The electronic edition of Joseph Thomas's Life, Travels, and Gospel of Eld. Joseph Thomas, More Widely Known as the White Pilgrim, to Which Are Added His Poems: Religious, Moral, and Satirical (New York: M. Cummings, 1861) has been produced from a photocopy of the printed text.

      Pagination in the electronic version has been represented by placing the page number in brackets following the last complete word on the printed page. Footnotes in the electronic edition have been sequentially numbered and treated as endnotes. This edition is intended to be a verbatim transcription of the printed text, in which accidental corruptions and inconsistencies in spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and typography have been preserved. A critical edition is planned.

      The following biographical sketches of contributors to this book are taken from: Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography, edited by James Grant Wilson and John Fiske. Six volumes, New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1887-1889.

BADGER, Joseph, clergyman, born in Gilman-ton, New Hampshire, 16 August 1792; died 12 May 1852. His father, revolting against the Calvinism in which he had been educated, had become a deist, and Joseph was given no religious training. When he was ten years old his family removed to Crompton, Canada, then almost a wilderness. He was converted in 1811 while visiting his native place, and in 1812 was baptized and began preaching without connecting himself with any regular Church. He traveled for a time with a young man named Adams, who shortly afterward united with the Methodists; but Badger determined to "go forth and preach a free salvation to all who would hear." After laboring for two years in Lower Canada with great success, Badger received ordination at the hands of the Free-will Baptists, but maintained his independent position. In 1814 he returned to New Hampshire and preached with remarkable success, though his methods made him unpopular with the Calvinists. In 1817 he preached as an itinerant in the state of New York, and the Churches that he founded joined the denomination known as Christians. After a preaching tour through the west in 1825 and a visit to Boston, Mr. Badger returned to New York, where he edited the Palliadium, at that time the organ of the Christian denomination. A stroke of paralysis forced him to give up work, but he preached again for some time before the final shock. See Life of Joseph Badger, by E. G. Holland (New York, 1854).

CUMMINGS, Moses, clergyman, born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, about 1816; died in New York City, 6 January 1867. He entered the ministry of the Christian denomination at the age of eighteen, and labored for many years in New Jersey and New York. From 1854 till 1862 he had editorial control of The Christian Messenger and The Palladium, the central organs of the sect of which he was a member. He was a determined opponent of slavery, and a friend and admirer of Horace Mann, whose peculiar educational views received his cordial support.

      Addenda and corrigenda are earnestly solicited.

Ernie Stefanik
Derry, PA

Created 6 August 2003.