- Home
- Richard McNemar
Preparing your PDF for download...
There was a problem with your download, please contact the server administrator.
Richard McNemar
Frontier Heretic and Shaker Apostle
Published by: Indiana University Press
540 Pages, 31 b&w photos
- eBook
- 9780253065070
- Published: March 2023
$39.99
Other Retailers:
The first biography of a key and complex American religious figure of the nineteenth century, considered by many to be the "father of Shaker literature."
Richard McNemar (1770–1839) led a remarkable life, replete with twists and turns that influenced American religions in many ways during the early nineteenth century. Beginning as a Presbyterian minister in the Midwest, he took his preaching and the practice of his congregation in a radically different, evangelical "free will" direction during the Kentucky Revival. A cornerstone of his New Light church in Ohio was spontaneous physical movement and exhortations. After Shaker missionaries arrived, McNemar converted and soon played a prominent role in expanding and raising public awareness of their religion by founding Shaker communities in the Midwest, becoming the first Shaker published author and the most prolific composer of Shaker hymns.
Split between two opposing religious traditions—an evangelical movement attracting tens of thousands and Shakerism, which drew only hundreds to its villages—Richard McNemar's life poses a challenge for any biographer. Christian Goodwillie's mastery of the archival records surrounding McNemar and the Shakers allows him to tell McNemar's story in a way that fully captures the complexity of the man and the scope of his enduring legacy in American religious history.
Acknowledgments
Maps
Introduction
Part I: Presbyterian and Schismatic
1. Youth
2. Westward Migration and Education
3. Ordination
4. Revival
5. Rebellion
Part II: Shaker
6. Rebirth
7. The New and Living Way
8. Community Foundations
9. Shakers and the Shawnee Prophet
10. Shaker Publications and the Expansion of Missionary Efforts
11. Gospel Order in the West, James Smith, and the Ohio Mob
12. War Comes to the Wabash
13. Perfidy, Pilgrims, Prosecution, Progress, and Pestilence
14. The End of the Beginning
15. "There's Something Dead upon This Ground," or, "The Buzzards and the Flesh"
16. The Struggle with Abijah Alley and Aquila Bolton
17. Eleazar Goes East
18. Eleazar and the Covenant
19. Custos Sacrorum
20. The Great Snake and the Patriarchal Skeleton
21. Unrest in the West
22. Freegift to the West
23. "The Name or Memory of Mr. McNamar"
24. The New Era
25. War in Heaven
26. A Wandering Star
27. Look Homeward, Angel
28. Aftermath and Legacy
Appendix 1: Richard McNemar, "A general outline of the past Journal of my life"
Appendix 2: Richard McNemar, "Testimony of E[leazar] Wright"
Appendix 3: Richard McNemar, "My years on earth have been but few"
Appendix 4: [Archibald McCorkle?], "A few mourning thoughts on McNemar's fall," and Richard McNemar, "An Answer to the Mourning Thoughts on McNemar's Fall"
Appendix 5: The Expulsion of Richard McNemar
Appendix 6: [The Redemption of Richard McNemar]
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Christian Goodwillie is the Director and Curator of Special Collections at the Burke Library of Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. He was Curator of Collections at Hancock Shaker Village in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, from 2001 to 2009. He has served as President of the Communal Studies Association and was recognized with their Distinguished Scholar Award in 2021. He has authored, coauthored, or edited eleven books and has written numerous articles on the Shakers and other intentional communities, early American history, Freemasonry, and other topics.
"Goodwillie illuminates the life of Richard McNemar, who played a pivotal role in the formation of the complicated religious landscape of the trans-Appalachian west in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, a period of American religious history that continues to deeply inform our national culture. McNemar's story seems deeply relevant now, as America has devolved into deep division over religious and political conviction, more than most of us have ever seen in our lifetimes."
~Carol Medlicott, Northern Kentucky University
"This chronological and detailed treatment of his life highlights McNemar's contributions to Shaker theology, missionary efforts, leadership, poetry, hymns, and printing. Richard McNemar: Frontier Heretic and Shaker Apostle goes beyond and debunks whatever may remain of Shaker folklore connected McNemar. Instead, the reader appreciates him as a man of great integrity and deep religious faith who, in spite of a range of human imperfections, remained true to Mother Ann's Gospel."
~Stephen J. Paterwic, author of Historical Dictionary of the Shakers, and The A-Z of the Shakers.
"Goodwillie provides a meticulously researched descriptive chronicle of Presbyterian evangelist Richard McNemar . . . Valuable for scholars with a particular interest in the Shakers."
~C. H. Lippy, emeritus, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Choice