by Paul Andrew Reese
preese125 at earthlink dot net

A  shorter version of this article was published in the Spring 2008 Issue of New York Archives.

History recognizes and honors the abolition movement as prominently centered in the North and so particularly strong in central New York; conventional wisdom and popular histories attribute most of the proslavery sentiment to the South. It is clear that such division does not give a true picture of this very complicated period in American history. In 1843, Joseph Priest’s proslavery and very racist book, Slavery as it related to the Negro, or African Race was published in Albany, New York, not the South. This and many of the proslavery arguments emanating from Northerners have been skimmed over not the least the story of my ancestor, Simeon Brownson.

Simeon Brownson’s modest farm home was in the small village of Peterboro, (Madison County) in central New York State. ¹ Brownson, a devout Christian led by “faith and conscience” fought the growing movement to exclude slave owners from membership in the national societies of his beloved Baptist Church. In January of 1845 he stood before the eldership of his local congregation arguing a biblical defense of slavery and slave owners. At the same time he protested attempts to exclude him from membership in the local congregation because of his stance. His writings suggest his fear of schism in his church. Less than three miles from the Brownson farm was the mansion home of Gerrit Smith one of the wealthiest men in the country, a militant abolitionist, friend and backer of Frederick Douglass, supporter of John Brown, and a champion of many social reform movements.

 Simeon Brownson, like many of the settlers who came from New England purchased land from Gerrit’s father, Peter Smith. ² Simeon migrated to Madison County, New York with his father, Oliver, about 1802. Together they started raising hops on the plateau above the Oneida Lake Plain on the fertile Mile Strip. ³ The elder Brownson had been the choir master at the Simsbury, Connecticut, Congregational church and had self-published three editions of, Select harmony containing the necessary rules of psalmody together with a collection of approved psalm tunes, hymns and anthems, which featured many of his own compositions. In May of 1806 when Simeon was 27 years old, he recorded a religious experience in which he heard, “the word and Spirit of the Lord.” ⁴ At about the same time, he joined the Baptist Church in Peterboro. ^{5 6} His diary, kept from 1830 until shortly before his death in 1852, shows that he was active in the church and held regular family prayer and bible study. His conversion in 1806 made him an early participant in the Second Great Awakening that swept through the “Burned-Over District” of central and western New York State from 1800 to 1830 and that helped foster the abolition movement in the United States.  ⁷

It was not as if Simeon had not been exposed to the anti-slavery position that he eventually rejected. He wrote in his diary that Sunday Afternoon Oct. 6, 1844, “James G. Burney(sic) [the militant abolitionist and Liberty Party candidate for president in 1840 and 1844] lectured on the Abolition Subject.” His diary mentions reading of Joseph Smith’s death in the Baptist Register. The obituary for Simeon’s wife specifically noted that “She was an attached reader of “The Examiner” from its earlier history as the ‘Baptist Reader’ (sic ‘Register’),” suggesting he was also a regular reader. “The Examiner” and “Register” both covered the debate on slavery from the Baptist perspective. While there is no direct evidence Simeon read the secular press, the slavery debate was thoroughly covered. In fact, “The Madison County Eagle” published a running debate with Gerrit Smith. ⁸

Meanwhile in 1819, Gerrit Smith began to manage his father’s enormous land holdings. ⁹ He joined the Presbyterian Church in Peterboro, attended protracted (religious revival) meetings and wrote extensively of his strong religious convictions which became increasingly connected to the social issues of the day including temperance and antislavery and inspired his dedication to political activism and generous philanthropic activity. After gradually breaking with the colonization movement that promoted the resettlement of slaves to Africa, he advocated the immediate abolition of slavery and granting of citizenship to all freedmen. ¹⁰ He penned scathing attacks on church leaders and others who refused to accept his uncompromising position. Smith published many pamphlets and letters, including an open letter dated August 10, 1843 in which he goaded , “the Proslavery ministers of Madison County” and railed against any compromise with slave ownership. He attacked ministers who counseled silence or moderation. “Do you think that the people can always be kept ignorant of the countenance which Northern Baptists give to the man-stealing-practiced by the Southern Baptists?” ¹¹
 

Divided Over Slavery

Nationally, the controversy over slavery raged and contributed to the division of the Presbyterian Church in 1837. ¹² Just months before Simeon’s appearance in early 1845 in front of the church elders of his Baptist congregation, the Methodist Church split between the north and south. Tensions had been growing for some time within its ranks but the immediate issue for the Methodists was ownership of slaves by Bishop Andrew. Lacking the episcopal hierarchy of the Methodists, the Baptists functioned through voluntary regional and national missions and tract societies. ¹³ To some degree they avoided abolitionists’ pressure by focusing on evangelical activities and by generally ignoring divisive social issues. For example at the Eleventh Triennial Conference of the Baptist Foreign Mission Society in April of 1844 it was resolved that “[the society] disclaim all sanction, either express or implied, whether of slavery or of antislavery; but, as individuals, we are perfectly free both to express and to promote, elsewhere, our own views on these subject in a Christian manner and spirit.” The Home Mission Society immediately following the Triennial Conference debated the morality of missionaries owning slaves. But it also sidestepped the issue. A meeting of a Baptist Anti-Slavery convention in Albany that September nevertheless condemned the action of Triennial Conference and its boards without reservation.

In his small rural settlement, Simeon Brownson’s views were a local lighting rod for the larger national storm. Whether influenced by the activism of Gerrit Smith or by abolitionists in the church itself, it seems clear that the leadership at least of the Peterboro Baptist fellowship felt that slave ownership and church membership were incompatible. Because Simeon failed to agree, the church elders moved to expel him from their local congregation.

The abolitionists sentiments in the church continued well after Simeon’s confrontation with the elders. In 1847, Isaac Brownson, son of Simeon and a Baptist Home Missionary in Ohio described the attitudes in his father’s church:

I would not spend any days here [Peterboro] "For all the world!" Religious interest is generally low and ungodlyness and depravity are rife among the people. The churches are split into factions by various contending issues and even the ministry seem to be communicating the general disorganizing tendencies. There are apparently selfish, time-serving and, covetous, - aspiring to places of opinion, and eager of popular acclaim, less fearing the great God than vain man. O is this the truce of sccau(?) and all! I judge only from outward appearances. God grant that this may be shown untruth in the final trial. Am today busy with friends and papers and shall probably spend the Sabbath in Peterboro - This church is abolition (I am informed) "to the back bone." So we go, ultra against ultra. ¹⁴

Simeon was no stranger to church controversy. Back in 1832 two entries in his diary show how the Baptist congregation divided on the issue of Masonry. On October 13, 1832, he wrote “A meeting to be held this afternoon at Landa Wilbers by our church Brethren opposed to Masonry to devise the right and best means to settle the difficulty now existing in our church.” Then on November 3, 1832 “Brethren very hastily withdrew fellowship from about 30 Brethren & sisters - myself & Mrs. Brownson with the rest.” However, the congregation was reunited the following October. ¹⁵ In another entry on May 7, 1837, he wrote apparently with a note of disapproval that “Deacon Hopkins let out - tea-total abstinance (sic) - and antislavery.” His disputes with the church over slavery came to a head when, “A council, rather on my account - and about the Slavery doings of Peterboro Baptist Church, convened at the Baptist house in P. April 23rd 1844. No good to me. Elder Corwin adopted-on, made Moderator”

Against this background and his threatened dismissal from the church, Simeon penned for church elders a lengthy presentation of his beliefs on January 27th, 1845. ¹⁶ He sited 1st Timothy ch. 6:2 “And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren; but rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort.” He listed numerous Old Testament references that he claimed recognized slavery and then pleaded, “Brethren, who should withhold fellowship and Communion form 25,000 of our Baptist [slave owning] Brethren? O -Brethren, put away this Evil or wrong from among you.” In an addenda to the document, he noted, “The foregoing, I read, - in the Special Church meeting in P. on Saty Feby 15, 1845.” He list the eight attendees by name.

In May 10 1845 the Southern Baptist Convention split the Baptist church completing the schism of the three major protestant churches along sectional lines. The split of the churches was a harbinger of the conflicts that 15 years later would bring on the Civil War. Simeon also understood that war was likely and pleaded, “...should this Antislavery heat continue, and increase at home and abroad, - and the Military force of this nation be called out to allay, and settle the unhappy Contest, - I have one great Request to make of you, - and this Solemn injunction to lay you under, - that you, or your Children, - or your posterity, should use your utmost effort and ability, that my children or posterity May be allowed to remain at their homes, - and not be forced to take up Arms, - and engage in the unholy War. -” Of Simeon’s 17 children, including six sons of military age at the start of the Civil War, only William Greene Brownson who spent a year as a Union Army surgeon, served in the military.

Simeon Brownson’s early religious life in a Calvinist-leaning Congregational Church, his migration to the frontier of New York, and his religious excitement and conversion to the evangelical Baptist Church place him in the mainstream of early settlers in central and western New York.  His struggles with the reform movements of the Burned-Over District make him an Everyman of his time and place.  And his clear declaration of pro-slavery sentiments––despite his membership in a church next door to the abolitionist epicenter created by Gerrit Smith––provides a historical view of the contrasting ideologies of the period in rural New York.

Photo credits:
Poitrait of Simeon Brownson (top left) donated by Florence August Brownson Hays to the New York State Historical Association
Poitrait of Gerrit Smith from Gerrit Smith: a biography
Peterboro Baptist Church - Peterboro Historical Society
"To the Baptist Church in Peterboro - Western Theological Seminary Collection at the Joint Archives of Holland

¹ Born 1779 Simsbury, Connecticut, died 1852 Fenner, Madison Co., New York

² Deed Book I, p. 246 Madison County Clerks Office, Wampusville, New York. “Date of Indenture: June 22, 1802. Peter Smith and his wife Elizabeth, of Utica, sold to Oliver Brownson of New Hartford, Connecticut, for $1511, Lot No. 8 in 2nd allotment of New Petersburgh in the now town of Cazenovia, county of Chenango, containing 219 acres more or less .”

³ About 7 miles south of the 1825 Erie Canal

⁴ Simeon Brownson Diary 1830 - 1847, transcription by Kathryn Brownson. The original is in The Joint Archives of Holland, Hope College,, Holland, Michigan

⁵ Simeon Brownson “bapt. 1 June 1806” cited Peterboro Baptist Church records, Madison County Historical Society. The same document notes that on “31 Aug 1805 - Oliver Brownson, not being satisfied by his infant sprinkling, proposed being bapt. by emersion(sic) and was about age 60y of age.” Peterboro Baptist Church Oneita Historical Society.

⁶ The Township of Fenner was created in 1823 from the Township of Smithfield where Peterboro is located.

⁷ See for example Whitney R. Cross, The Burned-over District; the social and intellectual history of enthusiastic religion in western New York, 1800-1850. Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1950.

⁸ See for example, Madison County Eagle, Cazenovia, NY. Aug. 9, 1843; Aug. 30, 1843; Sept. 6, 1843; Oct. 4, 1843; May 8, 1844.

⁹ Octavius Brooks Frothingham, Gerrit Smith; a biography . New York, G.P. Putman's sons 1879.2d ed. p 20.

¹⁰ See for example Ibid. p 166 ff

¹¹ Gerrit Smith, “To the Proslavery Ministers of the County of Madison” Peterboro, August 10, 1843. See also Gerrit Smith, “To those Ministers in the County of Madison, who refuse to preach politics:” Peterboro, July 15, 1845 in which he declares his intention to “preach .. politics... At the Baptist Church, Fenner Sept. 16”

¹² For a discussion of church schisms see: C. C. Goen, Broken churches, broken nation : denominational schisms and the coming of the American Civil War Macon, Ga. : Mercer University Press, c1985.

¹³ See Mary Burnham Putnam. The Baptists and slavery, 1840-1845.. Ann Arbor, Mich.: G. Wahr, 1913.

¹⁴ Isaac Kellogg Brownson Journal of Travel to New York State June 1847 . Isaac was son of Simeon and Debbe. The unpublished original is with the author .

¹⁵ “Thurs. Oct. 31st 1833. .... A Mutual Council (chosen by both parts of our church) convened at our meeting house yesterday morning and whose result was brought: in to day was cordially accepted of both parts of the church; they rescinded their vote of exclusion on the 3rd of Nov. 1832 without confession - and apparently a gospel settlement. Bless the Lord.” Simeon Brownson Diary.

¹⁶ Simeon Brownson, “To the Baptist Church in Peterboro” is a four page manuscript, transcription by the author. The Original is in The Joint Archives of Holland, Hope College, Holland, Michigan