More Cheever info for the files.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1999 16:02:38 PDT
From: "Beth A. Salerno" <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: H-NET List for History of the Early American Republic
     <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Reply:  George B. Cheever's Fire and Hammer of God's Word

Date: Friday, September 17, 1999 14:12:48
From: Hal Morris   [log in to unmask]

Cheever was, to use good old New Jersey expression, a real piece
o' work.   More seriously, I think "compulsive controversialist" is a
good way to describe him. When he was settled in a church in Salem
in 1832(?) he launched into a pamphlet and public letter war with the
local Unitarians.   Most of his causes were foolish and misguided
He became a serious abolitionist at the last moment (though he'd
spoken against slavery decades earlier, it just didn't preoccupy him
the way saving the death penalty, bashing Unitarians and Catholics,
stopping Sunday Mail delivery, and temperance did).  He is not a
hero, but is an interesting product, and maker, of his times.

I too, recommend Robert M. York's _George B. Cheever, Religious
and Social Reformer 1807-1890, otherwise known as University of
Maine Bulletin Vol LVII, no 12, or University of Maine Studies, Second
Series, No. 69 (April 1, 1955).

Hal Morris: [log in to unmask]   --  Editor of:
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