Book Review: The World of John Cleaveland

by Alwyn York, Conference Historian

John Cleaveland was not a famous man in his day. He spent most of his life as the pastor of a rural parish north of Boston. He is of interest to us today because his descendants took pains to preserve his papers. The writings he left behind provide a window into the daily life and concerns of a minister in rural Massachusetts in the days before the American Revolution.

Harvard scholar Christopher M. Jedrey published The World of John Cleaveland in 1979. The book uses the records of Cleaveland’s life as a framework to examine the social and economic forces at work in a small town in pre-revolutionary Massachusetts. What emerges is a picture of a conservative, fairly stable community striving to maintain its prosperity and cohesion in the face of growing population, increasing migration, and growing tension between the colonies and the British government. Jedrey analyzes data from wills and taxation records to illustrate the social and economic trends that were occurring.

John Cleaveland’s life was impacted in very direct and important ways by the two most significant historical events of his lifetime: the Great Awakening and the American Revolution. He was born in 1722 in Canterbury, Connecticut. The Cleaveland family and the Canterbury Congregational Church to which they belonged were notable for their devotion to the original ideals of Congregationalism during a time when these were undergoing modification in many Congregational churches. They were strongly committed to the ideal of a pure church with a membership composed only of those who could testify to being transformed by God’s grace. They strongly rejected the “Half-Way Covenant,” which lowered the standard for baptism. They also stood firmly for local church autonomy at a time when the Congregational churches of Connecticut were developing a more connectional system.

John Cleaveland was born into a prosperous farming family. An indication of their increasing status was that they sent their son to Yale College in 1741 to prepare for a ministerial career. John’s hopes for a career as a pastor were almost dashed because of the tensions that had developed at Yale over the Great Awakening. Many of the students at Yale were ardent Christians and were drawn to the fiery preaching of “New Light” ministers. In their zeal to awaken the churches, some of these preachers were becoming quite critical of the existing churches and their pastors. In some cases they charged that settled pastors of churches were unconverted men. Similar charges were made against the tutors at Yale. In response Thomas Clap, the Rector of Yale, took a hard line against students involved in revival activities. John Cleaveland and his brother Ebenezer were expelled from Yale in 1744 (John’s senior year) for attending a meeting of Christians who had separated from the established churches, at which they listened to preaching from a non-ordained man (their Uncle Solomon). (This occurred during the same time when future missionary David Brainerd was expelled from Yale for disrespectful comments he made privately against one of the tutors.)

Without a Yale degree John Cleaveland found that the pulpits of the Congregational churches of Connecticut were closed to him. He traveled to Massachusetts, where the Congregational churches were more loosely organized than in Connecticut. He preached for about a year in Boston to a group that had separated from the established churches. This group did not prove to be sufficiently strong or stable enough to support him, so he sought another call.

In 1747 John Cleaveland became pastor of a church in Chebacco (now Essex), Massachusetts that had started as a breakaway group from the original church in town. Theophilus Pickering, the pastor of the Chebacco church, was notable for the degree of his hostility to the revival activities of the Great Awakening. Church members who were supportive of the efforts of itinerant preachers to awaken the church experienced growing tension with their pastor until they finally decided to break away. John Cleaveland came to be the pastor of this group. He served this church for the rest of his life. Time would lead to a healing of the split in a surprising way.  The first church continued to decline during the ministry of the pastor called after the death of Theophilus Pickering. After this pastor left the church in 1766, the remaining members of the old church hired Cleaveland to preach to them as well. The two churches were formally joined as one with Cleaveland as their pastor in 1775.

John Cleaveland served as a military chaplain during the French and Indian War and took part in the British invasion of French Canada in 1759. The expenses of that war put a severe strain upon the British economy, and the government was led to increase tax revenue and to put tighter controls upon the colonies. As tensions grew between the government of England and the American colonies, John Cleaveland emerged as a strong spokesman for the colonial cause. Under the pen name “Johannes in Eremo” (Latin for “John in the Wilderness”), he wrote a series of newspaper editorials protesting the actions of the British government and defending the rights of the colonies. He served as a chaplain for the Continental army during the revolution. Three of his sons served as soldiers in the fight for American independence.

John Cleaveland did not live to see the nineteenth century. He died on April 22, 1799 (his birthday), at the age of 77. Besides his newspaper columns he published several books. For a defense of the orthodox view of the Atonement against the emerging Unitarianism published in 1763, he was finally awarded the Yale degree that was denied him as a young man.

John Cleaveland’s letters, diaries, journals and sermons were preserved by his descendants and were donated to the Essex Institute in Essex, Massachusetts in 1874. John Cleaveland was the sixth great-grandfather of former CCCC Board of Directors member David A. Williams.* It would be interesting to know how many members of our Conference have family ties that go back to the spiritual leaders of old New England.

*(Editor’s note: Dave Williams called me to tell of his knowledge of ancestor John Cleaveland, and how thrilled he is for this article by Alwyn York.)