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Lorenzo Dow |
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BECAUSE THE REV. Lorenzo
Dow belongs as much to the
national folklore treasury as
to that of his native state of Connecticut,
it is impossible to associate the hundreds
of stories which clustered about him with Nutmeg tradition, alone. Still, many of the legends about the itinerant Methodist preacher did originate in the area where
he began his career. Later, though, these and many new ones circulated in any number of places along the Atlantic seaboard where he appeared in the pulpit. In his Connecticut Historical Collections, John Warner Barber published the following brief account of Dow's life, only two years after the minister's death: Lorenzo Dow, a celebrated itinerant preacher, was born in this town [Coventry], about two miles south of the Hale house [Nathan Hale Homestead], Oct. 16, 1777. He was distinguished for his eccentricities and labors. He commenced preaching in the Methodist connexion. He travelled through the United States, from New England to the extremities of the Union, at least from 15 to 20 times. Occasionally he went into Canada, and once to the West Indies. He also made three voyages to England and Ireland, where he drew crowds around him. 'It is thought, and not without reason, that during the 38 years of his public life, he must have travelled two hundred thousand miles.' He wrote a number of books, besides his 'Journal', or Life: the titles are usually as eccentric as their author. He died at Georgetown, (D.C.) Feb. 2nd, 1834. For all his passion for objectivity, even historian Barber could not avoid commenting (twice) on his contemporary's spectacular eccentricity -- and for good reason. For if ever there was a man who feverishly rowed his boat through the waters of life with only one oar in the water, it was "Crazy Lorenzo" Dow. Yet, there was another side to the Rev. Dow, one that comes through in Barber's brief biography, when he talks about the preacher's "labors" and the monumental mileage which Dow ran up in the cause of saving souls. There can be little question that along with his bizarre, legend-inspiring personality, the evangelist was totally committed to his mission, absolutely indefatigable in the pursuit of it and brilliantly ingenious in devising effective methods of bringing it to the fallen world through which he travelled. In truth, the Lorenzo Dow legends probably circulated as widely and as long as they did because people secretly admired the man more than they publicly ridiculed his behavior. If all this suggests that Lorenzo Dow was one of America's most talented and effective travelling salesmen, then so be it. Dow apparently began his roving ministry while still in his teens, and made his first reputation as a charismatic, hell-fire-and-brimstone orator in areas near his birthplace, like the Hope Valley, in those early years of riding the circuit in eastern Connecticut, where he was one of the first evangelists. It is entirely possible that here he began developing some of the tricks of showmanship for which he became world-famous. Such was the one, for example, reported by the noted humorist Charles F. Browne, better-known as "Artemus Ward:" On one occasion he [Dow] took a text from Paul, 'I can do all things.' The preacher paused, took off his spectacles, laid them on the open Bible, and said, 'No, Paul, you are mistaken for once; I'll bet you five dollars you can't, and stake the money.' At the same time putting his hand into his pocket, he took out a five-dollar bill, laid it on the Bible, took up his spectacles again, and read, 'Through Jesus Christ our Lord,' 'Ah, Paul!' exclaimed Dow, snatching up the five-dollar bill, and returning it to his pocket, 'that's a very different matter; the bet's withdrawn.' As odd in his appearance as he was in his behavior, Lorenzo was described by almost every eyewitness to his preaching as not only uncouth in his person, but endowed with a harsh, raspy voice and hard, jerky movements and gestures. Someone who saw him preach in Ridgefield when Dow was about thirty years old wrote, "He was thin and weather-beaten, and appeared haggard and ill-favored, partly on account of his reddish, dusty beard, some six inches long...." Despite his unattractive qualities, however, he had a remarkable, intuitive understanding of the tastes, prejudices and weaknesses of common, country people; he possessed an unerring knack for adapting his speaking style to such audiences. A tall, bony stork of a man, not unlike Washington Irving's Ichabod Crane, he affected oddity in almost every aspect of his life. He liked to appear unexpectedly, surprising his audience into attention, and on a number of occasions, having made an appointment to preach a year in advance, he would suddenly materialize, like an apparition, at the very minute set. He often used scraps of Biblical text, extracting from them (as in the example of Paul, cited above) an unexpected meaning or startling point, by a play upon words. And if an audience seemed unable to follow the logic of an argument on some moral question, he was always able to pull an illustrative anecdote from his full memory-bag. He knew a story could be more effective than argument with unlettered people -- and he was a master storyteller. Examples of his unorthodox actions can still be collected from Connecticut informants whose families have passed the stories along from one generation to the next for over a hundred years. One tells about the time he finished one of his four-hour-long performances, snapped his Bible shut with a bang and jumped out an open window directly into the saddle of his waiting horse, before galloping off down the road to his next engagement. A similar story is told about his departure from home before he left on one of his trips to England and Ireland. On the appointed day, Lorenzo was said to have suddenly stood up from the breakfast table, called to his wife, "I shall return in a year," and then taken his leave -- through the kitchen window. Even in private life, "Crazy Lorenzo" had to keep up his image! There are so many characteristic legends about Lorenzo Dow that it is difficult to decide on where to begin -- and when to stop. Two stories, however, have been repeated so often, both orally and in print, that they could be called "classic" Dow-isms. They bear one more recitation here. Both have been collected from numerous locations throughout the preacher's enormous circuit (they are frequently localized) and indeed, became so well-known that they were often told about evangelists other than Dow, in complete innocence of the original source. The first, generally called "How Lorenzo Dow Raised the Devil," went something like this: Once there was this crazy preacher named Lorenzo Dow who was travelling in the northern part of Vermont, when he got caught in a terrible snowstorm. He managed to make his way to the only light he could see. After repeated knocking at the door of the humble log house, a woman opened it. He asked if he could stay the night. She told Dow her husband was not home and she could not take in a stranger. But he pleaded with her and she reluctantly let him in. He immediately went to bed, without removing his clothing, in a corner of the room separated from the main living quarters only by a rude partition with many cracks in it. After he had slept for just a short time, the preacher was awakened by the sounds of giggling and whispering from the main room. Peering through a crack in the partition, he saw that his hostess was entertaining a man not her husband! No sooner had he taken this in, when Dow heard a man's drunken voice shouting and cursing outside the front door, and demanding to be let in. Before admitting her husband (for it was he, returned unexpectedly), the wife motioned her lover to hide in the barrel of tow, a coarse flax ready for spinning, beside the fireplace. Once inside, the suspicious husband quickly sensed that his wife had not been alone, and demanded to know who else was in the house. When the quick-witted wife told him about the Rev. Dow, sleeping in the corner, he was not satisfied. After all, he was not so drunk that he would take his wife's word for the identity of the houseguest. "Well, now," roared the husband, "I hear tell that parson Dow can raise the devil. I think I'd like to see him do it -- right here and now." Before the devil could shut up her boisterous husband, he had pulled the famous preacher from his bed, where he had pretended to be sound asleep. "Rev'rend," he bellowed, "I want you to raise the devil. I won't take 'no' for an answer." Seeing that he would have to perform, Lorenzo finally said, "Well, if you insist, I will do it, but when he comes, it will be in a flaming fire. You must open the door wide so he will have plenty of room." The husband opened the door. Then, taking a burning coal from the fire with the tongs, Dow dropped it into the tow cask. Instantly the oily contents burst into flame. Howling in pain from the fire which engulfed him, the flaming figure of the man hidden in the barrel leaped out onto the floor and, just as quickly, darted out the open door, trailing ashes and smoke. He ran down the snowy road as if pursued by demons. It is said that the sight of all this not only sobered the drunken husband immediately, but permanently cured his taste for booze. And that was certainly one of the Rev. Dow's major miracles! Another story about the canny preacher has been told almost as often as the "raising-the-devil" yarn. Usually called "Lorenzo Dow Catches a Thief," the legend has been widely collected from oral tradition and has been printed and reprinted in newspapers and books, sometimes with varying details, but always with the same basic narrative line. One version goes this way: While passing through some dense woods one day, on his way to a scheduled revival meeting, Lorenzo Dow came on two men cutting wood. Mounting a large stump, he announced, "Crazy Dow will preach from this stump six months from today, at two o'clock P. M." Six months later, as a huge crowd awaited him at the appointed spot, Dow encountered a man in great distress on the way to the scene of his sermon. After inquiring what the matter was, the preacher learned that the unhappy man was a poor woodsman whose axe, his only means of making a living, had been stolen. Dow promised the wretched fellow that if he would attend the services scheduled to start shortly, he would locate the axe for him. Before Lorenzo continued on, he leaned down, picked up a stone and put it in his pocket. In the midst of his powerful sermon, the fiery minister suddenly interrupted his flow of words, reached in his pocket and pulled out the rock. "Brothers and sisters," he rasped, "There is a man in this audience who has had his precious axe stolen. There is also one among you who stole it. I am going to rear back and throw this rock, here, right at the thief's head." So saying, he pretended to throw the stone with all his might. When only one man in the crowd ducked his head down, Dow went over to the fellow and said, "You have the man's axe." And so he had. The thief returned the axe to its owner and never again robbed anyone. Despite his unattractive physical appearance, his eccentric behavior and his wandering ministry which kept him from home for long periods of time, Crazy Dow was married at least twice and made his permanent (if that's the correct word for it) home, at various times in his life, in Hebron and in Montville. He apparently married his first wife when they were both quite young, but though she died after only a few years of marriage, he seemingly held her in great esteem. For it is said by persons in Hope Valley who should know, that when his first wife died, he had her body wrapped in "cut after cut and fold after fold" of woolen cloth and then buried her without a coffin and standing bolt upright in the grave, so she could the more quickly and surely reach heaven. The epitaph on her gravestone reads: "Peggy Dow. Shared Vissitudes of Lorenzo." The latter is probably a gross understatement. After Peggy died, they say, he became acquainted with a young woman named Sally, from the Colchester area. One night he took her for a buggy ride and tried to get her to accept his marriage proposal. He had already made arrangements with the Rev. John Whittlesey to marry them as soon as the girl said "yes," no matter what time of day or night his proposal was accepted. Lorenzo popped the question about 11:00 p.m., as they rode up Bean Hill: "What do you say we get married?" "Oh, Lorenzo, don't talk such foolishness," she replied. But he was persistent. "Come on," he urged, "we've waited long enough." Although Sally finally agreed, she said, "We can't get married tonight. Let's wait 'til tomorrow." But, of course, the shrewd preacher was "hot to trot," which they did -- straight to the Rev. Whittlesey's home, known as the "Red Cottage," in Salem. As the buggy pulled up to the front door of the Red Cottage, Lorenzo called out, "Hey there, parson, wake up. It's Lorenzo Dow and I'm here to get married." Soon the minister and his wife, still dressed in nightclothes, appeared at the upstairs bedroom window. Although Sally once again balked at the thought of getting hitched to the odd man at her side, she finally relented, vowing to "be a thorn in his flesh and a sword in his side." "Get on with it," shouted Lorenzo. So, as he leaned out the window over the couple below, the Rev. Whittlesey performed the simple service while his wife witnessed it. When it was over, the minister tossed down the marriage certificate, Lorenzo grabbed it before it hit the ground and Mr. and Mrs. Lorenzo Dow trotted off happily down the moonlit road to a new life together. It should be added that Sally Dow never kept her pre-marriage vow, for she was Lorenzo's constant companion on his wandering journeys, listened without complaint to his long, rambling sermons and proved to be the one true friend he had for the rest of her life.
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