Cane Ridge Background - Richard Gooch - Clergy Dangerous to Women
Richard Gooch NEW YORK CITY. 1834. Christian Reform Societies; The Danger Presented
to Women in the Person of the Clergy; the trial
of Reverend E.K. Avery for Adultery and Murder. But all religious matters in America, like
everything else, are conducted upon a System without a parallel in the history of any well-regulated
community, as the foregoing facts and
the following truths will show. The Sun American paper of May, 1834,
observes, "This is the season of the anniversaries of
religious & charitable
institutions. They are numerously
attended, and their reports speak favorably of their increasing
strength and usefulness. Having for the most part, the welfare and
happiness of man as their grand object and aim, we wish them all
success in their efforts. There are, however, one or two associations
among them, which, whatever may be the purity or zeal of their
supporters, are calculated to produce the most serious evils. Among
them, is the Society for the promotion
of the Seventh Commandment-or in other
words, the Society to prevent
lewdness. There are certain subjects
which the common consent of all civilized societies has marked as too
indelicate, gross, and distasting in their character, ever to be
brought- except in extraordinary cases, and where the moral sense of
the community has been severely shocked-before the public eye.
Of such a character must of necessity be all
details connected with the proceedings of this Society. Its
supporters defy all common sense of propriety, all received notions
of decency, and do not hesitate in public
assemblages, where ladies form a great part of the audience,
to give the most disgusting
accounts of low debauchery and sensual
indulgence, such as can hardly be communicated to the delicate mind
of a woman without polluting it. This society probably owes its existence to
that record of the stews, McDowall's
Journal, which has already been
presented by the grand jury as a dangerous and
immoral
publication. In all charity, and without seeking to inquire
into the motives of men to profess to be guided by a desire to
promote public purity, and public morals, we must say that this
association, unless opposed by the same general spirit which demanded
that a public example should be made of McDowall's Journal, will
exert a most pernicious influence upon the morals of this community.
Every friend of decency & morality should frown upon and
discountenance it. The same authority stated in the previous
month of April, that "a religious sect had sprung up in the county of
Surry, one of whose tenets is to salute each other at a holy meeting
with a holy kiss. One of the female devotees, a
young lady of a thousand charms, happened to encounter a young
gentleman of whom she was enamoured, and gave him a more cordial
& loving salute than was quite becoming. The next day she received a message from the
high priest of the sect, saying she had been excommunicated for
'kissing with an appetite.' I could relate anecdotes of their
camp-meetings would make the ears of decency tingle and the cheek of
modesty burn with shame enacted, not only under the eye of their
spiritual teachers, as they call their vagabond
pastors, but in which these same
pastors were the principal
actors. I shall not, however, dwell upon them. Those
who would be better versed in the history of an American
camp-meeting, I must refer to the writings of Mrs.
Trollope, and to the more recent
publication of Mr. Ferrall. I have never read the latter, but I am
told he has fully entered into the subject. It is a fact that the females of all classes
of fanatics in America are under a complete state
of subjection to their spiritual
pastors, and that they alone ought to
be looked upon as their hearers & their
supporters. One would suppose from appearances
that the American women were all fanatics, & the
men all atheists-Indeed, I believe it to be near the truth.
I have been in many of their most crowded
congregations, and amongst several thousands never saw
above a hundred men
present at the same time; in fact the
disproportion of the sexes never fails to create surprise in
strangers. It is to the women all their appeals are addressed, it is upon them all the baser purposes of
fanatical preachers are made to
operate. Let us then inquire who this great class of
preachers are, and we may thus draw some conclusion as to the value
of their influence upon female society in
America. I have elsewhere recorded the fact, that several
abandoned characters who emigrated from England leaving wives &
families destitute, became popular
preachers after reaching America,
settled as such & married American
women with property, and on their
wives & families arriving in the United States & claiming
their protection, these same pious preachers
of the word of God declared their
wives & families to be impostors, in which they have in most
instances, nay in all that I am acquainted with, been countenanced
& supported by their American congregations. One man, now a popular preacher no great
distance from New York, emigrated from a city in Norfolk, where he
was a dyer & scourer, by trade, and little better than a
confirmed sot-now he is the Rev'd Mr--, in America. I know a lady who
lately emigrated from England, that went with some American
acquaintances to hear a popular preacher at Brooklyn, near New York,
which has been recently made a city. The party were persons of
influence, and after the service concluded, the new settler was taken
to be introduced to the Rev'd
favourite. His name was no sooner
uttered, than she recollected that such a person had fled from
England with a large sum of
money belonging to a society for the
Conversion of the
Jews. She no sooner looked him in the face than she
recognized the renegade Jew, and she confessed to me
that the blush of shame mantled in her face as she put out her hand
to shake that of a known
thief. After she retired with her American friends,
she named the fact to them. But they did not profess to be at all
surprised or ignorant of the matter, and exclaimed-"Ah! but he is a fine preacher!" This is only one out of many I could relate.
But there is a more recent case before the American public, the
remarkable one of a preacher being retained in his office of pastor,
an acknowledged Seducer &
adulterer, a convicted liar, and a darkly acquitted
murderer! This man is the Rev'd E.K.
Avery, the father of a family, who was & is still a Methodist
preacher of note in the vicinity of Boston. He had for one of his
congregation a poor factory girl of the name of Sarah Maria Cornell,
represented as interesting & intelligent. For some indiscretion, it is said, she had
come under the bann of this fanatical
Moloch- designedly, there is too much reason to fear, to make
her a sacrifice to his baser passions, & this he accomplished
during one of their infamous Camp-meetings,
about the middle of 1832. She became enceinte, in
consequence. Her health obliging her to seek advice, she first learnt
her situation from Doctor Wilbur, a member of the Society of Friends, in
the month of October, of the above year, and to whom, after a promise
of secrecy, she declared the father of her offspring to be the Rev'd
E.K. Avery. It was with great astonishment the Doctor heard her, as
he supposed the Rev'd delinquent a man of character, and after
several interviews with this physician, at every one of which,
it is affirmed "she appeared to be
deeply affected, with a sense of her conduct, and always shed tears,"
she persisted "in naming Avery as the author of her
difficulty." Upon the Doctor's expressing his incredulity,
his surprise and horror, at the bare imputation of such an offence on
a minister of the gospel, his penetrating eye, and
searching inquiries it is said, lest he should be imposed upon, seemed to
produce no other emotion in her than those of heartfelt anguish, and
the additional information that-Avery had advised her to make use of
the oil of Tansy, in doses of 30 drops, with a view to destroy her
offspring, or rather to kill the poor
girl herself, and remove as he thought all the living
evidence of his guilt, as 10 drops, the doctor informed her, were
sufficient to lay her
dead at his feet She further confirmed
the truth of what she had stated of Avery by shewing the Doctor a
letter she had rec'd from him. Upon this Doctor Wilbur insisted she
should demand an interview with Avery and negotiate with him for a
sum sufficient to enable her to retire from the labour of the
factory, & support her comfortably till she should be again able
to support herself-proposing a sum larger than she thought her
seducer could afford, upon which she generously refused to demand it,
alledging that she knew Avery was poor, and that she would do nothing
to distress him & his family. She finally consented to ask for a
smaller sum and to request an interview. She shortly afterwards called on Dr. Wilbur
& shewed him a letter she had received from her seducer,
appointing to see her in a secluded & very solitary spot, at
night, near the Fall River, in which neighbourhood the Doctor lived.
This struck the Doctor as remarkable, & he begged of her
not to go alone. This advice was not attended to. The scene of the
meeting was so near the Doctor's residence, that when he arose in the
morning he was surprised at seeing people hurrying by in evident
anxiety and on inquiry was told that a young woman had hung herself.
He put on his hat & hastened to the spot to which the people were
crowding, when the 1st object that met his view was the poor girl in
whose welfare he had taken so much interest, suspended from a tree
quite dead. There was no evidence how she came there, but Avery had
been seen in the neighbourhood the night of the proposed interview,
which had proved so tempestuous, that Avery, as it afterwards came
out had in vain endeavoured to bribe a boatman to take him across the
river to the opposite side, the direction in which his dwelling
laid. Upon taking down the poor girl's body, it was
found that the rope by which she was hanging was tied with a
double knot, and that it had been drawn so tight on the first
being tied, that it must, as the medical men stated, have caused
instant death-so that it was impossible the poor girl could have been
her own executioner. All the medical men, from the distorted angry
look of her features in death, testified that she had died by the
hands of a murderer; and it further appeared, that she had on her
hands a pair of clean white gloves, which must have been soiled had
she hung herself, as the rope was in a dirty state. And it was found,
on examination, that the flesh was violently pressed in on both her
sides, with finger marks, below the stays, as if by the grasp of a
powerful man, which Avery is. In short there were so many
circumstances that shewed her death to have been the work of a
murderer. But all these facts did not all come to light
at the time her body was first discovered, and much pains were taken
by the Methodist preachers and their friends, in the neighbourhood,
to defame the poor girl's character, after death. They actually
refused to bury her in consecrated ground, & an honest old
farmer, of the name of Duffee, who lived near the scene of death, was
so moved with the barbarous persecution that was going on, that he
declared she should have a decent funeral, in a spot he had
appropriated to be the resting place of his own family. At length public rumour bruited so many
suspicious circumstances against Avery, that he was apprehended on a
suspicion of being her murderer, & her remains were exhumed for
further examination, but the evidence not being deemed sufficient to
commit him upon, he was suffered to go at large. Other evidence,
however, was procured sufficient to make a different impression upon
the minds of a coroner & jury, and a warrant was granted for his
apprehension. Upon this he fled and was traced by the officer to the
cottage of an old woman, who to the officer's inquiry denied that he
was there. At the instant, however, the constable thought he
perceived something to flit behind the dour, and darting forward, he
found it was Avery, who fainted on being seized. He was soon after brought to trial for the
murder, during the progress of which many singular circumstances
occurred. Amongst others was that of a woman coming into court &
stating to the Judge, that she had dreamed for 3 successive nights,
that the man who had murdered Maria Cornell had a wound on one of his
hands. It was then recollected that Avery had, from the commencement
of the trial, kept one of his hands gloved, and upon his
removing the glove by the Judge's order, it was found that there was
the remains of a wound, as if caused by a bite. What makes this trial one of the most singular
that ever, perhaps, took place in the known world, is the shameful conduct pursued by
the Methodist preachers of the district, the friends of the accused, who are said not
to have spent a less sum than 5000 dollars in their endeuvours to
establish Avery's innocence. Every means was resorted to by them, with a
barbarous ferocity to blacken the poor
girl's character with lewd practices,
females were intimidated by them from coming forward to give evidence
who had been eye-witnesses of familiar scenes between the poor girl
& her seducer. Amongst other instances, says a writer in the
Free Enquirer, American paper, "of the shameful manner in which
witnesses were tampered with and their testimony kept back," is that
"of a person who was heard to say, previous to the trial of Avery,
that he saw him & Miss Cornell walking together during the camp
meeting at Thompson, and that he knew them both. This information was
communicated to the gentlemen who conducted the prosecution, and one
of them went to Connecticut to procure the witness. But he was one
day too late. On his arrival at the
residence of the man, it was found that no less than 3 Methodist Clergymen had stolen the march
upon him. The result was, that the
witness refused to answer any questions put to him, and as no
compulsory process could be had, nothing could be elicited from him.
If any person shall think proper to question the facts relative to
the 3 clergymen," adds this writer, "their Names, and that of my
informant, shall be promptly given to end all doubt." It was sworn by a respectable witness, that he
saw Avery & his victim "walking arm in arm" on the evening of the
20th of October, in the neighbourhood of the Fall River, and "Mrs
Bidwell also, wife of the Rev'd Ira M. Bidwell, testified that, on
that night, Avery, who was expected to lodge at her house, was out so
much later than usual for a minister, that she went to the house of a
neighbour to inquire for him. And Mr. Bidwell himself stated that on
the previous evening he saw Avery & Miss Cornell within '3 feet'
of each other, & left them together, because he supposed Miss
Cornell wished to have some conversation with him. All this does not
look like a desire on the part of Miss Cornell, to avoid an interview
with Avery as was pretended by him, and also by Mrs. Mayo, at the
Thompson Camp meeting." Evidence the most conclusive was produced on
the trial showing the intimacy that had subsisted between Avery &
his victim, more than one witness swore to his being seen in the
neighbourhood where the poor girl was murdered, yet Avery was
acquitted, but acquitted only upon the Judge suggesting to the jury
that any doubt in their minds ought to be given in favour of the
accused. One American paper observed upon this
termination of one of the most interesting & exciting trials that
modern times have produced, that they
were glad he was not to be hanged, as he was a descendant of one
of the old Republicans who had fought for their independence: so much for American love of justice. The report of the trials is before
the American people, and but few who are not living under the
despotic influence of the Methodist preachers
have the smallest doubt in their minds but that he ought to have
suffered an ignominious death instead of being now at large and actually
forced upon a
congregation by the influence of the
Bishop of the district (Methodists have their Bishops in
America), and the party of Methodist preachers, upon whose shoulders
he may be said to have been triumphantly borne from the tribunal of
murder, to defile God's temple with his unholy breath. Edited by Kenneth Sublett
