Woman on the American Frontier: A Valuable and Authentic History of the Heroism, Adventures, Privations, Captivities, Trials, and Noble Lives and Deaths of the "Pioneer Mothers of the Republic"Fowler, William Worthington
History
Woman on the American Frontier: A Valuable and Authentic History of the Heroism, Adventures, Privations, Captivities, Trials, and Noble Lives and Deaths of the "Pioneer Mothers of the Republic"
Fowler, William Worthington
Frontier and pioneer life -- United States; Women -- United States -- Biography
The honor of having inaugurated Sunday schools on the frontier, must be
awarded to woman. Truly this class of religious enterprises, in view of the
circumstances by which they were surrounded, and the results produced, may
be placed side by side with that missionary work which looks to the
conversion of the pagan. The impressing of religious truth on the minds of
the young, and preparing them to build up Christian communities in the
wilderness, is in itself a great missionary work, the value of which is
enhanced by the sacrifices and difficulties it involves. It was in Ohio
that one of the first Sunday-schools in our country was kept, with which
the name of Mrs. Lake must ever be identified.
In 1787, a year made memorable by the framing of the Constitution of the
United States, the Ohio Company was organized in Boston, and soon after
built a stockade fort at Marietta, Ohio, and named it Campus Martius. The
year it was completed, the Rev. Daniel Storey, a preacher at Worcester,
Massachusetts, was sent out as a chaplain. He acted as an evangelist till
1797, when he became the pastor of a Congregational church which he had
been instrumental in collecting in Marietta and the adjoining towns, and
which was organized the preceding year. He held that relation till the
spring of 1804. Probably he was the first Protestant minister whose voice
was heard in the vast wilderness lying to the northwest of the Ohio river.
In the garrison at Marietta, was witnessed the formation and successful
operation of one of the first Sunday-schools in the United States. Its
originator, superintendent, and sole teacher, was Mrs. Andrew Lake, an
estimable lady from New York. Every Sabbath, after "Parson Storey had
finished his public services," she collected as many of the children at her
house as would attend, and heard them recite verses from the Scriptures,
and taught them the Westminster catechism. Simple in her manner of
teaching, and affable and kind in her disposition, she was able to interest
her pupils--usually about twenty in number--and to win their affections to
herself, to the school, and subsequently, in some instances, to the
Saviour. A few, at least, of the little children that used to sit on rude
benches, low stools, and the tops of meal bags, and listen to her sacred
instructions and earnest admonitions, have doubtless ere this become pupils
with her, in the "school of Christ" above.
Among the many names especially endeared to the friends of missions, there
is another that we cannot forget--that of Sarah L. Smith. Like the Rev.
Samuel Kirkland, she was a native of Norwich, Connecticut.
Her maiden name was Huntington. She was born in 1802; made a profession of
religion in youth; became the wife of the Rev. Eli Smith in July, 1833;
embarked with him for Palestine in the following September, and died at
Boojah, near Smyrna, the last day of September, 1836.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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