Monthly Archives: July 2016

Wicked Litchfield County

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A shameless self promotion …

My new book, Wicked Litchfield County, was published last week by the History Press. Here is their description:

“Thieves, rumrunners and rapscallions all color the unsavory side of Litchfield County history. Townspeople accused women of witchcraft simply for not bearing enough children in the early days of the region. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Owen Sullivan and William Stuart took advantage of the county’s isolated stretches and a currency shortage to build counterfeiting empires. In 1780, Barnett Davenport’s brutal actions earned him infamy as the nation’s first mass murderer. Small-time speakeasies slowly took hold, and the omnipresence of alcohol-fueled crime led to the birth of the nationwide prohibition movement. Local historian Peter C. Vermilyea explores these and other devilish tales from the seedier history of Litchfield County.”

The book is available at local book stores, including Kent’s House of Books and Washington’s Hickory Stick Bookshop. I will be doing many book events around the county in the coming months. Hope to see you at one of them!

 

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Hidden Nearby: Charles Grandison Finney’s Birthplace

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Monument at the birthplace of Charles Grandison Finney on Cunningham Road in Warren.

There were no great battles fought in Litchfield County, nor were any presidents born here. The county has, however, left an indelible mark on American history, perhaps in no area as great as in religion. The county was the home of Joseph Bellamy, Lyman Beecher, Horace Bushnell, and Michael McGivney. Another extremely prominent American religious leader who called the county home was Charles Grandison Finney, born in Warren in 1792. Finney was the youngest of fifteen children, and the family moved to upstate New York soon after his birth.

Charles Grandison Finney

Charles Grandison Finney

Finney has been called the “Father of American Revivalism,” and the area in western New York in which he operated became known as the “Burned-Over District” for the intensity of the religious revivals there. The high point of Finney’s revivalism was 1825-1835, and they were particularly popular in towns like Rochester that were undergoing dramatic economic transformations brought on by the opening of the Erie Canal.

Rochester, NY 1830

Rochester, NY 1830

Finney preached salvation through faith alone, but also wrote of the role of the individual’s will in achieving salvation. Finney’s religious views led him and his followers to promote social reforms, especially abolitionism and educational opportunities for women. These beliefs led him in 1835 to Oberlin College in Ohio, which accepted both genders and all races. Finney would go on to serve as the school’s president from 1851 to 1866.

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Getting to this monument is very challenging; it is advised that those seeking it walk or mountain bike down Cunningham Road. Thanks to Warren historian Ellen Paul and the dog walker I fortuitously met along Cunningham for the directions! Thanks also to Jason and Amanda McGrew for their assistance.

For more on Finney and his revivals in Rochester, see Paul Johnson’s wonderful A Shopkeeper’s Millennium: Society and Revivals in Rochester, New York, 1815-1837.