(S02E01) The Public Universal Friend: Non-Binary Prophet
Looking for court room drama? Religious revelation? Daring horse rides? Tales of kindness and caring? Good! Because the Public Universal Friend did it all.
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Introduction
Hello and welcome to episode five of the show that is full of tea but free of testosterone, Valentine’s Voice, also known as the podcast dedicated to telling the stories of all the amazing transgender groups and figures that have shaped our world. I am your host, Valentine Valcourt. Before we get rolling I have one life update and a few show updates and I hope that they will bring a smile to your face.
Personally, I mentioned in episode one that the main cost of beginning my transition was losing contact with my bio-family. At the end of 2024 one of my brothers decided that it was time for that to be over. Due to his lobbying, that rift is beginning to heal and after four years of silence we are finally working on becoming a family again. I had entirely given up on any idea of reconciliation after all this time, so this has all been really overwhelming, but in the best of ways.
Now, for the show updates, I was recently invited onto the BRAT! Pod, also known as Ben and Robin are Trans! Podcast. We had a really fun conversation that covered several different themes around transgender history. If you’ve ever wondered what I sound like when I’m not reading a script, this should satisfy your curiosity. Ben and Robin are fantastic and I definitely suggest checking out their other episodes as well. I’ll include a link in the show notes for this episode.
Also, in that vein, I can’t say much just yet, but I am working on something big with the Ben and Robin and I’m hoping to be able to reveal it in the next episode.
Now for one last thing, I have updated the Patreon for the show so that free members get access to the show’s Discord community. I think it is absolutely vital that we form as many communities as possible right now and I don’t want to keep mine behind a paywall. For faster updates on all of this, you can follow me on Bluesky, where I spend altogether too much time.
Now that we’ve cleared the updates, this episode marks a shift, where we will be moving from ancient history to much more recent times. This has been a real treat for me because the sources are much more plentiful and first hand accounts even exist. Our subject today is known as The Public Universal Friend, a non-binary person who helped shape the religious landscape of the earliest days of The United States of America.
Early Life
Due to when and where they were born, the Public Universal Friend’s entire life was spent navigating upheaval, and being the first to achieve many of the things they did. They were born in 1752 in what was at the time was the colony of Rhode Island. In world affairs, The French and Indian War, which was just a small section of the much broader Seven Years War, began when the Universal Friend was just two years old and ran until they were eleven. The resulting political fallout with Britain began almost immediately after the war’s end and the American Revolution started in 1776 when the Public Universal Friend was just twenty-four.
Things in their personal life weren’t much more stable. The Universal Friend’s family came to Rhode Island when their great grandfather fought for the losing side in the wars between Charles the First and Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell confiscated all of his lands and exiled him to the colony of Rhode Island. The family settled into the upper crust of the small town of Cumberland as part of a wave of English diaspora. The Public Universal Friend’s father was Jeremiah Wilkinson and was the youngest son in his family and while it sounds like he was able to provide a comfortable upbringing, he didn’t inherit any great fortune or holdings. He married twice, and it sounds like his first wife died young, because there were no children and he still had time to father a whopping twelve children during his second marriage. The Universal Friend’s mother died just after delivering the last of the their siblings, when they were around thirteen years old.
This seems to have hit them especially hard. Prior to their mother’s death they had been marked as a outgoing and happy child. Afterwards they were described as reclusive and devoted to religious matters, studying the Bible and any transcribed sermon or religious tome they could get their hands on, taking full advantage of the library of a family friend. The Public Universal Friend spent the next decade consuming religious literature and listening to any preacher who happened to come near Cumberland. We will leave them there for a bit and describe the religious landscape that the Universal Friend existed in.
At the time of the revolution, the United States was very much a Protestant Christian nation, with all other faiths in an extremely steep minority. The main difference was in what specific form of Christianity one is talking about. The Christian faith in the United States was comprised of a series of tensions. There were tensions between formality and informality, hierarchy and democracy, the text of the Bible and the truth revealed by the Spirit. Rhode Island was known to be more friendly to free-thinking and what the other colony’s would have called heresy, so it tended to attract many different people and all of their accompanying ideas.
There were three main influences on the Public Universal Friend that have to be considered to understand their methods and theological positions. The first influence was a movement called The Great Awakening which was a period like many others before it where the prevailing religious institutions had grown stale and people had begun to look for new ways to feel spiritually fulfilled. We’ve seen this in prior episodes when the Romans moved from their traditional pantheon and began worshiping deities like Sol Invictus, Cybele, and Jesus Christ. In this case it meant a turn away whatever the starting position was such as The Church of England, Anglicanism, Calvinism, or Presbyterianism to new takes on Christianity that mixed the beliefs of these traditional denominations into new and exciting shapes. The people who embraced these new itinerant preachers and their revival services were called New Lights and those that preferred the established denominations were called Old Lights. The New Light Baptists were one group specifically that we know came close enough to Cumberland for the Universal Friend to have heard their message directly. Which isn’t to say that anything that could be deeply heretical was going on, all of this was under the umbrella of Protestant Christianity.
A representative of this movement, and our second influence, was George Whitefield, an Englishman who was a contemporary, influence, and friend on the better remembered John Wesley. Whitefield’s main influence on the Universal Friend was in his rhetorical style, which many congregations viewed as a welcome departure from the dry, and some would say boring, style of sermons that were entirely focused on deep theological concepts. Whitefield was known for persuading his audience to accept his way of thinking through emotion rather than purely logical arguments. He also tended to have his gatherings outside in natural settings rather than in a church.
Lastly, and maybe most importantly, we have the beliefs that the Public Universal Friend was raised in. Their mother was a Quaker, and they were raised as a member of the nearby Smithfield Meeting. The Quakers, also known as the Society of Friends, were a Protestant Christian denomination that was just over a century old during this time. One impressive thing of note about the Quakers is that they have historically done very well at being on the right side of history: the Quakers of the time were anti-slavery, avoided hierarchy by believing that everyone has their own ‘inner light’, and were pacifists. This isn’t to say that they are perfect or haven’t caused plenty of people religious trauma, just that they’ve avoided many of the pitfalls that have plagued many groups over time. The Quakers also have a habit of calling each other ‘Friend’, which is where our Public Universal Friend gets the basis of their name.
The Transformation
Now that we know the religious landscape, we can return to the Public Universal Friend in the incredibly eventful year of 1776. Firstly, the Universal Friend and their many siblings were beginning to really irritate the Smithfield Meeting of Quakers. First, two of the Universal Friend’s brothers were kicked out for joining the Continental Army to fight against the British. After this, we actually have the minutes from the meetings where the Universal Friend and one sister were chastised and then kicked out altogether. Before I read these, I will note that they refer to the Public Universal Friend by the wrong pronouns and by their deadname, which was Jemimah Wilkinson.
“February, 1776: At the women’s meeting for business of the Religious
Society of Friends at Smithfield: Lower house Preparative Meeting [at Saylesville]
informing that Patience Wilkinson hath had an illegitimate child and also that Jemima
Wilkinson but seldom attends Friends Meetings nor makes use of the plain Scripture
Language, this Meeting appoints Lydia Wilkinson and Mary Olney to Labor with them for
said offenses and Report to this meeting in the 4th month next.”
There are monthly updates where the Public Universal Friend and their sister are visited with repeatedly until September and October, where we get these final updates:
“September, 1776: At the women’s meeting for business at the upper meetinghouse
in Smithfield, The Committee presented the Denials of Jemima Wilkinson approved &
Signed by the Clerk. Also one for Patience Wilkinson Signed by the Clerk, both Daughters of
Jeremiah Wilkinson. Benjamin Arnold appointed to read the Denials of Jemimah Wilkinson
& Patience Wilkinson at a Publick Meeting at the Lower House. Lydia Wilkinson is
appointed to enform Jemimah & Patience of their being Disowned.
October, 1776: At the women’s meeting for business: Lydia Wilkinson
continued to enform Patience and Jemima Wilkinson of their being disowned from Friends
and report to this Meeting.”
Just after this final update, on the 4th of October 1776, when they were 23 years old, the Public Universal Friend got extremely sick with a high fever, likely with some variant of typhus. Their family sent for a doctor from a nearby town but there was nothing that could be done. The Public Universal Friend and their family resigned themselves to their death. The Public Universal Friend began to pray until according to them:
“…until the heavens were open’d and She saw too Archangels descending from the east, with golden crowns upon there heads, clothed in long white Robes, down to the feet. Waiting with a Spirit to assume the Body which God had prepared for the Spirit to live in. And then in the morning dropt the dying flesh and yielded up the ghost. And according to the declaration of the Angels, the Spirit took full possession of the Body it now animates.”
From then on they became Public Universal Friend. They told their family that they had died and been brought back as a new person. They spoke in a masculine voice, dressed in what was described as an androgynous mix of male and female garments, and adopted a masculine hairstyle. When asked about their gender they would respond either by saying, “I am that I am,” or by quoting scriptures such as Galatians 3:28 “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” or Jeremiah 31:22: “the Lord hath created a new thing in the earth, a woman shall compass a man.”
Less than two days after their divine revelation they preached their first sermon, which the 19th-century historian Stafford C. Cleveland relates here:
“On the Sunday succeeding her trance, she went to the place of public worship.
After morning service she repaired to a tree nearby, and in its shade delivered a discourse
of considerable length to the crowd who assembled about her. Though late in Autumn, the
weather was fine, and there was a large attendance of people, who were greatly impressed
by such an address from the lips of a young woman who thus broke upon them like a meteor
from the sky. Her discourse consisted largely of moral maxims and scriptural quotations.
And she evinced a familiarity with sacred topics which astonished the oldest experts in
theological lore.”
Early Ministry
From this day on the Public Universal Friend devoted their life to their ministry. As news spread of their sermon invitations began to roll in and the Universal Friend began to accept them. They traveled throughout Rhode Island and preached in many churches and meeting houses. Where there wasn’t a venue available they used any structure or even open patch of ground that happened to be available. Interestingly they didn’t really care what side of the war their audience happened to be on. They visited the camps of British soldier and they visited the prisoner of war camps where the British kept captured American soldiers.
They apparently had a very good reception among the British because in 1778 they asked the American general in the area for permission to travel to England to preach. They were given permission to travel through American lines but the arrival of a British blockade a month later ended that plan permanently.
The Expansion of the Ministry
It was actually a very good thing that the Public Universal Friend missed that boat, because it was at this point that their ministry really took off and they also met their most devoted follower. Sarah Richardson was a young woman from Watertown Connecticut that was twenty-one when she met the friend. She had experienced her own trances and visions with archangels. became a follower of the Public Universal Friend in 1778. Her husband soon afterwards and Sarah became what outsiders called the prime minister of the Universal Friend. Sarah was the head of the Universal Friend’s household, which the Universal Friend called their family. Sarah was also able to help them with an issue that had begun to be something of a burden to their new guiding light. See, there was no legal entity known as the Public Universal Friend, and they refused to use their old name without exception. It made it impossible to own or purchase anything that required a deed or a title. So in her role as prime minister Sarah would manage the Universal Friend’s assets and everything would be kept in her name. It is of note that Sarah never took advantage of her position and was always entirely loyal to the Universal Friend. In return, the Universal Friend supported her and her daughter Eliza without fail, they lived in the house of the Universal Friend and the Universal Friend even helped raise young Eliza. Sarah was known to be frequently sick but she didn’t let her delicate constitution hold her back. She traveled tirelessly on the Universal Friend’s business and luckily for us she also kept very detailed records.
Around this time we do have the first and perhaps only instance of the Universal Friend breaking away from mainstream Quaker beliefs. They began preaching that celibacy was preferable to marriage, though they never punished anyone for being married. It is believed that this belief was in part responsible for the large number of young women that left their marriages to follow the friend. It was at this time that the Universal Friend began to be less welcome among the larger Quaker community, and around 1780 the Quakers decided that they had branched too far from their theology and the Universal Friend was banned from speaking in Quaker meeting houses. At one point the people of one town were considering charging the Universal Friend with blasphemy and in response they wrote this:
“As to the vain inquiries concerning the Universal Friend, I desire to speak in love,
and I must say that I look upon their curiosity as neither decent nor honorable, and I
cannot give an answer.
It is what I do not know, whose counsels – if obeyed — brings peace to my soul.
So far as I have obeyed the words that are spoken, they are spirit, and they are life. It is the
spirit that quickeneth the life; flesh and blood profiteth nothing.”
In what was either a stroke of luck or divine revelation, the Universal Friend in 1780 began preaching that the beginning of the end times, also known as ‘the millenium’, was due to start very soon, near April of 1780. In May of 1780, New England experienced a total solar eclipse that lasted around three hours. This was seen by many to be a divine sign that the Universal Friend was a true prophet of God and enough followers joined their flock that they wrote out their own Declaration of Faith and created the Society of Universal Friends. So just as they were being banned from Quaker meeting houses, the followers of the Universal Friend began to build meeting houses of their own, and one of their followers even built them a base to operate out of. Judge William Potter, who will become even more consequential in just a moment, had a large estate near Providence in Rhode Island. He added an entire wing onto his mansion for the use of the Universal Friend and their household. This did not get him a pass from adhering to the beliefs of the Universal Friend though, he owned eleven slaves and the Universal Friend demanded that they be freed. When he didn’t free them fast enough, the Universal Friend called him out again.
Now, just because the Public Universal Friend had a kind of base of operations did not mean that they stayed there much. They began expanding into Pennsylvania, especially into Philadelphia. We have one account from a man who was a schoolboy at the time describing his first impression of the Public Universal Friend:
“One Saturday of the time she held forth in the city, seeing a crowd at the door of
the meeting house, … a few of us — we had just been liberated from a neighboring school
— animated by the curiosity of extreme youth and the want of deference to the opinion of
others usual at that period of life, insinuated our way into the throng, until we stood in the
full view of Jemima Wilkinson — as we learned afterwards — standing up, speaking from the
south end of the gallery to a staring audience. …
As she stood there, she appeared beautifully erect and tall for a woman, although at
the same time the masculine appearance dominated; which, together with her strange habit
caused every eye to be riveted upon her. Her glossy black hair was parted evenly on her pale
rounded forehead and smoothed back from her ears, from whence it fell in profusion about
her neck and shoulders, seemingly without art or contrivance; arched black eyebrows and
fierce black eyes, darting here and there with penetrating glances throughout the assembly as
though she read the thoughts of the people; beautiful aquiline nose, handsome mouth and
chin, all supported by a neck conformable to the line of beauty and proportion; that is to
say, the portion of it visible at the time, being partly hidden by her plain habit of coloured
stuff, drawn closely round above the shoulders by a drawing string knotted in front, without
handkerchief or female ornament of any kind, …”
We also have the account of Marquis de Barbé-Marboise who was part of the French peace delegation in Philadelphia. His account begins by saying that the Universal Friend seemed pretty but their speaking was nothing special, but finishes with this:
“Having cast her eyes on us French, she
appeared to remark us for the first time. As she was speaking of the attachment men have for
the things of this world, she continued thus,
“Among those who are here listening to me, how few have been led here for any
desire for their salvation. Curiosity attracts them; they have a mind to recite extraordinary
things when they return to their own country.”
I swear to you that for the moment I believed her either to be a prophetess or a
fortune teller, and I expected to hear her speak of my diary…
Jemima accepts nothing in the way of pecuniary alms. She and her disciples possess
nothing but what is necessary to live, and they receive gifts that piety of the faithful brings
them. She lives quietly. Her conduct and morals are irreproachable.”
Altogether, the Public Universal Friend’s first trip to Philadelphia was a mixed bag. On the one hand there were many new converts. On the other hand one of the Universal Friend’s followers was heard to say that they believed that the Universal Friend was Christ in female form. This caused a large upheaval and a mob actually attempted to stone them. The Universal Friend was forced to flee the city and stay with a friend nearby until things died down. Two of the Universal Friend’s new followers were the Malin sisters, Rachel and Margaret. They would be second only to Sarah in what little hierarchy the Society of Universal Friends possessed, and they instantly joined their household. The Universal Friend would end up making three trips to Philadelphia, and in the main the second two went much better than the first.
It was around this time, in the early 1780s that three separate things happened that would have a major impact on the Public Universal Friend. First, the war with the British ended, and what had been colonies became states that were part of an entirely new nation. This meant that many rules and laws that the British had impressed upon their former colonies were no longer going to be enforced. One of these that constantly irritated the colonists was the Proclamation Line of 1763. The Proclamation Line was a border that was formalized in 1763 after discussions between the British and their sometime allies, the six nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. The English colonists were absolutely not allowed to settle west of the Proclamation Line, which they saw as holding them back. Some of the Iroquois actually sided with the British in the American Revolutionary War in an effort to protect that border. They knew that if the Americans were left to their own devices they would move west and never stop. They might have been on to something.
The Sullivan Expedition
This leads us to our second event, the Sullivan Expedition. If the Iroquois were worried about what the Americans might do without the British holding them back, this expedition reinforced that idea perfectly. The Sullivan Expedition began with an extended order from General George Washington to General John Sullivan that I will quote two excerpts of here so that there can be no mistaking the purpose of this venture.
“Sir,
The expedition you are appointed to command is to be directed against the hostile tribes of the six nations of Indians, with their associates and adherents.1 The immediate objects are the total destruction and devastation of their settlements and the capture of as many prisoners of every age and sex as possible. It will be essential to ruin their crops now in the ground and prevent their planting more.
But you will not by any means listen to ⟨any⟩ overture of peace before the total ruin of their settlements is effected—It is likely enough their fears if they are unable to oppose us, will compel them to offers of peace, or policy may lead them, to endeavour to amuse us in this way to gain time and succour for more effectual opposition. Our future security will be in their inability to injure us the distance to which they are driven and in the terror with which the severity of the chastisement they receive will inspire ⟨them.⟩ Peace without this would be fallacious and temporary—New presents and an addition of force from the enemy would engage them to break it the first fair opportunity and all the expence of our extensive preparations would be lost.”
General Sullivan did exactly as Washington ordered. In a campaign that many, myself included, now consider an attempt at genocide, Sullivan’s forces fought off the limited defenses that the Iroquois could muster and destroyed more than forty villages. They either consumed or destroyed all crops and food stores they found, creating thousands of refugees. The refugees fled northwest to the British-held Fort Niagara, but due to space constraints they were forced to camp outside the walls of the fort. That winter was the coldest and harshest in living memory. Many of the refugees outside of Fort Niagara froze to death.
The Public Universal Friend was absolutely more enlightened than many leaders of their time, but the circumstances by which they and their followers acquired their settlements in western New York cannot be forgotten.
Throughout the early 1780’s the stories of the soldiers who had been on the expedition began to filter through New England, they universally spoke of the amazing beauty and fertility of the land. I found one officer from the expedition who wrote this in his diary:
“Passed it two or three hundred yards and halted on a mountain near a corn-field, which was soon stripped of its beans, &c. Here we had a prospect of the lake for upwards of twenty miles in length and about three in breadth the most beautiful I have ever seen. In a short time proceeded until sun-set through a good rich land, much the same as the day before, having only two difficult defiles.”
We are not sure when the Public Universal Friend decided to attempt to move their followers to western New York, but we do know that they sent the first of three exploratory expeditions to what is now Yates County, New York, but was then known as Genessee Country after the lake to the north. After the first or second expedition it was decided that the Society of Friends should purchase land to create a settlement and a collection was taken up. The Universal Friend’s followers tended to be somewhat well off, so they were able to raise the money fairly easily. Of particular note was the contribution of Judge Potter, who came up with half of the money raised. The money was entrusted to James Parker, a veteran of the Revolutionary War who had joined the Universal Friend in 1789.
The Land Deals
During this time, New York and Massachusetts were negotiating over their western boundaries and the Government of the United States was negotiating with Iroquious Confederacy. This left what is now western New York in chaos and spawns our third event. It was the law that only governments were allowed to purchase land from the tribes, so some enterprising entrepreneurs formed financial groups and began purchasing 100 years leases. This got them into fairly predictable legal trouble and everyone who had bought into the venture lost everything, which included James Parker losing most if the money he had been entrusted with. He ended up with two small pieces of land and gave one to the Society and kept one for himself. Several of the members of the Society of Universal Friends were financially ruined from this. After another fund raising round the Society of Universal Friends did manage to actually buy enough land for settlement.
Once all the speculation and shenanigans had finished Judge Potter, James Parker, and one other member of the Society of Universal Friends named Thomas Hathaway petitioned the state of New York on behalf of the Society of Friends for the land that they had been scammed out of and received 14,000 acres. They also never shared this with the Society of Universal Friends. If you’re getting a feeling that some of these men might not be the most trustworthy, you’re on target.
The Move West
The first group of pioneers set out in 1788 for the settlement that would be known as New Jerusalem by the settlers. This was the first American settlement west of the old Proclamation Line. They were led by James Parker, who sounds like he was about as good a leader as he was a negotiator. The 25 pioneers arrived in August, and eight of them had returned to Rhode Island by the time winter fell. They did immediately return once spring came, but we do get a feel for the kind of person that Parker was from a letter that he sent to the Universal Friend during this winter.
“Our bread costs at least double what it did at Rhode Island, the cheapest way it can be procured yet. Now the people begin to feel what laziness, waste and gluttony has done for them.”
Whiny. In the Spring of 1789, a large proportion of the Society of Universal Friends left from their homes in Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania for New Jerusalem. In particular the town of New Milford, Connecticut had a major population decrease due to the resettlement of the followers of the Universal Friend. It was also in 1789 that the Universal Friend made their first attempt at joining their followers in New Jerusalem. They were foiled in this when the driver of their carriage attempted to ford a swollen river and the Public Universal Friend nearly drowned. It took them a long time to recover from this debacle, so it was not until 1790 that they were able to make the journey to New Jerusalem and move into the house that the settlers had prepared for them. Sarah had been journeying back and forth the entire time, but this time she stayed in Rhode Island to tie up loose ends and settle the Universal Friend’s affairs. There were two small settlements and the Universal Friend traveled between them taking care of their flock. In 1791 the Universal Friend was finally joined by their dearest friend and prime minister, which Sarah logged in her diary in her usual short hand:
“Memorandum of a Journey: First of the 6 Mo. 1791 ~
I arrived with Rachel Malin, Elijah Malin, E. Mehetibal Smith, Mariah and the
rest of the Friends family together with the Friends goods which the Friend sent Elijah to
assist in bringing them on —
We safe arrived together on the west side of the Seneca Lake and reach’d the
Friends House which the Friend had got built for our reception. And with great joy meet the
Friend once more in time finding all in comfortable health
-Sarah Richards”
The First Legal Battle
It was at this point, in 1792, when it seems like the Public Universal Friend had achieved all they hoped, that Judge Potter, James Parker, and Thomas Hathaway received a final judgment that they were sole owners of the land that the settlements had been placed on. Potter and Parker tried to get Hathaway to go in with them to turn all the other members of the Society of Universal Friends off of their land, but he wouldn’t go along. This began a legal battle that tore the Society of Universal Friends in two. Potter and Parker were two of the Universal Friend’s earliest converts, and losing them definitely hurt. The Society tried to hire a lawyer to argue their side, but he just took their money and disappeared.
To make things even worse, in 1793 Sarah Richards died at the young age of 36. This deprived the Universal Friend of their most loyal and ardent supporter right when they needed them most. Sarah and the Universal Friend had been working together building a new house and had been enjoying planning and decorating together. But we will return to the death of Sarah in just a moment.
At the beginning of 1794 while this lawsuit was still going on, Parker took advantage of his position as magistrate to try to tip things into his favor. In an effort to smear the Universal Friend he convinced a woman in town to accuse the Universal Friend of blasphemy and then ordered them arrested. Hathaway’s son, who we will just call Hathaway Jr., had wanted his father to go in on the plot, and happily agreed to ride off and arrest the Universal Friend.
Hathaway Jr. galloped alongside the Universal Friend while they were riding with Rachel Malin to visit some sick followers. Hathaway Jr. leaned over to take the reins of their horse but he had forgotten that the Universal Friend had essentially lived on horseback for nearly 20 years at this point. They lashed out at him with a riding crop, striking his horse and spooking it. They then took off down the hill with enough speed that Hathaway Jr. wasn’t even close to catching them when they rode up to the house of a loyal Friend who instantly barricaded the house until Hathaway Jr. rode off in frustration.
Six years later Parker told Hathaway Jr. to try again. I’m not sure why it took six years or what happened in the intervening time. Given the history that Parker and the Universal Friend had, and his reverence for them up until the lawsuit, I can’t believe it was all bad blood. Regardless, this time Hathaway Jr. showed up at a small work building near the Universal Friend’s house and this time he decided to bring three friends. The Universal Friend was inside with several women doing some household tasks when one of the constables marched in. The women immediately knew what was going on, they dogpiled the constable and then threw him out. In the process his clothes were ripped so badly that he had to go have them mended before he could make another attempt. They ended up deciding to call for reinforcements, and we have the report of Arnold Potter, a relative of Judge Potter who had stayed loyal to the friend, concerning what happened next:
“After Enoch and Eliphalet had been roughly handled by the women, they beat a retreat to repair their wardrobes; they were reinforced by James Parker as magistrate, Griffin Hazard as second constable, [and] Dr. Fargo….
Benedict Robinson was there, peeking in the windows to see the Friend did not escape, Isaac Kinney, Ephraim Kinney, and Daniel Brown Jr. …, were sneaking and lurking that night along the lane. These brave, bold, good men had courage enough to take one woman with a posse…”
The posse was around 30 men, and it stormed the workhouse just after midnight. Their original plan had been to drag the Universal Friend in front of James Parker and have him pass judgment, but it was negotiated that the Public Universal Friend would appear in front of the Ontario Circuit Court the next time it met.
So it was that the Universal Friend appeared in court in the year 1800. Judge William Potter clearly showed who’s side he was on by assisting the prosecutor in preparing his case. Despite the efforts of their enemies, it was found by the three judges that blasphemy was not a crime in what appears to be the first test of the new First Amendment on religious grounds. To add salt to the wounds of Parker and Potter, the judges also asked the Universal Friend if they would be kind enough to deliver a sermon to the assembled crowd. The Public Universal Friend obliged, and delivered a short sermon on the spot. When one of the lawyers asked one of the judges what he had thought of the sermon he said:
“Good, which if we obey, will carry us safe to heaven.”
In Between & New Jerusalem
In an attempt bring the Public Universal Friend away from their enemies and give them their own space, a follower named Benedict Robinson gave them a parcel of five plots of land, totaling around 4500 acres. Given that this was just before Sarah’s death, the land was put into her name. This was the new house that the Universal Friend and Sarah were working on at the time of her death.
About a year after this new house was finished, the Public Universal Friend received an altogether different kind of visitor. In 1795, they hosted the party of a young Duc d’Orleans Louis-Philippe, the future king of France and two of his younger brothers. Louis-Philippe was in exile due to the French Revolution, and was touring the United States. To make this even better, we have the diary entry of one of his followers, the Duc de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt telling us about this encounter which I will quote a bit of:
“Jemima stood at the door of her bed-chamber on a carpet, with an armchair behind
her. She had on a white morning gown, and a waist coat such as men wore, and a petticoat
of the same color.
Her hair was cut short, carefully combed and divided behind into three ringlets. She
wore a stock and a white silk cravat, which was tied about her neck with affected negligence.
In point of delivery, she preached with more ease than any other Quaker I have yet
heard. But the subject matter of her discourse was an eternal repetition of the same topics:
death, sin and repentance.
She is of middle stature, well made, of a florid complexion, and has fine teeth and
beautiful eyes. Her motion is studied, she aims at simplicity, but there is somewhat of the
pedantic in her manner.
Her room is exquisitely neat, and all resembles more the boudoir of a fine lady than
the cell of a nun. It contains a looking glass, a clock, an armed chair, a good bed, a warming
pan and a silver saucer.
Jemima invited us to dinner. The opportunity of watching her more narrowly
induced us to accept the invitation, but we did not know then that it forms a part of the
character she acts, never to eat with any one.”
The Second Legal Battle
Now we need to backtrack and return to the death of Sarah Richardson for the beginnings of the next of the Public Universal Friend’s ordeals. When the Universal Friend realized that they was unable to do anything for their friend they sent for a nearby doctor. When the doctor arrived he immediately saw that Sarah was dying and asked if she would like to draw up a will and then helped her write it up. Unfortunately, the doctor was not a lawyer, and did a poor job of it. The intention of Sarah was to leave her then 13-year-old daughter Eliza in the care of the Universal Friend, give her daughter her farm in Rhode Island, and appoint Rachel Malin the new holder of all of the Universal Friend’s property. As I said though, he didn’t do the best job and worded the part about the Universal Friend’s properties poorly.
Three years later, when Eliza was 16, she caught the eye of Rachel Malin’s youngest brother Enoch, who was about 26. Enoch had never been a member of the Society of Universal Friends but was charming and frequently doted on by the Malin sisters. After they had courted for a few months Eliza decided to run away with Enoch, and they plotted and executed a plan where Eliza would jump out of her window during services onto Enoch’s waiting horse and they would ride off into the sunset. As much as this sounds like the ending of The Princess Bride, it was actually the beginning of another headache for the Public Universal Friend.
Enoch and Eliza rode to the home of the nearest magistrate, who performed their marriage no questions asked. James Parker was all too happy to do anything that might annoy the Universal Friend. Enoch continued on in his shift behavior, he quickly traded away Eliza’s farm in Rhode Island for a first rate stallion and then started looking through her other assets. He saw Sarah Richardson’s will and decided that according to it, he and Eliza owned all of the assets that Sarah had held in trust for the Universal Friend. He began by selling the parcel right next to the Universal Friend’s house. When the unfortunate buyer showed up to survey his new purchase, he was informed by that he had been taken advantage of by Enoch. This was the first shot in another decades long legal battle.
The only issue with this one was that Enoch Malin was nowhere near as clever as Judge Potter and James Parker. He proved this when he tried to sell some of the Public Universal Friend’s land that was also claimed by Potter and Parker. They instantly sued him into oblivion and demanded so much money in reparations that Enoch was virtually bankrupted and barely avoided debtor’s prison. After this the ever-shadier Enoch Malin went and found an equally shady attorney and sued the Public Universal Friend for everything they possessed. After working on the case for sometime the lawyer demanded that Enoch pay his legal bills, which he was of course unable to do. He and Eliza fled north to Canada, where Enoch died after a few years. Eliza moved to Ohio with their two boys, and the shifty lawyer continued the lawsuit in the name of Enoch’s sons.
Late Ministry
In 1807 a traveler that we only know by the initial T.C. visited New Jerusalem, and as part of his diary entry we have this extended quote:
“I walked towards Jemima Wilkinson’s, who lives at the end of a long descending
lane. At the top of the lane I met a woman and inquired civilly where about Jemima
Wilkinson’s house was. She replied she knew no such person; “The Friend” lived a little piece
below. I went to her house, nearly at the foot of a mountain. Externally it is a mean looking
frame building, but clean and comfortable within.
I sent my name by a Miss Willan or Millan [actually, Malin], aged about 30
or 32, who with her sister six years younger has lived long with the “Friend.” They seemed
sensible and well behaved. In about half an hour the “Friend” herself made her appearance;
a corpulent woman, masculine featured, her hair (nearly gray) combed back, her age 59,
dressed in some kind of minister’s cassock of dark-colored jean, neither her tone of voice nor
manner bespoke much intercourse with the world, and nothing with the polite part of it. I
inquired how long she had lived there, what was the religious description and extent of the
society over which she presided, etc. To all this she readily answered.
She said she had no more connection with the Quakers than with other
denominations; her society consisted of persons of almost all persuasions; that she stood
with them in the character of universal friend. She had no particular place of worship, but
generally every seventh and first day at home; occasionally, too, but not regularly, at other
houses of appointed meeting. She had family prayers at her home every evening, at which any
one who chose might attend. She said her doctrine was no other than what was contained in
the Scripture, and she allowed the necessity of being called by the Spirit of God from sin to
holiness…
She pressed me to spend the evening at [her] home, which I declined… I rose and
took my leave.”
It was around this time that the Malin sisters prevailed upon one of their brothers in Philadelphia to build a larger house for the Public Universal Friend. This final home was a three story building with a large landing on the second floor where the Universal Friend would stand and deliver sermons to their followers. Even after moving to this larger house in 1814, it was always full. The Public Universal Friend’s family was made up of over a dozen men and women who practiced celibacy and helped maintain the small working farm that surrounded the house. Any family that fell on hard times knew that they would be welcome to stay at the home of the Public Universal Friend as long as they needed to.
The war of 1812 hit the area hard. Many were worried that the Iroquois would flood south and attempt the retake their lands while men from the area were drafted away to fight the British. The war was immediately followed by an economic recession that was made even worse as a hard frost in the June of 1816 destroyed crops. It was also around this time that the Universal Friend was diagnosed with dropsy, which was likely actually congestive heart failure. This had to have been difficult for them, since they spent their entire life actively helping on her farm and riding from settlement to settlement tending to her flock. Speaking of riding, once they stopped being able to ride a horse they began using a carriage to move around. They did this so much that they literally wore out the carriage, and it had to be sent back to Philadelphia to be rebuilt.
In 1818, the Public Universal Friend saw that they did not have much longer and wrote out a will that began:
“The Last will and Testament of the Person called the universal Friend of Jerusalem
in the County of ontario and state of Newyork who in the year one thousand seven hundred
and seventy six was called Jemima Wilkerson and ever since that time the PUBLICK
UNIVERSAL FRIEND a new name which the mouth of the Lord hath named …”
The will went on to give all of their possessions to Rachel and Margaret Malin for the purpose of taking care of all of those who lived in the home. The Universal Friend had no children and no wealth and their only concern was that their people would be taken care of.
After a quiet year, in July of 1819, Rachel Malin wrote on the cover of the death book of the Society of Universal Friends:
“Twenty-five minutes past two on the clock, the Friend went from here.”
Several of the followers of the Public Universal Friend believed that they would rise again after several days, so they waited to bury the Universal Friend for several days. After that they were placed in a vault below the house, in hopes that they would still rise again. It was only years later that they were buried in their final resting place.
Legacy
It was only in the 1820s that the lawsuits against the Public Universal Friend ended, both in their favor. At no point were they ever in doubt as to the outcome, which had a tendency to irritate those who were responsible for fighting on the Universal Friend’s behalf. To give you an idea of the type of people that followed the friend, James Brown, who had been handling the Universal Friend’s business affairs since they had totally overwhelmed Rachel Malin in 1810, decided that he was worried about Eliza Richardson in 1813. This is the same Eliza Richardson that was still trying to sue the Universal Friend. Brown first reached out to the lawyer, but the lawyer refused to give any information. Brown then traced Eliza to Ontario Canada, and afterwards to her home in Ohio. There he found the boys, 11 and 13. After awhile the boys took Brown to new grave nearby with a headstone inscribed with the name Eliza Richardson Malin. Brown tried to bring the boys back to Jerusalem with him, but they had been told their entire lives that the Society of Universal Friends was their enemy and they refused. So Brown found a family nearby that promised to raise and care for the boys, and returned home. Years later, when a descendent of Judge Potter received James Brown’s papers as part of his inheritance he found a letter from one of the boys written years later:
“I will never forget your kindness when you called and found Mother had left us.
Love to Aunt Margaret; we never signed those last papers.
Williams knew I would never eject Margaret; he did it to drive his own deal.”
Conclusion & Sign Off
The Society of Universal Friends did not survive long after the loss of it’s founder. The Society seems to have disappeared entirely in the early 1870’s. In 1869, one of the few remaining members was interviewed about this, and he said:
“It is most probable that they never will have any monument, other than that
afforded by the memory of their lives. It is perhaps as well so. Moral rectitude and
faithful devotion to an exalted idea of duty will reach higher in the esteem of the future
and perpetuate their grateful halo longer than chiseled rock will challenge the credulity
of posterity. The Friend has better chances of a place in the recollections of the coming
generation than can be traced on polished stone.”
And obviously he wasn’t wrong, here we are in the year 2025 talking about the Public Universal Friend and the Society of Universal Friends. The Universal Friend was an amazing person, who like many of our other subjects, explained their gender through religion and was largely successful in this. They blazed a trail in the newborn United States that non-binary and transgender people still walk to this day, and for that alone we should be eternally grateful.
In our next episode we will be moving a few years into the future, and several hundred miles southwest to cover the absolutely amazing life of Colonel Amelio Robles Avila, a transgender man who fought courageously in the Mexican Revolution.
Sources
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-20-02-0661
The Unquiet World: The Public Universal Friend and America’s First Frontier by Frances Dumas
https://allthatsinteresting.com/public-universal-friend
Journals of the military expedition of Major General John Sullivan against the Six nations of Indians in 1779
https://www.crookedlakereview.com/books/saints_sinners/martin5.html
https://www.thoughtco.com/major-general-john-sullivan-2360602
http://mygenealogyhound.com/maps/New-York-county-maps/NY-Yates-County-New-York-1897-Map-Rand-McNally-Penn-Yan.jpg
