Jedidiah Morse loved American geography and believed that Americans did not truly understand its terrain. Noticing the scientific shortcomings of previous British writers, Morse pursued the goal of educating the public on the subject, while at the same time pastoring a church and rebuking the rise of liberal Christianity.
Two Interests: Theology and Geography
Jedidiah Morse (1761–1826) was born in Woodstock, Connecticut and grew up during the Revolutionary War period. Toward the latter end of the war, Morse attended Yale College (later Yale University). After four years, he graduated in 1783. Morse gravitated toward education, religion, and geography.
Upon graduation, Morse remained at Yale to study theology and also launched a girls school. Having extensively studied maps and the journals of travelers and explorers, Morse wrote “Geography Made Easy” for his students in 1784. It was the first geography book on America, and during his lifetime 25 editions were published.
"The American Geography," originally published in 1789 by Jedidiah Morse, has been reprinted countless times. Today's edition may not have the calfskin cover and sewn binding, but it preserves a crucial part of American history nonetheless.
Although he received his license to preach in 1785, he did so only briefly, as a minister near Norwich, Connecticut. He returned to Yale, and from 1786 to 1787 he was a tutor. In 1789, he attained arguably his two greatest accomplishments. He published his seminal geographical work, “The American Geography,” and he was also appointed pastor of a Congregationalist church, the First Church of Charlestown, Massachusetts.
Morse remained pastor of this church for the next 30 years. His book, “The American Geography,” was revised in 1793 as “The American Universal Geography.” Before the century was up, he wrote two more works: a children’s book entitled “Elements of Geography” (1795) and “The American Gazetteer” (1797).
“The American Gazetteer” is considered the country’s first gazetteer, a geographical dictionary, and included seven maps, as well as more than 7,000 geographical articles. According to the book’s first edition description, it contained “a distinct account of all the parts of the New World: their situation, climate, soil, produce, former and present condition; commodities, manufactures, and commerce. Together with an accurate account of the cities, towns, ports, bays, rivers, lakes, mountains, passes, and fortifications. The whole intended to exhibit the present state of things in that part of the globe, and the views and interests of the several powers who have possession in America.”
A map of the United States, circa 1824. Geography by Morse; engraving by Annin & Smith. New York Public Library. (Public Domain)
Aside from Morse’s love of topography, his primary reason for studying, writing, and publishing books on American geography was because previous books, mostly by British authors, had done such a poor job “that from them very little knowledge of this country can be gained.”
Religious Causes
Morse took up the cause of explaining American geography to the public. Along with that cause, he was an ardent advocate for Calvinism and strongly resisted the rise of Unitarianism and Socianism, the latter which denied the deity of Jesus Christ and was antitrinitarian.
For Morse, the Unitarian church was far too liberal in its theology. As part of his resistance to Unitarianism and advocacy for Calvinism, he founded and edited the religious publication “Panoplist” in 1805. Morse, known as a man of letters, submitted many articles for publication in various journals, religious and otherwise. Three years later, in 1808, he co-founded the Andover Theological Seminary, which is now part of Yale Divinity School. By 1816, he had helped found both the New England Tract Society and the American Bible Society, the latter which still exists.
The same year Morse became pastor in Charlestown in 1789, he married Elizabeth Ann Breese in Shrewsbury, New Jersey. The couple had several children though not all survived to adulthood. Their most famous child was Samuel Finley Breese Morse, the painter and the inventor of the telegraph. At the age of 19, Samuel Morse painted his father’s portrait; he also illustrated for his father’s New England Tract Society publications.
A New Cause
In 1819, after some controversy, Morse left the pulpit to pursue another cause: Indian affairs. In 1820, Secretary of War John C. Calhoun offered him an opportunity to conduct a study of the Native American nations in the regions of western New York and the Great Lakes. Over the next two years, Morse ingratiated himself within numerous tribes.
His study, which was published in 1822 by Davis & Force, was presented to Congress and President James Monroe, and advocated for better conditions for the native tribes. He also had a keen interest in converting the Native Americans to Christianity, while at the same time rebutting the consistent negative views written about the Native Americans. Despite Morse’s efforts, it did not stop the eventual removal of native tribes west of the Mississippi River.
A Man Remembered
Morse died in 1826, but he would be remembered as “The Father of American Geography” and his works and maps would be the basis of American geographical knowledge for the first half of the 19th century. A geographer, a minister, and a man of letters, Morse was fondly remembered as a man who was “always thinking, always writing, always talking, always acting.”
Jedidiah Morse's gravestone at the Grove Street Cemetery in New Haven. (Kinu Panda/CC BY-SA 3.0)
In New Haven, Connecticut, a historical marker was established in his honor in 1857. It notes Morse as “a graduate of Yale College in 1783; author of the first geography printed in American in 1784; honored by the Univ. of Edinburgh Scot with the degree of S.T.D. in 1794; pastor of the first church in Charlestown, Mass. from 1789 to 1820; U.S. commissioner to the Indian tribes from 1820 to 1822; the originator and efficient promoter of great and wise plans for the public good; the bold and firm defender of Evangelical truth.”
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Dustin Bass is an author and co-host of The Sons of History podcast. He also writes two weekly series for The Epoch Times: Profiles in History and This Week in History.
