S. Scott Rohrer - Jacob Greens revolution : radical religion and reform in a revolutionary age

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JACOB GREENS REVOLUTION

Jacob Greens Revolution

RADICAL RELIGION AND REFORM IN A REVOLUTIONARY AGE

S. SCOTTROHRER

THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS
UNIVERSITY PARK, PENNSYLVANIA

Library of Congress

Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rohrer, S. Scott, 1957 , author.

Jacob Greens revolution : radical religion and reform in a revolutionary age / S. Scott Rohrer.

pages cm

Summary: Examines the ways religion influenced reform during the American Revolution in New Jersey. Focuses on two pivotal figures: Jacob Green, a Presbyterian minister who advocated revolution, and Thomas Bradbury Chandler, an Anglican minister and a leading loyalist spokesmanProvided by publisher.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-271-06421-5 (cloth : alk. paper)

1. Green, Jacob, 17221790. 2. Presbyterian Church
New JerseyMorris CountyClergyBiography.
3. New JerseyHistoryRevolution, 17751783Biography. 4. Morris County (N.J.)Biography.
5. New JerseyHistoryRevolution, 17751783
Religious aspects. 6. United StatesHistory
Revolution, 17751783Religious aspects.
7. CalvinismUnited StatesHistory18th century.
8. Chandler, Thomas Bradbury, 17261790.

I. Title.

E263.N5R64 2014

974.9 ' 03092dc23

[B]

2014011342

Copyright 2014

The Pennsylvania State University

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press,

University Park, PA 16802-1003

The Pennsylvania State University Press is a member of the

Association of American University Presses.

It is the policy of The Pennsylvania State University Press
to use acid-free paper. Publications on uncoated stock
satisfy the minimum requirements of American National
Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of
Paper for Printed Library Material, ANSI Z39.481992.

This book is printed on paper that
contains 30% post-consumer waste.

To Jeff, David, and the Mountain Lakes gang

friends from the beginning

Contents

PART I:
THE WORLDS OF JACOB GREEN
AND THOMAS BRADBURY CHANDLER

1
Student

2
Pastor

3
Father

4
Farmer-Miller-Physician-Teacher

PART II:
REVOLUTIONARY THINKERS
AND THE TRIALS OF WAR

5
Polemicist

6
Revolutionary

7
Politician

8
Host

PART III:
REFORMERS ON THE HOME FRONT

9
Crusader

10
Dissenter

11
Disciplinarian

FIGURES

MAPS

TABLES

The journey has been a winding onemarked, as rocker Neil Young might sing, by a few devilish turns along a twisted road.

When I finished my previous book on Protestant migrations in America, I knew I wanted to return to my first love, the topic that led me to become a historian in the first placethe American Revolution. My initial idea was to study a Presbyterian community in the revolutionary era to learn what made this church such a hotbed of radicalism, and to examine how a religious community functioned during the war.

But which community? I looked no further than the place I had grown up, Morris County in northwestern New Jersey. During the Revolution, Morris was a Presbyterian-Whig stronghold that stridently backed the war and provided a safe haven to General Washingtons shivering Continentals. So the initial vision was a twofer: I would return to my roots by studying a community I knew intimately, and I would probe the radicalism of Presbyterianism. And having settled on this plan, I plunged into the primary sources on revolutionary Morris County.

Jacob Green had other ideas.

As I studied the county, this remarkable man from Hanover, the largest township in Morris at the time, jumped off the pages of the sources I was exploring. A Presbyterian minister, miller, farmer, physician, teacher, best-selling author, and reformerJacob Green was everywhere in the primary and secondary sources. Discussions of slavery in Morris County? Green was trying to abolish this most pernicious practice. Should New Jersey declare independence in 1776? Green was arguing for it in an influential tract that sold widely. Who should represent Morris in the pivotal Provincial Congress that decided whether the colony would secede from the British Empire? Green was elected by his peers to head to Burlington. And yet there was no modern biography of this ardent revolutionary.

Biographies of the era focus mostly on the leading founders. Books on Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry, to name but two, could fill an entire library, and the output shows no signs of abating. Understandably, Americans are endlessly fascinated with the leading revolutionaries; these were talented and brilliant men who richly deserve the acclaim they receive. Less understood and known among the general public, however, are the Jacob Greens of the independence movementthose revolutionaries who occupied the backrooms of the founding pantheon. And once again, Green told me why someone like him is worth studying. He was all about reforming society. Fifty-four in 1776, Green had the energy of someone half his age. While other New Jerseyans were reluctantscared, evento take on the British, he welcomed it and was confident the Americans could win the war. Green saw the Revolution as his great chance to change society, and he offered up one of the most wide-ranging reform programs of any revolutionary, including Jefferson.

The source of this revolutionary energy was especially intriguing. It drew not from the well of the political radicalism of British intellectuals like John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, or the Enlightenment philosophy of John Locke (although Green admired Locke and cited him in his writings). The wellspring of Greens revolutionary energy was stodgy old Calvinism, a once-dominant religious movement that was slipping into irrelevance by 1776.

Jacob Greens Revolution: Radical Religion and Reform in a Revolutionary Age, as a result, is about several things. On the simplest level, it is the biography of one revolutionary and his experiences before, during, and after the war. On a deeper level, the book is a microhistory that seeks to understand how religion contributed to reform during the founding years. Jacob Greens Revolution is a microhistory in the sense that it trains a telescope on a distant figure in the American past to illuminate how a backwoods reformer thought and acted during a time of revolutionary possibility in U.S. history. Jacob Greens Revolution, in other words, isnt a willy-nilly accounting of one mans life but a foray into the world of religion and revolution in early America.

On a third level, Jacob Greens Revolution is an experiment. Traditional biographies, of course, focus on one individual. This book tries something different by mixing in a brief, alternative biography between the main chapters. The primary reason for including this second story is thematic. Religions impact on reform during the Revolution was not uniform. Calvinism produced a reformer like Jacob Green; High Church Anglicanism produced something quite different. To demonstrate the latter and further illuminate the former, the second story sketches the life of a colorful character who was the opposite of the Presbyterian minister from Hanover. Thomas Bradbury Chandler, a conservative Anglican minister, lived a few townships over from Green and was his peer in many ways. Like Green, he was a talented writer and a deeply devout man. But unlike Green, Chandler drew quite different conclusions about reform and society from his study of God. He opposed revolution and feared democracy, and his main reform cause sought to strengthen authority. Thus, in the pages of

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