American Quotations by William J. Federer 2024

John Stewart (1786-1823) was a missionary to the Wyandotte Indians of Ohio, founding what may have been the first Methodist mission in America. Born in Virginia to free African- American parents of mixed ancestry, white, black and Indian, John Stewart experienced a remarkable religious conversion in Marietta, Ohio, and in 1815, after surviving a four-year battle with tuberculosis, felt called to share the Gospel among the Wyandotte Indians of Goshen and Sandusky, Ohio. Wyandotte Indian leader, William Walker, helped discover that the tribe had taken a black man, Jonathan Pointer, prisoner as a young child. Pointer had learned the Indian...

New Hampshire Proclamation (October 21, 1785) the Legislature issued a proclamation, signed by President (Governor) John Langdon of New Hampshire: <A Proclamation For A General Thanksgiving THE munificent Father of Mercies, and Sovereign Disposer of Events, having been graciously pleased to relieve the UNITED STATES of AMERICA from the Calamities of a long and dangerous war: through the whole course of which, he continued to smile on the Labours of our Husbandmen, thereby preventing Famine (the almost inseparable Companion of War) from entering our Borders;-eventually restored to us the blessings of Peace, on Terms advantageous and honourable: And since the...

Peter Cartwright (September 1, 1785-September 25, 1872) was a Methodist circuit-riding preacher. He was one of the most famous evangelists and planters of new churches in the West. Peter Cartwright preached nearly 15,000 sermons and baptized almost 10,000 converts. In 1824, he left Kentucky and Tennessee because of his disdain for slavery, and moved to Illinois, where he ran for Congress. He lost his bid for Congress in 1846 to Abraham Lincoln. In recalling his own conversion, Peter Cartwright shared: <I went with weeping multitudes and bowed before the preaching stand, and earnestly prayed for mercy. In the midst of...

Oliver Hazard Perry (August 20, 1785-August 23, 1819) was a U.S. Navy Captain. He was the brother of Commodore Matthew C. Perry. In the War of 1812, Captain Oliver Hazard Perry was responsible for the victory over the British fleet on Lake Erie, September 10, 1813. The sailors on deck with him heard him say: <The prayers of my wife are answered.> 1785OP001 He then dispatched a message to the Secretary of the Navy, saying: <It has pleased the Almighty to give the arms of the United States a signal victory over their enemies on this lake. The British squadron,...

John McLean (March 11, 1785-April 4, 1861) was a Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, 1829-61. He had served as a U.S. Representative from Ohio, 1813-16; a justice on the Supreme Court of Ohio, 1816-22; and the U.S. Postmaster General, 1823-29. On November 4, 1852, in a letter from Chapel Wood, John McLean wrote to the American Bible Society: <No one can estimate or describe the salutary influence of the Bible. What would the world be without it? Compare the dark places of the earth, where the light of the Gospel has not penetrated, with those where it has been proclaimed...