Book, Journal and Letters.
The Public Universal Friend
[Wilkinson, Jemima]. Pritchard, Ruth. Manuscript diary of a journey into the wilderness with the Public Universal Friend. Unpublished, 1790.
16 pages; disbound; worn with some loss to margins.
Together with:
Autograph letter signed, “The Public Universal Friend,” to “friends in Pensylvaina” [sic], December 5, 1785; 1 leaf, 2 pp.; tear along one crease; edgewear.
Together with
23 Autograph letters signed, Ruth Pritchard (Spencer); Justus P. Spencer; Betsy Spencer; Ruth Spencer (Shepherd); Almira S. Shepherd (Danforth); N.C. Spencer; Augustus Danforth; July 20th, 1785 - April 6th, 1855; worn with occasional loss.
Together with
Manuscript poems and prayers; ca. 75 pp.; worn with occasional loss; with tintype portrait of Ruth Spencer Shepherd.
Together with
Hudson, David. History of Jemima Wilkinson, a Preacheress of the Eighteenth Century. Geneva, Ontario County, NY: printed by S.P. Hull, 1821.
8vo.; printed boards; spine perished; soiling; edgewear; loss to leaves in appendix.
First edition.
Provenance: Paul S. Barnes, great-great-grandson of Ruth Pritchard Spencer
A remarkable archive of journals, letters, and manuscripts pertaining to the life and legacy of Jemima Wilkinson, the first American-born woman to found a religious movement; as generated and maintained by a close female companion and follower, Ruth Pritchard [Spencer], and Pritchard’s daughter and extended family.
In 1776, upon recovering from a serious illness, Jemima Wilkinson announced that she had in fact died, that an entity called the Public Universal Friend now occupied her body, and that she would devote the rest of her life to doing God’s work. Over the next decade she won a sizeable following preaching throughout southern New England and into Pennsylvania. In 1788, at Wilkinson’s behest, her followers established what became known as the Friends Settlement on the west side of Seneca Lake in New York. As the first permanent white settlement in western New York, it was crucial in opening that region to settlers that followed.
The Friend, as she was known to her adherents, joined the settlement two years later, reaching the outpost after an arduous mid-winter journey through the backwoods of Pennsylvania. The sole surviving first-hand account of that journey is the diary of Ruth Pritchard included in this archive. Pritchard, a school teacher in Wallingford, Connecticut when the Universal Friend passed through, describes her conversion experience in a 1786 letter also contained in this archive:
I with some more went on the First Day (hearing the Friend was to preach at such a house) about 7 miles to hear. And blessed be the day I went. O! ... I do testify unto thee, my dear friend, it was the voice that spake as never man spake. It is that which if obey’d will bring light, life & love unto the soul, that peace that the world can neither give nor take away.
Pritchard left her life behind to join the Universal Friend’s retinue, and for a period served as her secretary and amanuensis. Pritchard was among a small group of the Friend’s followers who, on February 18, 1790, set out from Worcester, PA to travel to the settlement in New York, to be joined en-route by the Friend herself on her inaugural trip to the colony. Winter weather, sickness, tedium, tired horses, and the threat of wolves were among the many obstacles the travelers faced. An entry in Pritchard’s diary from the 23rd details some of these difficulties: “Snow this day, under the load of Snow, the lofty Pines do bend! – from thence 6 miles in the rain; through the Swamp; all on foot some of the time; a very bad road...Barnabas had like to been killed by one of the horses throwing him over its head...”
On March 18th, the group was joined in Wyoming, PA by the Universal Friend and a few other companions; the journey continued, with the Universal Friend preaching at all stops along the wa
Print Inquire
