Life and Letters of Rev. Aratus Kent Introduction

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, 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. 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 5000^39[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 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.

A Place So Hard No One Else Will Take It^44[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 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 bed-chamber 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 savage state; one who was content to squat in a log-cabin, with a large family of ill-fed and ill-clothed, 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 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 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. Robert^59[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 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 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.