[The Burned-over District of NYS. The area is somewhat larger than what I circled in red, but you get a sense of the geography. Source: Google map search.]

If you want the wrath of God to descend upon you and your people, then continue in your evil ways.

~~Imaginary sermon from an imaginary preacher spoken somewhere in upstate New York in 1831.

This post is about an interesting and, for me, a fascinating part of New York State history that may not be as well-known as say, the importance of Cooperstown to baseball’s legacy. But, in the end you can file it anyway that you choose. It’s real stuff. It’s non-fictional but sometimes reads like a novel. There are several reasons I’ve chosen this topic, too many actually. It’s history of my home state, it’s not that far away, it ties in to my novel Ned & Ashtabula: The Erie Canal Hauntings in a small way.

Most importantly, however, is that the events and reality of what I’m about to discuss is still with us today. It’s living history.

Just think about it for a long moment. Once upon a time, wild religious zealots with large-brimmed hats and unkempt beards stood on a stump beside a lonely road and spoke of God like they had the Divine Being on speed dial.

And people spoke with the dead.

The term was coined by a revivalist preacher by the name of Charles Grandison Finney in the 1820s.

This was known as the Second Great Awakening and it lasted from about 1795 to 1835. Don’t ask about the First Great Awakening or even the Third. That is very much beyond the scope of this blog post. You’ll have to do that on your own time.

It was like a mighty wind blew across the center of New York State. It was a time of Prophets, Cults, Utopian communities.

The great preachers of the time were men such as Jonathan Edwards, who delivered a sobering message, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. George Whitefield, who was known for loud and quite intense outdoor sermons, and a Dutch Reformed pastor who would visit homes in and around New Jersey.

[Jonathan Edwards. Clearly not of the long beard and stump sermons. Note the body language and expressions on his listeners. Looks to be like the congregation had a lot to fear. What were they up to? Source: Google search.]

My guess is that few napped during these orations.

Also out of this religious revival grew the Shaker movement, Millerism, Spiritualism and, perhaps most importantly, The Church of the Latter-Day Saints, the Mormons. It was in the heart of the Burned-over District where Joseph Smith received the Golden Tablets. Check out the location of Hill Gomorrah sometime on your road atlas.

At this point, I should add that is not all that came out of the District. Along with the cults and minor religions also was the source of a strong and vibrant Abolitionist movement, the early origins of Women’s Rights (at Seneca Falls) and even Prohibition.

One must keep in mind that the years that encompassed the Great Awakening was a time of war and death. Some historians extend the dates of the movement to just before the First World War. In that time frame was the American Civil War. I don’t need to repeat the numbers of those killed in those years of horrific blood shed. I read somewhere that nearly every family, North and South, lost a relative and following that awful unimaginable pain, people looked to Mediums and Spiritualists to try to find ways to communicate with their lost loved ones.

I’m not going to take sides in what was real and what was charlatanism. Each person is entitled to believe in the reality of a Seance or a Medium.

One story, however, is clearly fraught with trickery.

I’m talking about the famous Fox Sisters. They held people’s attention during a seance with pops and noises to prove they had connected with the other side. In reality, they found a method to crack the joints in their toes. They confessed this late in life. But they had quite a run.

[The famous Fox sisters. I could not find a way to identify them. Source: Google search.]

By now you probably have picked up on my interest in all these topics. I love history especially of places that aren’t 17,000 miles distant. But, as I wrap this up (we’re still moving in to our apartment and I have exactly eleven boxes of books to empty and shelve) I have should mention that this topic has somewhat obsessed me for many years. Clearly the Internet had been a revelation. Back in the day after I first heard the term (about forty years ago) I could find very little information.

Things have changed. Scholars and religious historians have spent years studying the phenomena. If you find any of this fascinating or even mildly interesting, the following books are readily available:

[I have this on Kindle. It’s a very interesting overview. Source: Amazon.]

There is a book by Mircea Eliade titled: Occultism, Witchcraft and Cultural Fashions which, as I understand, has some pretty scary references to the Burned-over District. I have not looked over the book so I can not verify it’s content.

I hope you found something to think about in this blog. It’s a bit of a departure for me to do something seriously historical, but there we are.

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