Working on Wednesday: More about Peter Worden, Minister and Rebel

I want to share some more information that has come to my attention since my first post about Elder Peter Worden in November, 2014.

While much scholarly research on the Wordens has been done since the publication of this 1868 privately-printed book with the catchy title of  "Some records of persons by the name of Worden, particularly of over one thousand of the ancestors, kin, and descendants of John and Elizabeth Worden, of Washington county, Rhode Island: covering three hundred years, and comprising twelve generations in America." I found the descriptions of Elder Peter on page 125 by two old men who had known him in their youth especially interesting.

[Some records of persons by the name of Worden, Oliver N Worden, Lewisburg, Pennsylvanis, 1868.

Source: Internet Archive; original source: Boston Public Library]

[Page 125 from Some records of persons by the name of Worden, Oliver N Worden, Lewisburg, Pennsylvanis, 1868.

Source: Internet Archive; original source: Boston Public Library]

For some time I've been closely following the New England Historic Genealogical Society's gradual release of more families in their online database Western Massachusetts Families in 1790,* confident that it was only a matter of time before my sixth great grandfather appeared and I wasn't disappointed with last month's profile of Peter Worden, Sr., (which also included his wife Mercy Moone). A sample of Elder Peter's handwriting from 1772 caught my eye.

In his role as a Baptist minister, I have wondered about Peter's support of the Revolution which included his very brief service as a soldier in 1780.

[Page 887 of Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revoluntionary War: A Compilation from the Archives, Volume 17; Massachusetts. Office of the Secretary of State. Wright and Potter Printing Company, State Printers, 1908. Source: Google Books]

An internet search on the subject brought me to the National Park Service's official American Revolution Web Site where I found Carla Gardina Pestana's piece titled: The Baptist Quest for Religious Freedom in the Revolutionary Era which answered some questions.**

"Although the Baptist denomination would later become one of the most prevalent in the nineteenth century (along with the Methodists), during the American Revolutionary era the Baptists were a small but growing church. With a long tradition of fighting for religious liberty, Baptists whole heartedly supported the separation of church and state. They joined this fight in accordance with the principles of their church, which had consistently upheld the ideal of complete religious freedom for all."

I'm always trying to envision my ancestors as people and not just records and this is the kind of information that helps me to do that.


*Western Massachusetts Families in 1790. (Original Online Database: AmericanAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2012. (From various authors, Helen S. Ullmann, FASG, ed.)
**And gave me a new author to check out. (P.S. I just ordered a copy of her 2004 book Quakers and Baptists in Colonial Massachusetts.)

© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.