Lorenzo and Peggy Dow
Lorenzo (1777-1834) and Peggy Dow (1780-1820) were prominent Protestant missionaries in the United States during the early nineteenth century, at the beginning of the religious movement known as the Second Great Awakening. Lorenzo Dow gained renown in the United States and England for his preaching, traveling, and writing. It is likely that Dow's appearances in the Mississippi Territory, in what is today Alabama, was the first time that Protestant missionaries had preached in the area. Both of them wrote about their travels and published books. Lorenzo's Life & Travels of Lorenzo Dow (1814) became a popular book in the United States, and his notoriety led to many male babies of the time being named "Lorenzo" or "Lorenzo Dow." Peggy's book, Vicissitudes in the Wilderness, was a rare publication from a woman in that era and describes her travels with Lorenzo in the British Isles, across the United States, and into the Mississippi Territory. Both volumes appeared together in 1856.
The region had seen at least a few Spanish and French missionaries in the previous centuries. Historical accounts indicate that Hernando de Soto was accompanied by several Catholic priests on his 1540 expedition through the Southeast and in present-day Alabama. After the Regency government of Phillipe II assumed power in 1715 and took control of French colonization efforts in North America, the Duc d’Orleans insisted that the enterprise build Catholic churches and support missionaries. Specifically, missionaries of the Society of Jesus (the religious order known as Jesuits) were stationed at France’s Fort Toulouse, in present-day Elmore County.
Lorenzo was born in Coventry, Connecticut, on October 16, 1772, to Humphrey Dow and Tabitha Parker Dow. As a teenager, he converted to the Methodist faith. Later, Lorenzo attempted multiple times to join the Methodist Conference. After multiple rejections, the Conference accepted Lorenzo temporarily and assigned him to preach in Canada in 1798. Not long into his ministry in Canada, Lorenzo decided that he wanted to preach in Ireland. Spurning the Conference's rejection to his proposed travel, Lorenzo decided to go anyway and preached for a time in Ireland, which was predominately Catholic. (He appears to have had an antipathy for Catholicism and the evangelizing Jesuits in particular.) Upon his return home, Lorenzo once again left his assigned area to preach in the southern United States. In 1802, the Conference officially dropped Lorenzo's name from their rolls. Despite not having any official affiliation, Dow continued his itinerant preaching of Methodist doctrine throughout the United States, Canada, and Great Britain.
Peggy Holcomb was born in Granville, Massachusetts, in 1780. Although both of her parents had Protestant ties, neither were actively religious. She had five siblings. Peggy's mother died when she was five months old. Her father remarried soon after, but his financial struggles led Peggy's older sister to request that Peggy come and live with her and her husband, Smith Miller, and the couple appears to have adopted Peggy. At age six, Peggy left her father, never to see him again, and moved to New York to live with her adoptive parents.
When she was 15, Peggy was afflicted with some illness until age 17 and appears to have more strongly embraced Christianity after her recovery, which she credited to God. She and her sister converted soon after to Methodism. She writes that she then eschewed her companions and gave up diversions, including dancing, to follow Jesus. Eventually, Miller, though he was initially opposed to the Methodists’ preaching, converted as well. He first met and heard Lorenzo preach at a religious camp meeting near their house and invited Lorenzo to come preach at his home. A few days later, Lorenzo came to the house and met Peggy and discussed a marriage proposal with her the next day. Soon after their engagement, Lorenzo left to preach in Canada and the southern United States, including the Mississippi Territory and present-day Alabama. He returned a year or so later, and they married on September 4, 1804. The couple would have one child, who died at a young age when they were in the British Isles several years later.
The couple had a unique marriage in that Lorenzo continued his itinerant preaching, often leaving Peggy at home for extensive periods. At times, however, Peggy traveled with Lorenzo and assisted with preaching. Just after their marriage, the pair traveled to and preached in present-day Alabama. In her journal, Vicissitudes in the Wilderness, Peggy describes the financial and physical hardships and frequent illnesses the pair endured and the similar problems among those they encountered during their travels. She also writes of her fear of wild animals, apprehension about Native Americans, and cutting through canebrakes and using the cane for horse feed.
Alabama historian Peter J. Brannon describes some of their journey into present-day Alabama in his September 8, 1931, article “Lorenzo and Peggy Dow.” It appeared in his “Through the Years” column that was published for 19 years in the Montgomery Advertiser. Brannon notes that they crossed the Tennessee River just below Muscle Shoals on a ferry operated by George and Levi Colbert, leaders of the Chickasaw Nation, for whom present-day Colbert County is named. They crossed into present-day Mississippi and later spent several weeks in the Tombigbee and Tensas River regions of Alabama. (Lorenzo is credited in another source with establishing some churches along the Tombigbee River.) The Dows stopped to preach in St. Stephens, present-day Washington County, but he was not well-received and predicted in retribution that the town would lay in ruin in less than 100 years. Brannon describes Lorenzo as “eccentric but earnest” and other sources note his ragged appearance. Richard J. Stockham, then president of Stockham Valves and Fittings, writes in his January 1963 article “The Misunderstood Lorenzo Dow,” published in The Alabama Review, that Dow called himself “Crazy Dow” to attract people to his meetings.
Peggy was the most descriptive of the pair about their travels around Fort St. Stephens, mentioning Fort Mims and noting the later massacre, and their crossing the "Tombigby" (Tombigbee) and Alabama Rivers. She describes traveling on a road in the Creek Nation “cut out by order of the President” from Georgia to Fort Stoddard (Stoddert), in present-day Washington County, which Bannon states was the Old Federal Road. Later, they come across a family who left an “aged father” at a house owned by a man named “Manack,” which was Manac’s Tavern on the Federal Road located in present-day Montgomery County. The pair headed east, crossing Murder Creek (a tributary of the Conecuh River), then crossing the “Chattahochy” (Chattahoochee) River into Georgia in hopes of staying with “Hawkings,” the Indian agent, who Bannon confirms was Benjamin Hawkins.
In addition to his extensive traveling and writing, Lorenzo had a significant impact on the Second Great Awakening through his use of camp meetings in his preaching in the United States and England. The Second Great Awakening occurred in the United States from the 1790s to the 1830s. The movement featured the growth of Protestant churches like the Methodist and Baptist denominations across the country, but particularly in rural communities and frontier areas. The movement saw the rise of social reform movements like the Temperance movement, as well as an increased role of women in religion and society. A common characteristic of the movement were camp meetings, or outdoor religious services, and revivals held typically in rural and frontier areas. The meetings attracted participants from hundreds of miles, who camped on site and listened to religious sermons over the course of multiple days. The camp meetings presented a more democratic approach to religious worship as participants, many from lower classes, could join in outside of permanent church buildings. Numerous preachers from multiple congregations employed such practices as they sought to increase memberships in their respective churches.
During his many travels, Lorenzo occasionally found himself in trouble with the law. On multiple occasions, local officials arrested him for libel or disturbances of the peace. His abolitionist preaching in the South, combined with his willingness to interact with Blacks and to preach to Black congregations in the South, led to significant backlash.
In January 1820, Peggy died in Lorenzo's arms and was buried in Burroughs Hill Cemetery in Hebron, Connecticut. Lorenzo later married Lucy Dolbeare. While traveling through Georgetown, in present-day Washington, D.C., Lorenzo became ill and died on February 7, 1834. His remains were buried at Holmead's Burying Ground, in what is now the Dupont Circle neighborhood in the city, and later removed in 1887 to nearby Oak Hill Cemetery.
