A Salvation Army Prelude: The
Christian
Mission in Cleveland, Ohio
By HERBERT A. WISBEY, JR.*
At the corner of North Fourth and Oxford
streets in Philadelphia,
a small, inconspicuous plaque in the
sidewalk declares, "Here on
Sunday, October 5, 1879 was begun the
work of the Salvation Army
in the United States." Although
Philadelphia may be credited as
the birthplace of the Salvation Army in
America, Salvation Army
work actually was introduced in the
United States at Cleveland,
Ohio, where a branch of William Booth's Christian Mission
operated from 1872 to 1876.
The Salvation Army was born in England
in 1865 when its
founder, the Rev. William Booth and his
wife, Catherine, began to
minister to the outcasts of East
London's slums. Their organization
was called the East London Christian
Mission until it branched out
into other English cities and became the
Christian Mission. This
appellation served until 1878, when the
present name, the Salvation
Army, was first used. Although the name
varied in this formative
period, there was a continuity of
purpose and of being that date
the founding of the Salvation Army as
1865.1
From the small mission in East London
grew a great world-wide
Army noted for its unselfish ministry to
the spiritual and material
needs of suffering humanity. One of the
secrets of this phenomenal
growth was the dynamic personality of
William Booth, the organi-
zation's founder. He inspired many of
the people with whom he
came in contact to devote their lives to
serving God and man. One
of these--a cabinetmaker named James
Jermy--first introduced his
methods into the United States.
James Jermy emigrated from his native
England to Canada in
1871, then crossed over to the United
States and settled in Cleveland,
* Herbert A. Wisbey, Jr., is professor
of history and head of the department of
history and political science at Keuka
College, Keuka Park, N. Y.
1 Robert Sandall, The History of The
Salvation Army (2 vols.; Toronto, 1947;
New York, 1950), I, 47.
77