Life and Letters of Rev. Aratus Kent Introduction
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204[204] Oct. 31, 1851. 205[205] Feb. 23, 1852. 206[206] March 31, 1858. 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. 209[209] Chapin to Kent, Sept. 15, 1854, Chapin Papers, Beloit College. 210[210] Kent to Chapin, Sept. 7, 1854. Chapin Papers, Beloit College. 211[211] Catalogue of the Rockford Female Seminary, 1857-58. Rockford, 1857. p. 23. 212[212] May 9, 1849. 213[213] Kent to Chapin, Sept. 7, 1854. Chapin Papers, Beloit College. 214[214] May 5, 1849. 215[215] Journal of Stephen Dennison Peet June 10, 1850, Beloit College Archives. 216[216] April 28, 1859. 217[217]Centennial Celebration of the First Presbyterian Church, Galena, Ill. Galena, 1931. p. 6. 218[218] 219[219] 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. 221[221] According to: E.S. Seymour: The 1847-8 Galena Directory and Miner”s Annual Register, Number 1. Chicago, 1848. 222[222] The Galena Directory and Miner”s Annual Registr, Number Two, Galena, 1849. p. 29. 223[223] 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. 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. 227[227] 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. 233[233]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. 237[237] Kent to Badger, Aug. 29, 1848. 238[238] Kent to Badger, July 12, 1851. 239[239]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). 240[240] 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. 241[241] 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.
244[244]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. 246[246] 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. 248[248] 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. 249[249] 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. 250[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 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. 25173 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.” 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: 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. 253[253] 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. 254[254] 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. 255[255] 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 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” 256[256] 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. 257[257] 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. 258[258] 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. 259[259]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 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. |