Peter Van Houten (1814-1876) Writes to YOU: the background

I transcribed the handwritten journal (excerpted in the next post) of the Reverend Peter R. Van Houten, my great-great grandfather on my mother’s side.  The journal has been in my mother’s possession.  She is Nancy Lawder Wolcott and the journal came to her from her father, Donald Lawder, and to him from his Aunt Mamie (Mary R. W. Van Houten) Dawes, (daughter of Peter R. Van Houten and his first wife Alice White).  Mamie Dawes is the “little Mary Rebecca W” spoken of in the end of the diary.  It is the last days of Alice White’s life that are recounted, dialogue and all, in Peter Van Houten’s diary.  Peter V. H. was crippled at age 4 from medical maltreatment, and then suffered again when he was blinded in an accident when he was nine years old.  He found his calling in the Methodist Episcopal Church while still in New Jersey and pursued a travelling preacher’s life until a week before he died in 1876.   He dictated his journal to various amanuenses (mostly his wife Alice) as he mentions in the journal.

I have transcribed most of it: sketchily in the first section detailing his travels and preachings; but have included every word when the material was more personal.  The complete original will soon be held in the Archives of Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio.  They have Special Collections on the history of Delaware and on the Methodist Church in Ohio, both important to Peter.  It is good home for the diary.  It would continue to fall apart in generations of attics. It’s an amazing experience to read your 2x or 3x great-grandfather’s words.  I am happy to bring it to the attention of the rest of Peter’s descendents and to the descendents of his brothers and sisters.

I corrected more of the spelling as I went along.  Not as historically accurate, but easier to read.  My explanatory comments are in brackets here and there.