A Shopkeeper’s Millennium: Society and Revivals in Rochester, New York, 1815–1837

The Erie Canal is a large canal in New York State that runs from the cities of Buffalo to Albany, linking the Erie Canal to the Hudson River. The canal was dug from 1817 to 1823, with diggers first reaching the bourgeoning city of Rochester in 1821. The canal’s completion gave Rochester a direct connection to New York City’s international ports, allowing for Rochester to participate in international trade. The increase in business created by the canal caused Rochester’s population to boom, transforming it from a rural town into a major city.

Millennialism is a Christian movement centered around the biblical prediction that Jesus Christ will return and found God’s kingdom on Earth, ushering in a new millennium and utopia for mankind. Millennialism was connected to Finney’s religious revival, with many of his followers believing that the renewed religious zeal was a sign of Christ’s imminent return. Following Finney’s preaching of individual capacity, many of his followers began to think that they could help spur the new millennium through prayer and conversion of sinners.

Calvinism is a Protestant religious movement founded by the French minister John Calvin in the 16th century. Core to Calvinist theology is the concept of predestination, which teaches that God has decided on each individual’s eternal fate before their birth. Calvinists believe that it is impossible for individuals to influence whether they will go to heaven or hell, and that men are either innately good or evil. In A Shopkeeper’s Millennium, Johnson describes how Finney's teachings sharply differed from the time’s more prevalent Calvinist beliefs. Unlike Calvinism, Finney preached that each individual had the ability to voluntarily dedicate themselves to God.

Johnson practices social history in A Shopkeeper’s Millennium. Social history focuses on using statistical analysis of archival records to describe general social trends and movements for a certain historical context—analyzing such things as “family structure, kinship relations, political conflict, occupational and geographic mobility, patterns of association, and a variety of other phenomena […]” (13). In A Shopkeeper’s Millennium, Johnson focuses on analyzing church records to analyze which groups of Rochesterians were most drawn to the religious revival.

The Masons (sometimes known as the Freemasons) are a male-only secret society dating to the Middle Ages. In early America, the Masons were often the subject of conspiracy theories, with many believing that the Masons wielded a large amount of power and influence over American politics. Johnson describes how a controversy emerged in Rochester over the presumed murder of Morgan, who had published an expose of Rochester’s Masons. Following his murder, the city’s governmental officials failed to properly investigate the crime, which many believed was due to these officials’ own ties to the Masons.

The Antimasonic Party was a political party founded in Rochester in 1828. The party grew out of sustained anger over the Mason controversy, and stood in opposition to the Bucktail Republican and Democratic parties, who Antimasons believed held secretive ties to the Masons. One of the party’s leaders was Weed, who published a newspaper, the Anti-Masonic Enquirer, which published stories connecting the Bucktail Republicans to Masons. The Antimasonic Party’s harsh methods helped to severely fracture Rochester’s political elite during the 1820s.

The Bucktail Republicans were a political faction in New York led by the politician Martin Van Buren. The Bucktail Republicans were closely connected to one of Rochester’s political factions, led by Nathaniel Rochester and his associates. Over the 1820s, and following the Mason controversy, the Bucktail Republicans morphed into the Democratic Party.

The Clintonians were a political faction in Rochester who supported the policies of New York Governor DeWitt Clinton. The faction was largely led by Francis and Matthew Brown, two wealthy brothers with prominent social standing in Rochester. The Clintonians often feuded with Rochester’s Republicans for control over city politics. Following the Mason controversy, the Clintonians transformed into the Antimason party.

The Whig Party was a political party founded in 1833 in opposition to the policies of Andrew Jackson’s Democratic government. The party was first founded in Rochester in 1834, with the Antimasonic Alvah Strong as one of its core leaders. The Whig Party presented itself as the party of evangelical Protestants. Though its membership largely drew from the former Antimasonic party, it also attracted religious Bucktail Republicans and Masons. Its key political rival in Rochester was the Democratic Party. The Whigs’ main issue was temperance, and they sought to forcefully pass laws that curtailed or outright forbade alcohol.

The temperance movement was prevalent throughout the United States in the early 1800s and centered around the preaching of Boston minister Beecher. Temperance advocates believed alcohol led to sinful and promiscuous behavior, and encouraged individuals to completely abstain from drinking. A group of Rochester’s elites formed the Rochester Society for the Promotion of Temperance in 1828. These men sought to use their social status to encourage business owners and workingmen to join the temperance movement.