514 - Searching and Finding: A Research Topic

Searching and Finding: A Research Topic
By Diane Lobody Zaragoza

LITERARY critic Brigid Brophy once noted that "the two most fascinating subjects in the universe are sex and the eighteenth century." I don't know how fascinated historians are by the former, but Brophy's comment lets out a secret horded by solemn and serious scholars: that we have real passions for our fields, that we romp through our subjects, that we get caught up in a genuine delight with the people and places and times that we study.

For me, the most fascinating subject in the universe has turned out to be a woman who is virtually unknown in the history of American religion, a woman who has haunted my concentration and crept gracefully into my studies so often that I have finally given up and decided to write my doctoral dissertation about her. She is Catherine Livingston Garrettson (1752-1849) of "Grassmere," Rhinebeck, New York. This brief article is not so much about Catherine herself, but a personal history of my own discovery of and adventure with Catherine.

I

It all began in Ohio, where as a clergywoman I was asked to lead a retreat for the wives of Presbyterian ministers. I was stunned during the course of the weekend by the powerful sensitivities these women had concerning theology and the church. Here were laypeople, not trained in seminary, whose position offered them unique insights into their churches and into theological thinking. I began to reflect that if these clergymen's wives were fairly normal, and it seemed as if they were, that the writings of such women might offer a unique and compelling vision of the church and its people. I wondered for a time whether there were private journals or letters or memoirs from women of early America, thinking that these would offer a special perception of both the women themselves and the churches they lived in and served.

This intrigue picked up again when I began work on my doctorate. I took a course in nineteenth century religion, and we were all assigned papers to write. The list of topics went around the table, and I was the last person to choose the only topic left. I was the one woman in the class, and my male colleagues had graciously left me the topic "Women." It was at that point that I remembered my clergywives, so I went off to see the librarian to ask if we had any private papers of a clergy wife.

Here is where the fun began. Kenneth E. Rowe, Methodist librarian of Drew University Theological School, said he thought there were a few documents from Catherine L. Garrettson, wife of Freeborn Garrettson

Diane Lobody Zaragoza is an ordained Presbyterian clergywoman and a Ph.D. candidate at Drew University Graduate students know the agony of finding a topic only to discover later that someone has already written on it. As this delightful report suggests, librarians can sometimes be more helpful than deans or departmental chairpersons.

515 - Searching and Finding: A Research Topic

(1752-1827), an early Methodist itinerant, anti-slavery preacher. I didn't know what Ken meant by a few, but what we ended up with were more than 400 letters, 16 journals, an autobiography, a book of dreams and visions, a series of memoirs of families and friends, and a few miscellaneous writings. In all, the "few items" turned out to be about 2,000 pages of manuscript, all untranscribed.

I did not know anything about Catherine, other than that she was a member of one of the most affluent and aristocratic families in Hudson River society. I began exploring this family, and the Livingstons became an obsession with me. Her father was Judge Robert R. Livingston, her various brothers served as Chancellor of New York State, a member of the committee to write the Declaration of Independence, a Secretary of State, Mayor of New York City, and even a black sheep brother whom everyone loathed. Catherine's sisters married a Physician General of the United States, a U.S. senator, and a state senator. General Richard Montgomery (1738-1775) of Revolutionary War fame was also in the family. Livingstons started appearing everywhere I looked. I remember cutting out a cookie recipe from a woman's magazine only to discover on the back the assertion that a Livingston really wrote the poem "The Night Before Christmas." At any rate, all these Livingstons, intimate relatives of Catherine, kept popping into my life like hilariously colored balloons.

II

What was important for my study was not Catherine's family but herself, and what a glorious discovery that was. In her autobiography, I found a description of her conversion. She was converted while reading a prayer in the Book of Common Prayer, and a few days later her mother's housekeeper gave her some of John Wesley's books. Without a moment's hesitation, she became a Methodist, much to her family's horror, as Methodists were seen as the poor people's sect. To add to this, she met and had the singularly poor taste to fall in love with the Methodist circuit rider, Freeborn Garrettson. Her mother was adamant-there was to be no marriage, and her mother held out for five years. But eventually the brothers and sisters placed enough pressure on her mother. After all, where were they going to find a more suitable mate for their thirty-nine year old sister. The two were married in 1793.

Catherine was, as we have noted, a prolific and highly educated writer. The writings fall into discrete groupings, and every section holds its surprise. She began a journal one month after her conversion in 1787. The first few months are euphoric delights in the providences of God and shame at her failures and wrongdoings. (We are not talking about major life errors here-her besetting sin was oversleeping.) Then in 1788 she begins a genuine mystical life, a classic Christian experience including purgation, illumination, the dark night of the soul, and mystical union. This was a fantastic find, for those of us who are American religious historians have paid little attention to this stream in American religiosity.

516 - Searching and Finding: A Research Topic

The heights of mystical union were reached in 1793; the closer she came to her wedding day, the more intense did the experiences become.

I was tremendously moved by this find-to see in a rational eighteenth century context the powerful movement of Christian mysticism was itself enough to write on for years. What made it all more interesting was that as soon as she married, the visions vanished. Here we search in vain through the journals and the letters, and what we find is a shift from a single solitary prayer life to a life caught up in community. She has vivid dreams, but they are about family and friends, and so also her most moving prayer experiences are communal in nature. She has a task to do-she is a clergy wife-and there is no time for solitary meditation. It is interesting as well that she shifts from the journal to letter-writing as a primary form of expression. These letters tell us a great deal about the quality of evangelical womanhood-its style of prayer, the groups of women who meet to support and console, and the intimate relation with her husband.

Everywhere I looked in this material I found something remarkable. The book of dreams, written during her mystical period, leaves us open to the adventure of dream analysis. The autobiography is a gem, a classic type of Christian literature. The most tempting thing, however, is to look at all of it and see the interior map of an evangelical woman's whole spiritual life. The writings begin with pre-conversion letters of a Hudson River belle and end with her final journal entry in 1849, the year she died.

III

So what am I doing now? I am plowing through the materials in the exhilarating but overwhelming attempt to draw out Catherine's spiritual life, to look at the various steps, and to make available something we simply don't have. These papers are infinitely precious because it is so rare to have such quantity among women's personal writings. Catherine can give us the intimate, private story of her own life, and that in turn can give us some clues as to the lives and experiences of evangelical women in turn-of-the-century America.