The American Home Missionary Society (AHMS or A. H. M. Society) was a
Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
missionary society
A missionary is a member of a religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a M ...
in the United States founded in 1826. It was founded as a merger of the United Domestic Missionary Society with state missionary societies from
New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...
. The society was formed by members of the
Presbyterian
Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...
,
Congregational,
Associate Reformed, and
Dutch Reformed churches with the objective "to assist congregations that are unable to support the gospel ministry, and to send the gospel to the destitute within the United States."
In 1893, the Society became exclusively associated with the
National Council of Congregational Churches
The National Council of Congregational Churches of the United States was a mainline Protestant, Christian denomination in the United States. Its organization as a denomination was delayed by the Civil War. Congregational leaders met again in Bos ...
and was renamed the Congregational Home Missionary Society.
Structure
The structure (as described in 1858) consisted of a President, Treasurer, Recording Secretary, an Auditor, and three corresponding Secretaries.
Associated people
*
George H. Atkinson
George Henry Atkinson (May 10, 1819 – February 25, 1889) was an American missionary and educator in what would become the state of Oregon. In Oregon, he served as a pastor for several churches, helped found what would become Pacific University ...
— AHMS missionary and educator; he and his family settled in settled at
Oregon City, Oregon in 1849 as the first Oregon missionary sent by the American Home Missionary Society
* Rev.
Milton Badger, a minister in Andover, Massachusetts who was associate secretary of the AHMS in the 1850s.
*
Charles Beecher
Charles Beecher (October 1, 1815 – April 21, 1900) was an American minister, composer of religious hymns and a prolific author.
Early life
Beecher was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, the fifth child of Lyman Beecher, an abolitionist Congr ...
— Son of Lyman Beecher and Brother of Henry Ward Beecher, started 2nd Presbyterian Church in Fort Wayne Indiana under funding from AHMS
*
David B. Coe (pastor) — AHMS Corresponding Secretary in 1858
*
Obed Dickinson
Obed Dickinson (June 15, 1818 – November 27, 1892) was an American pioneer, abolitionist, minister, and business owner in Oregon. Born in Massachusetts, he eventually settled in Salem, Oregon, where he ministered and started a seed business.
...
and
Charlotte Dickinson
Charlotte ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 census, making Charlotte the 16th-most populous ...
*
John Waldo Douglas
John Waldo Douglas (April 14, 1818 – September 24, 1883) was an American Presbyterian minister.
Douglas was born in Trenton, N. Y., April 14, 1818.
Douglas graduated from Yale College in 1840. He taught school for a time in the South, and in ...
— American Presbyterian minister (ordained in 1848) from New York who spent a brief time in the 1850s as an AHMS missionary to California prior to the Civil War.
*
Ira Hobart Evans
Ira Hobart Evans (April 11, 1844 – April 19, 1922) was an officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War and received the Medal of Honor. He was also a prominent Texas businessman.
Early life
Evans was born in Piermont, New Hampshire ...
— Texas businessman and onetime AHMS President.
*
Reuben Gaylord
Reuben Gaylord (April 28, 1812 – January 10, 1880) was the recognized leader of the missionary pioneers in the Nebraska Territory, and has been called the "father of Congregationalism in Nebraska."Punchard, G. (1865) "Congregationalism in Nebras ...
— AHMS missionary in Iowa (after 1840) and Nebraska (1855-) ; was the recognized leader of the
missionary
A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Tho ...
pioneers in the
Nebraska Territory, and has been called the "father of
Congregationalism in
Nebraska
Nebraska () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the southwe ...
."
[Punchard, G. (1865) "Congregationalism in Nebraska," ''History of Congregationalism from about A.D. 250 to the Present Time.'' Hurd and Houghton. p 360.]
*
Jonathan Clarkson Gibbs
Jonathan Clarkson Gibbs, II (September 28, 1821 – August 14, 1874) was an American Presbyterian minister who served as Secretary of State and Superintendent of Public Instruction of Florida, and along with Josiah Thomas Walls, U.S. Congres ...
— African-American abolitionist and AHMS missionary from Philadelphia who moved to North and South Carolina during the
Reconstruction
Reconstruction may refer to:
Politics, history, and sociology
*Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company
*''Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Union ...
era.
*
Eleazar Lord
Eleazar Lord (September 9, 1788 – June 3, 1871) was an American author, educator, deacon of the First Protestant Dutch Church and first president of the Erie Railroad.
Lord was engaged in banking; founded the Manhattan insurance company, and se ...
— Businessman in New York City who was an early organizer and first corresponding secretary of the AHMS. He wrote the first annual report of this society.
[Edward Harold Mott ]
Between the Ocean and the Lakes: The Story of Erie
'' Collins, 1899. p. 460-61
*
Daniel P. Noyes — AHMS Corresponding Secretary 1858.
*
William Patton — New York city pastor and a member of the AHMS executive committee for forty years during the mid 1800s
*
Agnes Louise Lesslie Peck — wife of Vermont General Theodore S. Peck; she was active in AHMS
*
Anson Green Phelps
Anson Green Phelps (March 24, 1781 – May 18, 1858) was an American entrepreneur and business man from Connecticut. Beginning with a saddlery business, he founded Phelps, Dodge & Co. in 1833 as an export-import business with his sons-in-law as p ...
— Businessman and philanthropist who contributed large sums to the AHMS
*
Stephen Van Rensselaer
Stephen Van Rensselaer III (; November 1, 1764January 26, 1839) was an American landowner, businessman, militia officer, and politician. A graduate of Harvard College, at age 21, Van Rensselaer took control of Rensselaerswyck, his family's mano ...
— AHMS President in the 1820s.
*
John Jay Shipherd John Jay Shipherd (March 28, 1802 – September 16, 1844) was an American clergyman who co-founded Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, in 1833 with Philo Penfield Stewart. In 1844, Shipherd also founded Olivet College in Olivet, Michigan.
B ...
— New-York born clergyman who moved to
Elyria, Ohio
Elyria ( ) is a city in the Greater Cleveland metropolitan statistical area and the county seat of Lorain County, Ohio, United States, located at the forks of the Black River in Northeast Ohio 23 miles southwest of Cleveland. As of the 2020 cen ...
in 1830 as an AHMS missionary, and soon after co-founded
Oberlin College
Oberlin College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio. It is the oldest Mixed-sex education, coeducational liberal arts college in the United S ...
in
Oberlin, Ohio
Oberlin is a city in Lorain County, Ohio, United States, 31 miles southwest of Cleveland. Oberlin is the home of Oberlin College, a liberal arts college and music conservatory with approximately 3,000 students.
The town is the birthplace of the ...
in 1833 with
Philo Penfield Stewart
Philo of Alexandria (; grc, Φίλων, Phílōn; he, יְדִידְיָה, Yəḏīḏyāh (Jedediah); ), also called Philo Judaeus, was a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who lived in Alexandria, in the Roman province of Egypt.
Philo's deplo ...
. In 1844, Shipherd also founded
Olivet College in
Olivet, Michigan.
*
Josiah Strong — American Protestant clergyman, organizer, editor, author, and a leader of the Social Gospel movement. In 1885 AHMS published his controversial book: ''Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis''.
Associated churches
*
First Congregational Church (Salt Lake City, Utah)
The First Congregational Church of Salt Lake City, Utah is a Congregational church affiliated with the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches. Established in 1865, it was the first church not a part of the Church of Jesus Christ ...
—Established in 1865, it was the first church not a part of
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a Nontrinitarianism, nontrinitarian Christianity, Christian church that considers itself to be the Restorationism, restoration of the ...
(LDS Church) in
Utah
Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...
.
The congregation started Utah's first free public schools.
Started by AHMS missionary Norman McLeod.
*
First Presbyterian Church (Chicago)
The First Presbyterian Church (Chicago) is the first Presbyterian Church in Chicago, Illinois, in the United States. It is arguably the first church organized in Chicago. It is the oldest continuously operating institution in Chicago, predating by ...
- this was the first (and therefore oldest) religious society in Chicago. The first public school in Chicago was organized in the meeting house of the First Presbyterian Church, and Eliza Chappel was the first teacher in this school. The church was established by AHMS missionary Jeremiah Porter on June 26, 1833 in Chicago.
See also
*
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions
*
American Missionary Association
The American Missionary Association (AMA) was a Protestant-based abolitionist group founded on in Albany, New York. The main purpose of the organization was abolition of slavery, education of African Americans, promotion of racial equality, and ...
*
Plan of Union of 1801
The Plan of Union of 1801 was an agreement between the Congregational churches of New England and the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America for mutual support and joint effort in evangelizing the American frontier. It lasted until ...
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
External links
American Home Missionary Society collection Rare Books and Manuscripts, Indiana State Library
{{Presbyterian Church in the United States of America
Christian missionary societies
Presbyterianism in the United States
Congregationalism in the United States