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From: Evelyn Cataldi <>
Subject: Re: [NJHUNTER] Amwell Church Cemetery
Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 00:35:51 -0500 (EST)


At 12:22 PM 01/09/2001 -0500, you wrote:
>When I was at the Cemetery of the Amwell Presbyterian Church , Pleasant
>Ridge Cemetery, I saw a sign which says, "Amwell Church Site of the First
>Presbyterian Church built in 1738. Here George Whitefield's sermon to 3000
>people in 1740 inspired religious zeal." Does anyone have any information
>on this event?

Susan and list members:

"A History of East Amwell" has this to say on the subject:

Page 189 -- In 1734, Jonathan Edwards had begun preaching in Massachuttes
his fire and brimstone sermons to instil a sense of sin into his hearers.
His writings were read by John Wesley in England who began the Methodist
Group at Oxford University and he, in his turn, inspired George Whitefield
who became the leading evangelist of the Western world at that time.

Whitefield was born in 1714 in Gloucester, England, and ordained in the
Cathedral there in 1736. He made seven visits to America, beginning in
1739, and wherever he went he preached to congregations of thousands. His
fame was such that people would travel great distances to hear him speak.
He consistently reduced his hearers to weeping, groaning, fainting and
similar excesses which his critics labelled `enthusiasm', a derogatory term
in those days implying a false, hysterical performance rather than a true
spiritual inspiration. He preached that man is a sinner but once he comes
to a sense of his own wickedness he can find forgiveness, and while
Whitefield's basic theology was simple his oratory kept his listeners
spellbound. Even Benjamin Franklin, one fo the few notables of the time who
managed to remain largely indifferent to him, on hearing Whitefield preach
in Philadelphia wrote in his Autobiography...

"It was a matter of speculation to me to observe the extraordinary
influence of his oratory on his listeners, and how much they admired and
respected him....He had a loud and clear voice, and articulated his words so
perfectly that he might be heard and understood at great distances....I
compared that he might be heard by thirty thousand".

Page 190 William Tennant, brother of Gilbert and another of the New Light
preachers, came to Amwell to preach and then, on April 25, 1740, George
Whitefield himself made the journey from Skippack in Pennsylvania to speak
outside the meeting house at Pleasant Ridge. He tells of the occasion in
his Journal:

"Rose before day. Sung and prayed with my own friends and the German
Brethren. Set out before sunrising, and reached Amwell, thirty five miles
from Shippack, where I had appointed to preach by six at night. Some
thousands of people were gathered together, expecting I would have been
there by noon; but Mr. Gilbert Tennent, and Mr. Rowland, mentioned in my
last Journal, coming there to meet me had given the people three sermons.
In my way thither, I was brought low by inward trials, and very great
weakness of body, occasioned by the heat of the sun, want of sleep, and the
length of the journey; but before I had preached six minutes, a bodily and
spiritual strength was given me, and the Lord set His seal to what He
enabled me to deliver. After sermon a friend took me in his chair to an old
Christian who inivited me and my company to his house, five miles distant
from the place where I preached".

[The source for the above quote is given as: William V. Davis, "George
Whitefield's Journals 1737-1741"

Evelyn

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