Jemima Wilkinson was a charismatic American Quaker and evangelist.
Background
Jemima Wilkinson was born on November 29, 1752 in Cumberland, R. I, daughter of Jeremiah and Elizabeth Amey (Whipple) Wilkinson and sister of Jeremiah Wilkinson. Her father, a prosperous farmer and a member of the Colony's Council, was almost exclusively interested in profits and politics; her mother, who belonged to the Society of Friends and who might perhaps have exercised more influence on her daughter's development, died, worn out with child-bearing, when Jemima, the eighth of twelve children, was about ten years old. Owing to her prettiness and cleverness, the future prophetess managed to avoid the hard work on the farm and grew up as a self-indulgent girl devoted to the reading of romances and other "frivolous literature, " without further discipline than that afforded by irregular attendance in the common schools.
Career
Her religious interest was first aroused when she was about sixteen by the sermons of George Whitefield and by the meetings of the "New Light Baptists, " an evangelizing sect which just then appeared in Rhode Island. Later, in 1774, the coming of Ann Lee aroused a spirit of emulation in her. Taking the name of "Public Universal Friend, " she began to hold open-air meetings which attracted increasingly large audiences. Her power lay not in the substance of her preaching, which consisted of conventional calls to repentance interlarded with copious scriptural quotations, but in her magnetic personality. She directed her appeal especially to the more educated and wealthy members of the community. Among those interested in her were Gov. Stephen Hopkins and Joshua Babcock, a friend of George Washington and one of the incorporators of Brown University. Gathering the most devoted of her followers into a special band of about a score, she led a series of processions on horseback through Rhode Island and Connecticut, she herself, clad in a long flowing robe over otherwise masculine attire, always riding a little in advance of her disciples, who came behind, two by two, in solemn, silent file. She preached with great success in Providence and New Bedford, R. I, and between 1777 and 1782 she established churches at New Milford, Connecticut, and at East Greenwich and South Kingston, R. I. In the latter town, William Potter, a rich and influential judge, built a special addition to his large mansion for the accommodation of the Universal Friend, who gradually acquired almost complete control over his household and the management of his estate. Meanwhile, in her preaching she began to emphasize the inferiority of marriage to celibacy and also the necessity of subordinating family obligations to the support of her sect, hence she was charged with causing the breakup of numerous families. Furthermore, the claim of her disciples that she was Jesus Christ come again, together with her own discreet reticence as to the exact nature of her relations with the Divine Spirit, thoroughly scandalized the orthodox churches of New England until even the Quakers turned against her. By 1783 the antagonism to her had become so great in New England that she transferred her headquarters to Philadelphia. There, too, however, she encountered much opposition, being actually stoned at one of her meetings, and in 1785 she and her band returned to New England. During the Philadelphia residence her only discourse in print was brought out, The Universal Friend's Advice, to Those of the Same Religious Society, Recommended to be Read in Their Public Meetings for Divine Worship (1784). Finding herself no longer able to obtain a hearing in New England, the Friend in 1788 decided to establish a colony for her group "where no intruding foot could enter. " Securing a large tract of land in Yates County, near Seneca Lake in western New York, she sent a part of her band on ahead and in 1790 followed with the rest. Being the first settlers in that region, they encountered many hardships, but their colony, named "Jerusalem, " soon began to prosper under the energetic leadership of the Friend. Their land proved fertile, bounty wheat crops were raised, a sawmill and gristmill were built, and a school followed. By 1800 the population of Jerusalem had increased to two hundred and sixty inhabitants. The Friend exhibited great tact and tolerance in her relations with the frontier Indians, by whom she was named "Squaw Shinnewanagistawge" (Great Woman Preacher), and her pioneer venture proved of importance in the pacification of western New York. Unfortunately, with prosperity there came internal dissensions. Judge Potter and others withdrew after unsuccessful suits against the Friend over the division of property in the colony. The society she had founded disintegrated entirely soon after her death.
Views
During the course of a fever, she fell into a prolonged trance from which she emerged with the conviction that she had died, that her original soul had ascended to heaven, and that her body was now inhabited by the "Spirit of Life" which came from God "to warn a lost and guilty, gossiping, dying World to flee from the wrath to come. " Her belief was not shaken by the insistence of Dr. Mann, the physician in charge of the case, that there was no evidence whatever of her having died.
Personality
She was tall and graceful, with beautiful dark hair and hypnotic black eyes, and with better manners than those of the usual "exhorters".
She was accused of chicanery and avarice, her habit of demanding personal gifts with her constant phrase, "The Friend hath need of these things, " arousing resentment among some of her followers. As she grew older she became more dictatorial in her methods and developed a penchant for degrading forms of punishment for infraction of the society's rules, such as compelling one man to wear a black hood for three months and another to carry a little bell fastened to the skirts of his coat. She had reserved 12, 000 acres of the settlement's property for herself, and in the farthest corner of this estate she built an elaborate house, twenty miles from the center of the settlement. There she dwelt in considerable luxury but afflicted with dropsy which destroyed every trace of her early beauty and turned her into a disfigured, embittered old woman, lingering out her days as a spectacle for the curiosity-mongers who visited the neighborhood.