Approximately 78 manuscript pages, plus blank leaves preceding and following (approximately 200 pages in total). 17x10.5 cm (6¾x4¼") period half leather and marbled boards.
Handwritten personal diary/journal of Reverend Rice Rowell Whittier, Baptist clergyman, a member of the Baptist Pastoral Union, American Baptist Free Mission Society, etc. Whittier has kept crisp, clear and very precise entries as to where and when he preached, who he baptized, who he married, etc. throughout the Wisconsin Territory, Illinois, Ohio, etc.
Whittier studied for the ministry and records his first preaching as "First Effort at Deerfield, January 1839, at Brother Eben Tilton's - Job. 16:22 - When a few years are come then I shall go the way whence I shall not return." From this first effort at Deerfield he preaches at Batavia, Plainfield, Stratham, Read Oak Hill School House, Warrenville; Prairie School House; Brother Churchill's house; Blackberry School House; Long Grove; At the home of Mr. Barrows in Pauling; Brentwood; Brother John James house; House of B. Watson in Nottingham; House of Brother Barstow; Brother Stewart's House; Lee Meeting House; Baptist Meeting House in Deerfield; Elgin Meeting House; St. Charles; Bloomingdale; Cleveland Ohio Baptist Church; Pittsburgh; Collins School House; Virginia Settlement School; Union Grove; Ingham School House; At Brother Coon's in Pigeon Woods; Spring Prairie in Walworth County Wisconsin; Belvedere; East Branch School House; Montelona School House; Bristol; City Hall in Lowell; The Free Will Meeting for Elder Dyer; Hebron; Cass School House; South School House in Troy; Evans in Ohio; Milltown in Wisconsin; Ohio Grove; etc.
Traveling by horseback, carriage or stage coach, Whittier appears to have been in demand for his rousing sermons and preaching. He has identified every town, village, territory where he preached with the date and time. Whittier also kept additional and fastidious records/names of all those he "joined in marriage" and a separate section of this handwritten chronicle is devoted to "those I baptized," again with the location, date and names to include and identify those of the "Queen Anne Baptist" segment of the Baptist Society.
Further on in Rev. Whittier's entries he was "stationed" at Spring Prairie, Wisconsin from 1852 through 1853, recording all important information and dates. He would quote from the Bible and create his sermon from that particular biblical text.
A few of the marriages performed include:
Feb. 15, 1845, Blackberry, Illinois - James Thompson & Ruth Benton
Jan. 21, 1846, William Henry County, Illinois, town of Troy, -John Burr & Elizabeth Snyder.
Sept. 14, 1846, Troy, Illinois, - John Finore & Lydia Ann Blanchaw.
Nov. 2, 1846, Virginia Settlement - James Watsonn & Louisa Button.
Nov. 17, 1846, Troy - Mr. Haviland & Sarah Dickerson.
Jan. 1, 1847, Troy - Asabel C. Thompson & Mary Jane Neal.
March 25, 1847, William Henry County, Illinois, hamlet of Hebron - Lothrup Lyon & Celestine E. Ellsworth, etc.
Rice Rowell Whittier, Baptist, son of William and Polly (Rowell) Whittier, was born June 20, 1817, and died in Illinois on Oct. 5, 1897. He was married twice, once to Sarah Tuck, who died in 1874 and secondly to Mary B. Cheney, in October of 1877.