Читать книгу Enchanted Ground - Sharon Hatfield - Страница 14

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“A Striking Specimen of Beauty”

IN THE very first years of settlement, the wild reaches of southeastern Ohio must have seemed like an American Eden, a place where believers could distill Christianity to its purest essence. Far from the religion of the Old World, with its prescribed rituals, they were free to improvise when it came to worship. One Athens County pioneer recalled,

There were no churches or meeting-houses in the county. Religious services, when any were had, were held in some private dwelling, or barn, or perhaps rude school house with oiled-paper windows to admit the light, and fitted up with rough benches. Such shelter was sought in cold weather. In the summer, the congregation generally assembled in the open air under the spreading branches of the trees, where, seated on benches hastily prepared for the occasion, they listened to the welcome message of the traveling preacher, who was either an independent missionary or sent on a missionary tour by the body to which he belonged.

One such voice crying in the wilderness was that of John Chapman, the woodsman and tree planter better known as Johnny Appleseed. Born in Massachusetts in 1774, he became a living legend on the American frontier, walking thousands of miles across Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana not only to plant apple trees but to spread the spiritual teachings of Emmanuel Swedenborg. Chapman was a follower of the eminent Swedish scientist and mystic whose philosophy inspired generations after his death in 1772. He had converted to the Swedenborgian church, called the Church of the New Jerusalem (or just New Church), while living in Pennsylvania. Although he was a businessman who sold seedlings and saplings to the pioneers, Chapman also was a pacifist, vegetarian, and deeply religious man who distributed Swedenborg’s texts all across the frontier. Upon arriving at a settlement, Chapman would shout, “News! Fresh from heaven!” as he handed out chapters of the books and collected pages that had already been read. When he was invited into a local home to spend the night, he would sit around the fire extolling the virtues of his faith.

Chapman probably told his hosts about Swedenborg’s great renown as a clairvoyant back in his native land, how in 1759 the seer had remotely viewed Stockholm in flames from 250 miles away—long before couriers could deliver news of the fire. Swedenborg believed that, in addition to this psychic gift, he had been specially chosen as a channel for communication with spirits of dead human beings that inhabited various rungs of heaven and hell. In his view, dead souls abiding in heaven had an existence much the same as they had on Earth except they now were not burdened by sin. This spiritual world was reflected in the physical world; everyday things harbored a deeper hidden meaning. The Bible, too, contained symbolic meanings and could be interpreted in a radically different way by considering the correspondences woven into its language. Above all, the “good news” Chapman was spreading was Swedenborg’s promise that salvation was open to all, that people had some measure of control over their final destiny. In fact, it would be the recently dead individual, rather than God, who would review earthly deeds and judge him or herself accordingly. This was a message that spiritualists would embrace in due time.

Chapman had begun his wanderings in Ohio as early as 1801. He refined his business practices into what became a familiar ritual: he would collect seeds from commercial cider presses, identify places in the wilderness that he thought would be settled in a year or two, and plant orchards in those areas. Though he often lived in the forest with little shelter, Chapman sometimes built cabins or bought property to use as a base for his operations or simply as an investment. For three decades he owned land in eight Ohio counties and planted apple orchards in nearly twice that number. Even more important, in his eyes, was his influence in establishing Swedenborgian societies; although this faith would never become widespread in the state or the nation, Ohio by 1843 had several hundred members of the Swedenborgian church.

In Meigs County the fruits of Chapman’s spiritual labor were seen in the Grant family, converts who entertained the holy man at their home and established a Swedenborgian congregation inspired by his teachings. Apparently no such society existed in neighboring Athens County, but Chapman did travel through the area, often stopping to spend the night at the Dover Township farm of Abraham Pugsley, a Baptist minister. Local tradition has it that Chapman planted his last orchard in southeastern Ohio on Elder Pugsley’s land before moving his operations farther west. If his path had ever crossed that of Jonathan Koons, they could have passed many lively hours parsing theology in addition to mulling the finer points of growing apples. Chapman’s twin legacies would linger in southeastern Ohio for decades after his 1845 death in Indiana.

While Chapman was bringing a mystical strain of Christianity to the area, he might have encountered the Reverend James Quinn, a Methodist missionary based in Marietta who traversed the wilds on his horse, Wilks. In December 1799 Quinn had made his first pass through the Hockhocking Valley, preaching at any settlements he could find. Although he enjoyed comfortable lodgings in Athens, he endured many lonely hours on the trail, once carving his name on a beech tree after taking a solitary meal of “pone and meat.” After several years as a circuit rider, Quinn helped organize what was likely the first camp meeting in Athens County—a four-day affair that drew excited participants with its evangelical style of preaching and singing. Methodist societies eventually formed in Athens and Alexander Townships, cementing that denomination’s influence in the area.

Just a year or two after the town of Athens was incorporated in 1811, the Methodists built a brick church in the village. The Presbyterians followed with their own building in 1828, having previously worshipped at the courthouse. Although they were several years behind the Methodists in actual church construction, the Presbyterians were highly influential. At least three presidents of Ohio University were ordained ministers of that faith, as were many faculty members.

The elders of the Presbyterian church took their duties seriously, disciplining members of the congregation who drank to excess, neglected prayers, questioned religious doctrines, or committed fornication or adultery. In 1828 the elders set their sights on Samuel Baldwin Pruden and his wife, Mary Cranston Pruden. Baldwin at age 30 was an enterprising merchant and miller who was developing the Bingham mill in Athens as a wool-carding operation. Within a few years he would make his fortune by establishing his own flax oil, grist, and saw mill, and a saltworks just south of Athens. Mary was the daughter of a well-to-do family in New York State and a descendant of two colonial governors of Rhode Island. As a youth she had survived a harrowing voyage down the rain-swollen Ohio River, during which she was nearly swept away by a flash flood, before reaching Athens on foot.

In the spring of 1828 Baldwin Pruden was brought before the Session, the governing body of the local Presbyterians, for failing to attend services for more than a year. When questioned by the church elders, he said “he disbelieved the authenticity of the Holy Scriptures and that he did not believe in the future punishment of the wicked.” He was excommunicated on May 10, 1828, “until he manifest repentance.”

Mary Pruden may have continued to attend services after the ouster of her husband, but her adherence to church doctrine was also suspect. The contrary ideas entertained by the couple were thought to stem from their reading of the New Harmony (Indiana) Gazette. New Harmony, founded in 1814, was a utopian community in southwestern Indiana that sought an egalitarian lifestyle for all its residents. The Scottish industrialist Robert Owen, who was widely regarded as an infidel, had purchased the town in 1825. The newspaper, edited by his son Robert Dale Owen, provided a platform for free thinking—questioning the norms of society that most people took for granted. The paper weighed in on slavery, women’s right to divorce, child labor, free education, and other reform issues. Above all, the paper challenged the very pillars of religious orthodoxy.

“Our ancestors drowned old women for a knowledge of witchcraft and burnt heretics, because they were guilty of heterodox sentiments,” an 1827 editorial noted, “and we, their successors, if we have lessened the punishment, have not become more rational in our accusations. In the nineteenth century, we accuse our fellow-men of candor, and impeach them of sincerity. An atheist is a blameless character so long as he dissembles; but let him be guilty of honesty, and his character is lost.”

A stubborn dalliance with this newspaper continued to cause problems for the Prudens. Just a month after her husband’s removal from the church, Mary Pruden was called to answer similar charges. “We charge you with questioning the truth of some parts of the Holy Scriptures—Expressing doubts about some of the leading doctrines of the Gospel—and industriously propagating infidel principles from a certain weekly paper called the New Harmony Gazette,” the indictment declared. Mary Pruden pleaded not guilty.

A formal trial commenced on July 19 with the Reverend Robert G. Wilson presiding. Wilson was pastor of the church as well as president of Ohio University. The jury of six elders was made up of male church members of high standing in Athens—four merchants, a lawyer, and a justice of the peace. At Mary Pruden’s request, the lawyer, Joseph Dana, was allowed to assist in her defense. She also asked questions of the witnesses herself.

A handful of witnesses testified about their sometimes startling conversations with Mary Pruden. One said she “heard Mrs. Pruden say she did not believe there was any witches or Devils” and that she “doubted their being either a Heaven or Hell.” Another quoted her as saying that “God was an object of imagination.” Multiple witnesses reported that she had read to them out of the Gazette or talked to them about books she found interesting.

One of the elders, Alvan Bingham, testified about a conversation in which Mary Pruden seemed to discount the literal truth of biblical miracles. “She said, it was said that Bonaparte marched his army across the Red Sea at the same place where Moses with the Israelites crossed: Moses being well acquainted with that Country knew the exact time at which he could cross on dry ground. . . . She said that she believed the Bible as much as any minister of learning.”

“What were your impressions from what Mrs. P. said?” asked Dana.

“It made me feel disagreeable from her saying that she believed the Bible as fully as any minister of learning,” Bingham responded. “The impression was that Educated Ministers do not believe it, and she did not.”

“Did you express your fears to Mrs. P. about the consequences of reading the papers?” Dana queried.

Before Bingham could answer, Mary Pruden interjected, “He did repeatedly and scolded me.”

She said nothing further in her own defense. The panel unanimously found her guilty on all counts but stopped short of pronouncing her punishment. Instead they delayed sentencing and asked the Reverend Wilson and Dana to speak with her privately.

On August 9 the Session met again. Wilson reported that he had visited Mary Pruden, but “she was not willing to make any further concessions than what she had made before and would not agree to abandon the practice of reading infidel publications.” With the recalcitrant Mary Pruden remaining a challenge to church authority, she was excommunicated that day.

It is not clear whether Baldwin and Mary Pruden suffered any social ostracism as a result of being kicked out of the church for heresy. But nine years later Baldwin Pruden was barred from testifying in a civil suit in Athens County Common Pleas Court after an attorney objected to his religious beliefs (or lack thereof). Baldwin Pruden’s businesses continued to prosper, and in time he became a trustee of Ohio University, a state legislator, and—ironically—an associate judge of the Court of Common Pleas. In 1840 he and Mary built a red brick mansion they called Harmony, perhaps in honor of the publication that had brought them so much trouble—and so much delight.

* * *

BY 1850 the number of churches in Athens County had grown to 24, with the two oldest groups, the Methodists and Presbyterians, leading the count with 12 churches and 8, respectively. The Second Great Awakening had set the stage for the growth of these two religious powerhouses, but other denominations had a foothold as well: the county had two Baptist churches, one Roman Catholic, and one Universalist.

From this smorgasbord of religious sentiment, Jonathan Koons had tasted nothing that would satisfy his soul. Behind the trappings of an ordinary farmer, he harbored beliefs that were far from common in Athens County. Koons had long been alienated from traditional Christian teachings, even though he was married to the daughter of a Baptist minister. As he would later write, he was, in fact, an infidel:

I had become an advocate in defence of atheistical sentiments, through the perversion of Christian orthodoxy, under the instructions of which I had been placed at an early age, and which for a time had taken hold on my mind. But soon finding myself sadly disappointed in my vain expectations of receiving those spiritual gifts and blessings which I anticipated at the mercy of God, through my devoted teachers, I soon became subjected to the title of backslider by those from whom I had departed in faith, and simultaneously heaped their scorn and derision upon me with such heated fury, until I was racked with fears, and was frequently constrained to cry, Oh Lord, save or I perish. But not withstanding all my repeated efforts to reconcile myself to their wedded faith; my researches after truth were only instrumental in disclosing new fields of ideas, which would not admit of any corresponding connection with the attributes of an allwise, benevolent and merciful God.

In particular Koons had trouble reconciling his childhood religious teachings with the notion of a merciful God. The steady diet of Calvinist theology emphasized humans’ sinfulness, the depravity from which no amount of good works could cleanse a person over the course of a lifetime. Adam and Eve’s error would always be visited on him, his children, and their children until the end of time. Worse still, humans had no free will with which to seek salvation; God had already predestined who would be saved and who would be lost; the former, called the elect, would never have to face the fires of hell.

After his conversion to spiritualism, Jonathan would put those fears to rest, confidently stating,

Let us strictly avoid the propagation of the preposterous notion, that any distinguished sect, party or person, above all others, is a “special elect” favorite of a universal Deity, or some man-made Bible-God; a doctrine that has cursed and retarded the progress of the human family in all ages of the world, from the date of Adam hence to modern Calvinism; which, last, and worst of all, teaches “that all those, and those alone, who were from eternity elected to salvation, are given Christ by the Father,” or God. . . . In place of the doctrine of election, let all reformed teachers to the contrary consider themselves . . . the common and legitimate heirs . . . of one and the same universal paternity.

Spiritualists offered a kinder, gentler religion espousing many heavens, no hell, and room for every soul. They believed in a universal brotherhood in which all had a chance, and indeed a responsibility, to improve themselves, not only in this life but after death. Spiritual evolution was a process. Individual spirits progressed through a series of concentric circles stretching out from Earth. The longer a person was dead, the more likely he or she was to lose contact with those on the planet. Some souls, however, chose to stay near, to assist loved ones on Earth as well as prove the existence of life after death. Thus spiritualism had a strong attraction for the recently bereaved. If its promise were true, mediums could provide the connecting link between survivors and those gone on, conveying the proof of survival so desperately sought.

* * *

IN late 1851 Koons’s uneasy relationship with the church became public knowledge in a most unseemly fashion. Twelve-year-old Filenia, Abigail and Jonathan’s second child, died of an enlarged heart on September 1. How long she had suffered from this condition is not known, but she had been well enough the previous summer to present the editors of the Athens Messenger newspaper with a basket of fruit on some unspecified occasion.

“Her disease . . . bid defiance to all the medical aid that could be procured on her behalf,” her obituary stated. “She was a striking specimen of beauty, intelligence and piety. She was the pride of her doting parents, but, like the untimely flower, she faded and vanished from their sight, leaving many friends to mourn her departure.” The notice concluded with 12 lines of poetry stating the conventional sentiment that Filenia, having escaped sorrow and suffering, was now in a better place. What is striking about the poem, however, is that the word Communicated appeared at the end of it, rather than an author’s name. This suggests that whoever submitted the obituary to the newspaper believed that the spirits were already communicating with the family.

That chasm of time in September must had been exquisitely bittersweet for the Koons family, as Abigail gave birth to a boy on September 2, before her daughter’s body had even been buried. Jonathan’s lack of faith made the little girl’s death even more devastating. “What rendered the occurrence [of Filenia’s death] more trying than otherwise was my skepticism relative to the immortality of the soul, which, with myself, had been a subject of doubt for some years,” her father would later write. “Fearing that this would be our final separation, and the blotting out of all her mental functions and sensitive powers, I viewed death as the final destroyer and extinguisher of all our physical charms, sorrow and pleasures. In this state of mind, I was prevailed upon to consent to the formal ceremony of a funeral discourse. I accordingly dispatched a friend for a clergyman, with instruction to employ the first one he met, without regard to his disciplinary profession.”

After that the story diverged in its retelling—not so much in the facts themselves but in their interpretation. Along with Filenia’s obituary in the Athens Messenger appeared a scathing letter signed “A Friend” and authenticated in a preamble by Jonathan Koons himself. The anonymous person wrote:

Messrs. Editors—On the occasion of the death of Miss Koons, in accordance with the wish of mourning parents, a friend was dispatched in pursuit of some (soul-loving) Divine to deliver a funeral address, with instructions to pay no regard to sect or name of religion—thinking that the most suitable time to make lasting impressions upon the young minds of the surviving brothers and sisters. But alas! the mourners were sadly disappointed to learn from their friend that he met with a positive denial both from the Rev. Mr.——of the Methodist Church and the Rev. Mr.——of the Presbyterian order (residents of Athens) after an earnest solicitation on his part: and after being induced by the latter to state the character, religious denomination and family circumstances of the deceased—and for no other reason than that the sun shone too hot for them to ride out at that time. However, the funeral procession was made up with a respectable assembly of friends and well-wishers of the deceased who contributed due respect to the occasion by an honorable interment and a full manifestation of their sympathy for the surviving relatives: and it is hoped that the friends will yet find someone to favor them with a funeral sermon: someone with equal mental abilities and a physical constitution which will enable him to endure the electric rays of a scorching sun or the inclemency of a mild and gentle breeze after a regaling shower, which proved to be the case on that occasion.—A FRIEND

Addressing the questions supposedly posed by the Presbyterian minister, Koons might have revealed that he was both an infidel and a Whig. Instead he distilled his beliefs into two short sentences: “I will only add to avoid future enquiries as to my religious and political creed, that the former is ‘Do unto others as you wish others to do unto you’—the latter is ‘Vote for righteous measures and men who are just and true.’—Yours with respect, JONATHAN KOONS.”

Thus began a war of words in the local newspaper, with the two ministers trying to defend their reputations. Both men maintained that their inaction had nothing to do with Jonathan Koons’s beliefs but stemmed from far more pedestrian circumstances. The Reverend Alfred Ryors, who was not only the local Presbyterian minister but president of Ohio University, tossed back a biblical salvo, accusing Koons of violating the Ninth Commandment (Thou shalt not bear false witness) by vouching for the acrimonious letter. Ryors identified the man who asked him to preach Filenia’s funeral as “Mr. Hughes” (probably Jonathan’s brother-in-law or nephew, through Jonathan’s sister Elizabeth Hughes) and assumed that Hughes had written the letter. But the minister cast the events in a much different light as he explained them from his perspective.

Ryors wasn’t feeling well on a hot, late-summer day when Hughes approached him around 11:00 a.m. with a request to officiate at the funeral at 1:00 p.m. Ryors was unprepared to travel the 7 miles from Athens to the Koons farm, but more important was that he did not know the family. While denying that he had asked about the Koonses’ politics, he acknowledged that he had asked several reasonable questions: Were the parents religious and, if so, of what denomination? What had caused the girl’s death, and did she die peacefully? Ultimately, however, his concern for his own health had led him to refuse Hughes’s request.

The next letter to the Messenger came from the Reverend W. F. Stewart and gave his version of events: Koons’s emissary (“a stranger”) came to the parsonage specifically seeking a Methodist clergyman to preach the funeral. The unnamed man “urged me to go, saying that Mr. K., tho’ not a member, frequently attended the Methodist Church, and would like to have a minister of that denomination.” But Stewart demurred, explaining that he was leaving town the next day and “was much pushed for time.” In his published letter Stewart delivered a stinging rebuke to Koons and “A Friend” for their “strange and indelicate” public mention of “matters thus connected with the dead.” “I am willing to make sacrifices for the consolation of the bereaved,” Stewart fumed, “but I do think it unkind that those who seek shelter in no branch of the Christian Church should not only expect the minister of the gospel to run at their call, but hold him up in the public prints when prevented by previous engagements from doing them service.”

Koons sent a somewhat conciliatory letter to the Messenger the following week in which he backtracked, suggesting that his original letter may have been misunderstood. But after brief apologies, he could not resist one final barb: “Since the law of retaliation is neither congenial to common sense or moral virtue, I heartily recommend a truce with my competitors, ere the sheep’s clothing be rent from the wolf.”

Was Jonathan Koons simply unlucky, taking a last-minute chance on finding a speaker for his daughter’s funeral when he had no pastor of his own? Or was the religious edifice of Athens stacked against him? It is clear that neither Ryors nor Stewart knew the Koons family, and therefore they did not refuse to come their aid out of disapproval or spite. More likely, neither pastor felt a necessity to go out of his way to assist someone who was not a member of his church. Not having a “church home” left the Koonses with no one to officiate at weddings and funerals, although the absence of Abigail’s father, the Reverend Samuel Gaylord Bishop, is hard to fathom.

Koons’s withering exchange with the ministers shows his combativeness and nimble tongue but also reveals his sense of exclusion from Christianity, even from established society. He had even gone so far—on the heels of his apology—as to characterize members of the clergy as “wolves in sheep’s clothing.” Why he cared so much is a mystery, given his unorthodox views. Yet Robert L. Daniel, in his book Athens, Ohio: The Village Years, notes that “the churches of the village remained the most important groups in which Athenians participated. . . . Membership tended to confer an aura of respectability, given the penchant for disciplining the wayward. . . . At the same time, keen denominational rivalries precluded cooperation between the churches.”

Reflecting on the incident five years later, Koons was still bitter toward the ministers, now claiming that three clergymen had refused him. Perhaps unwilling to appreciate the social advantages of church membership, he wrote, “[When] three ‘preachers’ were solicited, of different denominations—all strangers to myself—each in turn drew the religious and temporal history of my family from my friend; and finding we were not members of their respective orders, they all denied their service, under some feigned excuse, none of which, however, justified their denials in our judgment. Had the examination of my family history been omitted by them, their excuses would have been received. But as the case stood, I could not consider them faithful stewards in the discharge of their professed duties.”

Koons had taken the ministers’ rejection deeply and personally. As he stood in the rain-cooled breeze at his daughter’s graveside, he resolved to challenge the orthodoxy of the Christian sects at every opportunity—and they in turn would brand him as worse than an infidel.