its vicinity whence they
engage to raise him $75 Dollars and the other half at White Oak Spring whence they are pledged
to give him $80, and to the Apple River Ch. whence they engage to give him $45.
I have taken upon myself to make this arrangement because I have been supplying this field
and know more about it than anybody else. And in view of these facts I recommend that he have
$200, and that it date back to the 15 of May. And accordingly I have encouraged him to make out
his quarterly report immediately with the expectation of his obtaining a draft at once if the
Society is in funds.
Perhaps I should say that the affliction of Mrs. Laughlin in being confined in the dark on
account of protracted weal eyes and which are grown worse of late was a principle reason why I
could not insist on his extending his labours to Plum River & Elizabeth. Those points together
with Rush Creek Settlement would furnish abundant work for another man. But we can find no
man to supply the various distributions which are multiplying on every side.
I received a letter recently from Mr. Masson of South Ottawa giving information which I
directed him to send to you as a condition of receiving aid. It is entirely satisfactory but I did not
think it necessary to forward the document because I presumed he forwarded the same to you as I
requested him.
I just received a letter (which I shall forward to Br. Clancy) from John Allen Petersbury,
Menard Co. requesting a missionary to be sent to the falls of Chippewa River in Wisconsin and
holding himself responsible for 60 dollars towards his support.
I am on my way to visit Br. N.C. Clark and the destitutions about which he complains and
may possibly make a flying visit to N. York in the course of the next 4 weeks.
Yours truly as a humble associate in a glorious cause,
A. Kent
He may he commissioned for Nora and vicinity or the other points could also be designated.
________
Galena, Sept. 27/53
Rev. D.B. Coe
Dear Sir:
In reply to your inquiries I would name Br. Ira Smith, Lasalle Co. who would be thankful for a
box of clothing. There [is] 5 in the family, head of family of a middle size, one son 18, one 14
and one daughter 16 years old. His box would go to Peru.
Mr. John Raymond of Shullsburg was unfortunate. His box (or barrel) was opened and a good
part of the things were extracted. He would like to have another. Mr. Clark (N.C.) of Elgin would
like some woolen clothes. His box contained nothing of the kind. He is of middle size. His wife is
tall, his daughters 14 and 12.
I shall find others as needy as they but I send them because they have come in my way. I
accomplished something for the time I was out of my field being but 2 Sabbaths out of the State,
having obtained subscriptions to Rockford Female Sem. to a considerable amount.
Yours very truly,
A. Kent
I had forgotten to mention Br. Ebenson Raymond Campton, an old man, has two sons 17 &
14. I suppose his circumstances would justify a contribution of clothing and it might be sent to
the care of N.C. Clark, Elgin.
________
Beloit, Oct. 1 [1853]
Dr. Badger
Dear Sir:
I drop a line in haste to enclose this letter from Br. Willcock and have written him that he will
hear from you soon.
I see his name among those commissioned in July and hence I conclude there is some mistake
or miscarriage.
Yours in haste,
A. Kent
_______
Galena, Ill., Oct. 19/53
Rev. Dr. Badger,
W.W. Sedgwick, M.D. is the man who has figured considerably in the excitement relative to
Br. Fisk and it is quite possible that his judgement may be warped by his feelings, but I never
heard anyone question his credibility or his integrity.
He has joined the Free Mission Church but would, as I understand the case, have joined the
Presbyterian Church to which his mother belongs if Br. Fisk had been acceptable and had dealt
prudently and discretely. But the manner in which the Elder cited her to appear before session
because she has been absent 4 Sabbaths from his preaching and many other things which I
presume will reach you through Mr. Bergen was calculated to alienate him I felt myself obliged
to express to them and to Mr. Fisk my disapprobriation.
I attended the meeting of the Board of F. Missions at Cincinnati (preaching the Sabbath before
in Boone Co. and the Sabbath after in Chicago.) The agent of A.H.M.S. met together a few
moments regretting exceedingly that one of the Sec. was not there. I suppose they would have
come if they had been invited, but none of us thought of it or supposed ourselves clothed with any
authority.
I was sorry that we could not have some time together. I think it would have been very
profitable.
Yours, etc.,
A. Kent
Your will soon receive a report from Brs. Gould & C.A. Williams. I am at a loss to determine
what ought to be done.
__________
Oct. 28, 1853
Rev. Dr. Badger
Dear Sir:
I have an invitation to change my work and to receive a liberal compensation but I do not wish
to change and I only mention it that if my services are less acceptable than I have supposed, the
Committee can improve the occasion to appoint another in my place.
A. Kent267[267]
________
Rockford, Nov. 7, 1853
Rev. M. Badger, D.D.
I have just heard the announcement that Dr. Hall had been called away from his post to engage
in a higher and holier service.
I have been revolving in my mind how the secretaries looked on their work-shop and on each
other the morning after his death.
How often are we admonished to do quickly what we propose to do for Christ.
I say down to say that after spending the Sabbath in Br. Hodges field and making enquiries, I
have concluded to recommend that (in consideration of the great struggle they are making to
build a church worth $2000 out on a bleak prairie) they receive aid to the amount asked without
insisting on the condition before appended of raising 50 more themselves.
267[267]
Probably another offer to assume the Presidency of Rockford Female Seminary.
I trust that by another year they will have ability to do more for their minister.
Yours truly,
A. Kent
________
Dec. 1, 1853
Rev. Dr. Badger
Dear Br.,
You wil please charge me and report in the Home Miss.
Jesse C. Kellof
$5.00
Collection at Udina Cong. Ch.
8.00
Collection at Elgin Cong. Ch.
8.70
Collection at 2nd Presb. Ch. Galena 84.00
$106.45
A. Kent
Chicago, Dec. 9. Please sent the "Home Missionary" to Edward M. Williams (a dear little
Christian Brother sitting by me and studying latin) a life member of your society. To save
writing, address it to his father, John C. Williams, Chicago.
_______
[The Swedish Luth. Ch. of Andover, Ill. apply for $100 renewed aid in support of Rev. L.P.
Esbjorn 12 mo. from Dec. 10, 1853.]
I cheerfully recommend that their request be granted, for I know no reason why we should
with hold it. There is some prejudice against the preaching in the vicinity but I suspect it grows
out of the fact that Swedes are likely to root out the Americans in that region. If you do not give
him more that $100, would it be out of place to suggest to them that $300 is too small a salary
when they are able to sustain him alone.
A. Kent
____
[?Dec. 1853]
Dear Br. Badger,
I must be brief for I have a very lame arm & cannot write without pain.
I have visited Br. Phelps and showed them your letter. They feel some what keenly the rebuke
which is implied in the donations sent them of late and he disavows any special claim upon public
sympathy.
I have seen another letter and correction in the Evangelist and the first of a series in the N.Y.
Observer.
Mr. Powells "family" of Winslow....creating a similar...and the agent. And there is trouble in
Little Rock which had made me feel a necessity for....but I cannot recommend any further
appropriation to aid in support of Br. Fisk after the current year.
Yours, etc.,
A. Kent
P.S. In reference to "exaggeration" and fancy sketches", that is not the first that has been
written by insinuation to elicit public sympathy at the expense of those whose by-gone assiduities
deserves a better recompense. I add this by request.
[ed. note: a hole exists in the text of this letter.]
__________
[The Presb. Ch. of Shabbony and Somonauk, Ill. apply for $200 renewed aid in support of
Rev. Henry Bergen, 12 mo. from June 1, 1854]
Galena, March 16, 1854
I recommend that $130 be granted in aid of this feeble Church and have informed them that
they must be more prompt here after in their application.
A. Kent
_________
Galena, March 28, 1854
I recommend the appropriation of $200 to the Cong. Ch. at Albany because I do not know
how to refuse and yet they have been helped a good while and are so divided up into sects that the
prospect is not very flattering for a small village which is in danger of being clipped by Fulton
City 8 miles above on the Miss which is to be the terminus of a R.R. I spent a Sabbath there last
winter.
A. Kent
________
Freeport, Jan. 6, 1854
Dear Sir,
I have just had a conversation with Rev. Mr. Wilson, editor of the Chicago Evangelist
respecting Kankakee and he will give you a history of the case which will put it before you in a
much stronger light than I have done.
It is perfectly clear to me from what Mr. Holbrook stated that he has been very greatly
misinformed.
Br. Loss is of all others but acquainted with the facts from the beginning and Br. Wilson refers
you to him.
A. Kent
_________
Galena, Jan. 11, 1854
Rev. Dr. Badger
Dear Br.,
I have just received and read your letter and it has cheered me not a little. You may wonder at
the remark, but I will explain.
The spirit of sectarianism runs high in these parts (not particularly just now) and an agent is
obliged to do things sometimes about which he must keep himself dark, for explanation will only
make matters worse. I felt that having always been known as a Presbyterian and being associated
too necessarily with those that are such I should probably be reported as being partial by those
who can not see but through a glass darkly and hence I was not disappointed to find an article in
the Cong. Herald reflecting on an agent in reference to an individual case which I could explain
to your satisfaction in 2 minutes.
Now though I have lived in all good conscience towards my Congregational brethren, yet I
thought probably that misapprehensions might exist and be reported and when I read on till I
came to your reference to my continuation in your service, it dost cross my mind that perhaps
compliments have come from the Prairie State so thick that the Com. may think it expedient to
take the matter into consideration. So I just laid down the letter, saying I will stick a pin there and
think how I should feel if such a decision has been reached. Well after 3 hours I read the rest and
it met those uncomfortable suspicions so happily that I was enough relieved to compensate for
your trouble in writing.
You will doubtless smile across the table, I mean over to Br. David when you read this
perambulatory preamble but indeed the preamble will constitute the whole epistle for I have not
much to say.
However, I will start off tomorrow with renewed zeal. I meet my appointments for 3 more
light nights on Plum River at the log school house, prepatory to Communion next Sabbath to the
little church I am nursing there amidst winbrenarians, 2nd Advents and a sect which are
familiarly known as the no soul sect. I preached there last Sabbath to a Cong. of 60 at Rush Creek
5 miles at 2 p.m. to a Cong. of 40 and at Elizabeth 5 miles to a cong. of 50 at evening. I have the
same appointments for next Sabbath in addition to a session meeting in the morning and
Communion. I never envy myself when I preach and I cannot reasonably expect that other people
will, but I saw one mother of a large family bathed in tears last Sabbath.
Monday Jan 16. On thursday I moved off to fill my 6 appointments, called on the woman just
mentions. She wept freely and by her conversation led me to think she had given her heart to
God. That is interesting, say you, but much more to me. She in the mother of 10 children and
cannot read. Twenty one years ago, we, i.e., my wife and 3 others of my then family called on her
in the morning and took breakfast after camping out in our covered waggon in December having
lost our way in a snow storm at evening about a mile from her house. When we were strangers
she took us in.268[268]
In the evening I preached with some liberty in a log school house to about 40 whence they are
not accustomed to hear preaching. I returned from this by-place by moon light and most of the
way on foot to the elder's house of logs. The weather became excessively cold and blustering. I
slept very sweetly in the loft after the fatigue of the day & except as the snow sifted through the
crevices and melted on my face, my pillow in the morning had a coating of snow.
The Elder & myself attempted to visit but it was so severe that we returned after calling on 3
families. He to his house and I to a more comfortable frame house.
The next day I visited 9 families, had personal conversations on the state of their souls with
some 12 persons including a leader of the No Soul sect, and preached at the log house of the
other elder and had a good meeting.
Sab. morning we reached the log sch. house before anyone else. The Elder borrowed an ax &
chopped the wood. I made a fire & swept the house, held a session meeting, received a woman by
profession. I preached a sermon and administered the Lord's Supper. I was a precious service and
there was weeping there for we spoke of him who wept over sinners,
I rode 5 miles, called by invitation on a man who received me courteously to dinner at 2 p.m.
and seemed to evince the spirit of a disciple as also his wife and daughter, I rejoiced the more
because I knew he had been accounted a very bad man and I have since learned that it was
This is a reference to Kent's journey to Galena in 1832 with his new wife.
268[268]
supposed that he once had connection with horse thieves. What a triumph of grace. As in a 1000
other cases God only knows to what extent this triumph of Christ over satan is attributable to
Home Miss. agency. He has joined the Methodist class.
After dinner we repaired to the log school house and I preached to about 30, one of whom I
heard swearing at a horse. My text, Prov. 13-15, led me to speak of the obstacles that grape vines
are obliged to encounter.
In the evening I reached Elizabeth (5 miles) just in time to get my tea and preach in the
Methodist church to 100 or more on the Maine liquor law by request. The preacher in charge
having just been handling the subject.
I slept pretty well though somewhat nervous and reached home at 12.
I was so much cheered by your letter that I have spread out this little jaunt somewhat in detail
in the hope that you might be entertained for a few moments with a letter which does not claim
any answer.
To complete the picture I ought to say that Sab. morning found me occupying a corner of the
cabin in which was a family of 10 and having formed a closet beside a hay stack before light I
was routed by the approach of the herds man but I retreated to a bunch of willows by the water
course to break the wind and in the multitude of my thoughts I said I would gladly train all my
sons for the ministry had I any.
Yours, etc.
A. Kent
The death of Dr. Hall must be a great bereavement at the Miss. rooms.
_______
[The Presb. Ch. of Winslow, Ill. Jan. 26, 1854 apply for $260 renewed support of Rev. J.N.
Powell half the time, 12 mo. from Jan 1, 1854 to labor also at Waddam's Grove & New
Pennsylvania.]
Galena, March 8, 1854
This letter was received and I immediately wrote to Mr. Judson urging the necessity of doing
more and have just received for answer that they have made up $18 more and which is the
uttermost farthing. Their pledge then is 108 at Winslow and the faint hope of 50 from Waddam's
Grove will not be half realized, I fear. And I recommend that 260 be given by the society to "the
Prairie Missionary" or his church for the reason (if any is wanted) that their past travails have
awakened the sympathies of Mr. Waterman and his church.
A. Kent
________
Galena, Ill. March 10, 1854
Rev. Milton Badger, D.D.
Dear Br.,
In making out my annual report I shall confine myself to the district originally assigned me
though I have occasionally over stepped those bounds and it seems quite important I should do so
unless an agent is commissioned for Central Ill. There are points along the Central and other R.
Roads which demand attention or advantages will be irretrievably lost.
I am happy to acknowledge that by the good hand of God upon me I have been enabled to
travel as much and labor as constantly as in former years and I am now 60 years of age. I have
preached 110 sermons chiefly to the destitute and I believe I have visited as many Sabbath
schools, assisted at as many communions, conducted as many prayer meetings, and as many
pastoral visits, distributed as many tracts, and conversed with as many individuals on personal
religion as the average amount performed by my Brethren in the ministry.
According to the best estimate I can make, there are in the 23 northern counties 48
missionaries of your society supplying 79 churches and missionary districts. There have been 6
churches organized, 1 pastor installed, 9 houses of worship built and some $8100 of missionary
money expended in this field during the past year.
Revivals are in progress under the labours of 2 of your missionaries (Gray & Laughlin) whom
I have visited recently and additions have been made to both churches already particulars of
which you will doubtless receive in due time.
Sabbath Schools are flourishing and the Temperance Cause is receiving a powerful impulse
from our missionaries. It was pleasing to observe the interest manifested by them at the
Convention held some time since at Chicago.
The following persons were formerly labouring in your service and are not now employed
here, though their names are enrolled in the last annual report as included among the missionaries
of Ill: Alvor, Attross, Birge, Cooly, W.R. Davis, Fisk, French, Hudson, Shapley, Smalley, Taylor,
Thompson, Whitney, Williams, J.W. Wilson.
It may be interesting to note that of these 23 county seats, 16 are supplied by ministers of our
denominations most of whom either are or have been pensioners of the A.H.M.S.. These county
seats are generally the centers of influence moral and political and our churches placed there
possess considerable strength as may be inferred from the fact that 15 out of 16 already have
substantial houses of worship. Could our Brother Hall of precious memory have foreseen when
he travelled over these prairies what is now a matter of history, he would have wondered with
great admiration.
In years past we have complained of blighted crops and far distant markets and prices
miserably low, while the new settler was burdened with their necessary outlays for fences,
houses, roads and bridges which he could not command. Now our condition is one of great
prosperity. Facilities for travel and for transportation from the interior are rapidly increasing. The
crops last autumn were abundant and the young orchards were loaded with the finest fruit & the
farmed in place of crossing the state to sell his produce finds a market at his own door and not
infrequently finds a man at his door offering to give two prices both for his farm and for what
ever he may have grown during the year. Our danger is that prosperity will ruin us. It may be
regarded as the greatest trial which the infant churches of Ill. have ever met. The prospect is that
the European war and other circumstances will protract this great temporal prosperity to the
agriculturalist and our wants are more spirituality in the churches and a large accession to the
numbers of cross bearing ministers to supply these 20 feeble churches and wide fields of
destitution which will only bear thorns and briars until they are cultivated.
But the great want, as I apprehend , in our missionaries is that they should devote more time
and labour to pastoral visitation as the only effectual method to enlighten the understanding and
awaken the conscience or even to gather a congregation from the "mixed multitude" that compose
our new settlements. Christ spent much of his strength in personal efforts. Paul taught from house
to house warning every man and teaching every man. Where is the mantle of Baxter, Where is the
spirit of Harlan Page. Could our brethren be persuaded to adopt this old 'measure" for one year
and devote 5 afternoons in a week from 2 to 5 in dealing with the consciences of the people, the
work of public preaching would be easy and their success 4 fold.
I have urged upon the secretaries and I urge it again that they should request every missionary
to specify in his quarterly report the number of visits and of conversations upon experimental
piety. From observation and inquiry I am convinced this is the grand debut and if they should
once resolve to keep a record of their fidelity in this department of labour they would be surprised
at their past neglect. And if they should persevere in it, their Sabbath congregations would be
twice as large as they are now.
Much of "the shady side" of pastoral life has been spread out before the public of late, and it is
quite opportune as a rebuke to the churches for the shister salaries which ministers receive in
these days of general prosperity. But it should be regarded as an occasional and side-glance rather
than a front view and a full length portrait of clerical expression.
I have myself visited "the prairie missionary" and when I gazed upon their ample cottage with
tasteful finish and decorated with vines and ??? and when I heard her say that she was
overwhelmed with God's goodness, me thought she should at least give a little more the "sunny
side" for the benefit of those who are looking forward to the missionary work.
We must view this whole matter in the light of an overseeking Providence, Good men and
missionaries need frequent & sharp ??? and I doubt that they a=have as few as is consistent with
their sanctification. And what trials would be less disastrous to their character and usefulness than
poverty and want unless they are induced by a criminal prodigality. A man may suffer keenly in
his ??? and yet not lose his ability to labour nor forfeit respect of the community. Worldly men
have their trials, and we too have our joys Let them glory in their anticipations and achievements
- their well filled granaries the rise of stocks and their prospects of wealth. We too have sources
of enjoyment- when a burdened soul is relieved- when an idle and quarrelsome family is
converted into the abode of peace and mental love by God's blessing on our feeble agency. We
have our share of toil. But we love our work. A long and fatiguing ride prepares us for a cheerful
meal and a sound sleep, We experience some privations but that only makes our little comforts
sweeter. We have a good conscience and bright anticipations " we point for eternity." The work
we are executing will live when we are dead. We toil alone but we sometimes meet and rejoice
together and I challenge the world to show happier men than missionaries or happier families or
more useful than theirs.
A. Kent
_________
Galena, March 28/54
I recommend the appropriation of $200 on condition they make up 150. Br. Gilbert is a very
modest man and I wish you would suggest to them that 400 is a very meagre support for a man
who gives his whole time to his people. I hope to visit that region soon if the traveling continues
good as at present but if not feel at liberty to detain the application.
A. Kent
__________
Joliet, Ap. 11, 1854
Rev. D.B. Coe
Dear Br.
You wrote me some time since in relation to missionaries desiring boxes of clothing.
I now report that I have supplied Br. Hitchcock of Moline with a box and Br. Raymond of
Shullsburg with a barrel for which they expressed much gratitude for the very timely supply. I
have recommended to the good ladies of Utica to prepare a box for br. I.R. Smith of Edgington,
R.I. County and to those of Lockport, N.Y. to prepare one for Br. J.H. Baldwin of Waltham Ridge
and to those of Canandaigua, N.Y. to prepare one for Br. Gould of Northville, Lasalle Co., Ill in
response to inquiries made by them. Br. Jessup and Loss do not ask aid in that way.
Br. C. Gray of Mount Carrol has received none for 7 or 8 years, had one sent but was stolen
before it reached him, would be glad to receive a box (clothing would be preferred to bedding).
Himself and his wife rather slender, one 5 feet 8 inches, the other 5..2. 3 boys, one 10 years, one 3
and one 6 months (send in care of John Brewster, Freeport, Ill.).
Br. H. Bergen would be thankful for clothing. They are also quite slender, one 6 feet the other
5 feet in height. They have one boy 6 years and a girl 3.
Rev. J.G. Porter of Wilmington (via Chicago and Miss, R.R.) desires a box of such things as
may be sent. They are straitened to clothe 1 boy of 22 at Knox College, 1 of 18 learning a trade
and 1 of 16 at home, 1 girl of 17 and one girl of 10. The man is of ordinary size his wife quite
portly, indeed, large. While chatting this morning (Apr 12) he was called to attend 2 funerals
tomorrow: says he has attended a great many the last years.
Br. Peck of Rockville Co. had a barrel not long since.
Br. Gilbert of Crete received a box a year ago.
Br. Rounce of Hadley had corresponded directly with the secretaries on the subject.
Br. C.S. Bartlett Barber's Grove, Will Co, had a box 18 months since. She is very feeble- has 6
children 1 boy grown, 1 boy 12, 1 girl 13, 1 girl 10, 1 girl 6, 1 girl 4, sewing is worth more to her
than the materials, needs clothing but not bedding. Husband, wife both slender and of ordinary
height - perhaps the most pressing case.
I have just met with a life member of the A.H.M.S. Edward M. Williams who complains that
the Home Miss. does not come to him. He is a lad of 12 years and I presume he would get it if
directed to his father, John C, Williams, Chicago, Ill.)
Br. Graset of Lockport, Will Co., would like a box if none needs more. His people engage to
raise his whole support this year. He is 5 feet 9 thick set, wife 5..5 large- 1 boy 6, 1 boy 3.
I have had an interesting tour across the state, have called on 16 missionaries, and have been
to the S. eastern extreme of my field.
Yours, Etc.,
A. Kent.
I had forgotten to report
Br. Hope Brown of Napiersville would be glad of a box. She has a lame hand, her 6 children,
1 boy and 2 girls almost grown and 1 girl,of 12 , 1 girl of 10 & one of 6.
I left home Ap. 1, spent the Sab. with a little church at Elizabeth very much depleted by
emigration to California, both elders removed, have had no preaching for some time but
occasionally I can serve them. I administered the Lord's supper and they voted that at my next
visit they would choose two elders. Monday spent an hour with Br. Gray who is building the wall
in troublous times. Lodged with Br. Jessup who reports a congregational Ch. organized in one
district of his field.
Tuesday - I passed through Buffalo Grove. They have half a minister's time and no house of
worship. They are abundantly able to build and sustain and sustain a minister but can be united in
nothing unless they can have Br. Gray for the bond of union. I called at Dixon. The place is
growing. There is a faint prospect of an effort to introduce a Home Miss. at this important point.
Lodged with Br. Phelps at Lee Centre. They are making a move to ordain and install him. His
church is divided to form a Cong. Ch. at the Depot 3 miles S.W. We will preach at both churches
probably.
Wednesday. Called on the deacon of the Church at Lamoille who represented that many were
dissatisfied, some with the doctrines and more with the inefficiency of the incumbent. Dined with
Br. Hubbard. Rode over to Mendota, the junction of Aurora Extension and the Ill. Central R.R.
where it to be a centre of influence. Lodged with Br. Baldwin who is being annoyed by Old Sch.
people coming from Ohio, and by their minister obtruding themselves and threatening to interrupt
his operations after all his great struggle to build two meeting houses one at Homer and the other
at Waltham Ridge. The Old Sch. men there on the ground pledging themselves to stand bu him in
that effort to build that one at Homer.
Thursday. Called on Br. Ira Smith. He and his church will probably go to the
Congregationalists soon. He will not seek aid of the A.H.M.S. again.
Called and dined with Br. Whittany of Ottawa. Called on Br. C.R. Clark of South Ottawa. A
work of grace has been enjoyed at Ottawa as also at Lowell on Vermillion River and Granville
and Aurora the past winter. Lodged with Br. Day of Lisbon. he told me of his correspondence
with the secretaries in relation to his school keeping and advised with him in relation to
occupying himself half his time on the field vacated by the sickness of Br. Loughead on condition
that Br. Ruggles cannot be obtained for that post.
Friday. Called on Br. Baldwin who has left Peru and succeeded Br. Henderson at Morris.
They have assured his whole support, $500. There I met with Br. Murphy which superseded a
long ride over the prairies to his residence.
He stated that he has transferred his church at Mazon to Br. Marsh of the Ottawa Presb. (I
think) and that the Old. Sch. brethren from Ohio had some in so numerously about Dwight and
Pontiac whence he is now supplying that he should be completely overpowered, and thus was
constrained though very reluctantly to apply to their board for aid. He represented it as being to
him a most painful necessity. This process is going on where ever they can get a few old country
men to form a nucleus.
Lodged with Br. Loss and rested on Saturday prepatory to preaching on Home Miss. He has
succeeded in getting up a good house of worship and they are about assuming his support and
installing him. Tuesday- Lodged with Br. Porter of Wilmington: Wednesday called of Br. Wilk of
Kankakee. Rode to Kankakee City, where was but one house last July- now there are about 100:
Thursday rode to Crete, dined with Br. Gilbert and lodged with Br. Porter, visited with Br.
Romine at Hadley. Sat. Ap. 15 I have reached Dupage, Will Co. where I preach on Home Miss.
tomorrow and where I preached 21 years ago to a few families just come in.
A. Kent
______
Galena, 27 Ap.
I spent Friday Ap. 14 with Dr. Porter and as it was a rainy day, I had a long talk with Mr. &
Mrs. Romine.
The people of Hadley make out a full half of his support promptly and the out stations are
negligent.
I recommend the appropriation of $200.
A. Kent
__________
Galena, Ill.
Apr. 27, 1854
Rev. Milton Badger, D.D.
Dear Br.,
Enclosed I send you a line from Br. Graset of Lockport, and approve of the views therein
expressed.
In my recent visit to Hadley I made particular inquiries concerning those fields of labour and
became fully satisfied that they were not doing what they ought for Br. Rounce
In a subsequent interview with Br. Graset I opened the case to him and he was half inclined to
the opinion that one missionary might serve both Lockport and Hadley. But this could not be, for
Br. G. would not crowd upon Br. R. and he could not fill the place of Br. Graset at Lockport.
But I urged him to exchange with Br. Romine and preach on the subject of ministerial support
as he has done and the result is that he has begun a good work which I trust will go on til his
support is wholly assured.
I have just received an application in behalf of the Meacham Grove Church for aid in support
of Rev. Spencer Baker of whom you may or may not have recollections. But I have concluded to
retain it until after my trip to Chicago in May when I hope to get some light to make duty plain.
Yours truly,
A. Kent
__________
Chicago, May 20, 1854
I have just visited Barrington and seen their holy and beautiful house and recommend $225 be
granted them.
A. Kent
________
[The Norwegian Evan. Luth. Ch. of Mission Point, Ill., May 24, 1854 apply for $200 aid in
support for Rev. Ole Andrewson 12 mo. from March 12, 1854.]
Galena June 9th, 1854
My eyes being weak I write with a borrowed hand, and being a stranger to the practice, I can
only say I know no reason to object to the above recommendation. A. Kent
______
[The Cong. Ch. of Lee Centre, Ill. apply for $200 renewed aid in support of Rev. G.W. Phelps,
12 mo. from May 20, 1854]
[not in Kent's hand]
Galena, June 9th/54
I recommend that the aid asked be granted, they are still leaning heavily on the Society. They
have provided a parsonage and are about to install their minister, but a part of their members are
shearing off to form a Cong. Ch. at a depot in their vicinity. Saying that my eyes are so weak that
I am compelled to use an amanuensis, I am yours,
A. Kent
______
[not in Kent's hand]
Galena, June 22nd,/54
Rev. Dr. Badger,
Dear Brother,
I find it so burdensome to transport in my buggy across the state the reports and other books
forwarded by your society that I would prefer that one half of them should be deposited for me at
Chicago, if it will not be wreaking others too much trouble. I would inquire if one half of them
could not be put up to my order with the A.T. Society's publications and sent to their depository
in Chicago, all this on the supposition that they are not already forwarded.
Your will be interested to hear that for a few days my affliction is a very little better owing I
think to my systematic efforts to invigorate my system by taking exercise. I rise at 4, and ride on
horse back each morning and evening, and the rest of the long bright days for 3 weeks I sleep,
and listen to reading and dictate letters, and do other small jobs such as I can do by light diluted
to my convenience, Your truly,
A. Kent
__________
[The Cong. Ch. of Brookfield, Ill. June 26/54 apply for $200 aid in support of Rev. George
Marsh 12 mo. form July 1, 1854]
Galena, July 12, 1854
I approve of the recommendation of 200 to be given the Church at Brookfield and of the
suggestion he preach 1/2 his time at Mazon or Chatham.
A. Kent
__________
Galena, July 12
I desire to thank God that my eyes are sensibly relieved within a few days, so that I can use
my pen a little, After being shut up in the dark during these long hot summer days and unable to
preach or read for the last 6 weeks.
A.K.
__________
Galena, Ill., July 13, 1854
These are fields which I have been long occupying (Nora and Apple River) as other duties
would permit and I am sorry to say that our Old Sch. Brethren manifest a disposition to crowd us
out of the prominent points (2 depots) as is their present policy all over Northern Ill.
Br. Laughlin is doing well I believe and I recommend the appropriation asked for here.
A. Kent
______
Galena, July 15/54
This troublesome case comes again [that of Rev. Fisk and the Little Rock Presbyterian
Church]. The Presb. is divided in feeling- and I am accused of partiality - as you see from the
accompanying note. But this will show the propriety of insisting on having the names of all the
committee. Also, in the case of Spencer Baker which will probably reach you before long. My
eyes will not permit me to to go into detail. But on the whole I shall acquiesce in the
recommendation of the committee as the best thing we can do. A. Kent
P.S. The insinuation of Br. Fisk you may demand an explanation of if you wish.
________
Galena, July 21, 1854
I have some acquaintance with the field and great confidence in Br. [J.D.] Baker and do not
hesitate to approve of this application, He says they are making strenuous efforts to build a
church this year.
A. Kent
_______
The 1st Cong Ch. of Sheffield, Ill July 14/54 apply for $250 aid in support of Rev. S. Lyman,
12 mo. from May 1, 1854 to labor half the time at French Grove]
Galena. July 27, 1854
I have no knowledge of the localities referred to, having never visited French Grove and
Sheffield has but just begun to be, but I am acquainted with Br. Lyman and judge that they have
done well to raise 250 as a first effort.
I recommend the appropriation asked though I should like better to have the application signed
by a committee of missions then by those whose names are appended. It is not good precedent.
A. Kent
________
Galena, Sept. 5/54
Dear Doctor,
I regard it as a part of my duty to keep you informed of the state of the Miss. Churches as far
as may be. Br. Raymond and wife have been waiting (some six months) on me to Baptize two
little boys. Last Sabbath I spent with them on condition he would go over to Scales Mound Depot
(10 miles) and preach in the morning and meet me at the place of his second appointment
(Monticello) 5 miles from Shullsburg. I preached at Shullsburg, took his family, and rode over in
a broiling sun to M. and preached at 3. He was called to an afflicted family and did not arrive
until sermon was nearly over. Peter and Stephen were Baptized and he left before service was out
and rode to Shullsburg & nearly melted his horse to attend a funeral by appointment at 5. We
attended prayer meeting at 6 1/2 and we talked until 10 and I left in the morning before breakfast
lest I should fail to find Mr. Gratiot (one of his parishioners) at home. And that is but a specimen
of the way he drives around.
I think they are not doing right at Shullsburg and I have thought so a good while and strong
think so. They have applied for aid to the amount of 240. They ought to raise another hundred and
ask but for 140.
They have now a good Ch. edifice finished and paid for and that mostly by men out of the
Church. The pews rent for near or quite 300 and church members have rented but 2 or 3 slips.
One of the Deacons does not rent any pew and is able to pay 50 but pays nothing to the preacher
so far as I can learn. Last year the pews rented for 250 and they voted to pay 150 for the
minister's support. Br. R. told them this would not do and they voted to raise 200 which looks as
though they intended to get out of the A.H.M.S. all they can.
The Cong. last Sabbath was small (say 50, Children and all) and it was said to me that one half
of the members of the Ch. were not present.
You ask what is the matter. The two leading men on the Ch., that Deacon for one, determined
to have everything their own way. They have to have Mr. Raymond leave. The congregation
thinks differently and some threaten to leave the cong. if he leaves.
Now I can see no reason why they should not at least pay the amount of the pew rent to the
minister. Mr. R. is very useful and very acceptable to his Monticello Cong., which is assuming
great importance from its proximity to still another depot, and yet those 2 men complain because
they cannot have all his time while they are paying less than 1/2 his salary.
This is but part of a long story, which I am willing should be shown to the agent Br. Clancy. I
advised Br. Raymond to regard it as evidence that he should not stay there if they do not do more.
With these statements I refer the matter to your wisdom.
Yours, A.Kent
P.S. The other Deacon and Mr. Gratiot (an outsider) confirm these views concerning the
misconduct of the 2 men.
______
[Chapin papers, Beloit College]
Galena Aug. 24/54
Dear Br.
It was indeed a trial to be shut up in the dark and it was a trial that I could not attend the
commencements at Beloit & Rockford. My eyes are much improved of late and I have just
returned from a tour of ten days tired and browned bu excessive heat.
I have need of sympathy under the present posture of affairs.
You ask a number of questions.
Let me promise that I am an old man and it seems to me that while I stand at my post just
where I was 25 years of the Congregationalists and Presb. are running off and I am likely to be
left alone.
It was stated at the meeting of the directors (of which I am one, because I did not feel at liberty
to decline) that all the colleges in this vicinity are under Cong. influence. With regard to Beloit it
is maintained that while half the directors are nominally Presb. yet the Ex. Com. all sympathize
with Cong. The resident professors are all Congregationals. The (and the students with few
exceptions) attend the Cong. Ch., i.e., that the Home Influence are all on one side and that there is
more danger in College than in the Seminary of their being biased because in the latter they have
more maturity and are prepared to examine for themselves. Hence the conclusion was reached
that that we must have a College too or lose our students in these says of sectarian strife.
But you enquire, could you suffer these views to pass without reply?
I could not contradict them especially when I considered what have been the influences
immediately around the institution, and recollect some things occurring to my own mind which
were not mentioned in public, or private. I refer to the facts that Br. Loss and Br. Eddy are mot
members of either board) that I have heard that one or two young presbyterians have imbibed
Cong. preferences and thet two went from this church are now Cong. preachers.
Nowe I in turn must ask.
Was it not distinctly understood in the outset that the two denominations should be equally
represented? Are they so represented? Is it true that the Ex. Com. constitute the soul of the
institution and give direction to every movement.
Is it true that Br. Chapin and Clary (not to say Peet) have taken the lead in that Com. and it
true that their sympathies are with the Cong. rather than with the Presb. Which church do they
attend, and whither tends the silent influence of their example. I do not complain of them and I do
not think they would make any effort to proselyte, but how could I reply to considerations such as
have been advented to how could I refute the statements made in the Board, which you may well
suppose were contrary to all my cherished hopes of building up one prosperous union college.
Can anything be done to satisfy Presb that an equal influence shall in future be exerted on that
side?
Br. Chapin I have written briefly in some sort and I am free to confess that am utterly unable
to divine what is in the future. I have been pressed to take the financial agency of the board but
have declined.
I do not wish to be dragged before the public and make the butt of remark. But I promptly and
straight out replied to your letter and wait for light.
I have recently forwarded young Work to return to College and given him encouragement and
aid.
Yours truly,
A. Kent
________
[Chapin papers, Beloit]
Galena, Ill. Sept. 7/54
Br. Chapin,
It is now two weeks since I answered your your “hard questions” as well as I could and I
write again to prompt you to answer Mine, lest I should not get them before I leave home which
will probably be in some 10 or 15 days (to attend Ill & Peoria Synod).
I have ever been treated by you and your coadjutors with great kindness and consideration and
you may well suppose that after our long and very pleasant intercourse it was exceedingly painful
to give you pain by seeming to take a position adverse to Beloit. I have not taken that position.
But I am in the predicament of Orphan & Ruth : a position in which I shall be obliged to take
sides or be left alone. I have ever maintained the doctrine of cooperation and I take to myself
none of the guilt of “causing divisions”. But such is the excitment now that I see not what can be
done by N.S. Presb. but quietly to go by ourselves or cease to be. I have looked on for many
months (and even for a year or two) and altogether held my peace while the O.S. Presb. and the
Cong. are absorbing is and we have been trying to cooperate and I have an array of facts on my
own to field to confirm this statement.
But I repeat. I have taken no position. I have simply answered two of your questions.
Did the Board say that Beloit was Congregational? And did the members present allow the
statement to go uncontradicted? With all frankness I stated the reasons why I could not contradict
them. It is one thing to contradict another to endorse,
You say if such statements came where you could fairly meet them you could nullify them,
that is just what I want to see done.
I am greatly troubled and have been for a long time. I cannot be a Cong. of the type it is
assuming at the West (as I understand it), I could get along well with Connecticut Cong., but
absolute independency is unscriptural and intolerable (to my mind.) Give me your views on that
subject and in addition to the questions asked in my former letter, I will ask one other, Is it
desirable that the N.S. Presb. Ch. should be obliterated or have they a distinct mission to fulfill?
I write with great freedom to you as to an old friend but I do not want this correspondence to
be published to the world, for I have an invincible dread of such notoriety.
Did I mention that I had declined the agency for the Theo. Sem.
Yours as ever,
A. Kent
Chas. Chetlain says he will not go back to Beloit.
Waterman stays out for the present. Parker is hesitant and falters and it seem to me that all our
young men are shunning an education & the ministry. What shall we do in the end? It will take
care.
_______
[Chaplin papers Beloit letter from Chapin to Kent]
Beloit College, Sept. 15, 1854
Rev. A. Kent
Dear Br.,
Your favor of the 24th Ult. came duly to hand. I thank you for the prompt “straight out”
expression of your views. It is just like yourself to give me the opportunity I have long desired to
make corrections on some points which I knew to be misapprehended by brethren whose entire
confidence we want always to deserve & enjoy.
I can sympathize with you fully in the feeling you express respecting your position between
Presbyterianism & Congregationalism, those forces once accordant & cooperative now bristling
with a show at least of antagonism towards each other. The feeling is a real one with me
personally & stronger still in my identification with the College. My chief anxiety respecting this
institution come from the fact that the partizan leaders seem to mining off with
Congregationalists & Presbyterians & leaving us who cannot follow such lead either way to feel
deserted & lonely, I believe there are hundreds & thousands of good men, ministers & laymen, on
this field who have the same feeling. The question is whether we shall each cherish the feeling by
himself & meantime let the busy work of dissolution go on, til we are dragged away against our
will into a partisan attitude, or rather let our sympathies flow until we are drawn together & fell &
show some strength & some determination to stand upon our common ground. On that ground
Beloit College was planted, there it stands to day, unswerved by a hairsbreadth from its neutral,
nay rather I should say its common position. On that ground do I believe it is destined to flourish
& accomplish a good and precious work in the cause of our Lord & Head.
This is my assertion & conviction, but facts to which you refer or rather misinterpretation of
facts, seem to throw doubt on the truth of the statement. Let us then freely & particularly sum
over the points.
1st Point. “With regard to Beloit College it is maintained that while half the directors are
nominally Presb. yet the executive comm. all sympathize with Cong.” I turn to our list of trustees
& find four of the number to be connected with Presbyterys, five with Cong. Ass. & the
remaining eight:all from Wisconsin:with conviction & these last so far as I know their views just
equally divided in their silent preferences between sound Congregationalism & moderate
Presbyterianism. The board does not contain a strong position on either side unless you & Br.
Peet are to be so classed. For so large a body so gathered it seems to me wonderfully free from
men fond of extremes in anything. In this respect it it not peculiar? Can you name another
consulting board of the kind equally marked in this respect? Does not the college owe much of its
prosperity to the fact that it has been under the direction of men who have really no minor ends to
gain, but devote their energy & zeal to the one great work of laboring for Christ & his general
cause? Has it not been a policy, wisely chosen, to keep our board filled with such men? & Ought
we now to abandon that, to appease the clamors of suspicious & carping on either side? The Ex.
Com. reads on the record book & has read for nearly two years now “Chapin, Clary, Fisher,
Hinman, Talcott.” I know how the sympathies of the first named men & can speak pretty
confidently of the rest. If you were to bring the first named to the dividing line between the two
denominations & bid him pronounce shibboleths he would tell you he would pronounce it either
of the two ways with equal ease, that he is ready for the sake of peace & tho privilege of fighting
in a good cause to speak it as may please you best, but as a passport to any partisan band, he will
not speak it at all, but hold his tongue & go by himself if need be seeking some sphere of action
where he may shout the watch word “for Christ the Head” with all his might & follow the shout
with action undivided with by any side issue. If you catch the sound as it comes from his lips in
his unconscious utterances of the word, you will detect most generally the Presb. accent, as that
which use & habit has made on the whole most agreeable. In other words he sympathizes with
Presb. & Cong. in all their common interests & work with neither in their nice distinctions. His
choice is for a combination & like bets elements of both, which would take Peet form. Clary and
Hinman are of much the same mind. Fisher is not far removed from the same & Talcott I suppose
a decided Cong. but with little influence beyond that of any one member of the board because he
is so seldom present at Com. meetings. And just here to meet another question or two: whatever
may be the influence of the executive comm in giving direction to the movement, that influence is
not to put the college under the control of Congregationalists, nor to give that denomination an
ascendency in its affairs. The study of the com ever since I have had a place in it has been to keep
the institution above the control of either Presb. or Cong. whatever may be the position of Br.
Clancy & Chapin in the com, their sympathies are not with Cong. against Presb. If forced to take
sides I can not tell where they will be found. One of them I known is determined to postpone the
consideration of that question as long as possible. Which ever of the two denominations is most
zealous for carrying the little peculiarities of its own issues into everything will probably have
least of their sympathies.
2. “The President & Professors are all Congregationalists. They & the students with few
exceptions attend the Cong. Ch.” This I suppose to be the statement from which all the others
have been strained out by forced influence & is not at all true as laid down. So far as there is truth
on it, a brief account of the actual history of these matters will show that for the conclusion drawn
from it, it is a false premise. When the college was located & for a year after our first professors
were appointed there was but one church in the village. Prof. Bushnell & Emerson, the one a
licentiate of a Presbytery the other of a Cong. Ass. joined the Ch. which then was. By & by
certain members of that church became weary, they did not like their minister & fretted at
somebody or some thing that was not quite right. They withdrew & formed another Ch. The
denominational question was not agitated in the movement. The greater part of those who
withdrew were attached to the Cong. order & it was not until after tow or three years that the ch.
took its place in connection with a Presbytery. Now what should our two Prof’s do? They were
not dissatisfied with Br. Clary’s preaching, nor had they any thing to complain of in the
management of the Ch. affairs. They could not countenance disaffection on such grounds. They
quietly kept their places & allowed the movement to go on, when no influence of theirs could
relieve the difficulty. Mean time the Board made an effort to get Mr. Baines to take the
Presidency. Prof. Lathrope the one next appointed went into the new ch & continued in it a
faithful & reliable member til he left. The next appointee was Prof. Squirer, a Presbyterian, tried
and approved as such in former days. On accepting his post, he transferred his ecclesiastical
relation to this region and joined the Presbytery. The Board next appointed their present
President. The resources of the College gave no reliance for his support, an opportunity was
presented for securing a considerable portion of his salary by supplying the pulpit of the Cong.
Ch. For two years he earned in this way one half to two thirds of his salary. He would have been
just as ready to enter the same arrangement with the other church had the way been opened. But
with his family thus into relation to the Cong. Ch. ought he have abandoned it as soon as his term
of service expired? I know that on his mind the denominational char. of the two churches has no
might at all. The only consideration apart form that just named which could come into the
account was the fact that those from whom nineteen twentieths of all that had been contributed in
Beloit for the college came remained with the old church & they might perhaps expect the head
of the institution to abide where its best friends were. This had no great might yet might perhaps
turn the balance of even scales. For the next move the Cong. Ch. & the College united to secure
the services of Dr. Spear, a good Presbyterian to act in the joint capacity of pastor & Prof. of
Theology. How that was thwarted I need not tell you. The movement was made in good faith to
carry out the policy of combining the two denominations in this great work, It was a sore trial, a
disappointment to some of us, that the movement was so earnestly counteracted. The next
permanent appointment was that of Prof. Fisk, no question was raised as to his denomination. It
was the man one fitted to and willing to take the post whom we wanted. We knew of him only
that he has a call on the one hand to a Pres. & one the other to a Cong Ch. & would find no
difficulty from any denominational pressures in accepting either. He was ready for himself to
waive any Cong. choice of his own & join our Presb. Ch. But on account of his mother in law
who was home with him & whose preference is quite decided. He has taken a seat in the Cong.
Ch. Prof. Porter just appointed is strongly attached to Dr. Binesmade personally as an old & much
valued friend. That rather that any denominational feeling may hold him in the same connection.
Of those appointed as tutors two have been Presb. & three Cong. In the pulpit & in the Sab.
school of the Presb. Ch. the members of the faculty have ever been ready to sunder any assistance
they could to help on the instructs of that Ch. gratuitously and cheerfully have they supplied that
desk in the absence of the pastor to attend Gen assembly or by reason of sickness of for other
cause. And as far as delicacy would permit have they been forward by prayer or otherwise to help
on the interest of that ch. Now in view of these things I ask id it anything but a fallacy to say the
least to argue from the base fact that a majority of the faculty attend upon the Cong. Ch, that the
College is under Cong. control. (In respect to the students it is generally true that from ten to
twenty regularly attend the Presb. Ch. & it would please the faculty if more would go but they do
not wish to compel them. I think the example of the faculty has little if any influence in
determining the choice of the students.) The fact is due not to denominational zeal, but to peculiar
circumstances. Taking the two churches as they actually exist here, there is perhaps a power of
attraction to the Cong. because their is apparent a heart of real warm sympathy in our work which
does not reveal itself so happily in the other. We would have it otherwise & if our brethren would
but cease to regard us only with suspicion give us their confidence without claiming exclusive
privilege, I think it would be otherwise.
These statement cover most of the points in your letter. The only thing remaining is the
intimation that neither Br. Sons nor Br. Eddy are members of either board. On denominational
grounds I know there is no objection to either of them. It was suggested at our last meeting at
Rockford that Br. Sons he appointed & the only reason why action was not at once taken
accordingly was that there too few members present. Mr. Emerson of Rockford was appointed a
trustee, chiefly in order to have an efficient, wise working man on the com, Mr. Eddy’s name has
never been mentioned, nor even suggested in our board. The question has been raised in the com.
of recommending him. Personal feelings on the part of two or three of the com. growing out of
local matters might perhaps mar the harmony & pleasantness of our meetings. The com. have not
felt therefore like leading in the move. Yet there would be no objection raised if his appointment
were deemed necessary to the interests of the institution. I have no such feelings at the same time
Br. E. does not seem to me such a kind of man as would be most desirable as a wise counsellor in
such an enterprise. I know of no facts to warrant the statement that any Presb. young man have
imbibed Cong. preferences & am at a loss to understand whom you refer to as having passed from
the Presb. Ch. through our hands to become Cong. preachers. I know of two or three instances in
which the sons of Presb. members have attended our cong ch but attraction was something else
than the ??? of the denomination or the influence of the faculty & I am not aware that any change
of principles has followed. In all such cases when known to us we invariably ask if the parent or
guardian approves the choice of the student.
I have written at length because I have not time to be short & I wished to make “straight out”
work on these points. I did not think that most of the circumstances of which I have spoken were
known to you & that they furnish sufficient ground for you to real the grave charge of
denominational bias brought against us. I cannot believe that your confidence in our course is
really influenced or that you regard our condition & prospects with any sorrow, as a failure of
long cherished hopes. My conviction is strong that there are some of our Presb. brethren who
would force all things educational, missionary, etc. into exclusively denominational channels&
that there is with them a secret wish which is real father to the charge which is urged against us
that we are under Cong. control. Their strong coloring out to say misrepresentation of the few
facts to which you refer might perhaps raise a doubt or fear in your mind sufficient to keep you
silent, To relieve that doubt and fear I am sure you need only to get as near as possible to our
secret thoughts and aims. You will find the pulses of our sympathy to be as even & true to the
policy in which this college originated as is possible amid the tumult of denominational strife
which is raging around us. The movement could not now be stated on the principles which ruled
the conventions from which it preceded. It has ever seemed to me to be a wonderful and happy
arrangement of divine providence which brought Beloit College into being & gave it some
strength before the waters of strife & contention were let out. Amid the darkening waves between
the opposing currents it stands unmoved from its first foundation, giving strength steadily and
surely. The fury of the conflict will out always last. when the noise & tumult subside as they will
in due time I believe that you & I dear brothren shall rejoice & thank gos that we have been
permitted to have some past in putting it just when it is & building it up on the common ground
of our precious gospel faith, Now we are tired. Perhaps under the pressure of peculiar relations
we are unconsciously binding, each his own way, so that we may seem to be a little drawn apart,
but our feet are plan ted on the same ground too firmly to be really separated. We shall right up
when the wind lulls & find ourselves as close together as ever. Praying that we all may be kept by
divine spirit & guided by divine wisdom.
I am sincerely yours,
A. L. Chapin
_______
Galena, Sept. 9/54
This application makes a heavy draft upon your treasury. It is in midst of wide spaced
desolation, there being no minister of your order within 15 miles. Error and sectarianism have
held sway and my occasional labours there in old delapidated log school house have made but
little impression. They think they have done their utmost and this is the first time they have done
anything. Mr. Peffers went there at my earnest request and with an expectation that he would
preach 1/2 the time at Elizabeth. But the last reliable man is about to leave that field of Downers'
and Neil's first labours. He has been encouraged by Br. Spees to ask more than as a single man I
should have advised, but not more than faithful ministers ought to have. His going there is likely
to result in getting up two good school houses which is not a small matter. Altogether he will get
450 or 500 besides his outfit is more than I can divine.
A. Kent
______
[The 1st Cong. Ch. of Shabbona & Presb. Ch. of Melugin's Grove Ill., Oct. 9/54 apply for
$200 aid in support of Rev. S. Baker, 12 mo. from from....to labour also in the vicinity.]
Brooklyn, Oct. 28/54
I recommend that the A.H.M.S. grant $215 to these two feeble churches in support of Rev. S.
Baker for one year on condition that their subscriptions for $185 be immediately made up and not
neglected until near the close of the year as is too frequently the case and with the understanding
that he cannot have this commission renewed unless he lives in the vicinity of these churches.
A. Kent
_______
[The 1st Presb. Ch. of Rockville, Ill. Oct. 12/54 apply for $275 renewed aid in support of Rev.
John Peck, 12 mo. from Oct. 20, 1854 to labor also at Manteno vicinity.]
Brooklyn, Oct. 28/54
I know no reason why the amount asked should not be granted. My impressions when I visited
that neighborhood were all favourable.
A. Kent
_______
Galena, Dec. 13/54
Rev. Mr. Badger, D.D.
Dear Sir,
I loaned Br. Raymond $50 some 2 or 3 years ago and have never been able to get it. I spoke of
it to a common friend of ours at Shullsburg, Mr. Esty, who told me that he owed him also. And he
has $100 of Home Missionary money as the treasurer of 2nd Presbyterian Ch. in his hands, and
he says Mr. Raymond informed him that there was $150 due him from your Society. I doubted
the correctness of the statement and write to inquire. If it be true that these is 150 due him, I
should think that it right to appropriate 50 to myself. Please inform me and if you please give him
an order on me for $100 or 50 which will enable me to get what ought to have been paid long
ago.
Br. Raymond is not careful to meet his engagements in pecuniary matters as he should be.
I have frequent occasion to lend to missionaries and do not find them always careful to pay
promptly.
Yours truly,
A. Kent
I have just read a letter from John Rice (an excellent layman) who has gone to Nauvoo to do
good. He says they have a S.S. of 100 and are about to organize a Church New School
Presbyterian, want an energetic man. Have you the right man in view, they will raise 200 for him.
_____
[ed. note: no date, no place, presumably refers to the preceding letter]
Your letter of Dec. 18 is before me. I presume it was before your payment of 150 that the
remark was made and now that it is paid, you need not care for it unless you hear from me again.
I have spent the 2 last Sabbaths "in prospecting" on a new field, visiting and preaching and for a
rarity I received a 1/2 Eagle269[269] from mine host.
A. Kent
____
Galena, Dec. 26, 1854
It is about a year since I visited Kankakee. There was then a large population gathered there
and materials to organize a Presbyterian Church and a Presb. minister employed and the prospect
of building a church speedily. But a series of wants have prevented them from securing a
permanent supply and hence they have made no application to our society. And now if this Cong.
Ch. should receive aid and this crowd out their application, it would probably result in dividing
the community between Congregationalists and O.S. Presbyterians, as has been the case at
Savanna and Albany and Union Grove. This would greatly increase the dissatisfaction already felt
by Presbyterians who are still desirous to cooperate with Cong. and with our Society.
I am not informed of the exact amount of preaching which has been secured there by
Presbyterians but I know that a number of different clergymen have laboured there during the
interval since I visited Kankakee. Further that this I have no opinion to express.
A. Kent
Perhaps it would not be amiss to add that the hand of Joab is in this movement as it appears to
me.
_____
[The Cong. Ch. of Kankakee, Ill., Nov. 30/54 apply for $300 aid in support of Rev. Wm. Gay,
12 mo. from Oct. 29, 1854. Rec'd by Rev. J.C. Holbrook - remarks by Rev. A. Kent. Inexpedient]
Galena, Dec. 26
While engaged in expressing my views of Kankakee and the claims of the Cong. Ch. Br.
Holbrook called and we talked the matter over and he says that I have not understood the the facts
and yet acknowledges that he knew nothing of the matter until recently. So if you think best for
me or any one else to go on the ground I shall be ready to do your bidding. He thought me
sectarian. And I told him I had always been an avowed Presbyterian but challenged him to show
that I had abused my office for sectarian purposes, and assured him I was ready to leave the
agency when my services were not wanted.
A. Kent
_________
[The Cong. Ch. of Savanna, Ill. Dec. 20/54 apply for $325 renewed aid in support of Rev. J.J.
Hill 12 mo. from Oct. 1, 1854 to labor also at Fulton.]
Galena, Dec. 26, 1854
This is a pretty hard case (and I will state it as well as I can) both in relation to the Church and
the minister.
269[269]
A gold coin of the United States of the value of $10- from the eagle on the reverse.
The Church was organized by Br. Emerson (whose certificate is enclosed) after lecturing on
Congregationalism as he stated to me and the consequence is likely to be that it will be swallowed
up by the Old School Body - a New School Presb. Ch. would have superseded the necessity.
When Br. Hill came back across the Mississippi I knew not but that he was a successful
labourer, but from all I can learn of him at Albany and Fulton and Savanna he is very inefficient.
His field at Savanna is quite limited, but they expressed a wish to retain because if they are left
destitute they fear they shall not be able to finish their meeting house. And Dr. Reed (a decided
Cong.) expressed the opinion to me 4 weeks since in presence of Br. Hill that they must have a
new minister at Fulton City.
In view of all I heard in both places I expressed to Br. Hill some doubts about recommending
an appropriation for another year which has led him to give so minute a description of his wants
(for you will perceive the application is in his own hand) which I doubt not is entirely correct and
led him also to fortify his position by the certificates of Brs. Pine and Emerson. The former of
whom knows nothing probably but what he has heard from Br. Hill. I see no prospect of his being
employed at any other point and of his requiring less than 300 for the next 5 years. It is at present
doubtful about the R.R. reaching Savanna in some years.
A. Kent
_____
[Refers to ? application]
Freeport, Jan. 6/54
I recommend that the appropriation [$275] asked should be granted because I cannot be
willing that ground should be wrested from Br. Baldwin after all his efforts but I regret the
necessity of so large a draft.
A. Kent
_______
Lena, Jan. 23, 1855
This communication is handed me while I am detained on my way home by the great snow
storm of Sabbath last (21st) which has blocked up the iron road and we have no communication
beyond Freeport since Saturday last. Could you have seen me Sab. morning in the north part of
this county making my way 4 miles to a rickety school house on foot & preaching to about 20
souls, Pennsylvania Germans including the Albright preacher, all shivering with the cold and then
footing it again towards my next appointment in defiance of the severest storm I have seen in
many years, you would have said for once, "I prefer to remain in my office." Well I gave out at
last under the conviction that I should have no hearers and turned in to eat a good roast turkey
with a German of Methodist preferences, who set me to expounding the ninth chapter of Romans,
and perhaps I accomplished as much as though I had reached the school house. And by the way I
have made a pretty good week's work, for I preached 4 times, visited 5 schools (including the
Rockford Female Seminary)., visited 35 families and walked 64 miles including 10 miles
yesterday in a deep snow to reach the R.R.. But however you may be amused, this does not reach
the merits of the application. Allow me then to say that I have preached here a good while
occasionally and know the importance of this depot station. This little church has made a great
effort to sustain Br. Willis and God is blessing his labours. Some 14 have obtained hope and 5
converts have united with the church at the last communion. This is their first application and I
trust from appearances that they will be able to do more next year. It is right that the commission
should date back to Dec. 1st, as his labours commenced on Nov. 19, 1854.
A. Kent
_____
Galena, Jan. 1, 1855
Br. M. Badger, D.D.
Dear Sir:
Please acknowledge in the Home Miss. receipt of ninety dollars from the 2nd Pres. Ch. of
Galena to constitute Mr. Wm. H. Bradley, Mrs. Mary H. Long and Mrs. Elisa Hempstead Life
Members of our Society and charge the same to me.
This church resolved to give to 2/3 of their missionary money to our society and several letters
have been received in answer to the members that betoken good in the way of increased effort.
Yours, Etc.,
A. Kent
______
[The Presb. Ch. of Garden Plains & Clyde, Ill. apply for $330 renewed aid in support of Rev.
James Walker, 12 mo. from Dec. 1, 1854 to labor also at Cumberland.]
Jan. 24, 1855
I have just sent the Committee your circular and stated that I could not recommend so large an
appropriation but have recommended that the Com. go round again to every subscriber and then
write directly to you what is the least sum they must have in order to make up $500 to Br. W.
They may satisfy you they have done all they can but I am in doubt of it.
Yours, Etc.,
A. Kent
I think there is still a wide field there and I regard Br. Walker as a very worthy man and
faithful labourer.
____
____
[Chapin papers, Beloit]
Galena, Jan. 2, 1855
Rev. A.L. Chapin
Dear Sir,
I judge from what P.F. Shirmer said that there might be some uncertainty about Works
returning this term. I therefore entrust this money and letter to you that if he does not appear, you
may communicate with him.
It is possible that the want of this money may hold him back.
I attended at Chicago and did as I believe I promised you, and a Committee was appointed to
report of the paper I presented.
There was a resolution that the Preparatory Dep. first and the Sem. proper should be pushed
and that the college should be postponed a little, and I hope in the meantime that such a course
will be pursued as to convince them of our sincerity, for I cannot beat it out of honest and
unsectarian Presbyterians that Beloit College is leaning over and will ultimately fall into
Congregationalism.
My position is a trying one but I have done what I could.
Yours sincerely,
A. Kent
P.S. I have had a serious talk with Phillips this morning. He once thought he was a Christian.
Please to follow up what I have begun. I mean to tell him that he may expect it of you.
What I want to know of you dear sir is what you know of the family of Sabins and especially
whether I ought to make an effort to get Sydney, I think, back to college with a view to the
ministry. Does he afford the faculty evidence of talents that warrant the expense?
Please answer this by 2/2 and oblige yours etc.,
A. Kent
Rockford, Jan. 12
Failing to get this letter to you by Phillips I have brought it here.
On my way I spent a day a Pecatonica Station & 12 Mile Grove. In conversation with Rev.
Mr. Johnson about a young man Romine Weld, who is steady and promising but not pious. He
said he had written (I think) to the professors about getting a place to do work for his aid but had
received no answer. At Pecatonica I fell in with a family of Sabins and in conversation I said the
Ch. would educate all the young men of promise that would apply. 2 Brothers spoke up and
expressed their doubts and their wish to study for the ministry. One of them has left Beloit and
engaged in secular business- a third is teaching- younger, and to appearances the most promising.
I mentioned these facts to a man of wealth & benevolence here and he told me to communicate
further with him when I had informed myself.
I have no time to copy. Please say to W. Works that I shall leave 50 dollars with his father as
Philip forgot to take it with him.
_________
[Chapin Papers, Beloit]
Galena, Jan. 25/55
Rev. A.L. Chapin
Dear Br.,
Your letter has just come to hand and I hasten to reply with particular reference to the book of
which you speak. I expect to preach on Home Miss. and administer the Com. by appointment at
Belvidere next Sabbath, and to be about there until Tuesday or Wed.
Should you be able to send to Belvidere by that time, or to Rockford a week later a package, I
would distribute them gladly. I prepared a sermon ad preached it in Galena last year and shall use
it this year if I have opportunity.
I shall probably go as far as Chicago next week but my course is not definitely marked beyond
Belvidere.
My protoge Atcheson whom we sent to Beloit is the Methodist circuit Preacher at Pecatonica
where the Sabins live. He also has a ??? of self-esteem.
A. Kent
Feb. 1, 1855
Providence has put into my hands today the enclosed draft which I was not looking form and
by means of it I can pay up I believe what is due on my subscription and that will leave $20 for
Works which in addition to 50 which I sent to his father will make up 70 and I should not be able
to furnish the 30 in march you must give him some indulgence on my account.
I should rejoice to hear of a revival in your charge.
There is a little shower of grace at Lena where Mr. Willis preaches also where Hyde’s sister
teaches and where I spent a day (Monday and Tuesday) waiting for the cars which refused to
travel through the snow drifts.
Give my love to Mrs. Chapin and the family - “to Zion’s friends and mine.”
Yours truly,
A. Kent
______
[The Presb. Ch. of East Paw Paw, Ill. Dec. 1/54 apply for $250 in support of Rev. Silas
Jessup, 12 mo. from Dec. 1, 1854.]
March 17, 1855
I do not feel at liberty to decline recommending this application though I regret that our
congregations are making very large drafts upon you but this is a new church and they have done
well to begin with 200 considering their small number. Br. Jessup has been sick and nigh unto
death which is the reason of the delay in forwarding it.
A. Kent
_______
Galena, February 8, 1855
Rev. D.B. Coe
Dear Br.
I regret that your letter had not reached me a little sooner. I have just returned from Chicago
and am at this moment drowsy from the fatigue and excitement of my journey though diverse
snow-drifts which I will report.
At Belvidere I preached on Home Miss. (Jan 28) and took up a collection of 37 and being
detained 3 days by the obstructions of snow I visited individuals and increased the collection to
77.92. I also administered communion in their destitution.
I then went to Chicago, called on Br. Patterson who told me they had made out their annual
subscription for benevolent purposes amounting I believe to 2000 of which if my memory serves
me 500 was for Home Miss. I did not ask him to pay it over to me for I thought it might not be
ready or might be forwarded more directly. I spoke to Mr. Curtis and he said they had made up
their annual subscription. He did not say how much they had raised. I also spoke to Mr. Eggleston
who said that they had made out their annual subscription.
I made no direct offer to preach as I thought they might prefer to do that themselves. I did
preach last year for Br. P. and Br. Curtis said that in view of the feelings that existed in the
Church he thought it best to preach himself. I understand that there is more harmony and
efficiency in that church that heretofore.
I did preach in the 3rd Ch. which is vacant and took a col. of $40.00. I called at Elgin and
offered to preach on Home Miss. having previously received $17.00 from them and engaged to
preach next Ap. to the Presb. Ch., and Ch. of Udina.
I thought I would enclose your letter to Br. Curtis and then I thought again that if you did not
receive something soon it would be better for you to address them directly and about that I think
you need not hesitate.
As the annual report will be due in a few weeks I will give it now so far as it relates to funds
collected.
March 26. Coll. at the St. Charles Cong. Ch....................$26.00
May 18 from Darrius Hewett for "Home Missionary"..1.00
25 Rockford 2nd Cong. Ch......................................................27.78
Aug 14 Freeport Presb. Ch.....................................................22.00
John Ruth........................................................................5.00
Sept. 7 Galena 1st Presb.Ch.....................................................48.50
Nov 14 Rockford 2nd Cong. Ch...............................................58.99
1855 Galena 2nd Presb. CH. (reported thus far)...........90.00
Jan. 8 Freeport Presb. Ch..........................................................25.00
15 Rockford 1st Cong. Ch. subscribed 193 to be paid in March
23 Elgin Cong. Ch...........................................................................17.35
31 Belvidere....................................................................................77.92
Feb. 4 Chicago 3rd Presb. Ch.....................................................40.00
Charge me with...................................................467.29
I had forgotten 100 which I received at the office (Nov 4)100.00
567.29
Yours truly,
A. Kent
I send the enclosed letter because the strife of parties may yet make it necessary to set aside so
decided a Presbyterian as I have shown myself. I know not where there is a pleasanter field of
labor than that Church. I have no disposition to leave my post.
A. Kent
_______
Galena, Feb. 27, 1855
I have visited Winslow recently and conferred freely with Br. Powell. They are resolved on
building a church and on that consideration I feel justified in recommending so large an
appropriation from a belief that when that is built they will raise a much larger amount by the
annual sale of pews.
A. Kent
_______
Galena, March 1, 1855
Dear Sir:
In looking over the operations of the A.H.M.S. in Northern Ill. I reckon 44* missionaries
labouring in 67 feeble churches and missionary districts. Of these labourers it might be said as
was said by Paul of Silvanus they are faithful brethren as I suppose : men of courage to maintain
moral principle in communities where expediency or worldly policy is the governing motive :
modest men and unambitious of display, they are toiling to honour Christ and serve his church
even though it subjects them to persecution or reproach.
Nor do they labour and suffer alone, but are generally attended by families who in many
instances are models for imitation in their respective spheres. All honour to those excellent
women who are not only patterns of piety at home, but who perform vast amounts of missionary
service in concert with their husbands. Eternity alone will reveal their faith and zeal. Their
prayers and tears and their influence upon the Sabbath School and upon the community at large in
the improvement of its social relations and in multiplying ingenious devices for winning souls to
Christ or for carrying out a more rigid system of domestic economy. In estimating the value of the
Home Miss. work, it should not be forgotten that the question of failure of success at a given
point is sometimes made to turn on the influence of a single family.
It is a pleasing token of progress that 5** new churches have been organized during the past
year and that 2 which have been for some time pensioners upon your bounty are now able to
support the Gospel and contribute in their turn for aid of more feeble societies.
A goodly number of others may be quoted as having made manifest and commendable
progress. Nor should it be inferred that no progress is made where none is visible. In laying
foundations for a magnificent temple there is always a great amount of work that is quite out of
sight and a missionaries work is often for a time so much of a preparatory kind that results do not
appear and yet that very labour was indispensable to his subsequent achievements or those of his
successor.
It may encourage our patrons to specify an instance where years of toil have resulted in the
erection of a sanctuary and the installation of the missionary in one of those young villages which
is destined at no distant day to become as important commercial center. The friends of Christ
there, few and feeble, struggled hard against an opposing undercurrent, but now they report
themselves a self supporting church. Who can estimate the results of that patient effort by which
the leading men of the place have been gathered in and commit together in an organization which
promises in future years to mould the character of that community when it shall have become a
city of 20 or 50,000 and where church after church as they lift their spires to heaven shall point to
their common mother and say it is from that spiritual nursery that we have been transplanted to
bear fruit to the praise of Jehovah's grace. Let others glory in the progress of sacking Sebastopol.
But let me be reckoned as one of a 1000 and that the feeblest instrument is converting a city from
the error of its ways and this hiding a multitude of sins.
It is matter of regret that so little evidence of converting grace has been evolved. There are
however 3 instances in which the power of God has been displayed in the revival of his work, in
one of which 12 are as converts to faith of Christ. And there is good news quite recently of a
revival at one of the prominent points which has until recently been a pensioner upon your
bounty.
There are at present 12 missionary churches vacant and languishing for lack of the bread of
life and the ministers pass by and will not serve them because of the stinted salaries your society
affords. Are clergymen justified in saying so much as they now do about the shady side? It seems
to me that if we appreciated the privilege of preaching the gospel as highly as the non-conformists
did, we should go silently to our work and trust God to care for us while we watch for souls. And
it seems to me that this constant harping upon their hardships is calculated also to discourage our
young men from assuming these responsibilities. I could wish that every minister would preach a
sermon setting forth the work of a Bishop as "A good work."
Yours truly,
A. Kent
* We must allow something for inaccuracies of statistics on account of changes which are not
reported to me.
** There are 4 if Waukegan and Wethersfield have become self supporting.
_______
Galena, March 2nd 55
Dr. Badger,
Dear Sir:
I strangely forgot the death of Br. Ruggles preaching to the Nettle Creek and Marsailles
Churches, though I was instrumental in getting him there, was greatly interested in his success as
a very modest but very substantial young man. And though I have been striving ever since to get
another to occupy his place, I do not know when he died but it was very soon after his
appointment which was about July 1.
I suppose that the Church at Lowell to which Br. Bristol ministers in now a self-supporting
church but whether it is this year for the first time is not known.
A. Kent
________
[The Cong. Ch. of Dixon, Il. Mar. 5/55 apply for $300 aid in support of Rev. Daniel H.
Temple, 12 mo. from Sep 20. 1855]
Galena, March 18, 1855
Presuming the secretaries are acquainted with the missionary I need say nothing and in fact I
am a "know nothing". I have now met with him, but it seems to me that 55 is a small amount for
so large a town and 200 is a large amount for a Home Miss. I do not much like the precedent and
I think it unreasonable for them to date back 8 months as I suppose their wish. And it occurred to
me that it might be well to vote 200 and say that reducing it was the only condition on which you
could date it that far back. With this suggestion I submit it.
A. Kent
P.S. Dixon is an important point and so is Mendota (and Amboy and many other R.R.
Stations) and if Mr. Barret of Hudson should apply for aid for Mendota he will need as much I
presume as Mr. Temple. He has written to know what the maximum the society gives to which I
shall reply referring him to the printed instructions.
A. K.
________
March 27. I returned yesterday from a trip of 40 miles on horse back in the face of the severest
March winds I ever encountered. Perhaps you would enjoy in the perusal of the incidents of
missionary life. I have taxed myself with a visit one in four weeks to a destitute region about 45
or 50 miles distant. And every trip this winter has been stormy or extremely cold weather.
I had my election between the cars, the buggy the sleigh and the saddle. To take the cars
would involve a walk of 15 miles and the difficulty of crossing swollen streams. The snow was
from six inches to six feet deep but was likely to leave us unceremoniously. This was the fact on
Friday except the drifts which fill all the lanes and render them impassable.
I mounted my horse on Thursday at 1 o clock p.m. and rode sixteen miles, the thermometer
being at zero. Friday morning found me do bruised and sore that it was painful to ride, I reached
my place of preaching in good time, it was so warm that I perspired under my overcoat and the
pain of riding. The snow melted more rapidly that I ever saw it before but though the ground was
full of water, the people came out so well that I appointed a third service there on Sabbath
evening. The next day brought a very cold march wind and rough roads. I visited 3 families. and
in the evening twelve miles in a lumber waggon, preached to about 25 in a rickety school house,
ran two miles to shake off the chill of that cold house, resumed my seat in the waggon, and slept
well. Sabbath Morning rode 12 miles, preached, rode five miles, and preached to a large
congregation (say 60) gathered in despite of the wind. Rode five miles to Winslow after the
service. Encountered Honey Creek which had swollen to cover the causeway and I could not
discern whether the bridge had floated off. I went back and hired a man to ferry me over, reached
the tavern at 10 o'clock p.m. and lay awake from the excitement of the fay. But after a ride of 40
miles yesterday I slept well last night.
_______
Galena, Ill, March 27
Dear Br.,
Your letter and its accompanyments are received and I hasten to reply. Mr. Dodds snatched a
moment as I was passing in the cars to say that Mr. Willis was negotiating to get a house at Lena.
And in relation to his preaching half the time, he has preached for 3 months and I am hoping he
will be able to preach all the time when the weather gets warmed. There are two fields within
reasonable distance. To wait until I can write to him would delay too long.
I would suggest that he be commissioned for a year on condition that he remove to his field as
soon as he can make the arrangements and be paid in proportion to the labour performed.
A. Kent
Mr. Willis will accomplish more in half his time than some men do with all their time.
_______
Galena, Ap. 12, 1855
I have been quite discouraged of late years respecting the Church at Elizabeth where Br.
Downer and Neil once laboured. It has been depleted by removals mainly to California until there
is no courage left to make an effort. One of these Californians, Francis Graham, once a member
of our church & afterwards the pillar of that Church, in whose piety for 15 years I had the utmost
confidence is now selling spirits, etc., and is said to be worth 50 to $150,000, visited us last
season and I laboured with him in vain to recover him to Christ and to his duty. Another
embarrassment to Br. Smith, the Methodist minister is very popular and our own people prefer
him to any body else. But his two years will be out in about three months. On the whole with
many misgivings I am compelled to recommend the appropriation of $325. It is the least sum that
will sustain him.
A. Kent
_______
Br. Smith went to Elizabeth on his own responsibility and I hope it is of the Lord. There are
some good women there but there are but 3 men left in the church and they are not efficient.
If you think the appropriation large I have only this more to add, that in the course of 26 years
I have preached often enough to amount to $500 at $3 a Sabbath gratuitously.
You have probably heard of the recent death of a missionary Rev. Ira Smith, an old man who
has been very useful in his day as I am informed.
A. Kent
It has been out of my power to visit Ira Smith's people since his death.
_____
Galena, Ap. 24, 1854
Rev. Dr. Badger,
Dear Sir,
Please send the Home Miss. to Elisha Barr Hampton, Rock Island, Ill., and charge me 50
cents.
A. Kent
_______
Dr. Badger
Dr Sir,
As my husband's eyes are so inflamed as to render him unable to write, he requests me to say
that he recommends that this request be granted altho he is not fully satisfied and will urge them
to do better another year.
Very Respectfully,
Caroline Kent
_______
Naperville, May 18, 1855
Rev. Dr. Badger
Knowing the interest you feel in the history of our missionaries, I devoted yesterday and rode
20 miles to visit the family of our deceased Br. Ira Smith.
During the summer of last year Mr. Ruggles was suddenly removed, and now another has
been called away from this district of the Home Missionary field, each from the care and nurture
of two feeble Congregational Churches which are now languishing for want of some unambitious
laborer who, like them, will be content to feed the Lord's flock for no other reward than the
satisfaction than the satisfaction of copying the example of the chief shepherd, whose life was a
model for all Home Missionaries.
I spent an hour or two with the bereaved family and gathered many interesting facts
concerning our departed brother. Like Elisha when the great Prophet beckoned him away, he left
his former field and late in life entered the ministry and ever after for some forty years he
continued faithful in his chosen calling. In the states of New York & Ohio he laboured long, a
portion of the time as a settled pastor but mainly as an Evangelist, for which he possessed some
good qualifications. The last four years he spent in this state .
It seems to illustrate his devotion to the work of the Lord that as an old man as he was (60) he
went on foot to one of his appointments on that stormy Sabbath in January when the wind and the
snow were driven across the Prairies with such violence that many ministers did not go out, and
many churches were not opened on that day. Indeed the movement of the rail cars were
obstructed for several weeks.
He died with the harness on. Who would not covet such a death! February came and found
him at his work. He preached a funeral sermon on Monday and on Thursday he was taken sick.
During his illness he was delirious, but even then, his mind was continuously running upon Home
Missions and subjects appropriate to his work.
In lucid intervals, anticipating the result, he arranged his temporal affairs and made his will
and then relapsed into a stupor which deprived his family of the consolation of his dying counsel.
March came and found him in his grave and his people mourning. On my way to make inquiries
of a neighbor I passed the mound of fresh earth where this weary brother rests.
I thought how little such labourers are appreciated in this world; and what far reaching results
will be deduced from them in eternity.
I thought what if those energies of forty years has been consumed in gathering gold, instead of
polishing gems which shall adorn the redeemers crown.
I thought how many on the field of his protracted ministry are now men of prayer and patterns
of benevolence, and their families models of domestic virtue, who but for his influence might
have been to this day enemies of God, slaves of vice, and a blight on their community. I thought
if that man of God, old and gray-headed, could come back to earth and preach one more sermon
he would choose the young men in our churches for his auditory, and the passage "let the dead
bury their dead" for his text; and press the claims of Christ, and of the ...upon those who are so
charmed by the hum of business that they hear not, or heed not the voice of the master, saying
"Go preach the gospel to every emotion."
I thought who among them all could offer a more plausible excuse for declining the service
than the duty devolved upon him of providing for a wife and eleven children. Therefore, he being
dead, yet speaketh. God make us faithful in his service.
A. Kent
_________
Galena, May 30, 1855
I have lately visited Lee Center and an satisfied of the correctness of the above statements and
the propriety of their being aided another year to the amount of $200 in the hope that they will
build a sanctuary. There is an Academy there which, if it should continue to be as well sustained
as at present, will enable them to hold their own in despite of R.R. influences.
A. Kent
_________
Galena, June 1, 1855
Rev. Mr. Badger, D.D.
Dear Sir,
I have been thinking over the matter of distributing annual reports, and I know of no way but
either I must send them by main at a cost of 11 cents or carry them myself to each missionary or
person to be supplied. For I have reason to think that if I depend on others to distribute them it is
not done or not done in any proper time.
I find on inquiry that by sending from the office of publication the cost is but 6 cents. I do not
wish to shirk any labour that properly devolves on me but I see no reason why they may not be
sent directly to all the Home Missionaries from your office of publication. And if it will not make
you any unnecessary trouble I can send a list of ministers and laymen to whom I should give them
if they were forwarded to me. Or what will be thought perhaps a better plan: let all the Home
Missionaries whose addresses you have be supplied by mail immediately and send a box to me
for distribution at my leisure as I travel about, to contain also such other works as benevolent
persons deposit with you for that purpose. Let me hear from you on this matter. Please say to Br.
Coe that I have many applications for the names (and descriptions of families) of missionaries for
whom boxes may be made up, which I am obliged to correspond with directly and that method
seems preferable because they adapt their work more to the circumstances of the family and with
many Miss. wives, the sewing is more useful than anything they can receive. If there are any
objections to this method, make them known.
The ladies in Chicago and Rockford are doing nobly in this line though it is not reported to
you..
This suggest two other items.
Br. Coe's letter respecting the contributions in Chicago was mislaid and came to hand and
received due attention yesterday.
I took up a subscription in the winter in the 2nd Church in Rockford of $193 dollars to be paid
in March. I went to get it last week and learned that they had voted to pay it over to Mr. Willis,
and that he would not probably use your commission, I suppose that is brought about because he
does not wish to remove to his field. I am sorry, but see no remedy.
The warm weather enfeebles me and my eyes are hardly able to endure exposure to the
summer sun but I hope not to be shut up in the dark as I was last year for 3 months.
I have preached once in 4 weeks, spending several days visiting, without fail in a new field 50
miles east, in the language pf the miners, I am "prospecting" and have engaged to continue it for a
year (unless I can get a missionary to fill my place,) and they have started a subscription for my
support,
Yours truly,
A. Kent
________
Portland, Whiteside Co.
June 9, 1855
Rev. Mr. Coe
Dear Br.,
You said I might inform you of those needing boxes of clothing. I have supplied a number of
missionaries by giving a description of their families and this they were better served.
But Br. E.R. Martin, Spring Hill, Whiteside Co., was burnt out recently and lost his library
and everything as he will report in his next letter. He has received a box from Batavia, N.Y., and I
have just written a description of his family (as I shall report to you) to the ladies of Rockford
who will doubtless prepare a box. Should you also think best to send a box I should not regard it
illy applied. He is one of our most laborious and devoted and useful missionaries who gives
himself more exclusively to his work, than almost any one I know of.
Mr. Martin & wife are of ordinary size, a plain couple among a plain people. he will need a
warm winter overcoat, vest, pants, shirts, overshoes- under shorts & drawers. His wife and girls
of 15, 13, 6 & 4 and his boy of nine will all need winter clothing.
Please say to Br. Badger that I have been to Elizabeth and done what I could to get a
subscription agoing. I think they will make up 50 or 55 dollars there. If ever there was one, that is
a field that is properly called "burnt over" as a western phrase, descriptive of a people who have
had a good deal too much preaching. I think his commission should date back at least 3 months
earlier instead of the 9th of May as stated to Br. Noyes.
A. Kent
_______
Galena, June 13/55
Dr. Badger
Dear Sir,
Your letter in relation to Dr. Neal reached me this morning 5 minutes after Br. Noyes left us
and I shall write to him at Marshall, Mich., and presuming that he will communicate with Br.
Clark and others and will inform himself of matters there.
I passed through Chemung 2 or 3 weeks since and had an interview with Dr. Neal- who says
he used to practice in Phil. but has been a preacher for several years. He professed to me to be
much interested in his field and was ready to preach abundantly in all that region where ever there
was an opening. I urged the importance of his visiting and preaching at Poplar Grove 10 miles off
and he seemed ready for any amount of labor and I left him with the thought that if he should
prove to be all the first appearances indicated he would do a great good work, for the people were
greatly interested and were anticipating much and I think that no evil report had reached them
when I was there. Why the Presbyterian Comm. did not let the application pass through my hands
I know not.
After reflection I have concluded to recommend that he be commissioned as requested unless
Br. Noyes should get such light as should darken your course and his prospects of usefulness.
And I then will write to him (as though his application had come to me directly) and state to him
that I have recommended that large appropriation with the understanding that whatever is raised
at Poplar Grove (which I think will be from 25 to 100 dollars) should be deducted and with the
understanding that he give himself wholly to the ministry with a recommendation that when he
gets his horse and buggy he will spend as much time as he can in pastoral visits, which I fear he
had not yet given as much prominence to as is desirable.
He gave me a "special reason: for the large appropriation asked. It was that he must buy a
horse & buggy and must bring on his family.
May God guide your Comm. in this and a 100 other difficult cases.
Yours truly,
A. Kent
Br. Robert and family left yesterday for Minnesota.
______
[Barrington application]
Galena, June 20, 1855
I do not cordially endorse this application but shall rather do it by constraint, both because
they ask so much and ask so late.
It seems that after having his services a whole year, they persuaded him to come and settle
among them and then when he had built a house and became a fixture, they attempted to beat him
down in his price as you will see from from the accompanying letter.
I visited him a few weeks ago, and talked the matter over. They are a settlement of wealthy
farms as I understand getting rich, and I advised him to leave or not preach any more until they
come to his terms.
Should the application be granted, I hope it may be accompanied by an exhortation to do
better next year and to be prompt.
A. Kent
_________
Galena, June 26/55
Dear Badger,
Please charge me with ($10) ten dollars contributed by John Ruth of Freeport and send him
the Home Miss. if not ordered last year when he sent in 5. I hope this unknown donor will
continue to double annually. He sent 10 this year to ours and 10 to A.B. Com.
A. Kent
________
Galena, June 27, 1855
Enclosed I send a long letter, expository, and to me satisfactory.
"Sufficient is the punishment inflicted by many." I think your rebuke and mine have been
wrought carefully and that now we may attempt to encourage and sustain him. It seems to me
therefore that you would be justified in making up some 160 which he asks and then saying that
you expect him to give himself wholly to his work.
I have written encouraging him and urging that he report quarterly on his pastoral visits which
I apprehend he has been deficient.
I have received a long letter from Br. Grant respecting Br. Gilbert of Crete and Br. Rouncee
and others. He expresses a fear that Br. Romans farm will cripple his usefulness.
Yours, etc.,
A. Kent
________
[Application of the Cong. Church of Winnebago]
Beloit, July 10, 1855
Rev. Dr. Badger
Dear Sir,
I have detained this application until I should visit the church and preach to them on Home
Missions according to previous arrangement which I did last Sabbath. I had 20 hearers and took
up a collection of $30. It was a very rainy day and the church is built out on the naked prairie or
rather the beautiful green sod which still extends 1 1/2 miles north without interruption (except by
one house) until you strike the R.R. and yet that unbroken ground is held at 20, 25 and 30 dollars
an acre. This explains why cong. was so very small. There will very soon be a great settlement
about that new sanctuary in the desert. they like their minister and with God's blessing I think
they will soon be out of debt and prepared to sustain their own burdens. While I recommend the
appropriation asked I would take occasion to say look at those figures (20, 25, 30) and then
contrast these with the common saying when I first came to the country. "Those great prairies
never can be settled." Look also at the immense fields of wheat and corn waving with the high
wind that follows the rain of yesterday and displaying a luxuriant verdure. Such as I never saw
surpassed and then say of God is not trying us with prosperity which may well make trouble for
the future.
But we have much also to be thankful for. God has prospered the feeble efforts put forth to
plant and sustain literary and religious institutions.Last evening I listened with interest to a
solemn and searching address to the Society of Inquiry on Missions in Rockford Female Sem. by
Rev. Mr. Colis 1st graduate of Beloit College, preaching the duty of entire consecration to Christ.
Tomorrow is commencement here.
Yours, etc.,
A. Kent
_______
[Cong. Ch. Como, Whiteside Co., Ill. July 23, 1855 apply for $150 in support of Rev. Josiah
W. North, 12 mo. from May 1, 1855 to labor half the time in the vicinity.]
Galena, July 30/55
I see no reason to with hold my recommendation of this application. It would seem better that
one minister should supply both fields but Mr. Johnson is located at Gap Grove & Sterling from
which we may expect an application soon (as the enclosed letter shows). I see no way but Br.
North must be commissioned for Como alone unless he goes over to Union Grove which affords
but little encouragement at present.
A. Kent
_______
Miscellaneous
For Br. Coe. Rev. James Walker, Garden Plains, Whiteside Co., Ill., writes in reply to my
inquiries. We have sufficient bedding for the coming winter. Our wardrobe will need replenishing
from some source. You ask for my wife. 5 feet 9 inches in height, chest & waist 35 inches. Arm a
little more that ordinary length.
This is all he communicated on the subject of his family measurement.
In relation to Rev. Mr. Neal. Br. Eddy is in transition between Beloit and Bloomington and I
cannot correspond with him and presume he knows nothing of the man. I have written to Br.
Clancy and Br. G.C. Curtis. But I know of no way to get information.
A.K.
______
Galena, Aug. 13/55
Mr. W.W. Ripley
Dear Sir,
Your will please give credit to
First Presbyterian Ch. of Elgin
9.81
First Presb. Ch. in Galena
75.50
Second Presb. Ch do
100.00
186.31
And charge the same to me
A. Kent
May the Lord fill your treasury that the poor missionary may never be disappointed in his
expectations.
______
[The Presb. Chs. of Somonauk and South Somonauk, Ill. Aug. 10/55 apply for $200 aid in
support of Rev. Adam Johnston, 12 mo. from June 1, 1855.]
Galena, Ill., Aug. 21, 1855
I approve of this application and recommend that they receive $200. Things are in an unsettled
state in consequence of a R.R. running through their territory which will break up old associations
and create new contours of influence and perhaps for the present their arrangements are as good
as could be made.
A. Kent
________
Br. Badger,
Please charge me with five dollars from John Ruth and 22 from Presb. Ch. at Freeport.
John Ruth sends 5 a year and I think he ought to have our paper gratis.
Please direct it to J.H. Adams,270[270] Cedarville, Ill., who will forward it to him living out in
the country by himself.
And acknowledge it from John Ruth Cedarville and 22 from Presb. Ch. Freeport.
Yours, Etc.,
A. Kent
I have rode home 110 miles these three days of terrible heat from Sycamore where I preached
on Home Missions by request of Br. Gore, a pretty good proof of improved eyes.
A.K.
________
Galena, Aug 22, [1855]
Along with this copy of my letter to Br. Neal, I send his reply. I have written to Dr. Duffield
or in his absence, Rev. E.R. Kellogg, enclosing the copy of Br. Clark's, which you furnished, and
requesting them to furnish you the evidence necessary to enable you to act intelligently. And
when I have written and informed Mr. Neal of the steps I have taken I think I shall be absolved
from further service until I hear from you or from him again.
John Huy Addams emigrated to Illinois in 1844 where he became a propserous miller, banker, and community
leader. He served eight terms as state senator, first as a Whig and later as a Republican. A friend and admirer of
Lincoln, he was a vigorous abolitionist. His daughter Jane joined the Presbyterian Church in Cedarville in 1885. Kent
touched the Jane Addams through his role as the founder of Rockford College, where Jane graduated at the head of her
class in 1881. Noteable American Women. Cambridge, 1971. Vol. I, p. 16.
270[270]
In doing this, I thought you perhaps would be better satisfied to correspond with Dr. Duffield
directly.
Yours, etc.,
A. Kent
[Copy, reply not found]
Galena, Aug. 1, 1855
Rev. B.F. Neal
Dear Sir,
Evil reports implicating your moral character have reached me, which leave no alternative to
an agent of the A.H.M.S. but to refuse his recommendation to the application. At the same time it
is proper to state, these reports relate to occurrences which are alleged to have transpired 3 or 4
years ago, since which I have no means of knowing your subsequent places of residence or
whether you may not have out lived these evil reports. I thought it my duty therefore while I
decline recommending you, to say that I shall not do anything to prejudice your present prospect
of usefulness while you shall continue to labour at Chemung.
And hence a word of explanation is necessary in relation to Poplar Grove.
I received your interesting report of labours at Poplar Grove the day after I had given a letter
of introduction to Rev. James Donald to deliver to Mr. Dean. I did this because I thought the field
peculiarly adapted to his circumstances, and I presumed that you would be quite happy to resign
that pat of your field when it was spreading out so widely in other directions.
You will easily perceive that if this letter gives you pain in the perusal, it is certainly painful to
me to write. But I thought that you ought not to be kept in suspense and I thought also you might
withal the explanation I have given be surprised that I should send Mr. Donald there as I did.
_______
[Application in support of Rev. Morse, Cong. Church, Henry, Il.]
Galena, Aug. 8, 1855
I have written them that they must forward Mr. Morse's credentials as I am not acquainted and
that as they have no conscious scruples in receiving I hope they will not have any when they
become strong enough to contribute ...I recommend the appropriation.
Yours, etc.,
A. Kent
______
[Letter from Rev. Alfred Morse to A. Kent]
Henry, Marshall Coun., Ill. August 7th '55
Rev. A. Kent
Dear Sir,
You probably have received from the Con. CH. of this place an application to the A. H.M.S.
for aid in support of the Gospel. In the letter of Bro. Heston, you are made acquainted with our
position as to a previous application to another body. By today's mail, I received a
communication from the Sec. of the Ill. H.M.S. giving encouragement that the necessary
assistance would be ranted by them.
Please delay presenting the application till you hear from me again.
Yours fraternally,
Alfred Morse
[Annotation in Kent's Hand]
Aug. 10
What spasms of conscientiousness some people have and how readily do they yield to the
"Almighty Dollar" as it has been called.
I hope they will find out what their duty is and that the committee will have wisdom from
above.
A. K.
As I had written them before I received this I see no cause to write again.
________
Mount Carrol, Sept. 15, 1855
Rev. Dr. Badger
Dear Sir,
Having reached here half-sick on my return from a tour during which I have sent off
applications from the Churches at Kewanee and Cambridge and a letter from Dr. Duffield
endorsing the good character of Mr. Neal of Chemung and all done in much haste, I improve my
present leisure to gather up some observations I have made.
Some of the good people of Ill., have determined by means of their Congregationalism or
Independency, joined to their abolition ultra, to break down Presbyterianism and the Home
Missionary So. at the same time.
Having no appointment to prevent, I pushed on last Saturday to Mendota, a village springing
up in the Prairie at the junction of the Ill. Central and Chicago & Miss R.R., 15 miles north of
LaSalle. I had hear nothing of late concerning its prospects. But was told when I arrived that Br.
Holbrook was expected to preach on Sab. and that they were to have a church meeting on
Wednesday to consider whether they should change the organization of the Presb. Ch. to Cong. It
is but a few months since it was formed. Mr. Holbrook did not make his appearance and Rev. Mr.
Fisk of Little Rock notoriety, now a zealous O.S. man had formed a little ch. there. He found me
in the Meth. S. School and invited me to preach for him, claiming that the house was his at that
place.
I called on Br. Lyman at Sheffield and on Br. Prescott at Ameswan and was favorably
impressed by what I heard of their labours in those thriving villages on the R.I. R.R. and was
astonished at the rapid growth of Geneseo where a large Ch. is building.
I dined with old Father Vail at Wetherfield who still holds a commission under the Con. Miss.
Soc. He expressed his surprise that I should have an application from Kewanee for he had been
told that they would apply to the Free. Miss. So. and very probably after all our inquiries they will
go over to Free Miss. The agent Rev. Mr. Wright is all about. I visited Sterling and Gap Grove at
some inconvenience in consequence of a letter from Rev. Mr. Johnson an English man who is
preaching there and who evidently wrote me to prepare the way for an application. But. Br.
Wright had just been there and was coming again in a day or two. They received me with marked
coldness and informed me that they were to apply to the other society.
I called on Br. Martin, found him and all his family of 8 sick with ague in consequence of
their temporary exposure on one of the most sickly localities I ever saw. The cabin he occupies is
between Rock R. and a great swamp and they have been drinking sulphur water this summer and
in appendix to all this he preaches and attends funerals 4 or 5 times a week, rides home in the
evening and has been obliged to be up most of the nights with his sick children. No wonder he
has the ague. I advised him to flee and get away from his labours. I visited Como and Mr. North.
Found him sick and his wife remarked that he came home in a sweat from a walk of 11 miles to
meet his Sabbath appointment.
I remarked to them that was just the way Br. Wheeler was sacrificed. He was in the habit of
walking to his appointments which extended round some 20 miles.
When I heard of it I loaned him my horse and bot another but it was then too late for he [Br.
Wheeler] died in a few weeks.
Thus the Cong. Church at Union Grove (Whiteside Co,) lost a valuable missionary for the lack
of a horse and with the loss of this lovely man (who hoped to build up a good Ch. & an Acad.
there) an eclipse has come over that church which threatens to be total and perpetual.
Yours, Etc.,
A. Kent
Rev. Mr. Coe,
Dear Br.,
Mrs. North said that she did not need other clothing so much but they would be glad of
bedding in place of the 5 quilts they lost on their way out. Perhaps they might be sent in some
other missionaries box.
Yours, Etc.,
A. Kent
______
Galena, Oct. 24th, 1855
This is a clear case [Rev. E.R. Martin, Spring Hill, Whiteside Co.] about which I have no
hesitation. The burnt parsonage is rebuilt and the missionary when last I saw him at Synod was
improving his health. He and every one of his family have been sick (hard sick) from exposure
this summer. He is one of our best missionaries. I recommend that $200 be appropriated.
A. Kent
Please say to Mr. Noyes that I propose next week to take Como in my route and see what I can
do for Br. North. I have heard nothing form Babin.
A. Kent
P.S. According to my register Br. North has 250 from his people and 150 from the A.H.M.S.
______
Lee Center, Nov. 2, 1855
Brother Noyes,
I have been to Como and done the best I could for Br. North. I found him feeble from renewed
attack of the ague probably from overworking.
I made an effort to get up a subscription for a horse by found the few brethren over-burdened
with the church building in which they are engaged. It will cost at least $100 to get any tolerable
horse. But I found a man who purchase one in partnership if he could raise the money. And I
arranged with him in this manner.
I am to furnish $100, one half of which he is to pay me in one year and the other 50 is to be a
donation to Br. North. They have but little use for a horse and can both be accommodated and
after one year he will be at liberty if he chooses to pay the other 50 and the sole owner and Br.
North must make other provision for himself with the aid of his 50. This I hope to procure during
this trip of give it myself. But I draw on you because I shall be absent some 4 weeks and he needs
a horse as soon as may be. His physician thinks he is in danger of breaking down soon if he is not
divorced from so severe study and I have urged him vehemently to devote some time daily to
riding on horse back and exploring as colporteur.
Como, Nov. 2, 1855
Rev. Milton Badger, D.D.
Dear Sir,
Please pay to Rev. Josiah North one hundred dollars ($100) and charge the same to my
account and oblige yours, etc.,
Aratus Kent
If you can send him a draft he will be able to secure a horse speedily. If I have presumed too
much please write me at Galena, otherwise he will expect to hear from you soon.
A. Kent
Lee Center, Nov. 5, 1855
On Saturday I reached here in passing, and inquired respecting the progress being made in the
house of worship and found them discouraged and at a stand still and the missionary at loss to
know whether to leave the field, all for the want of a leader to go forward; for the money to meet
the conditions of the subscription has been put down. So I thought I ought in compliance with a
suggestion from Br. Coe to stop and try what I could do, I visited some of the leading men and
preached on the subject on Sunday and helped to modify their plans so that they have now
resolved to go forward. It seems to be a crisis with them.
Other influences are at work, and if they fail now there is a danger that this church and this
society will go down. I heard their missionary preach a funeral service for a man of 81 and it was
such a sermon as few of our missionaries could equal. It was well done.
If they go through with the Ch. edifice enterprise it will be as I judge because they are afraid
they will lose their minister if they do not.
Yours, etc.,
A. Kent
_______
Naperville, Nov. 14, 1855
Rev. M. Badger, D.D.
Dear Sir,
I take the opportunity to say some things before they are forgotten. I called on Br. Bartlett of
Dupage yesterday and had long conversation with him. He admitted that there were serious
troubles in the church that besides the dissatisfied Elder there were two suspended members but
regarded the rest of the Church as united in him. He admitted that they could not keep up a prayer
meeting and that he had not been in his study much nor visited much during the summer because
his son had married and left him to manage the farm alone and he had been obliged to labour hard
to support his large and dependent family in addition to the salary (400), but he intended to give
himself more to the work in the future. I reminded him that the Society would not be willing to
sustain him if he was labouring on a farm and recommended that he adopt a systematic course of
study and visiting and report every quarter the number of his pastoral visits.
The impression on the minds of some others is that he is not doing much good, and Mr.
Samuel Goodrich, whose life membership I shall herewith report, the disaffected Elder, expressed
the opinion that there was but one man who would be opposed to his leaving.
I have made these statements while they were fresh upon my mind that you might be in
possession of data for judgement. I have often recommended to missionaries the reporting
quarterly of their pastoral visits but as their reports do not pass through my hands I do not know
whether they so report.
I spent the last Sabbath at Wilmington, Will Co., having the day before accompanied Br.
Porter (the pastor) down the R.R. as far as Pontiac where Br. Day laboured some time since. I
found that Br. Murphy (who laboured awhile in Grundy Co. and then returned to the Old School
Body) had located himself near that R.R. station with a view to make a farm. He had organized a
New School Church and was preaching occasionally until they could get another supply, so that
my efforts to supply those destitutions years ago may yet become productive. Br. Porter is worn
out by too much study and labour and asks a dismission and I have expressed all my eloquence in
endeavoring to persuade him to enter that missionary field for which he has rare qualifications
and occupy Pontiac and one or two other stations along the R. Road which promise soon to grow
up to become important centers in that now almost naked prairie.
If we has 10 experienced and able qualified frontier missionaries to occupy as many such
fields as that I surveyed along the G. Alton & ST. Louis R.R. last Saturday at a salary of 1000
each for a period of 5 years I believe that no better investment of $50,000 could be made.
Galena, Nov. 19. After visiting St. Charles, The Hampshire Settlement, Sycamore, Belvidere,
Rockford, and Twelve Mile Grove where I learned that Br. Johnson (who used to be a
missionary) had raised 1000 bushels of wheat this year, I rode 29 miles in a snow storm (and
caught cold) to Lena where I left my buggy and reached home at 8 p.m. with a lame back and the
whole head oppressed with the effects of Saturday';s exposure.
I succeeded in picking up $42 for Mr. North's horse and with 50 dollars more (which I expect)
I shall get off pretty well when I shall have secured the 50 which I loaned.
I came home to make a pause for 3 days when I shall return for my buggy and meet my
appointment at Orangeville where I have attended once in 4 weeks for a year past. And I hope
next Sabbath to administer the Lord's Supper and the ordinance of Baptism to one adult and
several children.
I have had an opportunity to contribute this morning to the building of a church at Cairo. Time
was when Cairo was farther off than New York. But now it is but a days ride.
I have thought seriously of taking a trip to Cairo this winter when I cannot travel in my own
conveyance and to return by way of the Chicago Branch and there explore the Ill. Central R.R.
stopping at various points in order to see more fully the wants and claims of that part of our state.
With sentiments of great respect,
Yours, etc.,
A. Kent
Please charge me 30 dollars to make Sam'l Goodrich, Naperville, a life member, A.H.M.S. on
his own subscription and 30 to make Rev. J. G. Porter of Wilmington the same and send the
Home Missionary to S. Goodrich, Naperville and Dr. P.B. McKay Wilmingtom.
Galena, Nov. 19/55
A. Kent
______
Galena, Ill, Dec. 5, 1855
Br. Coe seems to think that I am overdoing because I ventured to indulge the egotism which is
so natural in man and attempted to amuse the Secretaries amidst the dry details of the office by
giving some incidents of missionary life.
I supposed they would have understood that "vanity is the spice of life". Indeed, I have had a
number of very pleasant visits some months to that "remote and inaccessible region." And have
met my 4 weeks appointments without fail for a year. And so far as I know without materially
interfering with other duties, as I continued generally to take that village (Orangeville) in my way
in going or returning from longer journeys. You have an itching perhaps to look in and see for
yourself what are the results. Very well, you may have the privilege some Sabbath next summer
of filling my appointment. You shall go into the neighborhood of wealthy Pennsylvania Germans
(every family snugly located down by the spring with a large two story red house on the hill side)
and in a neat and well finished church just built by Lutherans and German Reformed Churches,
which for a consideration we Americans occupy once in 4 weeks. You shall preach to a
congregation of Germans and Americans all from Pennsylvania and numbering from 80 to 120,
and then you shall break bread to a little church just organized and some of whom have been
deprived of that ordinance for years. You may estimate there the importance of gathering that
church once in 4 weeks to prayer & conference meeting from a dispersion of several miles in
each direction and thus provoking one another to love and good works under the observation of
some if the wildest varieties calling themselves United Brethren.
You may calculate the influence of this effort on the young people of that German population,
who will inevitably fall in with Americans in despite of the wishes of the older people and you
may estimate its influence on the preacher who needs as much as your self some thing tangible
and visible in ministerial labours. Oh how it encouraged and cheered my spirits ;last Sabbath
week when I Baptized 3 children and 1 prominent man and then administered the Lord's Supper
and heard some mature saints ay that they were refreshed. One other result- they have subscribed
some $50 the first of the year. But I have allowed my pen to run till I have but little room for the
object of my letter which is to say that I try to preach on Home Missions where they wish my
services but when they prefer to dispense with an agent, I leave them to their own course. Many
ministers choose to manage benevolent contributions in their own way. I do not know that the
Presbyterian Churches in this vicinity are doing any less than heretofore for our Society. I know
of no ecclesiastical body cooperating less cordially or manifesting any disposition to act
independently. If it be so it is not revealed to me. There is quite an interference with us on the part
of the Cong. who have gone over to the Free Mission Society (as they call themselves) and whose
agent Rev. S.G. Wright is doing what he can (good Br. as he is) to draw away the churches from a
connection with us.
I have thought of exploring further south this winter by the Ill. Cent. R.R. but it is quite
uncertain.
Yours truly,
A. Kent
I have had a lame back for some weeks, but am now rapidly improving. I omitted one of the
results of my 4 weeks appointments. I can say to those who complain of fatigue and exposure in
excuse for not meeting their appointments. I have not failed in a year. This is so much capital in
my trade.
_______
Galena, Jan. 3, 1856
I think this request ought to be granted and with a little explanation it will speak for itself.
They have passed through sharp trials by reason of sectarian influence.
Br. Baldwin made a great effort to get up a house of worship at Troy Grove and the O.S.
Presb. are like to take the ground. Br. Smith alluded to by Br. Baldwin has gone that way. Almost
discouraged there he went to Mendota and is due time organized a Presb. Ch. of which 8 were
Presb. & 1 Cong. as he told me. Br. Moore alluded to was an Elder at Troy Grove. Now by some
means Br. Baldwin is discountenanced and the church is turned over to Cong. And I wish that the
complaint made in Iowa concerning the organization of a Presb. Ch. at Lyons as reported in the
Cong. Herald a week or two since might be confronted by the facts in relation to the church in
Mendota. Under all circumstances I think this request ought to be granted,
A. Kent
______
[A.M. Dixon to Dr. Badger]
Chatham, Ill., Jan. 5th, 1856
Rev’d. M. Badger & Brethren,
The time for my last report for this ministerial year has come.
I am sorry that I have nothing of special interest to communicate.
We have admitted three persons to the Communion of our church since my last report- some
encouragement.
My congregations increase in size and performance. Tho I have much strong opposition from
Southerners because of my anti-slavery views and preaching- all is still at present.
Our S.S. as usual-Temperance not spoke of-tho pretty much all temperance folks. Land, hogs
& anti-Nebraska are the topics here that shut out Christ & the Gospel.
I do not know how long I shall remain here. If you have a call for a missionary to go where no
one else will go, send me.
Yours,
Alvin M. Dixon
Useless to say my draft very acceptable.
____
January 15, 1856
Dr. Badger
Dear Br.,
I do not know what I have done to Br. Gray of Mt. Carrol. But I will state the case. During the
time that he has been on your books, he has built a house in Savanna and a house in Mt. Carrol
and a church and diverse other works with his own hands pretty much. and I have felt that he did
not give that time to visiting which he ought and at times I have talked freely with the Elder in
whom we both have the utmost confidence as he had requested me to do, respecting the propriety
of his seeking another field.
He lives 35 miles south and I made arrangements with him that he should spend a Sabbath at
Garden Prairie and a Sabbath at Clyde some 20 miles further south and I engaged to supply him. I
preached for him and his wife handed me an application which I handed back for him to forward
by mail because he had not certified to their having fulfilled their pledge to him. And when I
received his letter some of which I will copy, I immediately wrote and stated the reason, c.c.
wherein the application was not complete, but have heard nothing more.
“I think it my duty to tell you kindly yet decidedly that I consider the appointment at Clyde
yours and not mine. I trust you will meet them for I shall not. On returning home and learning the
manner which you treated the application of this church for aid, I find myself reduced to the
resources of the church and meslef if I would retain due respect for either. Whatever else may
seem necessary to be said, I think from your knowledge of the circumstances, you can easily
supply. I will only ass that I suppose I will have to rely exclusively upon about $250 from the
church and my own efforts to sustain my family and meet a debt of about $400. I doubt not the
purity of your motives. But I suppose Dear. Br. that you and I view these things from two very
different stand points, while then I feel determined to cherish the most kind feelings towards you.
I also say with equal firmness that I now retract all my pledges to you and to the Home Miss. Soc.
implied or otherwise which seem to place me at your direction.
Yours affectionately,
C. Gray”
Now if I have treated this Brother (whose extreme sensitivity I have wounded years ago but
which I thought was entirely healed) as badly as his insinuations imply, it may be your duty to
open a correspondence and inquire after your agent for surely the Society in New York are no
was implicated.
Perhaps I should add that garden Prairie & Clyde are two feeble churches which Br. Walker
served before he removed to Iowa and Br. Gray expressed the opinion that Br. Walker had not
done his duty there, and the arrangement alluded to in his letter was a plan of mine into which Br.
Gray entered cordially, to have them enjoy each a communion season which they had not enjoyed
for a good many months before Br. Walker left them.
A. Kent
______
Rockford, Jan. 26, 1856
Dear Brehtren,
I was so happy as to meet Mr. Chapman whose name is appended to this application at Mr.
Emerson’s and made such inquiries as satisfied me that this request ought to be granted.
I remarked to Mr. C. that a minister in these days of prosperity and the high price of
provisions ought to have more than 400. He replied that he had a farm which was worked by his
boys but that it yielded him something toward his support, and I replied that the society were very
jealous of ministers working on a farm.
He expressed the opinion that he was devoting his time and energies to his appropriate work
which afforded me the opportunity of saying that it could not be wrong for a minister to furnish a
farm for the employment of his sons if he does not occupy his own mind and hands with it.
Yours, etc.
A. Kent
P.S. I am here to present the cause of Home Miss. in both Churches tomorrow.
_____
Galena, Feb. 29, 1856
I wrote some time since enclosing a letter from Mr. Gray in which he declines receiving
further aid. I have called on him since and find that I had been somewhat misunderstood and after
a full and free conversation I thought it my duty to encourage this renewal of their application..
They have had very serious difficulties to encounter and I should be afraid of the
consequences (to the missionary himself and the church) of refusing aid. And therefore I
recommend that $200 be afforded them and I shall hope that my plain talk will yet procure good
effects.
I recommend that the commission date back to the beginning of the missionary year.
A. Kent
___
Galena, Feb. 19, 1856
Rev. Milton Badger D.D.
Dear Sir,
I left home last Wednesday p.m. and rose 34 miles part way to my field. Thursday I rode 15
miles, visited 6 families and preached in the evening and though it was exceedingly cold I had a
congregation of 50.
Friday. I visited 8 families and preacher at another school house and a congregation of about
50.
Saturday was unwell and could not eat nor visit but I was enabled to attend and conduct the
payer meeting at 2 p.m. and preach to about 25 in an open and delapidated schoolhouse on a very
cold evening.
Sabbath. Being recovered by severe abstinence I preached morning and at candle light at the
Lutheran and German reformed “holy & Beautiful House” and has a congregation of 100 and
nearly as many in the evening although it was so cold and blustering that but few women could
attend. This included most of the leading men of those denominations.
And on Monday quite well I started early and with good sleighing I reached home (50 miles)
in 12 hours having called on and consulted Br. Loughlin of Nora and dined with Br. Blackstone
of Br. Reynolds Monticello church ...to consult with him in relation to removing their centre to
the Apple River Depot for if they remain mid way between 2 depots they always be weak and
need Home Miss aid but if they can be persuaded to build at that little centre they will make a
strong church and anticipate other denominations.
I have given this explore of 5 1/2 days as a specimen of my practice one in 4 weeks at
Orangeville in Stephenson County and vicinity (not the Orangeville where Br. Sipes formerly
preached).
I usually take the moon light week and visit and preach on 3 week days and this labour to
kindle an interest which may draw them to the church at the centre on the Sabbath.
Had I not been sick I might have made up in all 20 visits. I preached 5 times and put in
circulation at a former visit some 30 or 40 religious papers.
We have formed a little church of 7 members which I trust will soon be doubled and they have
paid me on subscription for the first year ending in November last $50.50.
And I have met every four week appointment hitherto though I hear very frequently from
other missionaries that they have failed on account of the very cold and stormy Sabbaths of which
we have has a succession this winter.
It is now more than 8 weeks since we have had exceedingly cold weather without those
softening intermissions which we always expect. There was no “January Thaw”. I never knew the
like before. I have made no mention of the above 50.50 in the accounts rendered as it would not
pay my expenses for freight and travelling.
A. Kent
_____
[H.H. Hayes to Sec. A.H.M.S.]
Remarks
Rock Island, March 4, 1856
I have been in the service of the Soc. 7 years & poorly in the service of God during that time.
My labours have been blessed to some extent. This church has more than doubled in strength and
numbers during the last three years. My service under your wing closed the 15 of Oct. last. I feel
a melancholy sensation pervading my heart in making this last report. It is parting with an old and
tired friend & under God the dearest friendship bound by ties of Christian faith and animated by
Christian love. My cordial affection to you will expire with my but kindle again on the shores of
eternity.
Nothing special has occurred during the last year. Your agent in Iowa has taken me to task
with some severity for sending Presbyterian ministers to congregational churches & favoring
Presbyterian organization where he does not desire it. I never have made any distinction in
directing ministers but always made any distinction in directing ministers, but always sought the
supply of destitute fields whether the minister or field was Presbyterian or Congregational.
Yours affectionately,
H.H. Hayes
____
[Application of Winslow, Il.]
Galena, March 6, 1856
Along with this application I hand you Mr. Powell's explanation. Things mover very
moderately there “as with the people so with the priest.”
They have been threatening for two years to build a church and I am apprehensive they may
still fail.
But I think $450 is too little in these times for a minister living in a village. And in view of all
the circumstances as they lie before my own mind I should recommend that he receive the
amount asked.
Sincerely,
A. Kent
_____
Galena, March 7, 1856
Dear Sir,
In reviewing the past year there is not much of a marked character to be rehearsed but a
condition of general prosperity in the State of progress in the church which should call forth our
devout acknowledgement.
The number of our missions is less than in former years. Some churches are vacant. Four have
become self-supporting churches, Some have chosen to transfer their relations to another society
(which professes to preach the whole gospel.)
One of our missionaries has died. Br. Copeland of Genesseo died about 6 months since, and
several others have left the field or have been laid aside by ill-health. Efficient men and those best
qualified for missionary service refuse to become missionaries on account of the stinted support
which our society affords, for while the salary is raised but one fifth, the price of almost
everything they need for support of their families has advanced 100 per cent within five years and
it should be noted too that the farmer would give freely to the missionary of his surplus: produce
which he could not obtain enough to pay him for conveying it to market 100 miles distant. But
now where he has a ready market and 2 or 3 prices at the depot not 10 miles distant to which he
can go and return without expense, he evinces less disposition to anticipate the missionary’s
wants.
Very many of our missionary fields now are in those little villages growing up on the R.
Roads where everything is bought up before he can lay in his supplies, and where rents are
enormously high.
It must be remembered too that poor human nature (some grains of which still adhere to our
missionaries) finds it harder to endure these privations when they hear of the large salaries of city
ministers and when they see their neighbors growing rich around them, than if they were all
called to suffer together from poverty and want.
According to the estimate I have made we have 40 missionaries who are labouring in 71
missionary districts. There have been 10 churches organized and 5 have become self-supporting
Churches, 6 houses of worship have been built and one repaired (and quite a number have been
erected by churches which were once aided by our society) during the year on the field assigned
to me. There are 2 churches who report revivals which resulted in some 18 or 20 converts and
several others are enjoying a revival and vigorous piety which gives promise of future
advancement.
There are 15 or 20 feeble churches that are languishing for want of the bread of life and they
have no prospect of a supply because they cannot hold out as great inducements as larger
churches to those who are in search of fields of ministerial labour.
But while we regret so great a destitution and regret that many young communities are
growing into importance without any adequate moral influence we cannot but acknowledge the
good hand of God upon us in that we can count up 32 strong and healthy churches of our
denominations which have started into being since I came into this district and which are now
able to sustain themselves and contribute liberally to send the gospel to the regions beyond.
If the other parts of the state are as well supplied it will afford an average of more than one
every county in the state.
But who can measure the whole amount of good which will accrue to this great
commonwealth from these perennial fountains of moral virtue distributed over these immense
prairies, opened too during the first 20 of its settlement and destined to continue their full flow of
blessing as long as that grace which first planted them shall continue to flow down from above.
Of if He that converteth one sinner shall save a soul from death and hide a multitude of sins
what will be the sum total of all the sinners converted by the labors and sacrifices of all these
churches in all future time and what a broad stream of salvation will be the result of so many
rivulets where they are united in their progress and finally swallowed up in one great sea of
celestial glory.
A. Kent
1855 Account of A. Kent with A.H.M.Society From March 1855 to March
1856
Feb. Waukegan
$23.00
Ap. Coll at Hampton
June John Ruth
7.33
10.00
July First Presb Ch Galena
Second do
do
Miss Sarah Felt
75.50
101.00
1.00
Draft for Mr. North
100.00
Life members Goodrich
& Porter
60.00
____________________________________
1856
Rockford 1 Cong. Ch.
26.50
T.D. Robertson of Rockford to
contitute Elizabeth A. Robertson life
member
30.00
March 2 Coll at Belvidere Presb. Ch 68.00
these last three not reported _____
$502.85
Please charge me with the balance as Donation to A.H.M.S. which will settle my account for
the year
A. Kent
And I desire to recognize God’s hand in sustaining me so that while many piour pastors have
been sick and others have frozen to death and many have frozen their feet, I have been exposed to
all this cold which is regarded as without a parallel and have not sustained any injury nor even
has a severe cold during the winter.
____
Galena, March 11, 1856
Rev. Mr. Coe
Dear Br.,
Rev. Mr. Raymond of Shullsburg, Wisconsin wishes to obtain a box of clothing and I think he
is fairly entitled to it in consideration of the high price of everything about Shullsburg. His family
consists of himself, wife and 3 boys ages 8, 5, &3.
They need most of all clothing for himself. An over coat stout and warm, also pants, coat and
vest and any thing else that comes to hand to make a box. He is a man of ordinary size and wife
corresponds to him in size.
I hope you will be able to furnish him the things which he needs.
Yours, Etc.,
A. Kent
_____
March 14, 1856
Rev. Dr. Badger,
I had well nigh forgotten a promise to the widow of a missionary who once had an agency for
the west that I would send her the Home Missionary.
Please direct it to her son, Ed. H. Avery, Auburn, N.Y. and charge it tom me if it be not proper
to send it gratuitously.
A. Kent
_____
March 18
Being left by the cars last Thursday, I rode in my buggy 45 miles, met my appointment in the
evening and preached to about 40 next day, visited and preached to about 50. Saturday attended
prayer meeting. Sabbath Cong. in the morning 88 men 72 women, in the evening to the large
Lutheran and Ger. Reformed Ch was crowded say from 250 to 300. There I reach many who I do
not otherwise have such exhibitions of the truth. Rode home yesterday.
A.K.
_____
[Application of the South Ottawa Presbyterian Church]
Cairo, March 29, 1856
Your note reached me here and I would reply that I was at Ottawa some months ago,
conversed with Br. Whittling and called on Mr. Mason and learned from his wife that they had a
prospect of a supply and as I cannot now visit them, I think it is safe to hand on the commission. I
hope to be at Ottawa in May, i.e., if the Gen. Association meets there and shall be informed more
fully.
A. Kent
P.S. I know nothing of the Missionary, but I have to reason to doubt the propriety of aiding
that church to the full amount they ask.
A. Kent
--------Cairo, March 29, 1856
Rev. Dr. Badger
Dear Sir,
I improve the opportunity to write a line to say that I have made a move to the south, with a
view to informing myself in relation to the missionary work in all the region along the road, i.e.,
I.C. R.R. And shall be able to furnish some facts which may interest you when I return.
I shall only say now generally that I have been greatly interested in my tour, and have found
quite an awakening at Springfield and Jacksonville with some striking conversions and I also
attended 2 meetings with Br. Gordon & Tunny at Vandalia.
I have been encouraged with the prospect of occupying by our ministry more of these DepotCentres of influence than I expected.
Tomorrow I preach in our church. Br. Post’s child is very sick and he could not leave
Jonesboro to fill his engagement here.
Yours in haste,
A. Kent
It was a stormy day and but about 40 attended my preaching at Cairo.
Monday Morning, Carbondale 60 miles north of Cairo. As I could not get my letter mailed in
the office on Sat. I will add somewhat.
I have been impressed with the importance of the early occupancy by our Missionaries of the
business points which are springing up along the great R. Road between Cairo and Wisconsin
amounting in both its branches to 700 miles and giving an average of 8 miles between the depot
stations. The most of the country along this road was located in unoccupied prairie and the
immense amount of land falling to the I.C. R.R. is being rapidly sold to actual settlers and they
are required to improve one tenth every year. Hence of necessity improvements must be
exceedingly rapid- and these little centres must do the business of the road and of the vicinity and
must command attention much as they would do if they were so many Islets lying equal distant
between N.Y. and Liverpool. Take a single example. A company from Vermont have bot up
40,000 acres which will secure the breaking up of 4000 acres this year at a point to be called
Rutland, some 25 miles south of LaSalle. In view of these facts I started to explore and am happy
to state that of the 50 depots on the west branch, 20, including the more important ones, are
occupied by the denominations we represent and several more will be seized upon as soon as
practicable.
The eastern branch my limited time will not allow me to explore. I should add that our Old
School brethren have established themselves at 6 or 7 principle points.
Cairo- ought soon to command the whole time of a strong man. They have now a fine church
that would seat 400 built by contributions from other churches. They need a Paul at Athens.
I have been disappointed and encouraged to find so may of the prominent points occupied by
our men and I hope that they will yet be brought under evangelical influence.
It seems to me that a 2000 dollar man employed in traversing our R. Road constantly would be
a good investment. I would take 1/10 of the stock.
______
[J.R. Dunn to M. Badger, Wenona, Marshall Co., Ill., April 3, 1856]
...Our spiritual interests are by no means encouraging. The public mind id diverted & intense
excitement prevails on the slavery question and the outrages perpetrated in Kansas and in
Congress. All that we can do is to keep things together until the question is settled. We are
suffering greatly in consequence of the stand taken Dr. Parker & others at the last meeting of the
“General Assembly” on the slavery question. Every Sabbath School Scholar in this section of the
country knows that slavery is anti-Christian in all its aspects; and every infidel knows that
Christianity should be anti-slavery. And know to hear a Dr. in the Presbyterian Church advocate
slavery as a Bible Institution, affords a fine argument for the rejection of the whole subject, and in
the mind of every child is a mighty stumbling block. And besides the old settlers remember that
when E. P. Lovejoy was hunted down and slain by slavery propagandists at Alton that same Mr.
Parker identified himself with the mob and declared in a public speech “that is was wrong for a
men to enter a community and propagate sentiments contrary to the will of that community.”
These thing work untold mischief in our churches and amongst the impertinent. To gain the
confidence of the world, we must condemn all sin. No sinner can respect a dishonest & halfhearted opponent.
I fear we shall be able to report but little progress in spiritual things until the public mind
becomes settled on this exciting subject....
Sincerely yours in Christ,
J.R. Dunn
___
[The Presb. Ch. of Waltham, Ill. apply for $200 aid in support of Rev. James Wilson, 12 mo.,
from April 1, 1856.]
Galena, April 15/56
I deeply sympathize with that church and the former minister in the severe trials they have
endured from sectarian strife and I cannot withhold my approval of this application and yet I shall
be surprised if the present incumbent gives satisfaction so as to secure a home there after the first
year. A good man, though he be, yet he has hitherto been unsuccessful in missionary service since
came into our state.
A. Kent
___
Galena, Ap. 15
Dear Br. Coe,
I have thought often of your caution not to over work in going to my appointments once in 4
weeks at Orangeville, but I have become too much interested to be willing to give up the ground
until some one can be found to take my place and therefore will give you a brief note in relation
to my last visit there.
I left home on Thursday last spent the night with Br. Raymond who has a precious work of
grace in his Monticello Ch. Friday I rode 30 miles and preached a lecture preparatory ay 2 and
preached ay a school house in the evening. Saturday I rested and Sunday I preached twice and
administered the Lord’s Supper. I had a congregation of 150- much as large as the Presbyterian
congregations in this city and Monday I rode home 46 miles in my buggy. And ought I give up a
field of so much promise?
Yours, etc.,
A. Kent
P.S. I forgot to say that Saturday night I preached for the Lutheran Minister and had a
congregation of 50 or 60.
------Galena, April 16/56
I have just returned from Presbytery held at Elizabeth. I think it evident that Br. Smith is
gaining ground there and at Plum River, and ought to be again commissioned. I did not approve
of his going to Elizabeth but he has succeeded beyond my expectations. I think that the sum asked
is as little as will suffice for his support.
A. Kent
____
[Letter to Kent from H. Newhall]
Galena, April 17th, 1856
Rev. A. Kent
Dear Sir:
By a deed dated April 30th, 1839 you made over to Horatio Newhall, George W. Fuller, James
Spare & Reuben W. Brush
Lot No. 9, Block 1
East half of Lot 11, Block 1
Lot 4 in Block 37 East Fevre River
Lot 7, Block 4 West of Fevre River
also all your right & title to a certain tract of land lying N.W. of Galena on the Mineral Point
Road containing 40 acres, claimed as pre-emption claim on the N.E. Quarter of Sec. 14 Town 28
N of range 1 west.
The above is deeded in trust for the use & purpose hereinafter declared, and for no other. The
trustees were authorized to rent for a term of years not exceeding 20, or sell at private or public
sale absolutely upon such terms as they deemed meet.
The net proceeds of rents & or sale of Lot 9 in B 11 also of E half of lot 11 in B1 to be paid
over to the American Board of Foreign Missions and the Am. Home Missionary Society for the
support of foreign and domestic missions.
The net proceeds of Lot 4, B. 37 & lot 7, B 34 & the tract of lands of 40 acres to be paid over
to the Am. Board of Foreign Missions for support of Missionaries in their employment, or for the
support of preparation of young men for the ministry as said trustees may, in their judgement,
think best.
This deed of trust was recorded Dec. 29, 1841 on pages 25, 26 & 27 in Book F of records of
deeds.
Your pre-emption claim to the 40 acre lot was decided against you by the court. The other lots
were sold and the money paid over to you.
If you should die, the missionary Society could compel me to pay over to them the amount of
the sales, or any individual some ten or twenty years hence when we have both passes away may
see the record of the Deed “unsatisfied” and suppose that I have perverted the funds to my own
use.
It is necessary that satisfaction should be entered on the margin of the record by an authorized
agent of those societies. Will you please see Mr. Hempstead & ask him how the thing can be
done.
I have put this is writing that you may have the whole transaction before you & act upon it at
your leisure.
Yours truly,
H. Newhall
_____
Galena, April 26, 1856
Rev. Dr. Badger
Dear Br.,
The enclosed letter is evidentily intended as an application for Home Miss. Soc. aid, which I
very cordially endorse and will state my reasons.
I met with Mr. Frost when I was at Wenona with Br. Dunn on my way down into Egypt, He
introduced Br. frost as having been a Methodist preacher but was to labour with service of the
A.H.M.S. if commissioned. I saw nothing exceptionable in his first appearance.
The points named are Minonk, Panola & Kappa, three stations on the Ill. Cent. R.R. They are
midway between LaSalle and Bloomington. Like many others starting up like Jonah's goad in the
naked prairie and yet scarcely 3 years old, containing as I was told Minonk, 80, Panola 80 and
Kappa 150 souls. I recommended that for the present he should preach at each of the three
villages., that we thus preoccupy the ground until experiment shall develop the prospects of each.
In my tour south I endeavored to get the names of some one good man at each of these
stations with whom I might correspond if it became necessary. A Presbyterian by the name of
Gaskin at Panola and H.D. Cook is a Presbyterian residing at Kappa. I laid my plan to spend a
Sabbath at Minonk but was induced to stop short and take up my quarters with Mr. Saunders
(whose wife is a daughter of Br. Lippincott) at Mowequa.
By the way it might facilitate your knowledge of Ill. to get a little pocket map of all the R.
Roads and stations in the state.
I found it very convenient in my tour.
Should you want still more light< I think that Br. Dunn would go out and visit all or some of
those stations by exchange.
Yours very truly,
A. Kent
P.S. I think the commission should date back to March 1. Perhaps it might be well to restrict
his residence ..his field for one year. But it is extremely difficult to get a place to put a family in
those little western villages which spring up so suddenly.
_______
[Pertaining to the application of Br. Gilbert at Crete, Ill.]
April 28, 1856
I reluctantly recommend the renewal of this commission because I do not feel at liberty to
withhold my approval and the amount is not very large, bit still I suppose they are able to do
more if they should exert themselves as they might do. Probably they think Br. Gilbert is settled
down and cannot easily be routed because they have received aid a good while and very possibly
because they think if you refuse them the A. M. Association will be ready to receive them.
Eagle Point, Carrol Co., June 25/56. After writing so fay I concluded to visit Crete, though I
had felt that I could not take so long a journey and meet other engagements, but finding so many
fingers of Providence pointing that way I undertook and have accomplished one of the most
fatiguing journeys (on account of the heat). I conversed freely with Br. Gilbert and we rode out 3
miles to call on Br. Cushing the leading man. They are weakened by removals - some of them
have gone to the R.R. Stations on each side. The Germans are there as in many places buying out
the Americans and I therefore recommend this application.
A. Kent
Perhaps the most important thing was prompting Br. G. to preach but once a day at Crete and
having a second service at the stations on each side alternatively on the R.R.
____
Galena, Ill., May 6, 1856
Rev. D.B. Coe
Dear Br.,
I spent the last Sabbath at Freeport preached and took up a collection. The next I expect to
spend at Orangeville. Your letter is before me and the ones of June last alluding to the same
subject. I did not regard the first as any other than a caution not to overdo. The last clearly shows
that your honorable fraternity regard my practice of regularly supplying any destitute church as
not being the most judicious use of my time. And in relation to that I have supposed that I was but
carrying out my own views of an agent’s duty as expressed before I was appointed. Which was
that his field should be so limited that besides attending to the other duties properly belonging to
him he should occasionally throw himself into a particular locality and at his discretion spend 1,2
or 10 Sabbaths until he could put things in shape for another man and find the man to occupy it.
Now there are some peculiarities about Orangeville & such a providential opening to have a large
house and a large congregation furnished to my hand as caused me to spend every fourth Sabbath
there until I can find a man to take my place, and which I have been all the time and am still
trying to do. Perhaps none of you but Br. B. are aware that I insisted at first on having but a small
field (23 counties). I supposed that I had been over that small field about as often as was
expedient, and whn of late I have written to you repeatedly respecting exploring farther south and
reporting what I had recently done in that way, I have been unable to provoke any reply.
It is gratifying to know that “my services” are held in high esteem, but in referring to the
diferent branches of an agent’s duty: 1st In presenting the calims of the Home Miss. Soc. I have
not very much left me to do, for the smaller churches will hardly raise enough to pay expenses of
an agent visiting them, and the larger churches feel or I imagine they feel that I am an old
fashioned preacher whom they do not care to hear, and all i can do is to prompt the pastor to
preach on the subject. 2nd: “in prospecting” I think I have been doing that very thing at
Orangeville and I regard it as one of my happiest efforts. 3rd: Spending time with a missionary
whose people are not doing all they ought. I think probably I have not done all I ought and will
consider that more hereafter.
You certainly magnify my office when you put it above that of any pastor of a single chrch,
while I have undervalued it and felt that I was doign so little that I wanted to have a particular
charge of my own in order to feel that I was not entirely useless. I hope you will give me your
views still further as your recent occasion.
There is an incidental good deducible from my supplying a church so diatant for near 2 years
without a failure it affords evidence that appointments may be met to those who complain of
having to ride so fay and who frequently fail to meet them and when they are not more than 10 or
20 miles distant and such things are quite common, and they destroy a missionary;s influence and
efficiency and here let me say that I wish you could adopt the method of having your missionaries
report the doings of each Sabbath. I think you would soon have facts respecting individuals that
do not appear in the reports which deal in genuine statements. Some of them preach but once a
day and some them lose an entire Sabbath so frequently that you would be surprised. This is my
opinion but I have no means of know[ing] definitely because the reports do not pass through my
hands and if I ask their people they are afraid to say anything to the agent lest they should become
reporters.
I have this put down hastily some of the thoughts suggested by your letter and I shall still try
to get some one to supply my place at Orangeville, but I do not feel willing to retreat and leave
the field vacant at least before the end of the year which will be in November next.
I have supposed that I spent as many Sabbaths in performing the duties of a travelling agent as
other agents do who have no such pastoral charge, but I may be under a mistake for I have never
made the inquiry.
The annual reports will be forth coming soon and it is but few that are called for in Chicago.
Please sent 2/3 or 3/4 directly to me and let me know whether you wish me to supply
missionaries and ministers south of bounds of my agency.
Yours truly,
A. Kent
___
Galena May 8, 1856
Having considered the matter as this Com. of Missions did, I wrote to Br. Jessup making
inquiries and I a=enclose his answer whichj places the subject fairly before you. I intimated to
him that I should visit him soon, but it is doubtful. On the whole, I am in favor of granting this
request.
A. Kent
_____
[Application for Cong. Ch. at Crystal Lake]
Galena, May 19, 1856
I cheerfully recommend this application and trust the anticipations they cherish may be
realized.
A. Kent
____
Galena, May 27, 1856
Messers. Rev. M. Badger, D.D. and Mr. Almon Merovin
Sirs:
The accompanying papers will give you information of my purpose to contribute some what to
the societies you represent. But as in the course of business different direction was given to the
avails of these lots and I had forgotten the circumstances until my attention was called to it by Dr.
Newhall’s letter, and as I have (in connection with the draft enclosed in favour of the
A.B.C.F.M.) in my judgement contributed an equal amount to these societies in other ways, I
request you gentlemen in behalf of those societies to execute this paper and you will oblige yours,
etc.
A. Kent
[accompanied by a partially legible affidavit excusing Kent’s obligation to “certain benevolent
institutions” for the sale of the properties]
_____
[Alvah Day to Aratus Kent]
Lisbon, June 3rd, 1856
Dear Mr. Kent,
Your see I am preaching half time in Nettle Creek. Br. James Laughead came for me. I went
and spent a Sabbath there and have concluded to bestow half my labours on that field. I have full
congregations there and the people appear quite interested in having me preach to them. The
church is now small but a number will soon unite with it if I continue there. A number of good
families have moved in recently and the prospect of building up a good church is better than ever
before. I saw Mr. F. Bascom yesterday at Morris. He is labouring in your field for Home
Missions to promote the same great cause- to fight the same battles and mine the same trophiesonly he marches under a little different banner - one a little whiter- shining a little brighter with
the Sun of Liberty- I should think that Br. Bascom & Br. Turner would feel rather odd in standing
side ways or with their backs turned to the A.H. Missionary Society on this field when it has
fought so many successful battles and won so many glorious victories.
Please let me know your actions on this application.
Your Brother, etc.,
Alvah Day
[annotated by Kent]
I regard it as utterly useless to attempt to vindicate the A.H.M.S. against the A.M.As. and
those head strong abolitionists who are wiser than 10 men that can render a reason.
A.K.
____
[Rev. A.D. Laughlin to Aratus Kent]
Nora, Ill., June 3rd, 1856
Rev. A. Kent
Dear Brother,
Yours of the 27th of May is before me. I confess I was somewhat surprised ay what seemed to
me to be four grave charges preferred against me altho you speak of them as impressions you
have received since you saw me. They are 1st that I have not given a due proportion of my time
to the S[cales] Mound Chh, 2nd that I have not visited from house to house as much as necessary
in order to render my preaching most successful in gathering in outsiders 3rd that I have failed
more frequently than I should to meet my Sabbath arrangements and 4th that I am in the habit of
going and returning in the cars on the Sabbath.
In relation to the last specification it has been a matter of earnest inquiry in my own mind I
cannot see that the act in itself is any worse than to spend the same time in harnessing my horse
and driving to my appointment but I confess that in its influence it may be worse and for this
reason I have not in a single instance that I can recall either go out or return on the Sabbath when
to my mind there did not seem a sufficient reason in the condition of my family for it. I think it is
hardly a fair representation to you that I am in “the habit” of travelling on the Sabbath and I think
who ever have you that impression must have known my reason in almost every instance in
which I have done so. In relation to the other matters specified I can only say that if the S. Mount
Chh or any portion of them were dissatisfied (as they certainly ought to have been if they did not
receive their due proportion of my labor or if any Sabbath services have been rendered
comparatively useless by my lack of visiting or if I have so frequently failed to fulfil my Sabbath
appointments, why did they not have candor enough to state distinctly to me their dissatisfaction
when the question of my laboring with them another year was under consideration?
I travelled through the cold several times and when I got there found that the house could not
be used and once or twice had letters from there informing me that it would be useless for me to
go as no place of meeting could be obtained. By reference to my record book I find that I have
preached during the past year two more sermons at S. Mound that I have at Nora. During the
series of meetings there I visited all I was able to visit and preach every evening. I am sorry to
think that any one should have thoughtfully made such impressions to your mind and I thank you
for stating these things to me as it will enable me to be on my guard in future. If, however, you
think my course so reprehensible that I am unworthy of the confidence of the H. M. I do not wish
you to endorse the application sent to you by these chhs for I appeal to the searcher of hearts that
I have no desire to appear in a more favorable light than I deserve before that society. I know that
where such interests are concerned that Soc. which is doing so much for this land ought to have to
have men at will fulfill the high and holy trust committed to them with fidelity, men who watch
for souls as they that must give account. I am so conscious of wasted ??? for this great work that I
should have engaged in some other employment years ago but that I have seemed to be shut up to
this by the providence of God and I frankly confess to you that no employment to my mind can
compare with the missionary of the gospel where the necessary qualifications exist.
In relation to the defect in the application I can only say the reason my certificate was not
appended was that both churches were in arrears with me I could not say anything different from
the fact I suppose they will fulfill their pledges. I read part of your letter to the S. Mound Ch. last
Sabbath and they disclaim having made any complaint in relation to the matters you mention.
Yours truly,
A.D. Laughlin
____
[refers to the Barrington, Illinois application for aid]
Galena, June 4, 1856
I thought a year ago and still think that Br. Dickinson ought to leave B. I shall so advise him.
They appear to act on the presumption that he has bot a farm and built a house and it is no matter
whether they make any effort. The accompanying notes from Br. D. and Br. Savage are
corrobatory of my opinion.
Br. Dickinson is worthy of better treatment I think.
A. Kent
P.S. And if left vacant awhile they do better by another man.
_____
Eagle Point, June 25/56
Rev. Dr. Badger
Sir,
I shall presume that you will be glad to know some things that I have picked up in one of the
most fatiguing tours in my own conveyance across the state expecting to reach home today but
for a powerful rain which is hailed with joy and enthusiasm almost.
The country was suffering fearfully for want of rain, but last Sabbath while the church were at
prayer (where I was) a little shower was given.
I left home on the 13th to spend the Sab. with the church at Clyde (scotch) which has suffered
form neglect of Br. Walker as I judge by what I hear and by the conduct of one of its Elders in
selling slaves at the South which came to his wife by will. He has been arraigned and tried by our
Presb., and an appeal taken to Synod.
We need a man to be stationed in that growing settlement. I found a Br. Butterfield (who has
bot a large farm in sight of the house I occupy just now) had made an appointment for the Sab
and I preached over to Como, and stayed with Br. North. Mon I passed Sterling which is growing
rapidly and where an energetic man might take the lead of all other denom. I called on Br.
Phillips and spent the night with Br. Jessup. Called next day on Br. Bergen who entered wild
lands which have recently become valuable (say $10,000) from the proximity to a R.R. Station.
He is farming largely but threatens to sell out and give himself wholly to his work. I do not say
thus to curtail the appropriation to him but I should not recommend a renewal of his commission
unless the course of his conduct is changed in these respects. I heard a good many things said of
him which I attributed in part to other motives than good ones.
It gave me particular satisfaction to know that a Br. Whitamore was recently stationed at
Pontiac, Dwight and Gardner, 3 depots on the R.R. with very flattering prospects and the more so,
as I am now convinced it was not labour lost to sustain Br. Day at Pontiac some time ago. It is
also not easy to get a man to go to a place which has such a reputation for being sickly as Pontiac
has. A Church is organized at Pontiac and another at Dwight.
After consulting with Brs. Grant & Loss (neighbors) I spent Sabbath in the parish of Br.
Bartlett at Dupage and I convinced him to sell his farm - but this will come up again and I
forbear.
Yours truly,
A. Kent
_____
[Respecting Rev. A. Lyman]
June 27- 56
This letter has just come to hand and it leaves the matter somewhat in the dark.
The doubt in my mind is whether if Br. Lyman should leave another man might not occupy
the post who would command a larger measure of his support from the people.
A. Kent
___
Chemung, McHenry Co., July 12/56
Rev. Dr. Badger
Dear Sir,
Having heard recently that Dr. Neal had left preaching last March, I came here to spend the
Sabbath and inquire after this poor afflicted church. Afflicted in having the ministrations of Home
Missionaries who have not built them up. And as I sent you a letter to show that Dr. Neal
sustained a good character in the estimation of Dr. Duffield, I am constrained to put you on your
guard in any future operations by saying he has left a very bad odor here.
They tell some things and insinuate partly some and refer to letters which he wrote to a young
lady in the neighborhood he carelessly dropped but which I could not get hold of. But the woman
where he boarded said she thought his besetting sin was- the love of women which I quote
because I suppose that gives a key to the whole matter. And I thought I ought to put you in
communication with this prejudice.
James. C. Thompson, the Elder, allowed me to refer to him in proof that Mr. Neal’s conduct
renders him unworthy to be employed by the A. H.M.S.
I intend to drop a line to Dr. Duffield.
A. Kent
____
Galena, July 23/56
I was at Middleport some 3 years hence in the dead of winter, it was then in the midst of a
great and dreary wilderness, and I recollect well passing over a prairie of 15 or 18 miles which
met with nothing but little snow birds flitting along the dire trail in the snow before me. Now by
reason of R.R. facilities it is becoming a populous region and every acre worth probably from 10
to 25 dollars. And yet no minister for 40 miles around. I recommend the appropriation. I have
heard a good report of Mr. palmer. He is a member of Wabash Presb.
A. Kent
____
Galena, July 23/56
After considering carefully this application and the note from Br. Baldwin which accompany
it and the trails Br. B. has gone through since he left this church, i.e., at the church in Troy Grove
which the Old School Presbyterians have wrested away from him after we (New School men) had
contributed liberally to build, I recommend the appropriation asked.
A. Kent
_____
Galena, Aug. 9, 1856
I am acquainted with the missionary and with the Elders and know somewhat of the
circumstances of the case. Wenona is a specimen of what I [have] just been writing of villages
springing up as if by magic around these depots. When I was there not a house was visible for 6
or 8 miles around (out of this little village) but in a few years there will be a crowded population
about that center, I predict. How important that Br. Dunn was first on the ground. I recommend
the application most heartily.
A. Kent
The missionary has gotten up a house for himself and sanctuary during the year.
____
Galena, Aug. 9, 1856
Rev. Mr. Badger, D.D.
Dear Sir,
Accompanying this you will see the action of a Com. consisting of Br. A.L. Chapin of Beloit,
Wm. H. Brown of Chicago and T.D. Robertson of Rockford, appointed to inquire into the
expediency of creating a new office and to define the duties of the incumbent.
The committee are to report at an adjourned meeting to be held on the 14th of Oct. or
immediately after the meeting of Synod.
Having been repeatedly solicited before I have some reason to presume the Board of Trustees
will adopt this report if they have any reason to expect that it will open a way for relief from their
pecuniary embarrassments which are very serious, and yet the institution has acquired a high
character and is doing great good. The principal reports 25 hopeful conversions this year.
I have never given them any encouragement for a consciousness of my utter incompetency has
led me to shrink from it. But the matter is pressed upon me now in a way that I cannot dismiss it
without consideration.
It is true that I am in one corner of my field and obliged to be absent from home much longer
at a time than if I resided in some more central position.
And such are now the facilities for rapid travelling that an agent of your society could occupy
the whole state as his field without being absent more than 2 or 3 weeks at a time. And there are
parts of the state which (unless another agent is employed) will suffer unless you have an efficient
agent who possesses a sort of ubiquity which at my age I do not feel willing to assume.
The Alton Presbytery is doing well at the south and other Brethren in the Central parts may
afford material aid. But you that are at a distance cannot well conceive of the overwhelming
importance of having some large-hearted man travelling these Rail Roads and marking the
progress of these young towns and cities growing up around the depots, as it were by magic. And
affording the most inviting openings for a missionary effort which will most certainly be
improved by other denominations if our men are not on hand to seize the favorable moment.
The field I occupy is now better supplied than it was 10 years ago and to a considerable
extent, things have assumed their type and an exploring agent for this district is not as much
needed as formerly. But on the other hand, I have a great repugnance to undertake that difficult
work of Superintendent of Rockford Female Sem.,271[271] and am not adapted to any part of it,
while I am familiar with Home Miss. Agency. Old men do not easily adapt themselves to new
business. We do not feel disposed to exchange Galena for a new home and we think that our
extensive acquaintance affords us some facilities for usefulness that we should forfeit by a
removal. I have thus spread out this matter before you, for I did not feel at liberty to move on it
without your knowledge. Please return this paper soon.
I have another matter to which I would call attention. I see by Home Miss. that Mr. Barret is
commissioned for Minnesota. But I have not been informed, as I requested, whether your com.
voted them the full sum (200) which they asked.
Sill reported to Chapin that Kent was considering the Rockford job and looked “at the whole subject in a more
favorable light” than before. But she corrected predicted Kent would decline but wrote Chapin; “I would suggest that
you write him, bringing forth your strong resons, ere he makes a final decision.” Sill to Chapin 16 Aug. 1856. Rockford
College Archives.
271[271]
I am beginning to think that some of your committee ought to reside at the west. It is doubtless
the purpose and virtually the pledge of the society that their missions should “live of the grape” or
that they should be enabled to purchase wholesome food and decent clothes for their families and
keep out of debt while that give themselves wholly to their work.
It should be observed that the Rail Road Era has wrought an entire revolution in this State and
brought is so near to market that produce has become a cash article and this operates disastrously
upon Home Miss (& other salaried men) consequently the cost of living at Dixon and Mendota is
very near as much as in the large cities at the East.
Indeed if I were restricted to $500 to support my family it is a question whether I could not
make if go further in the city of N.Y. than in any localities along our R. Roads in Ill. for I should
occupy a tenement within my means and purchase in market such articles of food as I could
afford, and no one would be there to reflect upon me. But missionaries in the country must not,
could not, practice upon this scale of pinching economy without exciting remark and impairing
their usefulness. In villages like those above named the rents of even cheap houses are extremely
high and the missionary must either build which is virtually forbidden or he must pay 200 dollars
rent for a dwelling and then he has but 300 lefty for all other claims which the year may make
upon his pocket.
There are missionaries who can by the help of their garden their cow and their chickens make
a shift to live on 450 but in those places to which I have alluded your missionaries cannot avail
themselves of their aid.
I have thus expressed my view freely from conviction that I can from my standpoint see better
than people “on the eastern shore of Maryland” what the circumstances of the case [are]. Have
the goodness to let me know what the decision of the Com was in relation to Dixon and Mendota
that I may know how to act in the future.
Please return the enclosed document soon, as it is the property of Miss Sill who has been
spending some days with us, according to the request of Br. Chapin.
Yours,
A. Kent
I learn that Mr. Temple has closed his labours at Dixon.
_____
Galena, Aug. 15/56
Having been recently at Sommanauk and having recommended Br. Crawford to occupy these
two promising points and having very recently seen him at my own house and satisifed myself od
his acceptableness, I recommend the application, I think they will not be long on our hands.
A. Kent
_____
Galena, Sept. 23/56
Dr. Badger
Dear Sir,
I have just returned form a tour of 2 weeks across the north part of the state. Spent a Sabbath
[in] Boone & McHenry Counties and called on Brs. Hodges, Baldwin, Dickenson, N.C. Clark and
Fuller of Crystal Lake.
On my return I spent a night at Lena and learned that an Old School man (Johnson) had
engaged to supply them half of the time for $200. This thwarted my plan, which was to have one
man supply Lena and Orangeville that I may be released.
Now I know of no other place which to unite with Orangeville in the support of a preacher,
and I do not feel willing to abandon that little church.
Nor do I think that it is interfering so very much with other duties for I commonly take it on
my way going or coming home from more distant points.
I discovered today that the clerk of synod has made a mistake of a week in the time of meeting
which would bring it on the same day with the Wis. convention.
I have written him on the subject.
Yours, Etc.,
A. Kent
_____
[The Cong. Ch. of Grand Detour, Ill. apply for $200 aid in support of Rev. S.H. Kellog 12 mo
from Sept. 1, 1856.
Chicago, Oct. 10, 1856
I regard Grand Detour as a limited field and recommend the application with a suggestion that
his people give him leave to preach one sermon each alternate Sabbath at Franklin or other out
posts.
A. Kent
____
[Alvah Day to the Ex. Com. A.H.M.S.]
Lisbon, Kendall Co., Ill., Oct. 1, 1856
Ex. Com. A. Home Miss. Society
Dear Brethren,
The second quarter of my current Missionary year has just closed and with gratitude to the
Great Author of all good, I would say to you, I have been enabled uninterruptedly to pursue my
labours through the quarter....
I have preached twice on every Sabbath, except on occasion a Bible Society Agent preached
in my place. Our congregations are interesting and appear to be interested in exhibition of Bible
truth and in efforts to promote the Redeemers Kingdom, agreeable progress, we trust is made in
the direction of truth and righteousness. At our communion season on the 3rd Sabbath in July
four persons, heads of families, were secured into the church at Chaunahan by letter, and at
similar sesaon in Nettle Creek four members also heads of families were secured by letter into the
church in that place. These brethren and sisters, though few in number, we consider very
important acquisitions to these feeble churches, for they have much experience and a wide
influence- and are already taking their places as pillars in the churches. We have season to thank
the Lord and take courage. We hope that ere long the way may be opened for organizing a church
in East Lisbon. A Rail Road from Joliet to Mendota has recently been surveyed and is about to be
located which will pass, it is now expected, through East Lisbon. Should this enterprise be
accomplished it would add much interest to E. Lisbon as a missionary field. Sabbath school are
prospering. As to the reforms of the day most people on my field as well as throughout this great
West deeply feel that a thorough reformation is called for in our Nati[on]al government. They are
driven to the conclusion that the great battle fir Liberty - religious and civil- for truth and right- is
to be fought again. They are awakening to the importance of the crisis- are counting the cost and
are taking their places in the field of conflict. Liberty or oppression is doomed. This is the all
absorbing subject and it is difficult to awaken much interest on any other things. And no wonder
when we consider the cruel and grasping aggressions of the slave power in our country. The Lord
be merciful to us as a nation and give success to the true right. ...”Our help cometh from the God
that made the Heavens and the Earth.”
Due of the first Oct. 1856. $50- Please forward when convenient.
Your Missionary,
Alvah Day
------Chicago, Oct. 9, 1856
Rev. Dr. Badger
We were very sorry that your secretaries were not represented at Milwaukee (and will not be
here). Br. Bascom was there and by permission addressed the convention & took it upon himself
to say things that we greatly disapproved and yet we were not prepared to contradict. There is
such an excitement now in relation to the whole subject of slavery that we may be grossly
misrepresented and we cannot resist the tide that is raised unless we are prepared to show it, when
wrong positions are assumed.
In other respects the meeting there was a pleasant one.
Our Synod meets here this Evening. I should mention I learned incidentally that Br. Bascom
on his way to convention formed a church (Cong.) in Dement, a depot on the Air Line R. Road to
Fulton City. And if agents of your society cannot do such work, you must expect that the
Presbyterian Brethren will complain because they cannot have Presbyterian agencies on the field.
Br. Sloan writes inquiring after his commission for which application was made. He days 1
quarter is die. I find from my book that it was forwarded Aug. 18.
We are to have our Home Missionary meeting tomorrow evening.
Yours, Etc.,
A. Kent
_____
Chicago, Oct. 10, 1856
I know no reason for withholding my entire approbation.
A. Kent
____
Galena, Oct. 17/56
Rev. Dr. Badger
Dear Sir,
While at Synod in Chicago, I received of Rudolph Ware, executor of Hannah Ware two
hundred (200) Dollars as part of a legacy to our Society. This amount therefore you will charge to
me and I have appropriated it to my own use.
Yours truly,
A. Kent
The meeting of the Synod of Peoria passed off pleasantly and a looker on thought that this
year a better spirit prevailed than that at convention at Milwaukee and was a good meeting.
____
Mount Carroll, Oct. 31st, 1856
Dear Brethren,
Your commission to the Rev. C. Gray having expired, we proceed to lay before your Board
the Condition and circumstances in connection with the efforts of this the first Presbyterian
Church of Mount Carrol, Carroll County, Illinois, to secure his labour in this field still another
year. The amount which we have been able to raise for his support for years past had proved to be
insufficient to sustain his family since the expense of living has greatly increased. Consequently
we propose to raise six hundred dollars for the year commencing Nov. 1, which will barely be
sufficient to meet the necessity of the circumstances.
We have circulated subscription papers & have now subscribed three hundred and forty
dollars, it being eight dollars more than was subscribed last year. The Session of the Church have
unanimously agreed that as in proportion to the amount we fall short of making up six hundred
dollars the same proportion of time during the year is to be spent among the destitute & needy
around us. We therefore solicit aid from your benevolent Board to the amount of two hundred
dollars to assist this church in making up the six hundred.
The number of communicants in this church is about sixty, our congregation varies in number
from fifty to one hundred & fifty.
The Baptist & Methodist denominations hold regular meetings in their own churches &
generally have larger congregations than ours. Several other denominations have occasional
meetings in the Court House in this place.
Yours Respectfully,
By order or the Session
G. Hallett
Galena, Nov. 5, 1856
I have been a good deal puzzled to know what to say next in regard to this case, but as the
church still hang to their minister and are willing that he should missionate the proportion of time
that is equivalent to what you aid him, I shall recommend the appropriation, suggesting that he be
directed by the committee of Missions of the Presbytery. Confidential.
Yours, etc.,
A. Kent
_____
Galena, Nov. 16, 1856
Rev. D.B. Coe,
Dear Br.,
If I have not answered your letter of Ap. 21 respecting my furnishing a regular supply to the
Ch. at Orangeville, it is not because I have not given it much thought.
I have endeavored to obtain a substitute and supposed that I had the arrangements nearly
completed by which a missionary should reside at Lena, preaching there half his time and
missionating the other half in Orangeville and in the south part of the County. But to my regret
they have rejected every one I have sent there (or have not secured his services) and now have
employed an Old School man who preaches also at Savanna that thus my plans are dissipated,
Having therefore no alternative (til you send the man from “Chicago or Cincinnati”) but to
abandon the ground or continue my present course until I can find a man for the place. I shall
state some of the reasons as they lie before my own mind.
I have not much disposition to preach on Home Missions where I think I am not wanted,
where they are inclined to give to other Societies or where the pastor prefers to preach and
present the claims of the society himself or where I shall probably not obtain enough to pay
expenses. My field is quite limited as I insisted it should be before we had R.R. communications
because I thought then and still think that an agent here at the west should besides taking
collections be mainly employed in nursing feeble churches and to do this he must spend more or
less of his time with them at discretion until he can find some one to take his place.
As to “prospecting” to gather new churches, there is but little chance for that, as our
congregational brethren have “in advance of all others” stepped in and organized churches
whenever there were 4 or 5 that could be so gathered. This may seem to look like a sectarian
view, but if any one will take the trouble to go over the ground with me and learn the facts in each
case they will be able to judge for themselves. And the agent on this field has been advised to
leave the work of organizing churches to pastors in the vicinity.
I can visit Missionaries on week days and say what seems necessary about increasing
subscriptions or ceasing to draw from your funds, and i do not as a general thing feel at liberty to
spend my Sabbaths with missionaries or other ministers, however pleasant it me be when I can
reach a destitute people. And I think that agents and secretaries are responsible to the great head
of the church and will under all circumstances lie under the pressure of that farewell command:
“Go ye into all the world and preach.” At least I do not feel at liberty to be idle on the Sabbath
when I can be so employed, and I can arrange much of the time to take Orangeville in my way
when I make a journey from the north west corner of the state.
Another consideration weighs with me. I get tired of the agency and want to be at my old trade
of nursing a church and this monthly visit does in a measure meet that want and instead of a
burden is rather a relief - an episode for refreshment.
Another thought crowds in for hearing. It is this that I can find no ministers now always
willing to labour with these very feeble churches. Ministers are continually wither writing or
coming to find places and I am tired of writing or telling them what I know they will snuff at.
They want to be where there is a growing place, or where there is an academy for their children or
they cannot live on what our society gives. And I had rather go myself than try to persuade men
who won’t be persuaded.
I suppose I have had more of these calls this summer past because there are reports there are
vacant churches in Galena. I wish that you would send us some men like Williston272[272] and
Bushnell (of Western N.Y., nay not he of Hartford273[273]) or Dr. Beecher as he was 40 years ago
who could make a place he he could not find one.
Seth Williston was, like Kent, from Suffield, Ct. He was born in 1770 and died in 1851. He was a well known
Presbyterian evangelist in the State of New York, where undoubtedly Kent either knew him or knew of him. Appletons,
Vol. 6, p. 541-2.
272[272]
Kent here refers to Horace Bushnell who held views of the Trinity that were
deemed heretical by some Congregational clergymen. He was brought before the
273[273]
Now when you will fairly meet all these arguments I have collected & send a man to preach at
O. I will yield the ground with great pleasure.
I shall be happy to hear more.
Yours, etc.,
A. Kent
_____
Prophetstown, Nov. 18
I came by R.R. to Como which reported themselves vacant but I found Br. North274[274] able
and ready to preach, so I borrowed the horse purchased a year ago for Mr. North and went to
supply Clyde. I hurried on and reached them at 2 p.m. and refused to eat or drink until my
appointments were made and put in circulation. But after all my painstaking I only had 22
(children and all told). Heard a Wesylan in the P.M. but preached in the evening and had a large
school house full. All this bears upon my argument. A great deal is lost by not having
appointments regular and made before hand. Now I can get no one to visit this little scotch church
at Clyde and they have had no one since I was there before some 3 or 4 months. But if I had
regular appointments even every 3 months I should get much larger congregations.
Will Co., Crete, Dec. 24. Since writing the above I have learned that the Old School minister
at Lena has proposed to join our Presbytery and thus cooperate with us, which had me to hope
that Orangeville will be supplied without my services.
I have received and read with deep interest the An. Rep. of A.H.M.S. in which there is
paragraph on the 13th page which exactly meets my own views but which was not admitted in the
extracts you published. I do heartily approve the general policy of our society to sustain
permanent supplies, but there are exceptions that will be over looked if no provision is made for
them and a Sab. service once a month or once a quarter may be essential to this...
Crete, Will Co., Dec. 27, 1856
It is easy to reply that this supervisory work must be left to neighboring pastors and they ought
to do it and their people ought to allow it according to the excellent suggestions in that Rep., and
it may be done in some few instances. But it will surprise one who has not before been informed
to perceive how ignorant (not to say indifferent) many ministers are of the destitutions in their
own immediate vicinity. Facts of this kind are better known by agents and others on the ground
than they can be by the secretaries 1000 miles off. And this explains the reason why the
Presbyterians have got up this Ch. Extension scheme and why the Congregationalists have one or
more agents out on the same ground. Br. N.C. Clark of Dundee & Elgin had applied once or twice
for something like such a roaming commission and it is reported to me that is about to be
employed by the A. Miss. Association in that work which I should greatly regret. I do not like to
lose him and I am sure he would not like to withdraw from our society. I repeat therefore what I
have said over and over that there is no laborer so much needed at the west yet will have to
exercise more self-denial than those who shall be employed in looking after these new feeble
churches and unorganized destitutions. And still it is true that they must be men of experience and
reliable or they should be confined to a limited field.
Association but sucessfully defended himself. The conservative Kent probably was not a
friend to “liberal” Congregationalists. Appletons, Vol. I, p. 475.
Very shortly there after Rev. North became “deranged” and was forced to return home to Berlin, Ct. See letter
of his brother to Dr. Badger.
274[274]
It would seem that one of the corollaries from this argument is that instead of sending out
cheaper men to do this ??? work we ought if possible to secure for it some of our strongest men
with salaries proportional to their strength. The weak man just stirs the public conscience enough
to aid the sectarian in coming in and gathering up the fruit of his long and patient toil.
The sum of what I would say then is that while the plan of supporting pastors and stated
supplies should be the general rule, there are exceptions. There are a few men needed whom Mr.
Stowe calls evangelists say one to a synod or Gen. Association who shall be employed where
there is demand. ...
I would not trouble you with this long dissertation and that contained in my letter concerning
Lacon, but as I possess some advantage for observation while ranging over that broad prairie
which your closeted committee do not possess.
And I think that a change of circumstances sometimes may demand some change in our
policy.
But having broken my old gold pen perhaps I should be obliged to wind up with a brief report,
leaving the details of collections until they are reported to me.
Sab. Nov. 16 I preached twice at Clyde, Whiteside Co.
23. Preached twice and took up a collection for A. H.M.S. at Granville, Putnam Co,
30. preached twice at Canton, Fulton Co.
Sab. Dec 7. Preached twice at Orangeville, Stephenson Co.
14. furious storm of snow, no meeting but preached Wed. ev. at Elk Grove, Cook Co. and
collected from house to house
21. preached at Crystal Lake and Vir. Settlement McHenry Co, and took up a collection in the
latter place.
28. preached three times as also on Thursday and Friday previous & the Monday following
and on Jan 4th. I have expended 25 dollars 65/100 have never charged the Society for the
expenses of my agency.
Crete Will Co.
Having spent 5 days in vicinity and preaching to this feeble church and ...But I find they have
been aided 13 years at an expense of $2500 and yet they feel unable to sustain themselves by
reason of removals. But this bears upon my argument that some churches like those in California
and some to which I have alluded in former letters may cost the Society less in the end and sooner
become helpers of others.
I have seemed to write with some degree of freedom. I suppose that the Secretaries and the Ex.
Com. would wish to hear the views of their agents freely expressed if it be done in respectful
language.
Yours truly,
A. Kent
___
[Rev. J.W. North Berlin Ct. resigned his Commission Nov. 4]
Berlin, Conn., Dec. 5, 1856
Rev. Milton Badger
Dear Sir,
My brother Rev. Josiah W. North recently of Como, Ill. one of the missionaries of the Am. H.
M. Soc. is now at the house of Rev. W.D. Love in this place in a deranged state of mind. One of
the members of his chh in Como wrote to me some time since giving me an a/c of his actions.
When I went to Como & induced him to some home with his family. His derangement appears to
have been brot on by over exertion, study & the excitement incident to his calling. He thinks he
must continue to study and preach & do nothing else & cannot be persuaded that it is best to do
otherwise. He now expresses a desire to return to west. Learning that he has this day deposited a
letter in the P.O. directed to you, and not knowing its contents I have thot best to inform you of
his condition, that you may be prepared to act intelligently with reference to any matter he may
have brot to your notice.
If he is seeking a place for preaching I hope you will endeavor to persuade him to refrain from
study & remain quiet during the winter. His only prospect of recovery depends upon this. Mr.
Love told me yesterday that unless he was better soon he should deem it advisable that he be
placed in the Retreat at Hartford. We dread to come to this, but greatly fear that we shall be
obliged to do it.
Please do not inform him that I have written to you as he seems to be set against his best
friends - though I am not aware that he has yet turned against me. He says he will do what I
command him to do & I wish to retain what influence I have for future emergencies.
Rev. Mr. Love will corroborate what I have written if you desire it.
Yours truly,
Alfred North
[The letter referred to was one of resignation from Rev. North]
_____
Galena, Dec. 9, 1856
Rev. Dr. Badger
Dear Br.,
Br. Patterson writes me that your committee have commissioned Br. Mr. Waldo with a pledge
of 300 conditioned upon his salary being restricted to 500. This I regard as unfortunate as it will
result in his leaving Lawrence and Chemung and the Old School Brethren stand ready to step in
and occupy the ground, which though 100 miles distant I have been guarding by frequent visits
for several years.
It is my opinion that your Ex. Comm and their respected Secretaries are falling behind the
times (or better said) do not appreciate the changes which have passed over Ill. since the R.R. Era
has commenced. Let me explain- the price of living has risen enormously and it seems to me that
in many places 500 is not as good as 300 was 10 years ago and then the fields now called for
H.M. aid are in most cases R.R. Stations starting up like Jonas’s goal and the leading spirits are
just those enterprising men who will not be satisfied with cheap preachers and there are scores of
these new villages that are just now springing up and will in a very little time have taken their
type of character and if we not seize upon them instantly they will be invariably lost to us.
Now if you will deputize one of your members to spend some 2 or 3 months in a careful
inquiry into the circumstances and prospects of some 50 of these R.R. Depots, which I will point
out to him (of which there are probably 300 in all) in Ill I will be content to leave this matter
entirely to him but until that is done I suppose I am in a situation to judge better than men at a
distance.
This complaint from Lawrence is but a repetition of what has been said at Lena, At Dixon, and
at Mendota and while a goodly number of men of such a stamp as these places need have passed
by us during the summer past because they could not have the support they could command
elsewhere. Other denominations are reaching in and securing an mazing advantage. Thus at
Fulton City the terminus of a R. Road on the Miss. the ground was ours but an old school minister
with wonderful assurance stepped in in an unguarded moment without any reliable material of
his own denomination and circulated a subscription and is building a large house because the
people from village pride would have a house of some kind for religious worship. With this long
fan fare (which I have not time to abridge) I wish to say that it would have been better to voted
300 on condition they will raise 300 more.
I know that 300 is a heavy draft but they must build and improve variously for the first few
years and with God’s blessing in a very short time they will be able to go alone. While many
country churches ultimately cost more longer dependent.
For example, Oswego whose missionary report I enclose, is likely to be a long time struggling
with competitors and thus cost vastly more to the society before they become self-supporting.
Yours in great haste,
A. Kent
because I have been absent 4 Sabbaths, have been contending with snow drifts and have been
obliged to abandon the stage and cars and to travel on foot from 5 to 22 miles a day to meet my
appointments for the last 10 days - and now I have but 3 days to attend to my correspondence
before I go to fill appointments for the next 4 Sabbaths in Cook, Lake, Will and Stephenson
Counties.
___
Galena, Dec. 9, 1956
Mr. James Thompson
Dear Br.,
I have received a line from Br. Patterson of Chicago, saying that Rev. Mr. Waldo would need
more than $500 to which by his commission he is limited. I have written to the society
recommending that he have $600. And you can if you choose add to that, in the way of a donation
party in the course of the winter.
But the society do not feel at liberty to go higher than 600, lest others should complain of
partiality if they do not receive as much.
May God bless your minister and bless the people whom he serves.
Your brother in CHrist,
A. Kent
____
[Application of Rev. S. Quick of Albany]
Galena, Dec. 10, 1856
The above application was covered by another paper and has been overlooked for several
weeks for by its position I must have received it before I went away 4 weeks ago.
From what I know of the field and what I have heard of the man I am prepared to recommend
the sum they ask, though I think the field not as promising as some. It is one of those new towns
that though feeble in its moral influences and divided too yet they have great expectations from
an anticipated R.R.
A. Kent
___
Galena, January 8, 1857
The church at Garden Plain applied last year I think to the Ill. M. Association for aid. I am
wrong- it was the minister and church at Albany that applied to that Association for aid. I would
recommend that the request be granted but will write to Mr. Pine and suggest that he preach once
a day at Garden Plain and once at some point near by if such an opening presents itself.
A. Kent
____
Galena, Jan. 16, 1857
This church and minister have received aid for some time from the West Rockford Church and
I suggested to some leading ones in that Rockford Ch. that the aid should some through the
A.H.M.S. Br. Willis will insist on having 650. He has built a house and is living at Pecatonica.
I am sorry that this infant church has embarrassed itself with such a debt and such interest.
The prospects of the church are quite flattering save this debt.
A. Kent
____
[Application for support of Rev. Joseph Fowler to labor also at Caledonia & vicinity. P.O.
Magnolia, Putnam Co.]
Galena, Jan. 27 [1857]
I know no reason to dissent from the opinion expressed by the com. of Presbytery except that
they ask so large an appropriation and I shall recommend to Br. Fowler to explore the vicinity and
see if something cannot be raised in addition.
A. Kent
____
Winslow, Feb. 4, 1857
Rev. Dr. Badger,
Dear Sir,
After attending and hearing Br. Johnston preach at Mount Pleasant, 5 miles east of this, &
according to your request a year ago I came here last evening to stir up this church and cong. to
contribute more for the missionary’s support.
Early this morning I called on the Elder and saw the subscription paper for the next year,
which by great effort has reached $90. I proposed to meet the trustees and talk over the matter. I
succeeded in getting a meeting of 2 where I talked quite plainly and the result was a proposition
that they should throw aside that paper, and start a new one conditioned that they make up 150 for
six months. To this they assented and thought they could meet it and they would try.
They propose and expect to finish their church by that time, when they shall hope to sell their
slips with an assessment for the support of the minister.
At Orangeville I forwarded an application from the Ch. at Lena and vicinity and since writing
it have concluded to supply Br. Johnston with my own horse for 3 months and perhaps longer,
And, on that account, should not object if you in view of your straitened resources as stated in the
last Home Miss. cut down that application to 550, and if in your wisdom it should be thought
necessary.
Yours sincerely,
A. Kent
____
Annual Report
Galena, Feb. 27, 1857
Rev. M. Badger, D.D.
Dear Sir:
The past year though not signalized by revivals has yet been one of manifest progress in this
district of the great missionary field.
Our churches are gathering strength and acquiring stability; though they are liable to the same
fluctuations from removals as are experienced by the churches at the East. And the congregations
are increasing in numbers and improving in proprieties and good order befitting the plane of
public worship. They are also securing more of that pecuniary aid from those that are without
which enables them confidently to anticipate the speedy approach of the day when they shall
reach the point of self-support, Quite a number of these missionary churches have already cut
loose from their moorings and ventured out upon the open sea and otherwise have done so but for
the effort to build their own houses of worship. Indeed, it is itself one of the best evidences of
progress that so much has been achieved in this direction for you will note the fact that more than
one fifth of our missionaries report that during the year their people have provided for
themselves, each a sanctuary which of course becomes a bond of union and a ground of
encouragement. It is at once a pledge of permanency and a magnet of attraction to draw in
persons from a distance who may thus become reliable supports to the institution. But my
observations have lead me to note the usefulness of Home Missions in one of its aspects not often
remarked.
It not only supplies destitutions and creates new centers of moral influence but it calls out and
gives employment and support to a class of ministers who are among the most worthy and yet
they would be tempted to leave the ministry, except tthey were furnished with just that pecuniary
assistance which your society proffers.
Many of those now in the ministry from their age or from some infelicity in their manners are
not acceptable to the larger churches while their talents and education, their emminent piety, and
large experience are such as qualify them admirably for visiting the new settlements, organizing
churches and performing that varied missionary exploration which is the most difficult, thankless
and self-denying part of ministerial duty and which at the same time exposes to the greatest
hardships and furnishes the poorest remuneration for the services rendered.
There are hardships which are peculiar to this class of ministers and which we shall not
appreciate unless we step in and by close inspection rightly estimate the various hindrances and
privations which annoy them but which as humble men and imitators of a divine model, they
have to bear with patience and in silence. It is hardship that their salary is so small that they
cannot furnish their library with books, their wives with domestics, and their children with the
means of education.
They have no permanent home but as birds of passage they are obliged to migrate about every
year, consequently they are often forced to crowd their families into small and unfinished
tenements. where the missionary is deprived of a study and his family are deprived of all those
nameless conveniences, the want of which has broken down and hurried to the grave many of the
noblest christian women with which our state has been blessed.
Sickness in the family induced by these trials constitutes another hardship of missionary life.
It is a hardship that grinds his spirits that the missionary for the most part never knows until
sometimne after his year closes whether his services will be longer acceptable or whether he must
spend time and money which he cannot well afford in finding another field of labour.
It is a hardship incident to missionary life on the frontiers that he is dependent upon a class of
people who do not appreciate his worth, who give grudgingly what they pay for his support and
who are so faithless to their promises as prevents him from paying debts which he has contracted
on the faith of their pledges.
It is a hardship that he is obliged to preach in several different places and those so far distant
and that to do this he is often times unable to procure a horse and is compelled to go on foot,
crossing untrodden prairies, encountering violent storms and fording swollen streams, leaving his
family unprotected and but poorly provided for, and anxious for him from the uncertainty
whether he will be able to surmount the obstacles on his return.
It is one of the trials of faith and patience of the missionary that having reached the place of
meeting , it is uncertain whether the people have not forgotten the time of his appointment or
whether there is any fire or light until he prepares them or indeed whether the school house is not
pre-occupied by other denominations before he arrives.
This and nameless others are no fancy stretches but incidents of common occurrence of which
this hard winter has furnished pertinent illustrations.
But these excellent men however well disposed and well affected to brave these trials cannot
devote themselves wholly to their missionary work to the neglect of providing for their families
which is itself a first duty, except they can receive assurances of support which your society
happily affords them. This encouraged to expect that their own want will be met they are
prepared to meet and to perform a service which but for men of their self-denying spirit would
never be performed, and if the common laborer is worthy of his time, so are the excellent men
whose lives and energies are consecrated to Christ and his church. Will not every man contribute
his quota toward furnishing these needful supplies and do it with cheerfulness.
A. Kent
There are in the field which I am called to supervise 39 Home Missionaries and 62 churches
and missionary districts. There have been 7 churhes organized, 5 churches have assummed the
support of their minsiters.
I have collected off my field and appropriated to my own use $358.97
march 2nd add 289.86
648.85
Many of the larger churches take up Col. which do not pass through my hands. And many of
the missionaries keep and do not pay over to me what is collected among thier people.
Apart of what I now report has never been acknowledged in the Home Miss.
All below Nov. 25.
A. Kent in account with A.H.M.Society
Dr. to moneys received of
March 10 1st Ch. at Rockford
$3.00
May 4 1st Pres. Ch at Freeport
66.72
Aug 5 Mrs. Mitchell, Cook Co.
23 John Ruth
Oct. Mrs. Hannah Ware
1.00
10.00
200.00
Nov. 25 Greenville Presb. Ch.
10.00
30 Canton Cong. Ch.
26.00
Dec. 18 Dunton Presb. Ch.
19.00
Elk Grove Cong. Ch.
23.25
358.97
1857 March 3
Rockford 1st Cong. Ch.
33.34
Rockford 2nd Cong Ch. payable in May 231.52
Miss Mary A. White
5.00
Rockford Sabbath School of 2nd Cong.
20.00
648.83
The 8 last items have never before been reported. And you will please acknowledge them in
the Home Miss.
Rockford March 5
I have been detained 2 Sabbaths by sickness in my family whiuch brings my report in late. I
have spent several days here and I trust not without good results. I am preaching every evening
for the 2nd ch. - Br. Emerson. There is more than ordinary religious interest in Rockford and in
the Female Seminary . And I have good tidings from Beloit anb from Pecatonica. Br. Willis has
requested me to come to his aid which I propose to do on Saturday.
A. Kent
_____
March 2, 1857
[The 1st Cong. Ch. of Fremont, Ill. apply for $250 aid in support of Rev. C.C. Adams, 12 mo.]
After the explanation of the accompanying note I feel quite satisfied that their request should
be granted provided thier minister is what he is represented and of that you have the means within
your reach of forming a judgement.
A. Kent
Galena , April 7, 1857
I shall still urge the importance of allowing him to explore and supply occasionally the wide
destitutions of Lake Co.: the “unoccupied fields” of which Mr. Partridge speaks.
I hope to visit them when I am less pressed with duties.
_____
Galena, March 10, 1857
Rev. Dr. Badger
Dear Sir,
During my stay of 7 days at Rockford I saw a most beautiful letter from that missionary at
Nauvoo. Beautiful in its expression and especially in it chirography. And it gratified them
becasue it was a thanks offering for a box I had invited them to make up for him. Br. Emerson
expressed his regret, and I felt it, that he had been refused a commission. I should not however
allude to it again but Br. Rice wrote me to visit him at Freeport, whither he had gone to bury his
wife, for he wanted to talk with me about that missionary, for he felt bad that the commission was
withheld. I made all my arrangements to meet him at the Depot but when the hour for leaving
home arrived my child of 12 was dangerously sick which detained me 2 weeks watching the
typhoid fever night and day. Thus I missed the opportunity of hearing his verbal statement. I do
not feel disposed to question the correctness of your decision but I thought perhaps I might state
how it strikes us. But I cannot well go down there and I have been providentially prevented from
seeing Mr. Rice.
I spent the Sabbath with Br. Willis. They are having a blessed work of grace in that Cong.
Church. He will report the lat of the month which I assented to in consideration of the prospective
report I heard about 25 tell what God had done for them: last Sat. night and became deeply
impressed with the wisdom & power of Br. W’s labors. There is extraordinary religious interest at
Rockford and Beloit also. One or more in college and very many in the Rockford Female Sem.
are hopefully converted.
Also at Granville (until lately a Home Miss. ch.) Br. Lockwood writes me that during a
protracted meeting (which they were preparing for when I spent Sab. with him last fall) of 3
weeks some 45 were converted and that 15 had united with their Ch. The Com??? Ch. with which
they have had infinite trouble stood aloof but the O.S. and Baptist united and received additions.
Your letter and that of Br.Coe replying, explaining and expounding have been received &
have afforded me some light and some new views and will be further pondered as I have leisure
from the pressure of duties.
I heartily rejoice in the stand you have taken on the subject of Slavery.
Yours, etc.,
A. Kent
My annual report and financial report were forwarded from Rockford. I shall have received
some 48 dollars over six hundred the past year, when the Rockford 2nd. Ch pays 231 in May
which with some still behind may go over to the next year.
A. Kent
____
Dixon, March 28, 1857
I have delayed sending this application (already too long delayed) because I wished to make
further inquiries. It appears that 2 of their 9 male members (and they the most efficient) are about
leaving Dixon.
Mr. Temple has acknowledged in a letter to me that his dues have been fully paid.
In regard to the amount of salary Mrs. Illshy is a lame man and uses a crutch. He has a wife
and 7 children all dependent on him every day. He is obliged to pay %150 for a smaller house
than he has been accustomed to use. His wood bill will be at least $75 at the year’s end.
Everything they eat and wear must be paid for at the highedt price and though a convert of Dr.
Payson and brought up with New England habit, he says he cannot get along with less than 700.
With these facts I submit the case.
A. Kent
_____
[Letter from Rev. C. L. Bartlett to Sec. A.H.M.S.]
Dupage, Will Co., April 1, 1857
.....
When I preached my missionary sermon & took up the collection for your Society this year, I
felt happy in being able to refer to the noble stand, as I regard it, taken by the Executive Comm.
in relation to the subject of American Slavery & if I mistake not I was much more successful than
I should have been without that resolution- hope therefore your society will adhere firmly to the
position they have taken.
Yours in the bonds of the gospel,
C.L. Bartlett
____
[The Presb. Ch. of Elizabeth & Plum River, Ill. apply for $200 renewed aid in support of Rev.
James R. Smith]
Galena, Ap. 8, 1857
These two churches are feeble and are surrounded and crippled by sectarians but they ought to
be sustained and their minister is timid and easily discouraged but is going well and ought to be
encouraged and I think he ought to have more than he has asked.
A. Kent
_____
Ap. 15, 1857
Washington, Tazewell Co.
Having spent the Sabbath with the Peoria and Knox Presbytery to get the views of the
Brethren of the Committee I am prepared to recommend this application. He has resolved to
board & spend some time at Kappa until he can build a home and he wishes me to visit Peoria. I
mention alias El Paso as one of his stations for preaching.
The application is otherwise imperfect but I am authorized to say that $200 is actually
subscribed on the field. Br. Frost says that since his last report the prospects brighten greatly and
a church will probably be soon organized at Kappa.
Lots have been secured at K. and they are resolved on building a church.
A. Kent
We have had a delightful meeting of Presbytery and Br. Andrews thinks that the meeting has
had a very happy influence on the place.
___
Galena, Ap. 20, 1857
Rev. Dr. Badger
Dear Sir,
There seems to be to my mind a mystery in relation to Lawrence. A Commission was
forwarded which limited Mr. Waldo’s salary to 500 and that was sent back to Br. Patterson who
is reported to have returned it to New York and I supposed that another commission had been
made out for 600, but I have learned today from Br. Holmes of Belvidere who comes as a
committee of Presbytery to enquire after it, that no such commission has been received. Hence, I
conclude that either Br. Patterson’s letter was not received or his explanation was not satisfactory.
I would therefore in view of all the circumstances take it upon myself to request the committee
to commission Rev. M. Waldo to labour at Lawrence and vicinity for one year commencing with
Oct. last with a salary of 600 of which the society pledge 300 on condition that his people would
make up 300 more. In support of this request, I would state that the Belvidere Presbytery have
recently met there, have taken measures to disband the Chemung Church and to organize a new
church at Lawrence with the entire consent and approbation of the members of the old church.
They represent that Br. Waldo is laboring very faithfully and successfully in a very wide field and
very promising field and these Brethren of Presbytery express the opinion that he will do two
years labor in one and ought by all means to be sustained there in the belief that they will be very
soon a self-supporting church and the opinion was expressed in my hearing that they would
before long build a church costing $4000.
I hope therefor that prompt action may be had and that either it may pass through my hands or
I be informed whether it be granted or refused for I am in danger of meeting with censure for
delinquency. I had no means of knowing whether he was commissioned or not.
You will see in due time that some of us at the Wets are prepared fully to sustain the Com. in
the stand they have taken on slavery and we prefer that the funds by which Mr. Waldo is
sustained shall pass through their treasury as the channel of communication with him.
I must repeat my honest conviction that you seem not to appreciate the change that has come
over us in Ill. Every observing man whose opinion you would respect will unite with me in the
estimate that 600 will not go any further in support of a salaried man now than 400 did 10 years
ago. And I should like to have one of the committee travel over the field with a view to that single
point. Our missionaries now are mainly in these R.R. villages where they must pay $150 rent for
a decent house and 5 a cord for wood.
I visited a missionary on Wednesday last who was paying $6 a month for one room 12 or 13
square in the 2nd story. There was his study his bedroom, parlor, and kitchen until quite recently
they obtained another little chamber about 8 feet square. That Br. preaches at 3 different points
and walks sometimes 20 miles on the Sabbath and not a word of complaint droppd from him or
his excellent wife who has evidently known the charms of refined society.
I have delayed sometime a reply to yours concerning Br. Wilson. My first duty seemed to be
to get the views of Br. Baldwin who is now at Virginia Settlement. About the middle of March I
received his answer. I then has such a train of appointments that I could not well visit him until I
should meet him at Presbytery, I met Wilson last week on Wednesday, intending to go home with
him and spend a Sabbath there. But was surprised to learn form his own lips that he had buried
his wife, sent his only child to the east and left Watham, and is now making arrangements to
preach at Shabbony center. I presume that they will make application for aid, which I shall regret
as those who have watched his movements for several years anticipate little accomplishment. A
good orthodox man but having no energy and he wears out in a few weeks entirely. It is still
thought that a large and important field opens at Waltham if an energetic and judicious man could
be introduced there. I may be able soon to spend a Sabbath there. It is one of those places where
to do any thing I need to make regular appointments as at Orangeville.
I enclose a letter from our excellent and judicious Br. Savage. Br. Coe’s letter to me opened
my eyes and showed me as I never before understood it how I could meet the difficulties which
the present times and allocations have been pressing upon me, c.c., to give men in certain
circumstances a number of fields (say 3,4,5, or 6) to which they shall be restricted and in the
occupancy of which they shall have some discretionary power in the employment of time. And I
wish to say that relieves me of embarrassments under which I have laboured all the while. It is
better far than giving them running commissions, for which I contended. Perhaps it was my
obtuseness that I did not see it before, but Br. Savage & Clark seem to have been as blind as I.
I thought that when I read what the Evangelist says of you committee’s action on slavery, if I
had a gun big enough to be heard in New York, I would make it utter my disapprobation of their
attack upon them.
Yours as ever,
A. Kent
____
[Rev. H. Ilsley, Dixon, Ill. repsecpting his salary]
Galena, AP. 24/57
Dear Br.,
I can do nothing more than turn over this letter to you. I have said all I know except that
perhaps they were premature in organizing as they did. Br. Ilsley says his rent & wood will
consume half his salary.
And Br. Raymond told me yesterday that his wood this winter had cost him near 100 dollars.
Yours, etc.,
A. Kent
_____
[Rev. J.H. Frost to Rev. Milton Badger]
Kappa, May 3, 1857
Rev. Milton Badger, D.D.
Dear Bro.,
Having been honored, as one of your missionaries, with a circular containing an explanatory
statement in relation to the course pursued by the executive committee of the American Home
Missionary Society in refusing to aid with the funds of said society those churches which apply
for aid, and whose members are slave holders. I desire to say that the course pursued by the
committee is that respect has my entire and unqualified approval. And, though the people whom I
have had the pleasure of serving in the gospel during the year which ended on the first of March
last, were able to contribute only $18, which I had the pleasure to report to you. Yet I think it is
certain if they had been informed that the moneys [sic] thus collected, or any part of them were to
be appropriated to the support of extension of slavery in any form or manner, I should have
appealed to them in vain for any part of the mite which they felt it a pleasure as well as a duty to
give.
I can also sate that the voice of our Presbytery (Peoria & Knox) was decidedly in favor of the
course pursued by the Executive Committee.
With my most sincere and ardent prayers that, as a society, you may continue to labor and
prosper more abundantly in delivering our world and especially our own goodly heritage, from
slavery and every foul stain, I remain...
J.H. Frost
___
Clyde, May 12, 1857
Dear Br. Coe,
There is an amount of confusion and fog in relation to Br. Waldo’s case that I cannot dispel
but by requesting that a new commission be issued, giving him $600 on condition that they are
pledged to raise 300, and withdrawing the restrictions as you say has been done. The trouble is in
part in relation to my own action which I cannot now explain! It appears from my book that I
forwarded an application asking for 300 and pledging 300. It appears from Dr. Badger’s letter of
Feb. 12 that the Com. “gave all that was asked to Lawrence.” And yet from Br. Home’s letter it
appears that but 500 was allowed. The letter of Br. Homes reached me after I left home and as I
shall be gone some 10 days I thought I ought to reapply for a new commission without waiting to
see the old one which will probably be returned to me from Br. Patterson with whom it has gone
to sleep or is lost.
I enclose you a very small part of a long correspondence that you may understand the case.
The field which Br. W. occupies is regarded as very important, and another denomination has
shown a readiness to seize upon it. The Brethren of the Belvidere Presbytery are determined to
hold it and have put Br. W. onto the ground as prominently suited to the place and have pledged
him a support. Believing that he will build up a self-supporting church in a very short time I am
pledged to see that he shall have 300 from the A.H.M.S. Your letter of Ap. 24 (like Dr. Badger’s)
does not name the sum which your com. voted.
You will see from my letter the expedient to which I had recourse to get along while standing
between the 2 parties. It is the only instance I have done such a thing, and I do not see how your
society can justify a restriction that forbids a Presbytery to say how much they shall give, except
by withholding any commissions which they have a right to do, but it will be at the expense of
alienating them from the society. This is inter nos. I suppose I shall prove after a while that I am
unfit to be an agent. I think I have learned some new lessons during the year past.
I visited this day Garden Plain as requested, Mr. Pine absent, but his elder confirmed my
previous impression that he preached well, but aside from that does not visit or show much
interest in the spiritual welfare of his people and will probably leave at the year’s end. I judge
from what I hear that he has some desire to make investments in wild land.
I have left a recommendation that he should preach at Clyde, a little church that Br. Walker
neglected as would seem from reports.
A. Kent
May 14- I visited Sharon and Prophetstown, from which you will hear in due time from Br.
Martin.
____
Elgin, May 21/57
After Careful consultation with Br. Clark the only member of the Committee who is
intimately acquainted with the field and its future prospects we have arrived at the conclusion that
it be recommended that Br. Root be commissioned to labour 3/4 of his Sabbaths at Udina and 1/4
at other points in the vicinity at the discretion of the committee of missions and with the confident
expectation that they will be able to raise their proportion of the remaining 200.
A. Kent
____
May 23/57
Treasurer of the A.H.M.S.
Charge me with the follwoing sums 1857
March 10 Granville Presb. ch.
May 24 Coll. in the Presb. Ch at Freeport
27 John Ruth
John H. Addams
28 Elk Grove Cong. Church
$10.00
47.89
10.00
10.00
6.00
$83.89
Mr. Addams say “please forward to the payment of the backstanding debts of the A.H.M.S.” I
do not know what he means and whether he is a subscriber to the Home Missionary. PLease give
him credit as he wishes if that is the meaning.
A. Kent
____
Freeport, May 23, 57
Dear Dr. Badger,
I have just returned this far home (to preach on Home Miss. tomorrow) from attending the
Gen. Association at Elgin.
There was a large and pleasant meeting but they had rather an exciting time on Home Miss.
Br. Emerson of Rockford moved to memorialize A.H.M.S. on the inadequacy of Home
Missionaries’ salaries. Br. Bascom offered a substitute that we organize a society to do this work
ourselves and independent of all foreign aid. He attempted to show up our ability. Some one
volunteered an amendment that the new society be auxillary to the A.H.M.S. This brought
President Blanchard to his feet. He said it made him almost mad, or words to that effect. Brs.
Curtis, Emerson and others advocated the other side. Some warmth was elicited and several new
comers to the state looked on with surprise and expressed it that such a feeling against the
A.H.M.S. should exist. As providence ordered it Br. Bascom anbd I were lodged together. I told
him that now the Soceity has come up to the point we had been so long advocating, that it would
be more manly to acknowledge it and go along with them and sustain them.
They were about as closely cornered as I should wish to be during that debate and our good
Br. Blanchard, as is his wont, found it convenient to make an acknowledgement of undue heat
and unguarded word.
I understood from: that Dr. Aikins from Vermont remarked to a Br. afterwards. You are very
much afraid of centralizing power here at the West. But you have your hope : or words to that
effect.
I have detained for some time applications from Churches of Shabbona, Paw PAw and
Harrison waiting for answers to my inquiries.
Yours, Etc.,
A. Kent
____
[The Virginia Presb. Ch. apply for $100 renewed aid in support of Rev. J.H. Baldwin]
Galena, May 28, 1857
I am familiar with the circumstances of that little church. They have done well in getting hold
of a valuable parsonage and are to commended and helped and yet the field is limited and I think
they ought to allow their minister to be absent part of the day or if that is not expedient by reasons
of the distance of the out posts, I think they ought to have benevolence enough to allow him to
missionate every fourth Sabbath in Lake County and I shall so inform them but at all events give
them their request.
A. Kent
___
Galena, June 30, 1857
I recommend that the application from Shabbona (there is another Shabbona in Bureau Co,) be
granted. I have retained the application for some time to get fuller information and have received
one of Br. Wilson’s prolix explanations which is tolerably satisfactory but I do not sent it because
it relates to Waltham in part where I intend to go as soon as the Lord will.
At Shabbona they have subscribed 100, at Johnson’s Grove they have 40 and hope to make it
60 - at Allen’s Grove nothing is done yet but he thinks they are good for 40, so write Br. Wilson.
He is not likely (good man that he is) to stay long at one place for his inefficiency.
Br. Gould alludes to Br. Jessup at Paw Paw. He has since declined laboring there on account
of his health & Dea. Simon’s opposition, which I suppose to be reasonable.
A. Kent
___
Mendota, July 14, 1857
Rev. Dr. Badger,
Dear Sir,
Having received an application from new Sc. Presb. Ch. I came here to satisfy myself, and I
will first state what has first come up. A German Minister nomine Kock has been preaching to the
Germans, and has become discouraged because they advoacate beer drinking, etc. But he states
that there [are] a good many Germans at perkin;s Grove and Troy Grove and that at the fromer
place he remains. there are at least 20 pious people and the Evangelical Lutherans have divided
into 2 parts, aand he preached to the temperance portion.
He can talk but poorly English [but we talked through an interpreter a good while]. He as well
as Br. Burnet have confidence in him. At our request he showed us a certificate of good standing
in the “German Ev. Synod of the West.” And we can endeavor to make him understand that The
A.H.M.S. would render aid only to those who receive into their communion none but such as are
experimental christians.
Would you aid a member of that synod if they avow those as their principles and so far as we
can discover adhere to them.
I have just spent a Sabbath at Haldane, a station 70 miles from Galena which I can reach in 4
hours on the cars without expense. It is yet uncertain whether I shall do anything there. If a
church can be organized it will be necessary that I shall have regular (once in 4 weeks)
appointments at that place until I casn get some one to occupy it which may require a year or two
: and if you veto it I shall not go ther but once more.
Yours, Etc.,
A. Kent
____
[In the hand of Caroline Kent]
Galena, July 23/57
I approve of this application. I should have sent it with others yesterday. But I then hoped to
take Annawan on my way to preach at Geneseo on “Home Missions” next Sab. according to my
appoitments, but it has now become evident that I shall not be well enough to leave home.
A. Kent
____
[Rev. Calvin Gray to Sec. A.H.M.S.]
Mt. Carroll, Carroll Co., Ill. July 25th/57
Dear Br.,
I should have reported the first of Mar., but circumstances very absorbing & controlling have
delayed. It seems to have been my lot to become involved in a controversy with Baptists, relative
to a neutral Ladies Boarding School. They had proselyted & were making it a powerful engine to
pull down others & build up themselves. During the past winter, pushed on by a fanatical
evangelist , they greatly overdone the thing. I have thought it a favorable time, & an imperative
duty to expose the trickery in plundering an institution & foisting upon the people, their
peculiarities. As might be expected, it has drawn me out, in the pulpit & in the press. It will
probably result in a state of things that will make it better for another to take my place after the
struggle is through.
Our congregations are good & the Presbyterian element is arousing & concentrating. We have
received the box you sent- freight between nine & ten dollars. It is truly a great help, pecuniarily
& sympathetic. Could those donors have looked in upon our little circle, as I pried off the cover,
& gratified fingers pulled out the valuables- indispensable the sight, had been better thanks to
them, than can be written.
Please accept this meagre report, written with a passive hand the first in several years.
Respectfully,
C. Gray
____
Galena, July 28, 1857
Having understood that Brother [Silas] Jessup had left his field on account of ill health and the
unreasonable objections of an elder, I detained this application, but have since seen him, and been
informed that he has reported the services of one quarter and asks the salary that is due which I
recommend.
I employ another hand, rather than use my own today.
A. Kent
___
Haldane, Aug. 8, 1857
Rev. Dr. Badger,
I write from a point on the Ill. Cent. R.R. some 17 miles north of Dixon where I am to preach
tomorrow. And I enclose two letters to which I have replied in few words that I fear they have
been hasty that if he demands a trial it belongs tom them to prove his moral delinquency or
acknowledge their won faults that I am not will and it belongs not to me but to their Association
to attend to the matter and I send the letters to you because he appeals to you for countenance. I
have denied hearing, neither giving him any advice.
Yours, etc.,
A. Kent
____
Galena, Aug. 20, 1857
Rev. D.B. Coe,
I regret that your letter did not reach me 2 days sooner, as I was yesterday morning at
Chicago, within 50 miles of Kankakee. And I can go yet and make personal observations if it is
thought best as an expense or 5 or 6 dollars:and a weeks time and accomplish some other objects.
If you will give me some 6 weeks time to crowd the trip in among the meetings of Preb. & Synod
and 4 other appointments. Or
I will state my own impressions which I have received from time to time for the last 4 years
and it is some 4 years since I was there. I then understood that there were some reliable
Presbyterians and that were resolved on having a Presb. Ch. and an Academy at once.
Accordingly I heard from time to time of their having preaching regularly there for a good
while. Mr. Downs a member of the Presbytery was laboring there and in progress of time he left
and while they were destitute the Cong. slipped in and organized a Church which gave great
dissatisfaction, as was done at Mendota and the Presbyterians honestly think that the ground is
theirs and that the other organization was a purely sectarian affair. I should be sorry to hear the
Presbyterians of Chicago driven to the necessity of withdrawing their contributions from our
society to aid that Ch. and I know that they feel determined to sustain that organization and in as
much as the Cong. Ch. is assisted by another body I do not see why they have not a right to give
this direction to the funds they contribute (according to our rules I think).
The mere of circumstance of the priority of their organization is the very thing of which I
complain. It is a game they have been playing constantly. They run intro a place and getting
together a few persons announce an organization when they do not always supply them or a
presbyterian minister is employed and then he is persuaded to join the association, where as I
have felt that churches should not be formed unless there are materials to give it permanency and
a prospect of a stated supply.
I write just my own impressions which have been gathering and developing (concerning that
particular Ch.) for a long time and without any communication with the Chicago Brethren of late.
Yours truly,
A. Kent
___
[Rev. J.D. Baker, Cambridge, Ill. application]
Galena, Aug. 21, 1857
An application for aid to the amount of $150 with a pledge of 350 subscribed has been
forwarded to you July 22. Please ascertain what are the facts and relieves his anxieties.
A. Kent
____
Rock Island, Sept 3, 1857
To the Ex. Comm.
Dear Brethren,
In reply to Br. Coe’s inquiries I wrote and gave some reasons why the Presb. Ch. at Kankakee
should be aided by our Society. I have heard of no action (nor has Dr. Hays) of your committee.
And in the mean time I learn that an influence is at work to turn that Ch. over to the O.S. and one
if their ministers spent the last Sabbath there. Now it appears to me that a refusal to grant their
request will do more to alienate funds in Chicago than any of of you are aware of. It is understood
that the Cong. Ch. there is aided by another society and I have always supposed that a Presbytery
or Association or any individual contributing liberally was allowed to have respect paid him in
the disbursement of the amount he had given.
Here is an instance of injustice as I view it that the Presbytery of Chicago cannot assist one of
their own feeble churches through their own chosen channel., but must direct their contributions
from our society in order to serve that church.
And to show that I am not biased by my Presb. preferences, I would say that it any Cong. body
should raise $500 or 1000 for the A.h.M.S. and ask that one of their churches should be aided:
you would be obliged to grant their request even if this was a seeming conflict with established
rule and precedent.
Perhaps you have acted ere this and granted the request, but if not I wish that I may be
informed and that I may be put in possession of the reasons so far as prudential consideration will
allow, for I certainly cannot justify the Com. in refusing _ And I shall remind them of the proverb
there is that withhold the more than meet and it tendeth to poverty.
This letter, laid by for reflection, has been forgotten but in review I find more thoughts I wish
to communicate. I should be gratified with a brief reply.
I assisted recently in dedicating a neat and pretty church at Winslow and a large and fine
house of worship at Polo near Buffalo Grove in Ogle Co. some 10 days ago and in installing Br.
Spencer at Rock Island on Wednesday of last week.
And I an invited to assist at the Dedication of the Cong. Ch. at Lee Center on the 18th of Oct.
Sept 26. The Oct. o of the Home Miss. gives no mention of your having commissioned Br.
Hayes at Kankakee. I have withheld this lest I should seem to be thought meddlesome, but i have
concluded to satisfy my own mind by asking Br. Smith privately what reasons they can give for
not granting the request of that Ch. in Kankakee.
Yours truly,
A. Kent
P.S. The Home Miss. So. have not yet been thrown over board for their rash act for taking a
stand on the side of freedom.
___
Galena, Ill, Sept. 29, 1857
I am probably as well acquainted with the conditions of things at Nora as any of the above
committee and I question the propriety of giving more than 200, for I think if they had not acted
hastily, they might have dome better and obtained a man who would have met their views better
than the ??? Weslyan preacher whom they have employed, and I think if they had waited a little
they might have united on a man who would have secured a subscription of 550.
A. Kent
___
Como, Oct. 5/57
Rev. Dr. Badger,
Dear Sir,
Having been to Sharon and Prophetstown to spend a Sabbath and preach to those two
churches and declare the pulpit at Sharon vacant, Br. Martin being unwilling and unable to
preach. I passed trough to this place and learned something of the difficulties that exist and of
which you have had some knowledge/
And I thought good to state this much to you, that I had expressed the opinion to the accuser
of Br. Hemenway that they had been rash in saying things that possibly they might not be able to
prove to the satisfaction of a council. And I called on Mrs. Hemenway and said that I thought he
had done wrong in refusing to submit to council chosen within their own Association, and wrong
in not consenting that Br. Bascom of the Cent. Association should be their choice when then he
had previously chosen his first man out of the association.
I said this, distinctly announcing that I did not sit in judgement on the merits of the case. But I
suppose that they must come to a trial and the sooner they agree, the better.
Yours, Etc.,
A. Kent
___
[The people of Caledonia, Boone, Co., Ill. apply for $300 aid in support of Rev. J.S. Emery,
12 mo. from Aug. 23, 1857]
Galena Oct. 7, 1857
I have been trying for years to get a man to occupy this field and now if your committee refuse
a commission because he has 600, I have no courage to attempt to supply our feeble churches
without preaching. Ministers will not go to them for they say we cannot live for less in villages
where every expense is so great.
I am surprised and gratified that the people should have subscribed 300 and I hope they may
not be disappointed in this application. But if you cannot grant their request, you will please let
me know and I will make a journey over there and go into a special investigation rather than they
should be repulsed. I would go now but I have appointments out which will occupy my time for
more than a month.
A. Kent
_____
Mt. Carroll, Carroll Co., Ill., Oct. 31st/57
Milton Badger, D.D.
Dear Brother,
I have to report to you the close of my labors as employed by you. I believe in my last the
conclusion was intimated that it is not best that I should occupy this field any longer. You easily
anticipate that it would not be pleasant for delicate for me to attempt the particulars what a
change is best. My feelings have undoubtedly led in great part to this necessity.
I believe I have failed to report one quarter in the last year. My excuse is perhaps not valid yet
I have thought if you could have seen my pressure for the last six months your compassion would
excuse. I have not written for years except by amanuenses. But now my family is broken up &
my dear wife who has done my writing is several hundred miles distant. I presented the claims of
the H. M. cause as your rule requires & called for a contribution which I am sorry to say was only
$1.43. I can give no reason other than the money crisis & the disheartening influence (perhaps) of
their minister leaving.
It may not be amiss for me to say a few things in relation to this field. The ch, is truly feeblemy salary from all quarters has not averaged much over $300 a year. I do not speak of this by
complaint but think you ought to know. There is more ability here than this indicates now. Still
there is great danger that this will speedily be lost to us unless there is a suitable man here very
soon.
And now dear Brethren, may I express my sincere thanks to you for kindness & ask
forgiveness of God & my brethren in this (probably) my last communication for my short
comings as a missionary.
Yours truly,
C. Gray
___
[These are pages torn from Kent’s journal]
Nov. 12 [1857]. I engaged Br. Spencer of Rock Island to go and visit and spend a Sabbath
with the neglected Edgington Ch. on condition I would supply him, and for this purpose I went
over to Davenport and called on my friend Prof. Ripley of the Iowa College, who promised to fill
the appointment that I might spend the next Sab. on the Central R.R. and after visiting Marcus B.
Osborn who is very sick and whose loss to the Ch. would be great, I took the cars at 7 p.m. and
went to Annawona to spend a night with our Missionary Prescott and had an hour’s pleasant
conversation with him, though his family is sick and sickness and death have prevailed around
him of late. I think Br. Prescott is doing a good work there and at his out-post.
At 9 I jumped on the freight train and was warned very pleasantly that it was against the rules.
But I soon stuck a number of tracts over head and then showed him my papers on the Central
Road which gives me the title of Colporteur and told him that I went free and he said “very well I
have seen your papers”: so I went on 10 miles to visit Br. Lyman at Sheffield. I spent two hours at
his house and learned what I could in his absence of that missionary field while he was gone to
arbitrate the difficulty between Mr. Hemenway and the Church at Como.
They have built and well-nigh paid for a new Church. At twelve, I left Sheffield and its coal
mines and reached LaSalle in time to connect with Ill. Cent. R.R. which brought me before sun
set to Wenona where I wished to spend the night and get information. Br. Dunn informed me that
Mrs. Fowler endured her trial with great fortitude, that he Brother (Brown) our missionary at
Sand Prairie would take her home with him and that she intended to take a school by which to
support her 4 children. I learned from Mrs. Patterson of Chicago that she was a superior scholar
in Monticello F. Sem. I permitted him to make an appointment for me at Minonk, a station next
for the 23rd while I would go down to Egypt to spend the intervening Sabbath.
Accordingly I left at 2 o’clock a.m. and arrived at Carbondale at 4 p.m. and spent the evening
in conference with Brs. Post and Kenmore in relation to the vacant fields of Southern Ill.
Br. K. has left Cairo and a Br. by the name of Payson from Michigan is said to be preaching
there.
14 Saturday. I left this morning for Tamora where a little church has been organized and I
would not remain at Carbondale where there would be two ministers to cooperate in the
Communion service.
15. Heard a Methodist in the morning and then I preached in the afternoon. The congregation
was large... and gave me encouragement...
At 3 p.m. I took the cars and went south to visit Duqouine Female Sem. Called on the Agent,
Br. Josiah Wood, took tea with my old friend, Rev. T. Lippincott who has prospered and taken up
his abode there (and engages to preach every 4th Sabbath at Tamara), called on Miss. Paine the
principal and in the morning I climbed to the unfinished cupola of the Seminary Building which
affords a magnificent prospect of the adjacent country. The effort of the Alton Presbytery and the
friends of education to build this institution and the College at Carbondale furnishes grounds of
hope that Egypt will ere long wipe off the reproach that now rests upon Southern Ill.
17. I came north to the old capital Vandalia and spent the evening pleasantly and I hope
profitably with Rev. Mr. Bird our Missionary and Rev. Mr. Gordon, Missionary of the Alton
Presbytery. At least I am very glad that I stopped at this point...
18th. Left Vandalia at 3. pm. and came to Bloomington at 8 and made my way to Rev. Alfred
Eddy’s as best I could in the dark in a violent snow storm and spent the next day 19th with him.
He has succeeded in gathering a large congregation and they have erected a large house of
worship and as I judge without materially interfering with other congregations in this growing
city.
20th I eft at 8 am for Kappa to spend a day with our missionary Rev. Mr. Frost. He is gone to
his family at Lacon. I freely expressed the great importance of a missionary residing among the
people of his charge. His host admitted it and said that he had bargained for a house but could not
pay for it. But said also (what I had not heard before) that his wife could do better at the trade of
millinery at Lacon. He stated also that he was a very good preacher and gave general satisfaction
but did not spend much time in visiting. While I was speaking with him at the station house, it
was announced that a shanty was on fire about 10 rods off. We ran thither and saw a woman and
a boy in dreadful agony and learned that an infant of an Irish man was being consumed in the
flames.
I left Kappa in the evening and spent the next day in visiting 7 families in the vicinity of
Minonk. It was a very cold and windy day.
22 Sabbath. I preached twice to small but attentive congregations. The settlement is but two
years old but there is a beginning that promises to grow to a good church and congregation.
Monday Morning. I took the cars and reached home at 7 p.m.. I have thus given you a journal
of some 5 weeks. And I cannot copy it without taxing my eyes more than I like to do, from which
you may see that there is some vanity in my expressions and when you have waded trough this
long document you may consign it to the flames.
Yours truly,
A. Kent
P.S. It is uncertain whether I get a pass next year on the Ill. Cent.R.R. and that was my reason
for improving the present opportunity to visit Southern Ill.
[These pages from Kent’s journal do not seem to fit with the above and may be verso to the
portion he intended to send to New York]
He is said to be Calvanistic in his preaching and the people sympathize deeply with him and
think he was not well treated.
On Monday. Providence spread daylight slowly upon my darkened prospects, for the elder
where I stayed offered to buy my horse and buggy on my own terms or winter them for me at my
option and the Methodist minister offered to carry me to the R. Road, for which I gave him my
India rubber over coat and trunk, which met his wants, and the next morning as the day dawned
upon “sweet home: I was there. It proved a busy day as well as the two following for besides my
usual correspondence I had many things to do in preparation for winter. And I must leave on
Friday to reach my appointment at Geneseo which I had twice failed to reach- prov. prevented the
cars not making connection. I inquired after Br.Collins at LaSalle but he was absent and we
walked to Peru and spent the night with Br. Herrington whose church has enjoyed a blessed work
of grace under the labours of Rev. Mr. Avery of Charleston which has resulted in add[ing] 10 or
12 to their communion and bringing the church up to a degree of spirituality which contrasts
strikingly with their former state. So that what I have always regarded as a most unpromising
state of things has now the appearance of thrift. They have a large and neat church and a good
minister and give every indication of future progress.
The next day I took the cars and reached Geneseo as a dark rainy night began to draw its sable
curtain about us.
I spent the night with Br. S. H. Waldo who gave me a long account of the troubles which have
produced no little commotion in their growing village. They have given him three months notice
to seek another field according to agreement and he has set himself to find that field in getting up
a Presb. Ch. in the place. The Baptist and the Old School Presb. are also pressing their own
movements and where the commotion will end it is not easy to divine.
Commotion seems to be the order of the day in two or three other churches. I preached at
Geneseo and took up a collection and made several ministerial visits and endeavored to get off as
quick as I could without getting involved in their differences. I reached this place [Rock Island]
Monday evening and lodged with Br. Spencer, intending as he had suggested sometime before to
visit Coal Valley 10 miles south. In the morning I jumped on the construction train and went to
the place and in a few minutes I was safely deposited in a little black box along with the
superintendent and rushing along behind a little mule we plunged into the hill side and were
enveloped in utter darkness, dragged along a narrow passage 6 feet wide and 5 feet high a space
wholly filled with solid coal, from which they are taking out a 100 tons a day.
The object of my visit was to ascertain their spiritual prospects, which I was unable to fully
attain.
The seventy five workmen and the community generally are Welshmen and they have a welch
calvanistic methodist preacher who supports himself and another partly here. Another man
coming to preach for them whose character labours and if they shall apply for aid, I shall be
prepared to judge how to act from the hints I received. I returned here in the evening having been
much amused by my tour to coal valley and my intercourse with the little mule cars and the little
sooty boys each with a lamp burning and hooked gracefully into the band around their cap and
among whom I distributed tracts and small books as is my wont.
___
Galena, Nov. 25, 1857
I am to receive the residuum of Mrs. Ware’s Legacy very soon. Br. Raymond owes me $50
borrowed 5 or 6 years ago. I cannot get it. Could you not pay his next draft by an order on me and
assign the reason that I had money in hand, and then I will present the note for pay.
A. Kent
____
Galena, Dec. 15, 1857
Dr. B.
Dear Sir,
I drop a line to say the circulars are received with your note and I have spent two weeks in
making out the table as you proposed but have not the copy made which I should sent to you.
And that must now be laid by until these circulars are disposed of.
I have begun the work of retrenchment and have sent back responses to 2 or 3 applications that
they must curtail their claims.
I am not now a stated supply to any church an do not understand your remark on that subject. I
do try to visit vacant churches and give them a Sabbath when I can, when I can find no one else to
come for them.
Yours, etc.,
A. Kent
I spent last Sabbath at Lena and took up a collection of $13.30 which I paid over to the
missionary.
On second thought perhaps you have reference to my tour south. I have been two or three
times down the Central R.R. becasue Providence has furnished me with a pass without my
seeking it and I think I can do something towards getting preachers and teachers into that desolate
region, but without intruding & interference with other duties.
____
Galena Jan. 7, 1858
Rev. Dr. Badger,
Dear Sir,
The first impulse would be to say that I am ashamed to send so imperfect a copy of my table.
But when I consider how frequently I am interrupted and how great the tax upon my eyes to give
that close and constant attention which such work requires I shall justify my self in sending it as it
is. It should be considered weak eyes have been a life long affliction - have brought me to the
Frontier settlements and kept me there (and I bless God for it) and that the confinement of a few
weeks past in making out this table and writing about 90 letters have very seriously injured them
and hence you must take for better or worse for I do not think I ought to copy it again. I do not
regret the service for it may be of some use to myself.
I send it as it is and have sat down today at the suggestion of Mr. Noyes to describe Northern
Ill. so far forth as its destitutions are known to me.
Yours, etc.,
A. Kent
[ A lengthy table accompanies this not that compiles the aid received and donations to the
A.H.M.S. for the various churches in Northern Illinois. From 1853 to 1857 $12,115.58 was
contributed while 37,634.00 was received from the Society.]
___
Galena, Jan. 13, 1858
Rev. Dr. Badger,
Dear Sir,
This brother J. proves himself to be a very labourious and acceptable missionary and the ch. at
Lena wished to appropriate his whole time, but I proposed that half would do until the church was
finished and more salary raised. Otherwise Orangeville would be vacant and the little church at
Loran would not have been organized.
I was at Polo last week here is an independent Presbyterian Ch. After the dedication of their
new ch. they resolved on a protracted meeting and a good deal of interest is manifest but Br. L.
Parker of Galesburg happened there and was invited to assist Br. Todd. I am doubtful of the
expediency of his course when he said, “If i take the responsibility I must have the control of the
meeting.”
A. Kent
___
Jan. 19 [1858]
Mr. Ripley
I have just received a letter from S.L. Brown Treas. of 2nd Presb. Ch. in Chicago, saying he
has $300 on hand which he holds subject to my order. As exchange is high he thought it best not
to remit to N.Y. unless you prefer it.
Without charging anything for my travelling expenses there due to me.......$152.50 and when I
hear from N. York that you approve I will draw on Mr. Brown for what is due to me and dispose
of the rest as I am directed.
A. Kent
_____
Galena, Jan. 19, 1858
Rev. Mr. Noyes,
Dear Sir,
You ask me to furnish you a statement of the destitutions of Northern Ill. with such statistics
and illustrations as I would give if making an appeal to the East. I know not how better to meet
your demand than by giving the population of each county and such facts appertaining to the
churches and ministers as I can call from my own memory, promising however that I am under
the impression that we are better supplied than most of your states in our broad confederacy.
I begin where charity begins, at home in the northwest corner.
Jo. Daviess had in 1850 a population of 18,000 in 55, 24,000, has now 25,000. There are 3
Presbyterian Churches (2. n.s. & one o.s.) in Galena the Co. seat. These three churches are
furnished with good houses and excellent pastors, and for their present prosperity and moral
power are directly or indirectly obliged to the A.H.M.S.
Other denominations are well represented in this city, but of these it comes not within my
province now to speak.
There are 3 Presbyterian churches besides and a congregational church in the county, all of
which are feeble and supplied by 2 home missionaries.
Warren a village in the east part of the county is growing rapidly and a missionary should be
stationed there without loss of time, as they have only Methodist and Free Will Baptist Churches.
We have then 5 ministers and 7 churches to meet the wants of 25,000 souls. One exploring
missionary to along the southern border of the county is much needed.
Stephenson Co. contains probably not less than 15,000 souls. It is one of the best counties in
the state for soil, timber & water and is settled very much with Germans (European and
Pennsylvanian). They are well supplied with Lutheran and German Reformed Churches, are
building good houses of worship and have some good men labouring in them. There are 7
Presbyterian churches of which 5 are N.S. , one at Freeport the county seat is self sustaining. One
at Lena is now building a good house and will soon be able to assure its own support, and 3
feeble churches. These are supplied by 2 home missionaries. They need in that county an
energetic missionary who would have a large field in addition to the charge of those 2 churches
which will be vacant soon as Lena is prepared to claim their minister’s undivided labor. One of
these Orangeville in the midst of great religious excitment is calling loudly for that preaching and
pastoral labour which you brotherhood of secretaries will not allow me to afford them.
Freeport has become a city of 6,000 and has done well in building churches and school
houses. These is no settled minister in the county and besides the one already mentioned. Another
might be employed whose center should be Eleroy, a R.R. [depot] to which Elder Knapp was
seen yesterday directing his steps (Jan 18). Ministers Cary, Powell, Johnson.
Winnebago Co. contained in 50 10,000 in 55 20,000 has now 24,000. It has 10 Congregational
Churches of which 5 are self supporting and all but 2 have been aided by our Society, It has e
Presb. churches (1 n.s. & 1 O.S.). Its county seat Rockford has become a city of 8,000. When I
first preached there about 22 years ago. (It is said that) my congregation of 17 embraced the
whole county. It is one of the most beautiful towns in the state, lying on both sides of the Rock
River. It has a great water power and has become largely a manufacturing town, but its chief
ornament is the Female Seminary which has enjoyed continued tokens of the spirits gracious
influence. The city possesses large wealth and some men of large benevolence and next to
Chicago it contributes most to our treasury. The population are mainly from New England and
New York. There is probably scarcely a foot of swamp or waste land in the county. The 6 self
sustaining churches are furnished with able ministry. Two valuable missionaries are supplying
each a large district and at least one more is needed in the county.
There are 4 Cong. and 2 Presbyterian Ministers and several good deacons who have gone to
roost or have taken up their abode at Rockford. The lives have fallen to them in pleasant places or
they are afflicted with large property and feeble health. Charity thinketh no evil.
Chs. Rockford, Rockford, & Rockton, 12 Mile Grove, Pecatonica, Winnebago, Burrit, Owen,
Harrison and Shireland. Ministers Emerson, Goodwill, Sloan, Patch, Willis, Hodges, and Huggins
over the Presb. Ch.
Boone Co. in 1850 had 7,000 in 55 10,000, and probably now has 12,000. It has one strong
Presbyterian Church ably served (Holman) at Belvidere, the County seat. They are now building a
large church and they contribute generously to our Society thus affording an admirable
illustration of the wisdom and economy of our policy of “helping those who will help
themselves” and thereby training them to help others. When I was detained there a little while
some weeks ago I called on Mr. Walker and Mrs. Burnet and as we were admiring the noble
edifice of the church now building, they alluded to the incident when some 15 or 18 years ago
Col. Walker (from Vermont) and 4 or 5 others were gathered in a log cabin to organize a Presb.
Ch. and celebrate the Lords Passover. The Baptists had a strong church then (and still have) but
by Home Miss. aid they began to grow and by the fostering care of that good Elder (Walker) and
the blessing of God they have made steady progress and now exert a controlling influence in the
county. Col. W. has gone to his rest between 70 & 80 and I look back with pleasure to 3 or 4 days
spent with them wile shut up by the great snows winter before last. They were such happy old
people. But in the mean time I called on individuals and doubled the Sabbath contribution.
They have one Missionary (Emery) laboring in an inviting field (Caledonia and vicinity) and
there is ample room and a loud call for at least one more at Cherry Valley, Amesville and
Boone’s Prairie.
McHenry Co. is 1850 has 14,000 in 55 19,000 has now 22,000. It has 4 Cong. Churches and 2
Presbyterian, all depending on our society except one (which prefers the Am. Miss. Soc.)
supplied by 3 Cong. and 2 Presb. Ministers. The county seat is Woodstock. It is a growing place :
has an O.S. Ch. and minister. There is also an O.S. Ch. (stolen from us) and a College (so called)
at Marengo. But they are in trouble for most of the session are anti-slavery and new school men
and are “like a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke” or to the gag which they apply.
I think that such a missionary as Dr. Seth Williston was in his labours in York State would
find material for building new churches in that county. The Churches are Vir. Settlement
[Ridgefield], McHenry, Algonquin & Crystal Lake & Richmond and Lawrence. The ministers
Baldwin, Thompson, Birge, Fuller and Cadwell and Greenwood.
Lake Co. in 1850 had 14,000 in 55 17,000 has now 20,000. With the exception of Waukegan
[Little Fort] where is now, as I lean, a self sustaining Presb. Church and a little bright spot about
Millbourne where Father Dodge labours the county is a wide waste or what Illinoisans would call
a prairie burnt over by the spasmodic efforts made there in years past. It is now regarded as
affording but little encouragement to hope for any good thing. There ought to be 2 or 3 energetic
and self denying missionaries planted and sustained in the county until they can gather and build
up and give stability to churches that as yet have no existence, But as they are under the shadow
of Lake Forest Theo. Sem. it is to be hoped that when their students are numbered by hundreds
there will be enough missionary zeal to kindle fires that will never go out.
Carrol Co. in 50 had 4,000 in “55 7,000 now has 9,000. Mount Carrol is the county seat and
contains 2,000. The feeble Presb. ch. is overshadowed by the methodist and Baptist Churches, the
latter Ch. have a female seminary. Our ch. is now vacated (& should have been years ago) and
bereft of their house of worship and much cast down. There is one noble man there (a convert in a
revival in Galena) who centurian-like offers to furnish the brick and put up the walls of a church
but meets with no response. Math XI...17. There is a Presb. Ch. at Eagle Point feeble and
disheartened by deaths and removals and sectarian rivalry and farming preacher and temporarily
supplied by a cong. minister. There are also 2 Cong. Churches, one at Wysox and one at Savanna
which is in the last stages of decline. And as you call for “illustrations” I will quote this as an
illustration of the hot haste in which some run to organize churches (Cong.). Well not to say I was
watching over that little settlement 30 miles distant and supplying them occasionaly as I have
done for 15 years, when some good brethren came over from Iowa, and invited me to come and
assist in organizing a church after one of them had lectured me on Congregationalism (as he told
me). But the material in due time might have been worked into a Presb. Ch. N.S. as the result has
shown for an O.S. Presb. Ch. has sprung upon them and after Br. Hill has expended a good share
of his time and Home Miss. money, the ground is nearly abandoned. This is but a specimen of
what has transpired in other localities, ex. Fulton City, Albany and Union Grove at each of which
places an O.S. Church has been attempted by divisive efforts where a N.S. Presb. CH. ought to
have united there. And I may add that in all these places, religious effort is constantly
embarrassed to borrow a figure like tangled yarn. An unfinished and mortgaged R.R. bisecting
the county just now threatens to bless its prospects. Ministers Gray and Donaldson.
Ogle Co. in 50 had 10,000 in 55 had _____ probably now has 16,000. Oregon its county seat
has a pop. of 3 or 4,000 a Lutheran Ch. and a good minister. There is an independent strongly
anti-slavery Presb. Ch. at Polo. They have a new and beautiful edifice. An evangelist (Parker) is
labouring there in concert with or rather in supercedence of the pastor (Todd). And considerable
religious interest has been apparent. There is no other self supporting church in the county except
it be Byron. There is a feeble Cong. Ch. at Grand Detour, and one at Dement [Creston] and an
organization O.S. at Lane Station [Rochelle]. An efficient exploring missionary might in time
accomplish great good by well directed labour in this county and also in Carrol Co. similar results
might be anticipated but they seem not to afford fields of so immediate promise as others.
Ministers Todd, Pearson and Kellogg, Larson and Bristol.
Whitesides Co. had in 50 5,000 in 55 13,000 has now 16,000. Sterling the county seat has
recently received a new impetus in the way of growth, has 3,000 souls and besides the O.S.
Church long since organized and now gaining strength. They have recently organized a Cong. Ch.
And knowing they were vacant I went to spent the last Sabbath with them but was told they had
no house and no prayer meeting but they were attending the O.S. Church (where no prayer
meeting was kept up) and were intending to get a smart man and start strong in the spring. I
advised them to establish a weekly meeting for prayer & conference, if they would become strong
and passed on and preached at Gap Grove, 4 miles distant apparently with great acceptance where
I met with a repulse 2 years ago because they had gone over to the the Am. Miss. Ass. But their
minister (Johnson) is dead and the anti-slavery advances of our society is probably satisfactory.
There is a self supporting Cong. church at Fulton City and one at Lyndon. And there are 2
feeble Congregational Ch. and 4 feeble Presbyterian Chs. all needing aid and 2 of these last are
vacant, 2 others have temporary supplies, quite temporary I believe. There are 3 O.S. Presb. Ch.
in the county, Sterling, Albany & Morrison. The Germans are numerous and are about forming a
Lutheran CH, at Forreston, where Dr. Harkey Prof. in the Lutheran College at Springfield was
holding a series of meetings Sabbath before last (I was there) and was preaching with great
acceptance to the Americans. The Methodists have a flourishing Seminary at Mount Morris and a
rallying place but their great literary Institution is to be on the Lake Shore in Cook County, 12
miles from Chicago and mid-way between that city and Lake Forest. Ministers Leonard,
Chapman, Hemenway; Churches Fulton City, Lyndon, Albany, Como, Sterling, Garden Plain
Clyde, Portland Sharon.
Lee Co. is 50 has 5,000 in 55 11,00 has now 13,000. It has 3 Presbyterian Ch and 6 Cong Ch.
all dependent but Amboy and Lamoille. The O.S. have 3 organizations one of which is at Dixon
with its College and 30 pupils , one at Earlville and one with its Academy at Mendota, One
exploring missionary for the county might be employed to great advantage. Ministers Coleman,
Phelps and Fitch. Ch. lee Center, Lamoille, Amboy, Mehugin’s, Paw Paw, Dixon, Gap Grove.
DeKalb Co. is 50 has 5,000 in 55 had ____ has now 14,000. There are 4 Cong. and 3 Presb.
Chs. all dependent for support. The county seat (Sycamore) has a Cong. Ch. which after
acknowledging themselves under obligation to me for personal efforts in their behalf have felt
obliged to late to repudiate the agent of the A.H.M.S. and seek help from the A. M. Ass. They
have field enough to employ a missionary in that county. Churches Sycamore, Dekalb, Lodi,
Shabbona Center, Sandwich, Saumanouk.
Kane Co. is 50 had 16,000 in 55 26,000 has now 30,000. There are 10 Cong. and 1 Presb.
Churches of which 6 are self supporting. The county is permeated by the Fox River which is
bridged and obstructed by dams every few miles affording great water power. It is crossed by 2
R.Roads. Geneva is the county seat and has a Cong. Ch. Elgin, St. Charles, Aurora, and Batavia
have all strong churches and the latter place has a beautiful Academy of such fine building stone
as the bed of the River affords and which has become an article of export to a great distance. Our
Br. Peet of pleasant memory was the agent not only of advancing materially the Ch. but also of
establishing that Academy which together with Beloit College will long be regarded as one of
those enduring monuments of his usefulness of which he has left so many lessor ones in
Wisconsin. How often we sat together, the trustees of the College, a harmonious band, has a new
and perplexing question been introduced when Br. Peet would say “Come let us talk it out.” The
states supplies and pastors along the river are competent to the missionary work of the county and
it comes appropriate under Br. Clark’s supervision.
Dupage Co. in 50 had 9,000 in 55 12,000 has now 14,000. Naperville the county seat has a
self supporting Cong. Ch. There are 4 other Cong. and one Presb. Ch. all dependent of foreign
aid. It has been a small territory in it there are 66 school districts of 60 have builded good houses
of brick or stone and employ good teachers. This result has been reached in part at least by means
of earnest efforts of Br. H. Brown who was for several years the County Superintendent. And it is
due to this part of Ill to state that very commendable nay rapid progress has been made within 2
years past in erecting substantial and large school houses in lace of rickety and unsightly log
cabins where the young idea was taught to shoot forth. In passing for the first time in 1833 across
the state from Chicago alias Fort Dearborn to my house in Galena via Dixon and Oswego in
Kendell Co. I spent a night in the only settlement on that route a few families (Goodrich and
Clark brothers of N.G. Co.) had just moved on the Dupage and I preached to them. Between that
point and Dixon there was no improvement except a deserted log cabin on Fox River which we
forded and we (that is Br. Sam. Pond now a Home Miss. but for some 20 years a foreign Miss. in
Minnesota and myself) followed an Indian trail during the day an dat night we laid ourselves
down on the grass ready to “depart on the morrow”. I am well informed concerning the want of
the county as to its spiritual condition but I think that besides its 2 Baptist Churches they have
abundant occasion to employ a county missionary for there are 2 R.R. stations which are
assuming some importance these are Wheaton and Junction. Churches Naperville, Big Woods,
Dupage, Birbecks Grove, Bloomingdale. Ministers Bartlet and Barber.
Cook Co. had in 50 43,000 in 55 103, 000 has now 140,000. Chicago is the county seat and
has 5 Presb. and 5 Cong. Churches which are self supporting. There are tow O. S. Ch. and a
variety of others such as a place so large would naturally gather according to the tastes and
countries they represent. There are in the county 4 or 5 theological seminaries projected and all
threatened with mammoth endowments. There are also 6 cong. and one Presb. ch in the outskirts
of the county. Chicago has become the great commercial mart for the North west and thus creates
a demand that every denomination, every trade, every patent, and every vice should be
represented there at least by its appropriate agency and hence there is a necessity that 1/2 a score
of colporteurs and city missionaries should be sustained there. How many ministers there are in
Cook County I know not. But such cities are quite attractive to rich ministers who afflicted with
bronchial difficulties.
Rock Island Co. in 50 6,000 in 55 16,000 has now 18,000. There are in the county 3 cong. and
2 presb. chs. of which 4 are dependent on Home Miss. aid. The Cong. Ch. at Moline and the
Presb. Ch. at Rock Island (the county seat) are able to support their own ministers and will soon
be prepared to refund what they have received from us. A Welch Cong. Ch. has recently sprung
up at Coal Valley where they are carrying off 100 tons of coal daily. The R.R. to this coal mine
passed near by the site of an old Indian town where were a cluster of wigwams made of bark still
standing when I passed along in the fall of 1830 and pointed to one that was larger than the rest. I
inquired of my guide and he replied that was Black Hawk’s wigwam. There are also 2 O.S.
Presbyterian Ch one at R.I. and 1 at Conklin. A missionary is very much wanted to labor in the
south part of the county in and around Edgington. It is a neglected region and this remark appears
to the whole of the county south. Ministers Spencer, Hitchcock, Wm. Porter. Ch. R.I., Moline,
Edgington, Hampton and Port Byron.
Mercer Co. in 50, 5,000 in 55 9,000 has now probably 11, 000. We have no organization
whether Cong. or Presb. I have ben across the county several times and have preached and visited
there and have been hospitality entertained but have felt myself shut out by the O.S. churches
who have 2 or 3 nominal organizations but so far as I can learn utter inefficiency has marked the
operations of these churches (perhaps it is not now). “Would God” that an energetic and selfsacrificing missionary were stationed there with words that burn. Once a report reached me that
an offer was made (by the proprietor of a station on the R.R. as yet on built) to our Ch. to occupy
the post and a tract of land would be given on condition of our building an academy there.At one
of a committee appointed by Synod I went out as soon as I could but ere I reached the site the
methodists had divided the tract with the O.S. and I passed on.
Henry Co. had in 50 3,000 in 55 9000 has now 12,000. It is an interior county and was in a
manner overlooked until lately. But 2 R.R. pass over it and the population is increasing rapidly. It
had 4 Cong. Chs. 3 of which have become self supporting quite recently and a Presbyterian
organization has been attempted with a few weeks at Geneseo the largest town in addition the the
Cong. Ch. which was once Presb. but like others was turned over to the Galesburg clique of some
other clique. The success of the experiment is problematical. Ministers Waldo, Baker, Lyman,
Pierce, Bartle. Churches Geneseo, Cambridge, Wethersfield, Kewanee, Annawana. It should have
been said Cambridge the county seat has a Congregational Church and a good minister., They
have drawn largely upon our society.
Bureau Co. in 50 had 8,000 in 55 19,00 has now 20,000. It has 5 congregational churches 4 of
which support their own ministers. There is also a Presb. Ch. O.S. at Princeton the county seat.
Rev. Mr. Lovejoy was a good many years pastor of the Cong. Ch. in that town and has left his
own impress on them., but has now gone to Washington to advocate the cause of the slave.
An earnest Rev. colporteur of east manners and pleasing address by going over the last two
counties and ascertaining the facts would probably find new points of interest along the R.R. and
in the country back which ought to be occupied. Ministers Todd, Bascom, Lyman; Chs.
Princeton, Providence. Dover, Sheffield.
Putnam Co. is 50 had 3,000 in 55 5,000 has now 6,000. It is a small county and has no large
town. The county seat Hennepin is claimed by the Universalists. They have not encouraged and
sustained Evangelical churches, and the results are apparent according to the proverb Whatsoever
a man soweth - that shall he also reap. Its prospects are eclipsed and the day of its expansion gone
by.
There is one Presb and one Cong. Ch. at Granville which are now able to support their
ministers. A Presb. Ch. at Magnolia from which Br. Fowler of blessed memory had been
transplanted to paradise, and a Cong. Ch at “the lone tree” as it is familiarly known in the
vicinity. There is an Old School Ch. at Union Grove, whose large and overgrown house of
worship has been a bone of contention for many years. I recall some pleasing reminiscences in
reference to my first visit there in 29 or 30. Several pious families has some in from Bond Co. (or
there abouts) and I preached the first sermon in the little log church as yet has neither bottom door
nor puncheon floor. But there was a sweet harmony and brotherly love such as the wide house
with strife cannot contain. But my third visit there in Dec. 32 affords more pleasure in the review
than we found in the bitter experience of our journey. On my return from a tour to the East to
persuade good people to come West, I was accompanied by Mrs. Kent, Miss Pierce, a truly
missionary spirit, E.E. Hall a youth of 17, now preaching at Rome or Paris, and a child of 9, now
Rev. Mrs. Phelps of Lee Center. We were detained by sickness on the rivers until they were
frozen and we were obliged to travel from St. Louis by land and from Springfield by means of a
big waggon which providence furnished and I purchased. And as we proceeded our weary way
we reached this grove at evening and finding no one to entertain us, we kindled a fire and made a
kettle of mush with which we welcomed the return of the family. And if you will allow the
interpolation of some “Prairie Missionary” adventures to these dry statistics you may follow the
big waggon and listen to our songs and our prayers, for we had some good singing and some
precious prayer meetings. While Rev. E.E. Hall acted alternatively as Postillion or officiated as
chaplain. Having crossed the Ill. River and arrived late in the evening we found ourselves in a
“muddy run” with 10 high banks that our high and powerful horses could not get out. But we left
the vehicle and rode as best we could to Dixon, where we were kindly entertained by Mrs. Dixon
amidst a group of Indians stretched out before the fire. There was but one house and that a log
cabin. The next morning we went back 3 miles and “took up our carriages” and passed on to
Chambers Grove, where a part of our company were lodged in the root house, the Indians having
burned their cabin during the summer. Two days later we were overtaken by night and bewildered
by a snow storm., but the big waggon served us for a lodging place and the next day (13th) we
reached Galena and if ever we knew how to be thankful for domestic comforts it was in our own
limed log house with one room and a shed and a small franklin stove.
Lasalle Co. in 50 7,000 in 55 35,000 has now 36,000. It is bisected bu a R. Road and a canal
and is a thorough fare for passengers and freight to a large amount. It has many things combining
to support a large population, such as water power, water lime cement, and coal mines. There are
eight Cong. and 6 Presb. Ch. of the first 5 are self-supporting of the latter 2. An Old Sc. Ch. at
Mendota and at Troy Grove where they have taken possession of a house of worship which others
besides myself have aided in erecting.
A missionary is wanted to occupy the field left vacant 2 years since by the death of Br. Smith.
Kendell Co. in “50 had 7,000 in “55 10,000 has now 12,000. It has 3 Cong. and 1 Presb. Ch.
all which are able to support their pastors. The County Seat (Oswego) has a feeble Cong. CH. and
an Old School Ch. and there is a Cong. CH., organized at East Lisbon prospectively important
when the R. Road makes it. Perhaps no other Missionary than Rev. A. Day is required at present.
Ministers Bridgeman, Day, Forman, Chs. Newark, Lisbon, Bristol, Oswego.
Grundy Co. has in “50 3000 in “55 7,000 has now 9,000.
It has a strong Cong. Ch. at the county seat (Morris) a feeble Presb. Ch. at Mazon. It is a new
county and left unoccupied until within a few years. I recollect that when I visited Br. Murphy
and his sick wife I fount the land so level around him that I could not in a walk of 2 miles get out
of sight and the Gopher hills were so numerous that she could not endure the rise I attempted to
give her on account of continual jolting. There is an O.S. church at Morris and I think a Baptist
Ch. at Gardner, a R.R. station.
Will Co. in “50 has 10,000 in “55 24,000 has now 20,000. A new county called Kankakee has
been taken off this & Iroqouis Co. It has 4 Cong. Ch. 3 of which are self-supporting. It has 2
Presb. Chs. asking aid. Churches Lockport, Joliet & Hadley. Ministers Ghent, Loss & Mall.
Kankakee Co. has 10.000. It has 1 Cong. and 2 Presb. Chs. which have have but little more
than the semblance of being. These two counties demand missionary exploration. You called for
illustrations and if they smell of egotism you will consider that we are more apt in treasuring up
those facts and incidents concerning ourselves than what pertains to our neighbor. I should have
completed this by about the middle of Jan. but I was called away on a tour down Rock River to
introduce a minister Mr. Crane to Sharon where Br. Martin laboured for 7 years faithfully. The
statistics must of necessity be imperfect. If you complain that I make but 32 Home Missionaries
on my field, I reply that by looking over the table An. Rep. pp 98 I have counted up 18 f those
names that belong to my field that are not now in our employ.
Yours, etc.,
A. Kent
___
Galena, Jan. 29, 1858
I set out is good earnest to push up the churches to do more than they have done. I am pretty
well acquainted with the church ansd the Bishop at Pecatonica and do not anticipate any great
suffering to either if you should cut down their application and grant them only $100 on the score
of hard times.
A. Kent
____
Galena, Jan. 29, 1858
Treasurer of the A.H.M.Society
Please acknowledge in the Home Miss.
Oct. by Dr. Seely from the Presb. Ch.
in Kendall Co.
$6.22
Nov. 7 Peru Cong. Ch.
23.25
9 Geneseo Cong. Ch.
Dec. 16 from S. School of 2 Cong Ch Rockford
31.00
20.00
24 From the estate of Mrs. Hannah Ware
by Ralph Ware of Granville
200.00
Jan 18 from Charles W. Leavitt (Phila)
5.00
$285.27
Deduct $50.00 paid to J. Raymond
50.00
235.77
Which please charge to me.
A. Kent
___
Galena, Feb. 3, 1858
It is quite irksome for me to recommend so large an appropriation as 300 where there is so
loud a call for retrenchment. But it will be recollected that it is a child but 9 months old, which
has grown up if I may so say. Phoenix like, out of the ashes of the Chemung Church that was
starved and weathered by the former incumbents. And now this new effort has commenced under
circumstances that demands a strong man and if sustained a year or two, will gather strength and
make itself felt in the wide region of destitution around there and which would not have been so
destitute if others had done their duty in years past.
A. Kent
Perhaps your straits will require you to curtail $50 and recommend them to make it up from
the stall, the granary and the wine press. This is my sober second thought.
A. Kent
___
Somanauk, Feb. 15, 1858
I have been here once before and I spent yesterday here that I might get a right view of the
case. Br. Gould has laboured long and endured hardship in meeting his appointments beyond
what many good men would submit to and his churches appear to cling to him warmly and as an
officer in our common schools he has a field of usefulness which should be duly estimated. But
yet there are embarrassments which perplex me. The secretaries say we must do more and ask
less (in Ill..) to sustain him at Northville would require 1/2 his support from the society. At my
request that church met here yesterday and voted 9 to 5 to remove their center to Saummanauk.
But 3 observant men including 2 elders named by Br. Gould expressed the opinion that one half
of the presb. element about Saumanauk would prefer another man to Gould.
I should have added as necessary to give a fair view of the case that before that vote it was
admitted than sooner or later the Northville Ch. must be absorbed by its proximity to this station.
With these statements I leave you to judge of your duty.
A. Kent
I am writing in a station house with its confines.
______
March 3 [1858]
I am well acquainted with the fields occupied by Br. Johnston. He is regarded as a very
labourious and judicious young minister and indeed has had thoughts of going on a Foreign
Mission though he has never spoken to me of it. At Orangeville where I was with him yesterday,
he is very acceptable. At Lena he is highly esteemed and they will be able to secure his whole
time in a year or two, but they are now building a church which embarrasses them. And at his
out-post south he has great encouragement in his work. I recommend the appropriation of $200.
A. Kent
___
Galena, March 3, 1858
Rev. Dr. Badger,
Sear Sir,
Yours respecting Mendota is received and I have planned a trip there next week, but mean first
to go and spend the Sabbath (7) at Garden Plain partly to ascertain whether Mr. Hemenway is
likely to labour there and at Albany, as I know not what your decision in the case has been.
I had begun my annual report but was called off to go over the east side of the state. I learned
than Monee Presb. Ch. had applied for aid and was disposed to discourage it because I thought
that Manteno and Monee should unite in one man. But when I heard them say that they hoped to
go alone next year I thought they should be allowed to have it in their own way.
At Loda and at Prospect City I found Cong. Chs. and these supplied with ministers at Rantoul
and in a settlement 8 miles west I fount the materials for forming 23 churches. The latter place
had written to me asking advice which was the immediate occasion of my going over to that
region. At Kankakee the church is discouraged. I endeavored to stimulate them to a new effort for
I am convinced that they have been mal-treated. There have been misrepresentations somewhere.
I spent the last Sabbath at Durand the present terminus of the Racine and Miss. R.R. Br.
Hodges is labouring there with acceptance and at another point of his diocess (Shireland) there is
a revival and he reported last Sabbath several conversions besides the recovery of backsliders.
I forwarded an application from Br. Gould’s church. He was very much offended because I
said I could not recommend him to labour at Saumonauk and to pacify him I told him what I
wrote should be submitted to his inspection and I thought that I could not do less than forward
you Dr. Hall’s letter of 49.
If you want further light or another man’s opinion Br. Chatford of Sandwich knows more than
any one else, as he has preached there considerable time.
In a letter to me before my last visit there he says “the Northville ch. must come up to the
village (of Saumanuk)- they must give up Mr. Gould or the game is up.” that is with the Ch. at
Sommanauk.
I think that the circulars I have issued with my comments as directed by you (and I wrote more
than 100) are making a good impression.
Yours truly,
A. Kent
_____
Annual Report [no place or date - probably early March 1858]
Rev. Dr. Badger,
Dear Sir,
In presenting this report I feel impelled to begin with a humble acknowledgement of God’s
goodness in sparing my life, continuing my health, permitting me to labour another year in his
vineyard and affording me those facilities for travel which renders it so much more easy,
expeditious and cheap than formerly. And in this last remark I refer to the procedure which has
furnished me unsolicited a pass on the Ill. Cent. R.R. which I have occasion to use more than all
the others and by means of which I can go without expense from one extreme of the state to the
other. This however I do [not?] speak of publicly.
Though I am not permitted to see many striking proofs of success in the ministry, yet I have
many opportunities of observing and rejoicing in the successes of my brethren.
We have now on this field (24 counties, including Kankakee) 32 missionaries who are
labouring for Christ in 62 congregations and destitute settlements. And according to a careful
estimate recently forwarded there are inviting fields of labour in which 24 others might be
usefully employed if we had men of Apostolic spirit who would submit to the self denial involved
in cultivating them. Rev. Joseph Fowler who has died during the year at Magnolia was of of those
preeminently self denying men. There have been 5 churches organized and it is pleasing to record
that 5 churches have assumed the support of their ministers without foreign aid and that 4 houses
of worship have been built.
In looking over the 27 years since the first church was organized on this field, it is gratifying
to know that churches sustained in their incipiency by this society are planted in 15 of the 24
county seats and are exerting a purifying influence in most of our large towns.
But as it is not practical to measure the good done by these churches, we may raise the
startling inquiry, what would not have been the state of society if no such association had
lavished its bounty in aid of our early destitutions. And an answer might be gleaned from a
simple narrative of facts in relation to Galena and its vicinity prior to 1829 when amidst a
population of 10 or 20,000 there was no church, no Sabbath or Sab school., no minister Protestant
or Catholic, no family altar, and indeed no openly avowed advocates of personal piety. But they
suspected a man if we would not swear nor use strong drink. He was a marked man. They
suspected that he was religious. Such indeed was the state of morals that if Abraham had been
passing through town, he would have said as on another occasion, surely the fear of God is not in
this place and they will slay me for my wife’s sake.
It is true that we have received and expended on this field in 5 years $37,000. But let us see
what has been achieved by means of this full flow of Eastern benevolence. 1- We have
contributed in return $12,000 or almost 1/3 which would not otherwise have ben raised for the
general purposes of your society; 2- the people of this district have been encouraged and
stimulated and have actually raised farther support of the ministry not less than $75,000 which
else would not have been raised; 3- The places of worship that have been built within these same
5 years by Home Miss, Churches (or which once were such) have in all probability cost not less
than $1000,000 and 4- the contributions of other Benevolent Societies and which our
missionaries have been foremost to encourage are not less than $20,000. 5- These efforts to raise
funds in support of their own institutions and to send their beneficence abroad have fostered the
habit of alms giving and counter acted covetousness to an extent which is worth more to the
contributions by 100 percent than all they have given.
I am aware however that the benefits we have derived from your society cannot be
recommend by dollars and cents. 6th- There is another aspect in which this subject should be
viewed. Your society has taken up and sustained a class of ministers who from their age or some
infelicity in their manners have proved unacceptable to the older and richer churches but whose
learning and expression and general ability qualify them preeminently for this missionary work.
These men dispersed over the field with their excellent wives and intelligent children are
exerting a powerful but silent influence for good. They seek out and relieve the por the sick and
the afflicted. They do much towards sustaining the Sab. School. Their house is the home of
agents of benevolent societies, and their cordial welcome a source of encouragement. They are in
fact model families and the very trials and self denial they endure become a blessing to the
community in many ways. I will specify one which I met with most frequently. It is the worst of
suitable schools. Being well educated themselves they long to have their children enjoy the same
advantages and to see them growing up in utter deprivation of literary culture grieves them more
than any personal trials. I have seen two excellent ladies, graduates of Mt. Holyoke and
missionary's wives one of whom recently died. I have seen them weep over this deprivation. This
puts the missionary upon various expedients. Sometimes they refuse to locate in a place because
there is no school for their children. Sometimes they take the lead in getting up an academy and
sometimes the wife engages in teaching and thus the Home of the Missionary becomes a light
house for the youth of the vicinity.
Estimating the untold value of such men and such families dispersed over the prairie state to
mould its character and elevate the tone of moral feeling we must recollect that but for the
support rendered by this society many of them would become disheartened and return to secular
business that they may obtain a support for those dependent upon them.
A. Kent
____
Galena, March 4, 1858
My travelling expenses during the year were ^1,08 : my horse and buggy pretty much worn
out as well as their owner : and with the expense of agency I judge would not altogehter fall short
of $100.
A. Kent
____
Mendota, March 10, 1858
Review of the organization of the Presbyterian and Congregational Churches in Mendota so
far only as relates to their claims upon the A.H.M. Society.
When I arrived at Mendota on Monday the 8th I met with Mr. Barret soon after I left the cars
and was invited to his house where I took tea and spent the night. During the afternoon and
evening I heard in detail his version of their differences and that of Mr. Smith the Elder, a
summary of which are on file and will accompany my report. In the course of the interview many
things were introduced which were corroborative of their statements but which I did not deem
necessary or sufficiently important to insert and the same general remark applies equally to the
other party.
The next morning I set out to hunt up all I could find on the other side. I called on J. Moore
whose hospitality I had enjoyed in days past. I took dinner with him and opened the subject by
reading the documents. “In conference he added nothing to me” with such definiteness as to be
available in evidence but said he was opposed to strife and showed his peace loving temper by
saying in relation to a Christian Brothers baptist wide I would join the Baptists sooner than have
strife in the family.
I then went with him to call on Mr. Wicks and Bro. L.H. Parker. They were absent. But I
found Br. Parker at S.M. Moore’s office and laid the subject open (by reading the Bureau Comm.
Report and Dr. Badger’s letter). There was not much said. But on the subject of Mr. Barret’s
preference (denominational), I expressed my surprise at his statement and he took me in a buggy
to the Lutheran Female Seminary (1/2 mile out) now in building. Mr. Wicks (carpenter) stated
that Rev. Mr. Baldwin told him that he (Barret) had declared his purpose to organize a
Presbyterian Church. I enquired when he said this. He thought some 3 or 4 months after he came
there.
Mr. Barret’s explanation is plausible, that he had predicted that from the conflicting elements
such an organization would be the result, though he had then no idea of attempting it himself and
appealed to me to recollect what he had said to me at Synod about finding another field for him. I
have indistinct recollection of that conversation. But i do recollect distinctly (as I told Br. Parker)
that when he first visited me and before he had made any engagement at Mendota, he represented
himself to be no stickler for either but rather inclined to the Cong. mode.
Having thus laid open the whole matter and given ample time to say whatever they wished
S.M. Moore & Dr. Johnson being present, I retired and after tea I met them again by invitation in
the Cong. prayer meeting. It was the first they had held since the close of the meeting (protracted
effort) in Union with the O.S. Presbyterians!
It was a pleasant meeting in which 2 young converts prayed one of whom has been a leading
supporter of the O.S. organization (m. Farland). At the close Br. Parker said that Dr. Johnson &
S.M. Moore wished to see me and preferred to see me at S.M. Moore’s office at 11 next morning.
I spent the night with J. Moore, went in the morning to Mr. Barret’s and wrote my report and at
11 1/2 A.M. I went to the office and found there all the leading men, c.c., Parker, Augustine,
Johnson, Dutch, S.M. Moore, Murphy, J. Moore and Father Moore once a scotch Presb.
They wished to know what I had done. I told them I had made out a report according to the
evidence afforded me. they asked if they might hear it read. Certainly, I will cheerfully read it for
it is my purpose to give the facts and have the Ex. Comm. to judge of them. I then read the
following report.
In order to place the matter before the Ex. Com. I shall give the facts in relation to the
organization of the Presbyterian Church. 2) The reasons for changing the form of Ch. Gov. from
Presbyterian to Congregational & 3, the reasons for the organization of a 2nd Presbyterian Ch.
I. It appears that Rev. James H. Baldwin came here about....(J. Moore, his Elder, in the Church
at Troy Grove came about the same time) and after preaching several months he organized a
Presbyterian Ch. of some 12 membersMr. Wicks
Mrs. Wicks - P. but their preference is for Cong. Ch. which they have joined
Mr. Jack
Mrs. Jack - P. have since joined O.S. Presb. Ch.
J. Moore
Mrs. Moore- P. has not formally joined but aided with the Ch.
Mrs. Baldwin - P.
H. Baker - Cong.
F. Baldwin- P. would have joined if his Br. had remained there
Mrs. Cross-P. moved away
Mrs. Keith- Cong.
Mr. Rust - Cong.
Mrs. Rust Cong. have recently applied for admission to N.S. Presb. Ch.
After which he continued to preach about a year, receiving aid from the A.H.M.S. when he
went east to obtain funds to build a Presb. Church. He was gone 5 or 6 weeks and during that time
I came here as the agent is in duty bound to look after the churches under my care and learned to
my surprise that arrangements were made to change the Ch. from Presb. to Cong. and that Mr.
Holbrook had promised to be with them on that Sabbath but he did not appear. I preached and
spent the Sabbath with H. Baker.
II. Reasons for changing the organization. These I have not been able to learn satisfactorily.
Whether Mr. Baldwin did any thing to bring it about or did concur in it. whether Mr. Holbrook
advised it or whether any outside influence was brought to bear upon them.
It is said in the Report of the Bureau Comm. that the Church by unanimous vote dissolved for
the purpose of being organized into a Cong. Ch. But then it is fairly to be inferred that other
reasons than a desire to form a Cong. Ch. had their influence from the fact that only 3 of the
members of the Presb. Ch. were enrolled in the new organization and from the fact that
immediately after an Old Sch. Presb. Ch. was formed.
III. Reasons for forming the 2nd Presb. Ch. The principal are these.
1. The strong and ecclesiastical anti-slavery views of a majority of the Cong. Ch. as expressed
in the resolution of Dec. 4th/56 had been pressed to an extent that a minority of 7 at least had
decided to leave its communion.
2. There were as many more (professors of religion) identified with the Congregation
sympathizing with the minority who after repeated solicitations from Br. B. had declined to unite
with the Cong. Ch. from dislike to the spirit of those resolutions, most of them avowing a
preference for a Presbyterian Ch. and these preferences had been expressed before the formal
adoption of the resolutions.
Under these circumstances the respective parties thought the time favorable for organizing a
N.S. Presb. Ch, and invited the Presbytery of Ottowa to meet and determine whether such a
church should be formed, none of whom had previously visited the place or been advised with.
Br. Hayes, however, as agent of the Synod had been here and had been consulted on the subject.
Having read the report to the company, I listened to their remarks and endeavored to put down
every thing that had any bearing on the question at issue.
I. Under the first hear. Mr. Augustine (And did a backslider brought back within a few days)
stated that he once belonged to a Presb. Ch. but intended to join the Cong. Ch. when he came
back to duty or words to that effect. He said Mr. Baldwin organized a church and circulated a
subscription to build a church before ever he had preached there. He was corrected, it was not a
church but a society which he organized.
II. When I came to the reason of organizing a Cong. Ch. Mr. Dutch said that Mr. Holbrook
was requested to visit Mendota but that he utterly refused to have anything to do in the matter.
Mr. Augustine said that Mr. Baldwin could not unite the elements that existed and an counting
names they found that a majority were Congregationalists and that 8 outside preferred a Cong.
Ch. I stated that there but 3 of the Old. Presb. Ch. on their records. They said there were 4- that
Mr. and Mrs. Wicks had joined the Old School Ch. and that all the male members agreed to the
change.
III. Respecting reasons for forming a 2nd Presb. Ch. As I read them over they remarked that
Mr. Barret approved of those anti-slavery resolutions, I inquired if that was so. Some thought it
was but Mr. Dutch said, his words were, he made no objection to them, this is it would be of no
use. He merely moderated the meeting as was requested of him.
On the clause “7 at least” they expressed the opinion that one person dissented from those
resolutions. They said however that Mr. Rust out of regard to Mr. Barret would not vote. In
regard to the words man or person they did not agree and I inquired if the women were not
counted- c.c. not allowed to vote.
They thought the clause “dislike to the spirit of those resolutions” should be struck out and
that “3” should be substituted in place of “as many more” and here Mr. Murphy said that he and
his wife might have been counted. He was a Presbyterian, had been so trained but he was also
anti-slavery, from the Lacon CH. (of which Mr. Christopher is pastor and who was expected at
one time to come to Mendota) and therefore could not unite with a church where these resolutions
were rejected. But I replied to them that Br. Barret named to me Read, Colson and Townsend and
their wives to which they made no definite reply.
I was asked by the Brethren in that meeting if I recommended that application of the Presb.
Ch. “I did.” And did you consult with this church. “Certainly not. I supposed of course that as
you had passed those resolutions and had contributed through Mr. Bascom to the A. M.
Association, you would not ask aid from the other. They said they were friends of the A.H.M.S.
and “Mr. Bascom did not go round to solicit.” (c.c. after Mr. Bascom had told them that they
were receiving aid from A.H.M.S.) but I went round and got $5 from 5 men. I inquired if some of
them had not said that they would not receive aid from A.H.M.S. and contribute to the A. M.
Association was like robbing Peter to Paul.
Having read all I had written and put down all that was pertinent to the subject I left as I had
proposed and entered the cars at 1 1/2 p.m. to go to Paw Paw, requesting them to write to me
within a week if they wished to add any thing to my report.
There are some things omitted which I shall now put down in order to comply with my
instructions to reply “:in full at length and in detail.” Intimations being thrown out that Mr. Barret
has been harshly treated. M.J. Moore said that when they met and voted not to employ him longer
their object was to let him know the kindest manner before hand that they could not raise his
salary another year.
I explained my surprise to Br. Parker that they should apply to the A.H.M.S.. He said “I have
always been a fried to that society!”
In Br. Parker’s letter it is intimated that other denom. sympathize with the Cong. Ch. I called
on our common friend Rev. Mr. Fisk O.S. He said, “It was wrong to change the Ch. from Presb.
to Cong.” and yet according to Mr Barret’s representation there would not have been an Old Sc.
Presb. there as Mr & Mrs Jack were the only members they had in the place. He thought at the
time in that it had been better not to have formed a 2nd Presb. Ch, but that as the Cong Ch. have
gone over to the A. M.As. they might be left to get aid there and the A.H.M.S. might better help
the Presb. Ch.
He said the Cong. had violated their own resolution by inviting in a protracted meeting with
the Old Sc. Presb. as they did!!
Mr. Barret says that within a few days he had meet them at his request and professed to settle
all difficulties when they made no allusion to the fact that application and complaints had just
gone to New York.
Mr. Barret says that the Bureau Com did not give them an opportunity to give their version of
the affair.
I express no opinion on the question. It will be soon enough for me to give an opinion when
the Presb. Ch. make application in June.
Aratus Kent
P.S. Mr. Barret requested me to delay until he can write again and give new testimony but I do
not think it fair to take more testimony of materially to change the report without showing it to
the other party.
___
Coal Valley, March 17th 58
Dear Br. ,
Will you be pleased to let me know the reason my quarterage has not been sent. In my report
for Feb. I had desired the aid given by the society to be sent quarterly if convenient. I need it very
much.
Yours,
John L. Rairds
Coal Valley, Rock Island Co.
Ill
To Rev. A. Kent
Galena
____
Galena, March 20, 1858
Rev. Dr. Badger
Dear Sir,
The enclosed letter will I presume meet so prompt a reply from your office that I need not
make any other reply then to forward it, and yet I have been thinking that perhaps our Secretaries
had been dozing of late in sleepy hollow, for I have heard nothing to my statistical report to Dr.
B., nothing in reply to my report to Dr. N., nothing from the application from Albany and Rev.
Mr. Hemenway and nothing from my special request to be informed whether the Northville
application was granted.
I have wanted information on these last two cases that I may know whether to direct other
ministers there. I have had extraordinary perplexities in my work of late. But it is quite possible
that the Secretaries may have some too.
I have been to Mendota and could report but Br. Barret has written me requesting me to delay
10 days till he can get further testimony.
I suppose that I need not give the Brethren a formal invitation to send a representative to
Chicago 3rd Thursday of May.
I think the circular I sent out and the appeals made here have been making some good
impressions.
Yours truly,
A. Kent
___
[The Cong. Ch. of Huntley, Ill. apply for $200 aid in support of Rev. Lot Church 12 mo. from
Feb. 1, 1858- all these notes refer to this - ultimately granted $200]
Galena, March 23, 1858
I see no occasion to write to Br. Benedict for Br. Savage is authority with me and indeed I
wonder at Br. Clark that he should have written such a recommendation when he seems to have
had an unfavorable impression. I cannot recommend the application. I know nothing of the
incumbent but what is contained herein.
A. Kent
Should you think it necessary you can write to Br. Benedict of Aurora. I should certainly have
done so if I thought you wished it. Among the things about which I have heard nothing. I forgot
at the moment of writing last the matter of $300 in #rd Presb. Ch. of Chicago of which I asked
your direction. I want the money that is due me for I can collect nothing that is due me.
Please signify your wishes.
A. Kent
I have written Br. Clark that he must first satisfy the majority of the Com.- that it would not be
respectful to them for me to go and recommend a man over their heads and when I know they had
refused their names. Am I not right?
A. Kent
[From Savage to Kent]
Bro. Kent,
I cannot endorse the application of Mr. Church I do not think that he is a man who would do
good to any church. If you wish for light in relation to him, you had better write to Br. benedict of
Aurora....
Truly yours,
E.S. Savage
___
Galena, March 31, 1858
Rev. Dr. Badger
Dear Sir,
Your letter of the 25 inst as also of that of Dr. Coe are received. Yours contained the first
intimation that has reached me of his doctorate and I will try to remember it in future, though I
presume that if I should forget it in my future communications it would give him no uneasiness,
or at least he would dispose of it as Saul did, of the neglect of the men of Belial.
I was quite surprised that you should have understood me as asking any allowance for
expenses, which I did not think of doing and only alluded to it as one item of information that you
would like to have in passing. I have never even kept an account of my expenses of agency
myself until last year, nor do I know what are the expenses of other agents, nor even what salary
any other one receives.
However as the mistake has been made and as I am more than usually crowded to meet my
liabilities I have concluded to accept it and turn it to the purpose to which you alluded, i.e. $100
of it.
I am not going to disturb the Ex. Com. again about Kankakee. I have no doubt they have
decided according to the evidence which has come before them. But I happen to know so much
about that whole thing that I sympathize extremely with the oppressed church and I have
encouraged them to expect $200 from me personally when they are in circumstances to need that
aid, and in order to accomplish my purpose I shall be obliged to confess to a blunder.
I appealed to a number of my personal friends to contribute to that Presb. Ch. as a New Years
gift and I obtained from J.N. Phelps 45 Wall St., $100, which I solicited for that church at
Kankakee. And being so much accustomed to plead for our society I promised that he should be a
life member of the A.H.M.S.
I have therefore no alternative but to say to him by letter that his contribution must go to the
general purposes of the Society of which he will thereby become a L. director and I will give the
$100 which your mistake or mine has furnished me, for I had no idea of having my report so as to
imply that I wished to receive anything for “wear and tear” or general expenses. (Please forward
his certificate of life directorship.)
I have enjoyed great good health during the winter months and have performed as much
labour as perhaps in any period of my life of as many months without any special “weariness,”
but as to the “infirmity” I am well aware that I have a full shall of that article.
My correspondence has greatly increased. I think I have written twice as many letters as
during any previous year.
I was surprised that Br. Gould and Hemenway were commissioned again. But the matter has
gone by and the same is true of the Ch. at Barrington. I have felt that I must be more decided in
urging up delinquents since this pressure has come over us and I regret the 3 cases as examples,
to say the least and I thought Dr. Hale’s letter would put to rest the one to which it referred, but as
he was displeased with my plainness with him I thought I would state the case and have leave it
without expressing any opinion. And my only concern is that he will now hand to Sommonauk
until it results in disaster and division in that young R.R. village.
Let me say confidentially that the Brethren in Ottowa Presb. have their own troubles with that
Br., and one of them has threatened to go to Chicago Presb. But I have dissuaded him. I do not
know as it is worthwhile to disturb the present arrangement. If however you want more
information you might request 2 Brethren out of Ottowa Presby. to go to Sommonauk and inquire
of the ch. going Presbyterians whether Br. G. is acceptable to them. I mean not his church for
they are afraid to think different from him but the inhabitants of the village. I think perhaps it is
better to let it pass.
Br. Hemenway may do better for a while but it will grieve the good Brethren at Como, as his
being commissioned will be regarded as a reflection on them.
Yours truly,
A. Kent
Lest it should seem as if I was extorting from the A.H.M.S. to swell the amount of my annual
contributions, I would say that I am getting to be an old man and to save trouble to my executors I
am trying to get off my hands the best way I can what I can conveniently spare and shall turn
what I have yet to draw from Chicago $150 over to Rockford Female Sem to meet a larger
subscription which I made to provoke others to good works.
Mr. Riley's statement is entirely satisfactory.
If i have made any blunders this time you must bear with me and in all patience correct them,
recollecting that horses sometimes dozed in Sleepy Hollow.
As I understood you I shall draw the rest of the money from Chicago (2nd Presb. Ch.) which
you are hereby authorized to to charge to my account.
A. Kent
____
Galena, April 15, 1858
Dear Sir,
I returned yesterday from assisting Br. Dunn if Wenona - 16 were added to the Ch. It was
intention to have spent part of the time at Magnolia where Br. Fowler laboured but the wet
weather prevented. Perhaps I shall still go there next week. On my way home I called at Mendota
to see some Brethren of the Ottowa Presb. There I learned from Br. Barret that he has new
matters relative to the vindication of himself and which will be forwarded when they make
application for aid.
I have just received a letter from Br. Baldwin to Br. Barret which freely confirmed what I have
already stated concerning Br. B’s position as a congregationalist but utterly opposed to the ultra
measures which have occasioned all the trouble.
A. Kent
I feel too unwell to write more and should not have have sent this but from a suspicion that
has crept into my mind that more is intended there, namely to get aid for the Cong. Ch. in
Mendota.
______
Galena, April 15, 1858
I have visited Waltham twice and was afraid they would give up in despair under the pressure
of 2 sources of embarrassment. 1) The house of worship was an unfinished shell and 2) they have
a scotch element that had become disgusted and partially withdrawn, but there was still a faint
hope that if we could secure the services of Br. Wells who was farming within the bounds of the
parish they might be saved. He considered that the only hope of getting the house finished was to
refuse to preach only on that condition and then generously offered to give to that object all they
would subscribe for his support. If therefore it is not in all respects in conformity with our rules, it
is the best we can do.
There is wealth enough in the parish and we think that Br. Wells will in a year or two draw it
out and secure a good support. He is regarded as an able man and was the pastor at Monticello (F.
Sem) until his health failed.
My impression- my hope- my expectation is that while he finds it necessary to labour some
what on his farm he will be worth more to us than many men who have no farm. I think by all
means the request should be granted for this year.
A. Kent
____
Galena, April 24/58
Mr. H.W. Ripley
Dear Sir,
I hereby acknowledge the receipt of $300 from S.L. Brown treasurer of the 2nd Presb. Ch. of
Chicago and acknowledge the receipt of $75 “from a friend of the cause” of Home Miss. So. in
Massachusetts in response to the circular of last winter which I forwarded.
I keep no copies of my letters and cannot unravel the mystery of the $100/net on the wrong
side of the page.
But I suppose you have learned ere this that Missionaries are not always good financiers.
Yours,
A. Kent
______
I recommend the appropriation asked, but while do this I say that I have thought that
perhaps....
Virginia Settlement [Ridgefield], May 15, 1858
Having sat down to endorse this application and wrote as far as perhaps, I reconsidered the
whole subject and concluded that as these 2 churches (this and Crystal Lake) were within 4 miles
of each other, had both been helped some 14 or 15 years, and both likely to be quite limited fields
for a good while to come, I would go on purpose to visit them and make another effort to reduce
their claims upon the Society or persuade them to unite in the support of one man. I have not
succeeded but I think Crystal Lake and probably this church will support their own ministries
after this year. Mr. Fuller thinks that they are inclined to got to the Free Missionary Society but I
think if they receive aid this year they will here after become self supporting.
A. Kent
Virginia Settlement, May 15/58
Appendix- for the eyes of the Secretaries
I find this church in a very distracted state and have resolved to spend the Sabbath here and if I
cannot pour on oil, I will try at least to dilute the aqua fortis which another minister has
administered quite too freely and very officiously.
Now for the facts
The wife of our missionary J.H. Baldwin went off 7 miles and staid a fortnight and left an
unweaned child, and reported that her husband did not love her, which is about all she complains
of. A part of the church (i.e., one elder and 2 or 3 related to him) have credited her story and
denounced him, though his warm friends before, and refused to hear him preach and he has left
preaching and moved away. But the greater part of the Ch. sympathized with and made him a
parting visit and a very handsome present.
The Ch. record I called for and found a very humiliating confession over her name and yet she
has gone right away repeated the same slander against him and I think neither party have
understood the case. To my mind it is a case of occult insanity operating as occasionally called
out of which there are some of the evidences.
She insists that she has no friends. She interprets all equivocal acts of her husband as proofs of
his want of love. She is manifestly prompted by suspicions which imagination created. She
laughs and weeps immoderately. She is not truthful, c.c., she flatly contradicts at one time what
she has said at another and at times evinces an utter want of maternal affection and frequently
starts off leaving her little children and in gone most of the day without any but a half grown girl
to care for them.
we all know how exceedingly provoking an insane person sometimes is and it would be
strange if he and not been provoked to do wrong at times.
I thought it owed to your missionary to make this statement.
A. Kent
____
Galena, June 7, 1858
I recommend that the application be granted to the amount of $200 and in view of the pressure
upon the society I do not feel at liberty to recommend a larger sum. I may misjudge but I think
that the people ought to lift their aid to sustain their minister. I passed along the Rail Road after I
saw Dr. Badger intending to call & inform myself but the cars did not stop at Jefferson and being
called home by domestic afflictions, I returned from Elk Grove & Dunston on Monday without
stopping to make inquiries concerning the field Br. Clark occupied. The same cause and the
damage in the G. & G.W. R.R. prevented me from preaching yesterday on Home Miss at
Belvidere as I had appointed. You have probably learned ere this of the calamity on our Miss. Br.
Isely as Roscoe. His whole family, wife and 8 children swept away by the flood of Thursday
night. I had planned to visit him to day on my return from Belvidere.
A. Kent
_____
Galena, June 23 [1858]
I spent a Sabbath some months since at Minook and I am quite week satisfied that the
statements are not exaggerated. Their prospects are flattering. Br. Brown is regarded favorably by
his ministerial Brethren.. I recommend the appropriation.
A. Kent
____
Galena, July 6 [1858]
This application and letter (and another letter from Br. S.G. Wright in answer to my inquiries)
contain all the information I am possessed of and while I endorse the application I may be
permitted to say that br. N.C. Clark said “I could continue to live pretty well on 600 as times are
this year.”
A. Kent
____
Galena, July 6 [1858]
[Application of the Congregational Church in Fulton CIty, Illinois]
I think highly of Br. [Josiah] Leonard.
A. Kent
_____
Galena, July 6 [1858]
Some years ago the Old School Brethren jumped our claim at Marengo, organized a church
and built a college there but Br. Marcus White and others could not be whipped into the (slavery)
trance and it has resulted in a new organization (as has been enacted so often) where there ought
to have been but one (N.S. Presb.) Church. I recommend the appropriation of 100 as requested.
A. Kent
n.b. Br. CLark I call Sylvanus, 1 Pet 7...12
____
Galena July 6 [1858]
I wrote to Br. Emerson in reply to his inquiries and his letter and this application in his hand
writing satisfy me that the commission should be granted.
A. Kent
_____
Galena, July 6 [1858]
I have not been to Lamoille in some time and supposed they had become a Free Mission Ch.
but was mistaken. Br. Swift has sent me a copy of his license but I think all will be satisfactory to
you without forwarding his letter. I recommend the appropriation of $150 and as requested
recommend that the commission date June 1 when he began his work.
A. Kent
_____
[The Cong. Ch. of Monroe, Ill., apply for $250 renewed aid in support of Rev. C. R. Clark]
Galena, July 6, 1858
I was quite vexed with the miserable paper on which this application is written and having
injured my eyes in reading it. I should not wonder if you sent it back to be copied, as I was half a
mind to do, for it is an able document which would be better appreciated if it could be read
without hesitation.
Br. Barret has an expensive family and I presume that a knowledge of the facts would
convince any reasonable man that 600 is as little as any man could live on in a place where
everything must be bot.
I have attended the meeting of trustees and the Ceremonies of Beloit College and Rockford
Fem. Sem, and managed to preach on Sabbath for Br. Kellog and the last Sabbath for Br. Phelps
or Lee Center and though it had been an exhausting process I am perhaps as well as if I had staid
home.
I have begun this morning on a bottle of bitters done up in Menongahella Whiskey for my
stomach’s sake.
A. Kent
_____
July 6 [1858]
When I took up this letter I thought it was a case for curtailment but when I had read the
whole story I thought I could “go the whole figure.” I recommend to the Comm. to grant them
150 and I recommend to the agent to visit them and raise the 50.
A. Kent
____
Galena, July 24 [1858]
When I received this letter I laid it by to wait for a formal application. But in looking ut over I
find that they regard this as sufficient. And I so regard it for I have been there and inquired into
the circumstances of that drooping vine by direction of Presbytery, and was gratified to find Br.
Root supplying them and that under his labours they are waking up to a new effort to live. It is
without hesitation that I recommend an appropriation of $125 - to begin with Apr. 15.
A. Kent
Br. Root who laboured at Udina last year gives good satisfaction at both points (please add
“and vicinity”).
_____
Galena, July 29, 1858
I have had 2 or 3 long consultations with myself about this application. It is evidently drawn
up by the missionary himself and presents the best side it has. I have supposed Br. L. was not
very acceptable there. Br. S.G.Wright in his letter in reference to Buda intimated his doubts about
Br. Lyman’s acceptableness at Sheffield. It seems to me wrong that Buda and Sheffield should be
supported while they are so weak. And in view of what Br. Badger wrote about Mr. Waldo would
it or would it not be best for your committee to decide that their funds would not allow of their
separation and recommend that they unite in supporting one man each 1/2 the time. But perhaps
prudential considerations will induce them to send me on to the ground to make investigation at
Buda and Sheffield. I took my pen to write to Br. Bascom (old agent as he is) whether his hearty
approval was based on personal observation.
A. Kent
____
Galena, July 29, 1858
Br. H.W. Ripley will have occasion to watch me pretty closely lest I prove delinquent in
reporting. I find no evidence that I have reported the follwoing sums.
1858 Jan. 29 Cong Ch. Vermillionville
$5.00
Feb. 7 col in 1 Cong Ch. Rockford
22.00
June 19 Balance of the same
36.50
Ap. 24 Second Presb. Ch. Chicago
300.00
do “a friend of the cause”
75.00
Ap. 30 Peru Cong CH
18.40
May 30 Elk Grove
22.15
Dunston Presb. Ch
10.22
467.30
200
167.30
Please report.
A. Kent
______
Galena, Aug. 12, 1858
I am acquainted with Br. [William] Porter and believe him to be a faithful laborer and when I
was at Hampton a year or two ago I received a favorable impression concerning his field of
labour,