Ohio History Journal

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GENTILE AND SAINT AT KIRTLAND

GENTILE AND SAINT AT KIRTLAND

 

by WILLIS THORNTON*

 

The Mormon interlude at Kirtland, Ohio, was by no means the

transplantation of an alien tree into an unaccustomed soil. The

ground at Kirtland was not only well prepared for the planting,

but was already sprouting luxuriant vegetation so closely akin to

Mormonism that the simplest cross-pollination and grafting pro-

vided a native stand of Mormon timber. Yet despite this apparently

auspicious climate, relations between the Mormon and Gentile

communities eventually became severely strained. Why? Shaker,

Amish, and other minority groups regarded as quite as outlandish

in theology and social customs were, and remained, undisturbed.

Wherein lay the difference?

Kirtland, or Kirtland's Mills (the official post-office designation),

was a small town in the rolling hills of northeastern Ohio which

had a population of 1,018 in 1830.1 As a center for farmers to

drive into and trade, get their grain milled or sold, and the like,

it was comparable to the nearby towns of Painesville, Hiram, and

Warren. The people of the community were nearly all farmers or

closely tied to the soil. The area had been settled by westward

movement along the lake shore or on the newly opened Erie Canal,

by people from Connecticut, then later from all New England, New

York, and Pennsylvania.

Northeast Ohioans were not only like those people, they were

those people in most cases, for not enough time had passed to

permit the rearing of a native generation. Most of the people were

pure Yankee. The era of "The Awakening" was in full cry, and the

camp meeting, the "protracted meeting," the gospel crusades, the

fiery preaching of the "Burnt-Over Area" of Pennsylvania, were

all reflected in northeastern Ohio. The excesses, in fact, were

even greater. Nowhere, even in the "Burnt-Over Area," had they

 

*Willis Thornton is a lecturer in journalism at Western Reserve University and

the author of The Nine Lives of Citizen Train.

1Warren Jenkins, Ohio Gazetteer and Travelers' Guide (Columbus, 1837), 248.

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