The Public Universal Friend

Editor’s Note: The subject of the book, Jemima Wilkinson, was assigned female at birth, but after surviving a near-death illness, claimed to be neither male nor female and henceforth went by the Public Universal Friend or the Comforter. The book’s author uses he/him and she/her pronouns interchangeably for the Public Universal Friend.

The American Revolution spurred not just changes in political and constitutional beliefs but also social and cultural transformations. For some, the Revolution provided opportunities to test boundaries and challenge the social norms of a rapidly changing society. It also inspired a new religious climate and allowed for the proliferation of new ideas and new faiths. The self-proclaimed Public Universal Friend tested the boundaries of what it meant to be revolutionary in an era of uncertainty.   

Historian Paul B. Moyer's book, The Public Universal Friend: Jemima Wilkinson and Religious Enthusiasm in Revolutionary America, is a deep dive into the story of a surprising and lesser-known person from the Revolutionary era. Moyer shares a variety of perspectives when examining the historical records of the Friend’s life. Assigned female at birth and given the name Jemima Wilkinson, the Friend was born into a Quaker family in Cumberland, Rhode Island. Most of the Friend’s young life was unremarkable until 1776 when the Friend fell ill to the point of death. Instead of succumbing to the illness, the Friend recovered and came back claiming to be neither male nor female, but a divine spirit reincarnated by God to serve as his messenger.  

Like George Whitfield and other prophets from the widespread Christian revival known as the Great Awakening that preceded the Revolutionary War, the Friend became an evangelist for a new faith. The Friend started small, preaching in nearby neighborhoods, and then slowly expanded to greater parts of Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. As the Friend continued to preach and hold meetings, the congregation grew, leading to the formation of The Society of Universal Friends. The Friend continued to preach through New York and New Jersey en route to Philadelphia. The Friend hoped the message would do well amongst the city’s Quaker population, but many remained skeptical, including Elizabeth Drinker, whose diary of life in the Museum’s Revolutionary neighborhood gives a glimpse into a moment of the Friend’s time in Philadelphia.  

Read an excerpt about the Public Universal Friend’s ministry, message, and appearances in Philadelphia. 

Excerpt

Elizabeth Drinker, the wife of one of Philadelphia's wealthiest Quaker merchants, Henry Drinker, stood at the center of social life in the city, and few notable events took place there that escaped her notice. So, when the Public Universal Friend arrived in Philadelphia in 1782 to proclaim his divine status and holy mission, she made note of the event in her diary. Drinker, who viewed the strange visitor as a bizarre young woman rather than a heaven-sent prophet, had this to say in her entry for October 12: “Some days past Jemima Wilkinson left this Town a woman lately from New-England who has occasioned much talk in this City-she, and those that accompany'd her, (who were call'd her Disciples) resided some short time in Elfriths-Ally, where crouds went to hear her preach and afterwards in the Methodast meeting-house her Dress and Behavour, remarkable.” Here, Drinker documents the opening of the Friend's Pennsylvania ministry. In the fall of 1782, the Comforter journeyed south to Philadelphia, preached in the city for a couple of weeks, and then returned to Rhode Island. He followed up this short reconnaissance with three much lengthier stays in Pennsylvania between 1784 and 1790. Over the course of these visits, the prophet and several of his New England disciples established a base for their sect at Worcester, a rural community just to the west of Philadelphia, and drew in a number of converts.

Though the Universal Friend's appearance and behavior had certainly attracted notice before his arrival in Philadelphia, the prophet's debut in the nation's leading urban center saw him become the focus of a fierce public debate carried out in the city's newspapers and periodicals as well as more private reflections contained in letters and diaries. Critics accused the Friend and his followers of a range of heinous deeds, including blasphemy and fraud, while those who came to their defense portrayed them as devout, godly people. No matter if it damned or praised them, this commentary has some common features. Rather than focusing on the Universal Friends' creed, it centered on their appearance, dress, and demeanor. In addition, it habitually juxtaposed these observations against accepted forms of male and female deportment.

The discussion of the Friend and his disciples was part of a much broader debate over gender norms in revolutionary-era America carried out in the nation's rapidly growing print media. The second half of the eighteenth century saw an explosion in the number of newspapers, magazines, and periodicals. There were only 18 weekly and biweekly newspapers in the colonies in 1760, and newspaper publishing was limited to a small number of seaport towns and cities. In contrast, by 1790 America sported 106 newspapers, which were being printed both in coastal urban centers and inland towns, The number of newspapers just kept growing, and by 1820 American printing presses may have turned out as many as 500. Moreover, magazines containing international news, literature, and advice columns appeared in larger urban centers in the late eighteenth century. These publications provided a vehicle for the transmission of knowledge and debate among a readership that was not just limited to the elite but included middling craftsmen, mechanics, and farmers. The public sphere in the early national period was no longer “the words of the authoritative few to the people" but a "civic conversation of the people” in which readers and writers discussed all manner of subjects.' In particular, there was considerable commentary over the social consequences of the Revolution. Some foresaw a path toward a golden age of republican freedom, while others warned of impending chaos and disorder. This discussion went beyond the topic of politics and considered how the Revolution impacted (for good or ill) boundaries of sex, class, and race.

In this emerging public discourse, the Friend, and more specifically his appearance, became a magnet for comment and controversy. Those who wrote about the prophet focused attention on his countenance, clothing, and comportment because they had traditionally served as markers of status and gender. Specifically, commentators already sensitive about the relationship between the Revolution and radical social change dwelled on how the Comforter's habits of dress and demeanor contravened established social norms.

The revolutionary era was a time during which common folk asserted themselves at the expense of the elite, women usurped roles traditionally held by men, African Americans attempted to throw off the bonds of slavery, dissenters struggled against religious orthodoxy, and people worried over whether such upheavals would result in anarchy. As old hierarchies of rank and privilege lost their potency, those who feared that liberty could easily slide into disorder found new anchors for America's social order in constructs of race and gender that appeared to be rooted in nature. The Revolution also reinforced old gender hierarchies by promoting a political grammar in which Americans gendered citizenship, independence, and republicanism as male and dependence and monarchy as female. The Comforter and his sect appeared to challenge all of this.

The story of the Universal Friend's Pennsylvania ministry intersects with a larger tale of social and gender anxiety in revolutionary America. The prophet's curious blending of male and female traits confounded the nation's republican social order. Though such gender bending would have been disturbing in any political system, it was particularly threatening for Americans trying to establish a republic. In theory, a monarchy consisted of politically passive "subjects" and a monarch who exercised ultimate, but benevolent, authority.  In this system the integrity and personal qualities of the ruler were critical and those of the populace largely irrelevant. A republic, by contrast, had no king or queen but only a populace of politically active “citizens.” Thus the virtue of the people was a matter of great importance and the beliefs and behaviors of individuals like the Friend and his followers a real source of concern. Moreover, in a society where traditional systems of status based on class and lineage were falling by the wayside and hierarchy increasingly rested on clear distinctions of race and gender, the Universal Friends stood as a profound threat. For Americans who perceived their world in terms of an ongoing struggle between a “masculine,” but fragile, republican order and the seductive, “feminine” power of monarchy, the prophet appeared as a cultural fifth column: a female temptress who shrouded her dark designs in the garb of masculine religious authority.

[…]

Once an unremarkable country girl from Rhode Island named Jemima Wilkinson, the Public Friend managed to make quite a stir in America’s largest city. The Marquis de Chastellux, a French aristocrat who was visiting Philadelphia at the time, was one of many who took note of the prophet's visit. He attempted to see and hear the Friend but found that “the crowd was so great, and what is very uncommon in America, so turbulent, that it was impossible to get near the place of worship.” The secretary of the French delegation to the United States, Francois Marquis de Barbe-Marbois, had better luck. He along with several French officers (French troops were still in America in the wake of the Franco-American victory over the British at Yorktown) found seating near the pulpit. The marquis later recounted that “in spite of the commotion which our unforeseen arrival occasioned in the assembly, she the Friend did not seem to see us, for she continued to speak with ease and facility, her eyes lowered. ... She enunciated so clearly, though without elegance, that I think she was reciting a prepared sermon, and it was difficult for me to believe that she was speaking from inspiration, or as the worldly say, extemporaneously?” These reactions to the Friend capture the combination of curiosity, wonder, and skepticism he elicited during his first visit to the city.

Perhaps in an effort to escape the tumult their arrival had generated, the Comforter and his band left Philadelphia on October 19 and made their way to the rural setting of Worcester, Pennsylvania, about twenty miles to the west. They came at the invitation of the Reverend Abraham Supplee, minister of the Bethel Methodist Church. The Friend held two well-attended meetings there and stayed at the home of Reverend Supplee's brother-in-law, David Wagener. The prophet made quite an impression on Wagener. He described the holy messenger and his half-dozen attendants “as a people that feared God and worked Righteousness, and had the living Gospel of Jesus Christ amongst them, to deliver to the inhabitants of the world.” Of the Friend's message, he said the following: “When I heard the Gospel's Trump sound, I knew it was the true sound, and that it was with great power from on high, even to the convincing and converting of souls that heard and obey'd the counsel delivered.” Wagener was so taken with the prophet that he even accompanied him when he traveled north to visit Bethlehem and Easton. By mid-October, the Friend had finished his reconnaissance and headed back to Rhode Island.

Paul B. Moyer, The Public Universal Friend: Jemima Wilkinson and Religious Enthusiasm in Revolutionary America (Cornell University Press, 2015), 79-81, 83-85.