Biography - Philadelphia-born Quaker Minister Rebecca Jones 1739-1818

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Rebecca Jones (1739-1818), Quaker minister, was born in Philadelphia, the only daughter of William & Mary Jones. Her father, a sailor, died at sea when she was too young to remember him, leaving 2 children, Rebecca & an older brother. Her mother, a loyal member of the Church of England, conducted a school for little girls in her home. Eager for Rebecca to become a teacher, her mother made sure that her daughter obtained a good education.

As a girl “romping Becky Jones” often attended Friends meetings with her playmates. The Quakers (or Religious Society of Friends) had formed in England in 1652, around a charismatic leader, George Fox (1624-1691). Many saw Quakers as radical Puritans, because the Quakers carried to extremes many Puritan convictions. They stretched the sober deportment of the Puritans into a glorification of "plainness." They expanded the Puritan concept of a church of individuals regenerated by the Holy Spirit to the idea of the indwelling of the Spirit or the "Light of Christ" in every person. Such teaching struck many of the Quakers' contemporaries as dangerous heresy.

Early Quaker Meeting

Quakers were severely persecuted in England for daring to deviate so far from orthodox Christianity. By 1680, 10,000 Quakers had been imprisoned in England; & 243 had died of torture & mistreatment in the King's jails. This reign of terror impelled Friends to seek refuge in New Jersey, in the 1670s, where they soon became well entrenched.

In 1681, when Quaker leader William Penn (1644-1718) parlayed a debt owed by Charles II to his father into a charter for the province of Pennsylvania, many more Quakers were prepared to grasp the opportunity to live in a land where they might worship freely. By 1685, as many as 8,000 Quakers had come to Pennsylvania. Although the Quakers may have resembled the Puritans in some religious beliefs & practices, they differed with them over the necessity of compelling religious uniformity in society.

Quaker Synod Meeting

When little Rebecca Jones began to refrain from such “ornamental branches” of her studies as music & dancing, her mother realized the that Quaker influence was striking deeper than she liked & sought to thwart it. The conflict wore heavily on Rebecca, who was also undergoing an intense inner struggle to surrender her own will to God’s. This she eventually achieved, aided by encouragements in 1755, from a visiting English Friend, Catherine Peyton.

After long hesitation Rebecca Jones in 1758, at 19, began to speak in the Friends meetings for worship, an open indication of her adoption of the Quaker faith. Two years later her gift in the ministry was “acknowledged” by her meeting, her mother thereupon becoming reconciled to the daughter’s decision.

Rebecca Jones thus became one of the laymen & women by whom the Quaker ministry has traditionally been performed. For over 20 years, she combined this ministry with teaching her mother’s school, which she too over upon her mother’s illness & death in 1761, though her inclination had been to find some other means of livelihood. She proved an able & respected schoolmistress.

Early Quakers

She was a devoted friend of the famous Quaker minister John Woolman, who once penned mottoes for her pupils’ writing lessons. She retained, in her unassuming way, a certain “queenly dignity,” as well as an easy & gracious manner. These qualities enhanced the effectiveness of her speaking. Among women of her time she stood out for her intellectual capacity, quick wit, strength of character, & “sanctified common sense.”

In 1784, while at the height of her power as a preacher, Rebecca Jones gave up her school & laid before her monthly meeting her wish to visit Friends in England, a concern she had long cherished. Credentials were granted, & she sailed with 6 other Friends from Philadelphia. So impressed was the captain, Thomas Truxtun, later a naval here of the war with France, that he declared in London he had brought over an American Quaker lady who possesses more sense than both Houses of Parliament.

On arriving, the Friends sent straight to the Yearly Meeting, where a petition, long endorsed by American Friends, to establish a woman’s meeting for discipline, with more powers that the women’s meeting had had previously, was about to be presented to the men’s meeting. Rebecca Jones was instrumental in securing its approval.

Silhouette of Rebecca Jones. Early Quakers objected to having their portraits drawn or painted, but likenesses drawn from tracing a shadow casting and trimming out the resulting shape were considered acceptable by the church.

During the next 4 years, with a succession of the ablest women Friends as companions, she traversed the length & breadth of England & also visited Scotland ,Wales, & Ireland. She impressed her hearers with the need for a revival of zeal & simplicity. Her memorandum of her tour enumerated 1,578 meetings for worship & discipline & 1,120 meetings with Friends in the station of servants, apprentices, & laborers (for whom she had a special concern), besides innumerable religious family visits. Her message particularly reached the young. Under a sense of “fresh & sure direction,” she returned home in the summer of 1788.

Having given up teaching, she now earned her living by keeping a little ship which her English friends kept supplied with “lawns & cambrics & find cap muslins.” She continued he preaching, frequently attending yearly & quarterly meetings in various parts of the Northeastern states, especially in New Jersey & New England.

She fell ill in the yellow fever epidemic of 1793, in which 4,000 Philadelphians died, but lived to resume herm ministry & the wide correspondence which was a major activity of her later years. In the mid-1790s, she contributed her knowledge of Friends education in England to the founding of Westtown (Pa.) School, a boarding school which opened in the spring of 1799, patterned after the Ackworth Friends School in Yorkshire.

Silhouette of Rebecca Jones.

For more than 50 years Rebecca Jones was a trusted counselor & informal almoner, “eminent for leading the cause of the poor.” Her home was always open to those in trouble or wishing her advice; possessing “singular penetration on discovering cases of distress, and delicacy in affording relief” (Allinson, p. 256), she was also a frequent visitor at Friends almshouses.

In 1813, she suffered an attack of typhus fever; & for the last 5 years of her life, she was confined almost entirely to her home, where she was devotedly card for by Bernice Chattin Allinson, a young widow whom she had taken in as a daughter. Rebecca Jones died in Philadelphia in 1818, in her 79th year. She was buried in the Friends ground on Mulberry (now Arch) Street on the morning of the yearly meeting of ministers & elders.

This posting based, in part, on information from Notable American Women edited by Edward T James, Janet Wilson James, Paul S Boyer, The Belknap Press of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1971
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Place - A Shaker Community Restored in Pleasant Hill, Kentucky

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During the 1990s, I attended a conference at Pleasant Hill, Kentucky, which was a Shaker religious community from 1805 through 1910. Shakertown, as it is known by the locals, is about 25 miles southwest of Lexington, in the state's bluegrass region.


By 1800, Mother Ann Lee's (1736-1784) religious movement had already established 11 Shaker communities in New York state & throughout New England. About this time, the community sent 3 Shaker missionaries across the Cumberland Gap & through Ohio to find converts in the west. Shakers practiced celibacy & their numbers would die out without new converts.


The Pleasant Hill community was begun by 44 converts who signed a covenant of mutual support & common property ownership of the 140 acres on which they were living. It did not take long for the community to expand & the property to grow to 4,369 acres.


The Shakers chose a peaceful way of life. They were celibate and believed in equality of race & sex and in freedom from prejudice. A quest for simplicity & perfection is reflected in their fine craftsmanship.


The Shakers were skilled farmers, and over the years they expanded land holdings by acquiring adjacent farms for orchards & fields. The Shakers at Pleasant Hill became known for their excellent livestock & engineering accomplishments. Their location near the Ohio River was ideal for agricultural & economic commerce.


By 1816, they regularly traveled to larger communities to sell their wares: brooms, shoes, preserves, garden seeds, & herbs. The Shakers sold their wares in cities and towns up & down the Ohio & the Mississippi rivers, some at great distances, such as New Orleans.


The Shakers, known for their beautifully simple furniture & architecture, also invented many labor-saving processes to serve their large community. In the early 1830s, they constructed a water tower on a high plot of ground. A horse-drawn pump lifted water into the tower, and from there a system of pipes carried it downhill to kitchens, cellars, & wash houses.


In the wash houses, horse-powered washing machines were built to reduce the enormous chore of laundering the community's clothes & linens.


Music was also an important part of Shaker life, with songs, hymns, & anthems written by both men & women. Their dancing or shaking was the origin of the name Shaker.


The community began to decline with the advent of the Civil War & controversies over slave ownership. The last resident on the property died in 1923. The 14 original buildings of the religious community were restored in the 1960s, & it is now the largest restored Shaker community in America, a National Historic Landmark visited by thousands of tourists annually.
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Biography - American Shaker Founder "Mother" Ann Lee 1736-1784

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Shaker Village, Canterbury, New Hampshire

Ann Lee (1736-1784), founder of the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, commonly called Shakers in the United States, was born in Manchester, England, one of 8 children of John Lees, a blacksmith living on Toad Lane, & his wife. Ann later shortened her surname to Lee. She had no schooling. Early in her teens she went to work in a textile mill, preparing cotton for the looms & cutting velvet & hatter’s fur. There she was distinguished for her “faithfulness, neatness, prudence & economy.” She was a serious girl, “not addicted to play;” she brooded often about sin & the world’s wrongs.

In her twenties 2 events occurred which changed the courser of Ann Lee’s life. In 1758, she joined a society led by James Wardley, a tailor, & his wife Jane, former Quakers, who upon coming under the influence of the French Prophets, or Camisards, had separated from the Friends. From their manner of worship, which consisted of singing, dancing, shouting, shaking, & speaking in new tongues, they became known as “Shakers.” They prophesied that the 2nd coming of Christ was at hand, but otherwise had no definite creed.

The 2nd turning point in Ann’s life was her marriage. At the urging of relatives, she reluctantly consented to wed Abraham Standerin (Stadley or Stanly), a blacksmith employed in her father’s shop. She was still a member of the Church of England, for the banns were published in the Cathedral, Ann & Abraham signing by mark only. After the marriage (Jan. 5, 1762) the couple made their home with her parents, where in the course of the next few years 4 children were born to them, all of whom died in infancy. The deliveries were difficult, & Ann was near death after the birth of the last child.

This unwanted marriage which ended in tragedy, took its toll of the young wife. Worn by hears of toil in the mills, subject to the wretched conditions of an overcrowded slum, she broke down completely. Obsessed by the fears that the deaths of her children were a punishment for her concupiscence, her “violation of God’s laws,” she mortified herself, foregoing sleep & all but the meanest food, until, weak & wasted, she felt “as helpless as an infant.”

While Ann Lee was wasting away in jail, in the summer of 1770, she claimed that "by a special manifestation of divine light the present testimony of salvation and eternal life was fully revealed to her," and by her to the society, "by whom she from that time was acknowledged as mother in Christ, and by them was called Mother Ann."

"She saw the Lord Jesus Christ in his glory, who revealed to her the great object of her prayers, and fully satisfied all the desires of her soul. The most astonishing visions and divine manifestations were presented to her view in so clear and striking a manner that the whole spiritual world seemed displayed before her. In these extraordinary manifestations she had a full and clear view of the mystery of iniquity, of the root and foundation of human depravity, and of the very act of transgression committed by the first man and woman in the garden of Eden. Here she saw whence and wherein all mankind were lost from God, and clearly realized the only possible way of recovery."

"By the immediate revelation of Christ, she henceforth bore an open testimony against the lustful gratifications of the flesh as the source and foundation of human corruption; and testified, in the most plain and pointed manner, that no soul could follow Christ in the regeneration while living in the works of natural generation, or in any of the gratifications of lust."

Returning to the Wardleys, she once again found protection from the buffetings of fate. Now she had a mission, one that elevated her, about 1770, to leadership in the society. Two years later, when the Shakers began to carry their crusade into the streets & churches, they experienced their first “persecution.” Twice, in 1772 & 1773, Ann & her companions were arrested & imprisoned for breach of the Sabbath. She was confined to the “Dungeons” & from there transferred to Bedlam, the Manchester Infirmary. In these prisons she had her “grand vision” of the transgression of the first man & woman in the garden of Eden. Here she received her divine commission to complete Christ’s work. “It is not I that speak,” she told her followers, "it is Christ who dwells in me.” This intimate presence (“I converse with Christ; I feel him present with me, as sensible as I feel my hands together”) was later interpreted by her followers as constituting the second coming of Christ.

After her release from confinement, the Shakers received a “revelation” that the opening of the gospel would occur not in old England but in America. Accordingly Ann - now called Mother, of Mother of the New Creation - sailed for America on May 19, 1774, accompanied by her brother William, her chief disciple James Whittaker, & 6 others, including, strangely enough, her husband. They landed in New York on Aug. 6 & for a time went their separate ways in search of employment. Her husband Abraham found solice in drinking & left his wife. Whittaker, William Lee, & John Hocknell, the only “wealthy” members of the sect, eventually acquired a tract of land in Niskayuna (later Watervliet), near Albany, N.Y., where the Shakers settled in the spring of 1776.

A Shaker Dwelling in Mount Lebanon, New York

Here, after 4 years of isolation, came their first opportunity to preach the gospel, as an aftermath of a New Light Baptist revival in & around New Lebanon, N.Y. Hearing of a people who proclaimed that the millennium had already begun, disillusioned subjects of the revival flocked to Niskeyuna to see “the woman clothed with the sun.” Conversions rapidly increased. The prophetess was imprisoned for several months in 1780 on false charges of aiding the British, her pacifist principles having roused suspicion among her patriot neighbors. But after her release she continued her work, carry out, in 1781-83, an arduous but successful proselyting mission into parts of eastern New York & New England. When she died, in the fall of 1784, soon after her return to Nisheyuna, the foundation had been laid for eleven communities. She was buried in the Shaker cemetery at Niskeyuna. Her immediate successor, James Whittaker, lived only three more years, but her work was carried forward & systematized by the next heads of the society, Joseph Meacham & Lucy Wright.

Shakers Dancing

Mother Ann Lee must have had a magnetic personality, for during her career she attracted individuals from every walk of life, & after her death her spirit persisted as an ever-present mother image in the order. Physically she was of medium height, with a fair complexion, blue eyes, & chestnut brown hair. Her teaching was simple: confession was the doorway to salvation, celibacy its rule & cross. She envisaged a fellowship like that of the primitive Christian church, where “all that believed were together & had all things in common.” Like the Quakers, she took a firm stand against slavery, the taking of oaths, the bearing of arms. Repeatedly she counseled neatness, economy, charity to the poor.

While she strictly enjoined celibacy on her followers & for a time seems to have condemned marriage in the outside world as well, she later modified her views, holding that marriage was permissible on the “Adamic plane,” but that there was a higher plane, one nearer perfection, a “resurrection order” that was free of all carnal lust. In this order all should have equal privileges regardless of sex, race, or temporal possessions.

Mother Ann Lee was obsessed about “lust” & her messianic pretensions, but she did inspire a movement deeply religious in aspiration & essentially democratic in practice. Her advocacy of equal rights & responsibilities for women in the Shaker society anticipated the feminist movement in America. Her belief in an equalitarian order, in the dignity of labor, & in the rights of conscience accorded with American idealism. Hers was probaby the most successful experiment in religious communitarianism in American history.

A Group of Shakers

A little more about Mother Ann's theory of lust & salvation -- from a volume of "Hymns and Poems for the Use of Believers" (Watervliet, Ohio, 1833), Adam is made to confess the nature of his transgression and the cause of his fall, in a dialogue with his children:

"First Adam being dead, yet speaketh, in a dialogue with his children.

"Children. First Father Adam, where art thou?
With all thy num'rous fallen race;
We must demand an answer now,
For time hath stript our hiding-place.
Wast thou in nature made upright—
Fashion'd and plac'd in open light?

"Adam. Yea truly I was made upright:
This truth I never have deni'd,
And while I liv'd I lov'd the light,
But I transgress'd and then I died.
Ye've heard that I transgress'd and fell—
This ye have heard your fathers tell.

"Ch. Pray tell us how this sin took place—
This myst'ry we could never scan,
That sin has sunk the human race,
And all brought in by the first man.
'Tis said this is our heavy curse—
Thy sin imputed unto us.

"Ad. When I was plac'd on Eden's soil,
I liv'd by keeping God's commands—
To keep the garden all the while,
And labor, working with my hands.
I need not toil beyond my pow'r,
Yet never waste one precious hour.

"But in a careless, idle frame,
I gazed about on what was made:
And idle hands will gather shame,
And wand'ring eyes confuse the head:
I dropp'd my hoe and pruning-knife,
To view the beauties of my wife.

"An idle beast of highest rank
Came creeping up just at that time,
And show'd to Eve a curious prank,
Affirming that it was no crime:—
'Ye shall not die as God hath said—
'Tis all a sham, be not afraid.'

"All this was pleasant to the eye,
And Eve affirm'd the fruit was good;
So I gave up to gratify
The meanest passion in my blood.
O horrid guilt! I was afraid:
I was condemn'd, yea I was dead.

"Here ends the life of the first man,
Your father and his spotless bride;
God will be true, his word must stand—
The day I sinn'd that day I died:
This was my sin, this was my fall!—
This your condition, one and all.

"Ch. How can these fearful things agree
With what we read in sacred writ—
That sons and daughters sprung from thee,
Endu'd with wisdom, power, and wit;
And all the nations fondly claim
Their first existence in thy name?

"Ad. Had you the wisdom of that beast
That took my headship by deceit,
I could unfold enough at least
To prove your lineage all a cheat.
Your pedigree you do not know,
The SECOND ADAM told you so.
"When I with guile was overcome,
And fell a victim to the beast,
My station first he did assume,
Then on the spoil did richly feast.
Soon as the life had left my soul,
He took possession of the whole.

"He plunder'd all my mental pow'rs,
My visage, stature, speech, and gait;
And, in a word, in a few hours,
He was first Adam placed in state:
He took my wife, he took my name;
All but his nature was the same.

"Now see him hide, and skulk about,
Just like a beast, and even worse,
Till God in anger drove him out,
And doom'd him to an endless curse.
O hear the whole creation groan!
The Man of Sin has took the throne!

"Now in my name this beast can plead,
How God commanded him at first
To multiply his wretched seed,
Through the base medium of his lust.
O horrid cheat! O subtle plan!
A hellish beast assumes the man!

"This is your father in my name:
Your pedigree ye now may know:
He early from perdition came,
And to perdition he must go.
And all his race with him shall share
Eternal darkness and despair."

The same theory of the fall is stated in another hymn:
p. 123

"We read, when God created man,
He made him able then to stand
United to his Lord's command
That he might be protected;
But when, through Eve, he was deceiv'd,
And to his wife in lust had cleav'd,
And of forbidden fruit receiv'd,
He found himself rejected.

"And thus, we see, death did begin,
When Adam first fell into sin,
And judgment on himself did bring,
Which he could not dissemble:
Old Adam then began to plead,
And tell the cause as you may read;
But from his sin he was not freed,
Then he did fear and tremble.

"Compell'd from Eden now to go,
Bound in his sins, with shame and woe,
And there to feed on things below—
His former situation:
For he was taken from the earth,
And blest with a superior birth,
But, dead in sin, he's driven forth
From his blest habitation.

"Now his lost state continues still,
In all who do their fleshly will,
And of their lust do take their fill,
And say they are commanded:
Thus they go forth and multiply,
And so they plead to justify
Their basest crimes, and so they try
To ruin souls more candid."

The "way of regeneration" is opened in another hymn in the same collection:
p. 124

"Victory over the Man of Sin.

"Souls that hunger for salvation,
And have put their sins away,
Now may find a just relation,
If they cheerfully obey;
They may find the new creation,
And may boldly enter in
By the door of free salvation,
And subdue the Man of Sin.

"Thus made free from that relation,
Which the serpent did begin,
Trav'ling in regeneration,
Having pow'r to cease from sin;
Dead unto a carnal nature,
From that tyrant ever free,
Singing praise to our Creator,
For this blessed jubilee.

"Sav'd from passions, too inferior
To command the human soul;
Led by motives most superior,
Faith assumes entire control:
Joined in the new creation,
Living souls in union run,
Till they find a just relation
To the First-born two in one.

"But this prize cannot be gained.
Neither is salvation found,
Till the Man of Sin is chained,
And the old deceiver bound.
All mankind he has deceived,
And still binds them one and all,
Save a few who have believed,
And obey'd the Gospel call.

"By a life of self-denial,
True obedience and the cross,
We may pass the fiery trial,
Which does separate the dross. p. 125
If we bear our crosses boldly,
Watch and ev'ry evil shun,
We shall find a body holy,
And the tempter overcome.

"By a pois'nous fleshly nature,
This dark world has long been led;
There can be no passion greater—
This must be the serpent's head:
On our coast he would be cruising,
If by truth he were not bound:
But his head has had a bruising,
And he's got a deadly wound.

"And his wounds cannot be healed,
Light and truth do now forbid,
Since the Gospel has revealed
Where his filthy head was hid:
With a fig-leaf it was cover'd,
Till we brought his deeds to light;
By his works he is discover'd,
And his head is plain in sight."

Following the doctrines were put forth by Ann Lee, & elaborated by her successors:

I. That God is a dual person, male and female; that Adam was a dual person, being created in God's image; and that "the distinction of sex is eternal, inheres in the soul itself; and that no angels or spirits exist who are not male and female."

II. That Christ is a Spirit, and one of the highest, who appeared first in the person of Jesus, representing the male, and later in the person of Ann Lee, representing the female element in God.

III. That the religious history of mankind is divided into four cycles, which are represented also in the spirit world, each having its appropriate heaven and hell. The first cycle included the antediluvians—Noah and the faithful going to the first heaven, and the wicked of that age to the first hell. The second cycle included the Jews up to the appearance of Jesus; and the second heaven is called Paradise. The third cycle included all who lived until the appearance of Ann Lee; Paul being "caught up into the third heaven." The heaven of the fourth and last dispensation "is now in process of formation," and is to supersede in time all previous heavens. Jesus, they say, after his death, descended into the first hell to preach to the souls there confined; and on his way passed through the second heaven, or Paradise, where he met the thief crucified with him.

IV. They hold themselves to be the "Church of the Last Dispensation," the true Church of this age; and they believe that the day of judgment, or "beginning of Christ's kingdom on earth," dates from the establishment of their Church, and will be completed by its development.

V. They hold that the Pentecostal Church was established on right principles; that the Christian churches rapidly and fatally fell away from it; and that the Shakers have returned to this original and perfect doctrine and practice. They say: "The five most prominent practical principles of the Pentecost Church were, first, common property; second, a life of celibacy; third, non-resistance; fourth, a separate and distinct government; and, fifth, power over physical disease." To all these but the last they have attained; and the last they confidently look for, and even now urge that disease is an offense to God, and that it is in the power of men to be healthful, if they will.

VI. They reject the doctrine of the Trinity, of the bodily resurrection, and of an atonement for sins. They do not worship either Jesus or Ann Lee, holding both to be simply elders in the Church, to be respected and loved.

VII. They are Spiritualists. "We are thoroughly convinced of spirit communication and interpositions, spirit guidance and obsession. Our spiritualism has permitted us to converse, face to face, with individuals once mortals, some of whom we well knew, and with others born before the flood." * They assert that the spirits at first labored among them; but that in later times they have labored among the spirits; and that in the lower heavens there have been formed numerous Shaker churches. Moreover, "it should be distinctly understood that special inspired gifts have not ceased, but still continue among this people." It follows from what is stated above, that they believe in a "probationary state in the world of spirits."

VIII. They hold that he only is a true servant of God who lives a perfectly stainless and sinless life; and they add that to this perfection of life all their members ought to attain.

IX. Finally, they hold that their Church, the Inner or Gospel Order, as they call it, is supported by and has for its complement the world, or, as they say, the Outer Order. They do not regard marriage and property as crimes or disorders, but as the emblems of a lower order of society. And they hold that the world in general, or the Outer Order, will have the opportunity of purification in the next world as well as here.

This posting based, in part, on information from Notable American Women edited by Edward T James, Janet Wilson James, Paul S Boyer, The Belknap Press of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1971
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Biography - 1708 Husband Rules Children & Wife - Virginia - Ann Walker

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Ann Walker's Fight To Attend Church

In 1708, Ann Keith Walker (1637- a 1708) appeared before the all male Royal Governor and Council in Williamsburg, Virginia, in a continuing dispute between her and George Walker (c1640-1732), her husband, over their religious beliefs and practices.

Ann, a member of the Church of England who tried to attend services regularly, faced opposition from her husband. He tried to prevent her from attending the church of her choice, and he was also adamant in his determination to direct the religious education of their children.

Ann Keith & George Walker, both born in Virginia, had married in 1691. George was a boat pilot on the James River, a gunner, and a shopkeeper at Fort Point Comfort. Ann had produced twins Elizabeth & Margaret in 1692; Jacob in 1694; Helen in 1696; George in 1698; Sarah in 1700; and Frances in 1702.

Unable to resove their differences, husband and wife both complained to the governor and Council. She asked for full liberty to attend church, to pursue her religious beliefs, and to raise her children as members of the Church of England. He asked for confirmation of his authority as a father to direct the religious education of their children.

The governor and Council granted both requests in part. Ann Walker was allowed freedom to attend church as she wished; and George Walker, "as Long as he proffesses to Be a Christian and Continues in the Exercise of it," was allowed to direct the religious education of their children, retaining "that authority over his Children that properly Belongs to Every Christian man."

The Church of England was the established church in colonial Virginia; but by 1708, many Virginians were Presbyterians or Quakers, as some earlier Virginians had been Puritans and later many Virginians became Baptists or Methodists.

The case of Ann Walker demonstrates the importance of religious beliefs among early Virginians; how differences of religious opinion could divide members of a family; how such important differences affected the religious education of children; how family members might call on the government to settle such controversies; and how men ruled in 18th-century Virginia.

In this instance, the authority of the husband prevailed over the wishes of the mother, even though the mother was a confirmed & committed member of the Church of England, the official church of the British American colonies, and the father was not.
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Biography - Sophia Wigington Hume (1702-1774) South Carolina Quaker Minister & Religious Writer

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Sophia Wigington Hume (1702-1774), Quaker minister & religious writer, was born in Charleston, SC., one of the children of Henry Wigington (Wiginton), a prosperous landowner & colony official, & Susanna (Bayley) Wigington. Henry Wigington was an Anglican; his wife had been brought up as a Quaker by her mother, Mary Fisher, who had been a minister in England before settling with her second husband in Charleston. Sophia Wigington was reared an Anglican & given an education fit for a young lady of fashion. She was married in 1721, to Robert Hume, a lawyer, landowner, & public official. Two of their children lived to adulthood: Susanna Wigington, born in 1722, & Alexander Wigington, 1729.

Though her mother returned to Quakerism before 1719, & tried to lead her children in that direction, Sophia Wigington Hume for a time remained a faithful Anglican. By her own account she practiced “the art of japanning with Prints,” lived books & music, delighted in plays & balls, passionately enjoyed fine clothes & jewelry, & walked aristocratically “with mincing Steps & outstretched Neck.” During two illnesses, however, she came to believe that these frivolities endangered her soul. The second crisis, which took place about 1740, three years after her husband’s death, led to a conversion that preoccupied her mind for the rest of her life. Believing that God would spare her only if she would forsake vanity for Quaker simplicity, she burned “the most vile” of her finery, but being a widow in reduced circumstances could not resist the temptation to sell her “Watch & Equipage chased with Heathenish Devices, as also Diamond ornament etc.” Shortly after her recovery she moved to England, where she lived in London near her daughter & finally joined the Society of Friends.

Sophia Hume became a public figure reluctantly in 1747, when she felt a divine call to return to Charleston to reprove the self-indulgences of the inhabitants & call them to repentance. She obeyed the call, even though it meant humiliating herself on the scene of her former elegance. Arriving near the end of the year, she carried out he mission at public meetings in spite of some rude interruptions. She also inspired the city’s small Quaker group to reviver regular worship. To spread her message farther, she wrote An Exhortation to the Inhabitants of the Province of South-Carolina &, to get it printed quickly, took the manuscript to Philadelphia. She spent several happy months in that city & in travel to attend nearby religious meetings & was entertained by leading Friends, who also raised money to publish her book. It was printed before the end of 1748 (& in five later editions in England & America); the author arrived home in London in December or January.

Though she preached publicly in South Carolina & Pennsylvania, Sophia Hume did not receive recognition as a minister from her monthly meeting in London until later, possibly not until 1763. As early as 1752, though, her utterances settled on two topics: decrying luxury & warning its devotees of their dangers; & exhorting Friends to renew sectarian strictness, a theme which probably explains the increasing respect for her ministry as zeal for this goal spread during the 1760’s. Her writings, while always frankly advocating Quaker principles, for the most part developed the first of these topics & were addressed to Christians at large. The Exhortation, with its parade of long quotations from the learned & its extensive examinations of Scripture, actually conveyed a fairly simple appeal for repentance & reformation, its strength derived from Sophia Hume’s lifelong gift for strong phrases & intense, incantation prose.

A Caution to Such as Observe Days & Times (published in its final form c. 1763) was briefer & better organized; though first written to denounce religious festivals, in the later editions it proceeded to offer incisive remarks on a number of theological & social topics. The social ethics were largely traditional, but she expounded a Quaker view of conversion with an unusual emphasis on the "rational pleasure & divine delight” produced by the irradiation of the believer by Christ’s light & the benevolence to all mankind that resulted from true love of God.

Among Quaker women of her day, Sophia Hume had an extraordinary knowledge of the arts, literature, & theology-to some extent the product of her years as an Anglican. Although conversion curbed & guided her intellectual pursuits within limits approved by Quakers, she yet found it hard to justify erudition in a woman-& harder to justify her public life-by her own principles. The result was a paradoxical career: as minister & write she upheld the traditional view that woman should lead a secluded life devoted to home & church; as a Quaker bluestocking she expounded Scripture & culled quotations from ancient & modern Christian writers to defend her sect & its tenet that the indwelling spirit of Christ is the most reliable source of religious truth.

She felt a divine call to service in Charleston again in 1767. The situation was dire: the fellowship of Friends there had dwindled to one, the old wooden meetinghouse was dilapidated, & a backslider claimed to own the land on which it stood. Though often compelled to rest her slight & ailing body, Sophia Hume managed to revive interest in Quakerism by preaching to large public meetings, & tried to persuade London & Philadelphia Friends to replace the old structure with a brick meetinghouse that would stand until God might gather a church to use it. Unable to win support for this plan, she embarked for England in April 1768. She died in 1774, presumably in London, of a seizure described as apoplexy. Her body was interred in Friends’ Burial Ground near Bunhill Fields.

This posting based, in part, on information from Notable American Women edited by Edward T James, Janet Wilson James, Paul S Boyer, The Belknap Press of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1971
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Biography - Henrietta Benigna Justine Zinzendorf von Watteville (1725-1789) Moravian Educator

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Henrietta Benigna Justine Zinzendorf von Watteville (1725-1789) Moravian educator, a key figure in the beginnings of Moravian Seminary & College for Women, Bethlehem, Pa., was born in Berthelsdorf, Saxony. She was the 1st daughter & 2nd of 12 children, of whom only 4 reached maturity, of Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf by his wife, Countess Erdmuthe Dorothea von Reuss. Her father, founder of the Renewed Moravian Church, was of an old family of the Austrian nobility that had migrated to Germany. Her mother was of the nobility of Thuringia. Reared in the 18th-century Moravian Church, Benigna lived & achieved as a devout Pietist.

Her father’s banishment from Saxony, when she was 11, marked the beginning for her of a much-traveled life. With him she came to America for the first time in December 1741, for a stay of 14 months, chiefly in the newly established Moravian communities of Pennsylvania.

On May 4, 1742, at her father’s suggestion, the 16-year-old countess, with 2 assistants, opened a girls’ school in the Ashmead house in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Here 25 pupils were instructed in reading, writing, religion, & the household arts in what was probably the first boarding school for girls in the 13 British American colonies. Seven weeks later the school moved to Bethlehem; & in 1745, to nearby Nazareth, returning permanently in 1749, to Bethlehem, the center of the Moravian Church in America.

Moravian Young Ladie's Seminary and Church, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

On July 27, 1742, Count von Zinzendorf and his fellowship crossed the Blue Mountain into Cherry Valley, and on July 28 they finally emerged from the endless forests at Meniolágoméka -- "The Fat Land Among the Barren" -- present-day Kunkletown. Von Zinzendorf's 16-year-old daughter, Benigna, upon meeting the Indian children at the settlement, decided that the girls should have the opportunity to go to school just like white boys.

The same year she founded Moravian Seminary in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Shortly thereafter it was moved to Bell House in Bethlehem, and Lady Benigna invited all the Indian girls to come. Moravian Seminary was the first boarding school for girls in the New World, and over time it gained a superb reputation -- so much so that 50 years later, while he was President, George Washington personally petitioned for admission of his great-nieces. Eventually the school's charter was expanded, and it became Moravian College and Moravian Academy, both of which remain to this day.

In the summer of 1742, Benigna Zinzendorf interrupted her teaching to accompany her father on 2 of his 3 trips among the Indians of Pennsylvania & New York, preparatory to establishing missions among them. The Zinzendorfs returned to Europe the following winter.

In 1746 Benigna was married to Baron Johann von Waterville (de Watteville), a Moravian clergyman & her father’s secretary, in a ceremony performed by Zinzendorf at the new Moravian settlement in Zeist, Holland. Consecrated a bishop the following year, Watteville, aided by his capable wife, became out outstanding leader of his church.

The couple came to America on church business in September 1748 & remained a year. On this visit Benigna de Watteville had a hand in the return of the girls’ school to Bethlehem, its consideration with schools in the outlying Moravian congregations, & the enlargement of its curriculum.

Thirty-five years later, en route to America a 3rd time, she was shipwrecked with her husband on the rocks off the Leeward Islands in February 1784. Reaching Bethlehem in June, they remained for 3 years. Again Countess Benigna was on hand to help direct a reorganization of the girls’ seminary, which in 1785, now opened to pupils from outside the Moravian Church, became a largely new institution, known for many years as the Bethlehem Female Seminary.

The Moravian philosophy of education was the rearing of children in a controlled Christian environment under consecrated teachers. Because of the worldwide mission commitments of the Church, many parents were abroad, with their children left behind in the care of the home community. Moravian teachers, therefore, tried as nearly as possible to serve as substitute parents. Both as a parent & as a devout church member, Benigna de Watteville kept this ideal in mind.

She had four children of her own: Johann Ludwig (born 1752), Anna Dorothea Elizabeth (1754), Maria Justine (1762), & Johann Christian Frederick (1766). The older son died while a missionary in Tranquebar, India, in 1780, & the younger son died at nineteen as a student at Herrnhut, the church headquarters on his grandfather’s Berthelsdorf estate. The younger daughter, who never married, served as a worker in the church. The older daughter married Hans Christian Alexander von Schweinitz (later changed to de Schweinitz) in Bethlehem, Pa., in 1779. One of their children was the distinguished American botanist Louis David de Schweinitz, & de Schweinitz descendants have for four generations been prominent in American educational & professional life.

Benigna de Watteville died in the place of her birth at the age of sixty-three, a year after her husband. The Bethlehem seminary, incorporated in 1863 as the Moravian Seminary for Young Ladies, became in 1913, Moravian Seminary & College for Women & in 1953, a part of the coeducational Moravian College at Bethlehem.

This posting based, in part, on information from Notable American Women edited by Edward T James, Janet Wilson James, Paul S Boyer, The Belknap Press of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1971
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Biography - Marylander Ann Teresa Mathews 1732-1800 Founder of the 1st US Roman Catholic Convent

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Marylander Ann Teresa Mathews (1732-1800), founder with Frances Dickinson (1755-1830), of the 1st Roman Catholic convent for women in the United States, was born in Charles County, one of 3 children of Joseph & Susannah (Craycroft) Mathews. Her father, who was descended from a Catholic family prominent in 17th-century Maryland, died when she was 2, leaving the family a 345-acre farm, a sparsely furnished house, & 2 slaves. Her widowed mother kept a deeply religious household, for her daughter, Ann, her son Ignatius, & 3 of her son William’s children entered religious life.

Although Maryland was originally settled as a refuge for Roman Catholics, since the 18th-century in Maryland, Roman Catholics were not permitted to hold public mass, & those who wished to train for a life in the church necessarily went abroad. Thus in 1754, Ann Mathews sailed to Hoogstraeten, Belgium, to enter the English monastery of the Discalced Carmelites, a contemplative order springing from the works & influence of the mystic St. Teresa of Spain. Its severe rules included a ban on shoes, hence the name Discalced. On Sept. 30 of that year she took the habit of the order & the name Bernardina Teresa Xavier of St. Joseph, & on Nov. 24, 1755, at age 23, she made her profession. Staying on at the convent, she served as mistress of novices before being elected prioress in 1774.

The Original Residence at Carmel Monestary & Chapel in Charles County, Maryland

Mother Bernardina began to think of founding an American carmel, as the Revolution had removed the disabilities of Roman Catholics in Maryland. Encouraged by some of the prominent Catholics in her state, as well as by her brother Ignatius, a Jesuit priest, she made plans for such a move with a former Charles County neighbor, Mary Brent, who as Mother Mary Margaret of the Angels had become prioress of the English carmel at Antwerp. Unfortunately Mother Margaret died in 1784, but Mother Bernardina’s nieces, Ann Teresa & Susanna Mathews, arrived that year at Hoogstraeten to make their professions & to join in the venture. Indispensable support came from the Rev. Charles Neale, a relative of Mother Bernardina & confessor to the Antwerp carmel. It was 1790, however, before sufficient money & the necessary authorizations were gathered for the founding of an American carmel. On April 19, 1790, 4 nuns, accompanied by Father Neale, left Hoogstraeten for the Maryland. They included Mother Bernardina, now 58, her two nieces, & Frances Dickinson.

Frances Dickinson, born in London, had assumed the Carmelite habit at Antwerp on May 1, 1772, when only 16, & with it the name Clare Joseph of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Her letters & a diary show that she possessed self-awareness & a sense of humor. By July 20, 1790, the nuns were at Chandler’s Hope, Father Neale’s childhood home in Charles County, on a hill overlooking the Port Tobacco River. Here, resuming their religious habit & practices, they established the first convent within the United States. As Chandler’s Hope quickly proved too small for their purposes, Baker Brooke, a Maryland Catholic offered them 886 acres & a newly built house a little farther up the Port Tobacco Valley. On Oct. 15, 1790, the 4 nuns moved to their new quarters, which they dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Mary, & Joseph.

At the outset the nuns faced a critical decision, Maryland’s Bishop John Carroll had hoped that they would be willing to modify the rules of their order enough to allow them to teach. He gained a dispensation from Rome in 1793, but they asked not to make use of it & set themselves instead to the task of training newcomers to a life of prayer & contemplation. By 1794, a 2nd building was ready & four novices were admitted; by 1800 there were 14 nuns; & by 1818 the number had jumped to 23. The new arrivals brought family slaves & other property which, becoming part of the convent’s resources, made it nearly self-sufficient. In the Maryland countryside, there was less time for contemplation than in Belgium, but the nuns kept the Psalter before them, as they spun yarn from the wool of their own sheep to weave into cloth for their habits.

When Mother Bernardina died 1800, Bishop Carroll made Clare Joseph temporary prioress until her death 30 years later. For many years the little community flourished. In a letter to England in 1807, Mother Clare Joseph spoke of plentiful crops, of the pleasant & healthy situation, & of the advantages of its isolation “suitable to our eremitical Order.” In 1818, Archbishop Ambrose Marechal wrote with pride to Rome of the piety of the nuns.

A long & expensive lawsuit over their land (1818-29), however, brought financial difficulties; & the death in 1823, of Father Neale, was more than a spiritual loss, for the plantation began to be insufficient for the support of the convent. Mother Clare Joseph died there in 1830; & in 1831, the carmel moved to Baltimore.

Most of the later carmels in the United States have sprung from this convent or its branches, so that Ann Mathews & Frances Dickinson established the Carmelite order in the United States. Although in Baltimore the nuns were finally obliged for a time to teach in order to maintain themselves, Carmelite traditions & training in the contemplative life had been well established during previous 4 decades.

As they left in 1831, according to an almanac published by the nuns, there was a tradition in southern Maryland, that the faithful would pray for the return of the nuns. In 1933, the people of Charles County began to restore the original monastery residence, and the nuns did return in 1976. The monastery in Charles County, Maryland, is still the active home of the discalced Carmelite Nuns of the Carmel of Port Tobacco, who do not teach or have contact with the public.

This posting based, in part, on information from Notable American Women edited by Edward T James, Janet Wilson James, Paul S Boyer, The Belknap Press of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1971
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Paintings Johann Valentin Haidt

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His Life
Johann Valentin Haidt (Heydt) was born in Danzig (Gdańsk), Poland, on October 4, 1700. Haidt came from a long line of goldsmiths learning the trade from his father, Andreas Haidt, a jeweler & sculptor for Emperor Frederick I in the Prussian royal court. Between the ages of 10-13, Haidt studied drawing at the Royal Academy of Arts in Berlin, where his father was an instructor.

In 1713, Haidt's family relocated to the court at Dresden, after the death of Frederick I. At 16, Haidt moved to Prague by way of Ausburg, where his father's family still lived. By the age of 18, he was working as a journeyman goldsmith for his cousin in Venice. Next he traveled to Rome to work for 5 years; afterwhich he briefly worked for a cousin in Augsburg, before heading for England. Haidt settled in London; worked as a watchcase chaser; married the daughter of a Huguenot watchmaker, Catharina Compigny (1700-1782) in 1724; and raised a family of 5 with 2 daughters surviving to adulthood.

A traditional Lutheran, Haidt grew distainful of the growing secularism, rationalism, & deism in 18th century London. He was attracted to the more conservative & less ostentatious Moravian sect in 1838, and determined to join the religious community after participating in a lovefeast in London in 1740. He wrote of the moment he resolved to join, "After the lovefeast, when we kissed each other...I wept very loudly, and the Brethren with me...There was shame, amazement grief and joy, mixed together, in short, heaven on earth. Therefore I had no more question as to whether I should attach myself to the Brethren."

With his family, he journeyed to the Moravian community in Herrnhut, Germany, in 1740, where he began to paint both portraits & religious history works. Some earlier Moravian families fleeing persecution had found refuge there on a local nobleman's estate in 1722, & built the community of Herrnhut. In 1415, a Bohemian priest had been burned at the stake for challenging the Catholic Church. His followers, the Unitas Fratrum or United Bretheren, fled to Moravia & Poland; before settling in Herrnhut.

The Moravians of that area, known as the Herrenhutter for their settlement in that location, were thriving in Saxony, where the group's bishop, Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf und Pottendorf (1700-1760), ruled.

Haidt's motivation for devoting himself entirely to painting emerged, because the Moravian church was going through a period of internal crisis known as the Sichtungszeit or “Sifting Time” from about 1738-1753. Haidt, who was emotionally drawn to the anti-intellectual, earlier Moravian emphasis on the blood & wounds of Jesus, felt that the Moravians were straying from strongest impact of the gospel story.

Actually, few areas of early American Moravian colonial life were not colored by reference to Christ’s martyrdom. The Bethlehem Moravian community diarist frequently used wound imagery to make note of a good day. He noted in November of 1744, "Everything was very bloody and heart warming." And in April of 1748, he wrote "Our Morning Blessing was especially bloody and juicy."

Haidt wrote Zinzendorf asking to be allowed to paint rather than preach, saying, "For, I thought, if they will not preach the martyrdom of God anymore, l will paint it all the more vigorously."

Haidt moved back to London in 1752, to create religious history paintings for the new British Moravian headquarters, which Zinzedorf had purchased in Chelsea in 1750. Lindsey House was decorated with 38 religious paintings on its staircase alone.

In 1754, Haidt left England to become the assistant pastor of a church in Philadelphia, where he continued to paint & teach painting. By the fall of 1755, he was living in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, then the center of the Moravian church in this country. There his painting became part of the Moravian communal economic system.

Haidt's religious paintings were used as a vital part of church services, in order to make worshippers feel the presence of Christ with them, as well as see the pain of his suffering for them. He explained, "One must utilize all of one's powers to portray the suffering body of the Savior as truly wretched, so that at the first sight everyone is moved to feel astounding pity."

In order to paint accurate historical compositions Haidt wrote, "it is primarily necessary to become correctly informed about the event and all its circumstances ...What sort of books should a painter read? The Bible, Homer, Virgil, Plutarch, Roman and Greek hissory, the Lives of Painters, the Antiquities of the Jews, Ovid."
Haidt felt that a painter's "company must consist of learned people, which can be very beneficial to him and make things easy for him. From them he can become informed about the antiquities of the heathen, how they clothed themselves from Caesar on down to the jailer who does the executions, how the priests clothed themselves for sacrifice, what sort of tools they used, and what was involved in their soothsaying and the interpretations of the sacrifices."

As an ordained deacon of the church, he began to preach at Bethlehem, while continuing to paint. In 1761, Hannah Callender visiting Bethlehem, "went to meeting" with "Sister Miller, Becky and Polly." The minister discoursed in English. His name was "Heyde" (Haidt) was also "their limner who executed all the paintings."

Part of his church assignment included traveling evangelism. He was charged with carrying the gospel to Native Americans, & his missionary work took him from New England to Maryland. Moravians established settlement congregations in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland, which were considered frontier mission centers for the spreading the gospel to Native Americans. It is likely that Haidt was sketching the countryside as he traveled. He wrote that a painter should, "always carry with him, wherever he goes, a small portfolio with paper and red chalk or good lead so that, when he comes upon something special, he can immediately sketch it, be it an unusual face or a landscape or a pretty garden house or a fountain, a special tree, a nice sheep, etc."
The church Oeconomy of communal living supported Haidt's artistic endeavors, providing him with supplies & a painting room (initially in the Horsefield House) from 1756 to 1774. As official church painter, he needed no commissions from congregations or the elite. He was the first colonial American painter who could concentrate on painting historical & religious subjects, while most other painters could only survive financially by painting portraits of local gentry. He called the welcoming community at Bethlehem his home, until his death in 1780.

As the church & the town's Gemeinmaler (chief painter), he also taught painting while producing his own portraits, religious paintings, & landscapes. While in Philadelphia from June, 1754 to September, 1755, Haidt taught Benjamin West (1738-1820). West told a friend that a "Mr. Hide (Haidt), a German, gave him instruction." West so longed to earn a living selling his history paintings, that he left the colonies for England, where he would become official history painter for George III & president of the British Royal Academy of Arts.

Haidt took his tutoring duties seriously and was intensley interested in young artists with natural God-given talent, but he warned that they must be surrounded with attentive moderation. "...if only he is directed correctly at the beginning so that his talent is not struck down or praised too highly. The former makes him give up everything and the latter can push him into a wild existence, so that his work, although somewhat brilliant, will however have in it little that is correct and still less that is solid."

Haidt recorded his ideas about painters and their proceeses in an early colonial American Treatise on the history of art written in the traditional Moravain German language. Portraitist John Smibert (1688-1751) arrived in the colonies before Haidt, and also had written a Notebook on art, primarily listing his paintings.

Haidt's 39-page manuscript offers detailed instructions on painting the human form, proportion, perspective, & painting basics. During Haidt's years in Italy as a young man, he seemed to value Greek sculpture above all. The art history section praises Italian Renaissance works. A contemporary transcription of Haidt's manuscript is preserved at the Moravian Archives in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Although Benjamin West was influenced by Haidt's history & religious allegories, Haidt felt that portrait painting also was important in order to express the spirit within the person. He wrote in his treatise, "One applies all energy to the face, so that it predominates above all...Each figure must immediately depict why is has been drawn...A portrait is beautiful when it is an accurate likeness and when one can see the essence of the person's face and spirit. Therefore, painters who want to paint all faces happy and make the mouths smile make a mistake. The painter must look accurately at the person he wants to paint. If he gets the opportunity to know the subject well, it is a great help to him."

Many of Haidt's paintings chronicled the history of the Moravian church and were spread throughout the sect's churches in colonial America. His multi-figural allegories celebrate the accomplishments of Zinzendorf & the sect. In 1767, he wrote, "I hardly need to mention that I have painted, because almost all the congregations have some of my work, which the dear Savior has also let be a blessing to many a heart."

In 1774, when the Bethlehem community celebrated the Haidt's 50th wedding anniversary, one congregant wrote, "and when the preacher's mouth will remain quiet, the painter's hand will still preach."

John Adams visited Bethlehem in 1777, noting John Valentive Haidt, "the Painter who is still living in Bethlehem, but very old." Haidt would die in 1780.

18th Century Moravians

1747 John Valentine Haidt (1700-1780). Zinzendorf as the Teacher of the Peoples. Moravian Unity Archives, Herrnhut, Germany. Here Zinzendorf is receiving the light of God from the wounds of Jesus, as many converts from around the globe, including Native Americans, witness & benefit from his leadership.
In the mid 1700s, Count Zinzendorf had rejuvenated the Moravian Church dispatching "Sea Congregations" to the West Indies, North & South America, & South Africa. Moravians became the most active Protestant missionaries of the 18th-century.

1747 Johann Valentin Hadit (1700-1780). The original Erstlingsbild in Zeist, Netherlands. In March of 1747, Haidt began work on a painting that would become one his best known pieces, First Fruits or Erstlingsbild. This enormous painting depicts 21 people standing around the throne of Christ in heaven. These were the first Moravian converts from a variety of locations around the globe to have died & gone to heaven the “the first fruits” of Moravian missionary work. Haidt would make several copies of this painting.

1755-60 Johann Valentin Haidt (1700-1780). The painting of First Fruits now shows 25 baptized individuals who have died and gone to heaven from different ethnic backgrounds of people converted by Moravian missionaries. This painting is on display at the Moravian Archives in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The Lord, seated on a cloud surrouned by angels, vividly displays wounds on his side, hands, & feet. Haidt painted several versions of this depiction of the 1st person converted and reaching heaven from each nation.
Colonial American Moravian communities existed in New York at the Moravian mission for Native Americans at Shekomeko in Dutchess County; in Pennsylvania at Bethlehem, Nazareth, Emmaus, & Litiz; and in North Carolina at Wachovia, Bethabara, Bethania, & old Salem. Bethlehem became the headquarters for the northern Moravian church, and old Salem emerged as the hub of the southern Moravian congregations. Some missionary work recruiting Native Americans was successful as far south as Georgia during Haidt's lifetime.

By the time of Zinzendorf's death in 1760, the Moravians had sent out 226 missionaries & baptized more than 3000 converts, only 38 years from the founding of the Herrnhut community & just 28 years since their first missionaries.

18th Century Moravian Women

Haidt's portraits of women seem to portray them as spiritual, happy, & content with their roles in Moravian community life under Zinzendorf's leadership.

The artist in Haidt did worry about the lack of color choices for his portraits of his plain-clothed congregation. "The clothes should be chosen by the painter according to the complexion of the person, as well as the background, but one will not find it easy to put this rule into practice in the congregation, so a good portrait can never or at least very seldom be painted" of fellow Moravians.

The women wore the traditional Mittel-European two-layer headdress or coif & cap-cover. The only colorful aspect of their clothing were the ribbons they wore: red for young girls, pink for eligible maidens, blue for wives, and white for widows.

One Pennsylvania reader writes of the costumes, especially the tightly-fitted jackets, "Look at the lacing, the weasel waists, the odd little notch in the sleeve and the way the kerchief is arranged.
'Curiouser and curiouser,' said Alice, quite forgetting her grammar."

Miss Anna Nitschmann. Johann Valentin Haidt (1700-1780) Moravian Archives, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Anna Maria Lawatsch. Johann Valentin Haidt (1700-1780) Moravian Archives, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Miss Anna Rosina Anders. Johann Valentin Haidt (1700-1780) Moravian Archives, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Mrs. C. Theodora Neissen. Johann Valentin Haidt (1700-1780) Moravian Archives, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Widow Catharina Huber. Johann Valentin Haidt (1700-1780) Moravian Archives, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Mrs. Elizabeth Boehler. Johann Valentin Haidt (1700-1780) Moravian Archives, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Mrs. Gertraut Graff. Johann Valentin Haidt (1700-1780) Moravian Archives, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Johann and Susanna Nitschmann. Johann Valentin Haidt (1700-1780) Moravian Archives, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Young Moravian Girl. Johann Valentin Haidt (1700-1780) Moravian Archives, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Married Moravian Woman. Johann Valentin Haidt (1700-1780) Moravian Archives, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Married Moravian Woman. Johann Valentin Haidt (1700-1780) Moravian Archives, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Married Moravian Woman. Johann Valentin Haidt (1700-1780) Moravian Archives, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Mrs. Martha Spangenberg (1708-1789) by Johann Valentin Haidt (1700-1780) Moravian Archives, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

1751 Johann Valentin Haidt (1700-1780). Christian Protten (1715-1769) ex slave Rebecca (1718-1780) with baby Anna Maria. Moravian Archives, Herrnhut, Germany. Rebekka Freundlich Protten was the first ordained black woman in the Atlantic world.
1754 John Valentine Haidt (1700-1780), Johannetta Maria Kymbel (1725-1789) Mrs John Ettwein. Moravian Historica Society, Nazareth, Pennsylvania.

c 1755 John Valentine Haidt (1700 - 1780) Young Moravian Girl. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. Reproduction at popartmachine.com.

1750 Johann Valentine Haidt (1700-1780). Women portrayed as separate but sharing power at the Moravian Synod at Herrnhut.

Many of Haidt's American paintings recording this period, its religion, & its people are located at the Moravian Archives & College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; the Moravian Historical Society in Nazareth, Pennsylvania; the Moravian Congregation, Lititz, Pennsylvania; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; the Wachovia Historical Society, Winston-Salem, North Carolina; and at Old Salem, Inc., Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Further Reading
To learn about the lives of 18th century Moravian women see:

Faull, Katharine. Moravian Women's Memoirs: Their Related Lives, 1750-1820. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1997.

Sensbach, Jon F. A Separate Canaan: The Making of an Afro-Moravian World in North Carolina, 1763-1840. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998.

Smaby, Beverly Prior. "Female Piety Among 18th-Century Moravians." Pennsylvania History 64 (1997): 151-167.

Smaby, Beverly Prior. The Transformation of Moravian Bethlehem: From Communal Mission to Family Economy. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988.

Smaby, Beverly. "Forming the Single Sisters' Choir in Bethlehem." The Transactions of the Moravian Historical Society 28 (1994): 1-14

Sommer, Elisabeth W. Serving Two Masters: Moravian Brethren in Germany & North Carolina, 1727-1801. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2000.

Thorp, Daniel B. The Moravian Community in Colonial North Carolina: Pluralism on the Southern Frontier. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1989.

Vogt, Peter. "A Voice for Themselves: Women as Participants in Congregational Discourse in the 18th-Century Moravian Movement." In Women Preachers and Prophets through Two Millennia of Christianity, edited by Beverly Mayne Kienzle and Pamela J. Walker, 227-247. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998..