The Provoking Preacher & Librarian Nemesis
George Barrell Cheever was born in 1807 at Hallowell, Maine. He was the son of Charlotte Barrell and Nathaniel Cheever, a well known bookseller and publisher who founded a Hallowell newspaper called the American Advocate. Growing up in Hallowell, Cheever was likely acquainted with future classmates Jeremiah Dummer, James Milk Ingraham, and Alfred Martin, and certainly knew John Odlin Page. Cheever attended Hallowell Academy alongside Joseph Jenkins Eveleth. Cheever appears to have studied at home during most of his first year at Bowdoin College, potentially because he was the oldest sibling and his father had passed away in 1819. However, he arrived at Bowdoin College in early June 1822, in time to complete the summer session and sit for examinations qualifying him to progress to his sophomore year.
Initially, during the Summer of 1822, Cheever’s roomed with a sophomore, John Wilson, but when Wilson left due to poor health, Cheever asked Eveleth, his old high school friend, to be his roommate. He reported the news to his mother in an August 6, 1822 letter thusly:
“I have engaged Eveleth for a roommate on the ensuing year, and I know of no other person in the class with whom, I should be more happily situated. A few days ago, we sent in a petition for a room in college and we have some slight hope of obtaining one. They are really elegant, each room has a Bedchamber attached to it, and the floors are to be painted.”
Eveleth and Cheever were unsuccessful in their petition, though, and ended up being assigned a room at Mr. Grows’, where John S. C. Abbott, Richmond Bradford, and Cyrus Hamlin Coolidge were also assigned. Where and with whom Cheever actually roomed for the beginning of his sophomore year is a bit of mystery, as on February 28, 1823, Cheever reported more roommate machinations: “You will probably be rather surprised to hear that I am still rooming with Lyman. When I arrived, I found that the Government had appointed Packard a chum, who was a new student that had just been examined and entered the Sophomore class. I was therefore obliged to return to my old roommate. So far, however, his manner has been quite pleasant and agreeable compared with what it was last term, and I sincerely hope it will continue so, if it should, I can get along with him quite happily.” No Lyman–messy or neat–is listed in the Bowdoin catalogue during the 1820s, so perhaps Cheever is referring to Seward Wyman. By his junior year, Cheever got the college room he had long hoped for. He lived in Maine Hall his junior and senior year, bunking with a member of the Class of 1824 and 1826 respectively.
Cheever was also a part of the Peucinian Society. Over the course of his Bowdoin career, Cheever received some fines from the Executive Government for neglecting his work and missing prayers. However, he was neither an excessive troublemaker, nor an exceptionally well behaved student. Many at Bowdoin noted Cheever’s great literary talents and he was viewed as one of the class experts in belles lettres. He also had an exceptional reputation among the library staff. When he became interested in a subject, he would try to check out every single book on the subject. He would often seek the librarian out at unreasonable hours, begging for the key to check out books. It is no wonder a librarian claimed that, “It is fifty dollars damage to the library every time a theme is assigned to Cheever.” Shepley also observed that “He was often provoking. I do not remember to have ever seen him provoked.” This voracious attitude towards his work and stark convictions are traits emblematic of Cheever. At Bowdoin he published pieces he wrote in magazines and literature compilations. He also spoke at class exhibitions in 1823 and 1824. He was ranked eighth at graduation with George Washington Pierce and took part in a literary discussion called “The Effects of the Late Struggles in Greece and South America on Literature and Liberty.”
After graduating, Cheever enrolled in the Andover Theological Seminary in Massachusetts. He graduated in 1830 and took a job as a preacher at the Congregational Church in Salem, Massachusetts. While juggling school and his career, Cheever also started to write books. His first works were compilations of poetry and literature, but he soon he started to publish books filled with his opinions. Cheever would pick a topic and vociferously champion it for a few years, from both the pen and the pulpit, before moving on to another issue. His first cause célèbre was the Unitarian Church, which he firmly disapproved of. Next, he devoted a great deal of attention to defending capital punishment. After that, Cheever started to advocate for the temperance movement, and, in doing so, put himself at odds with his community. In 1834, Cheever published a “fictional” story about a distillery owner named Amos Giles who paid his employees in alcohol and distilled rum on the Sabbath. But, Giles was not fictional, rather a thinly disguised caricature of John Stone, a Salem distillery owner. Salem did not take kindly to Cheever’s attack on its distiller. Angry drinkers assaulted the preacher in the streets and Stone got Cheever thrown in jail for libel and charged $1,000. However, true to form, Cheever refused to stop provoking. Immediately after his release he published another book about Stone, this one including images of demons “making beer, and, as they dance about the caldron.” Unsurprisingly, after this follow-up piece Cheever was forced to resign his parish and leave Salem for good.
Unmoored from his Massachusetts home, Cheever went to Europe. He travelled there between 1836 and 1838 and wrote about his experiences for the New York Observer. When he returned to the United States in 1839, Cheever settled in New York City. There he took over the Allen Street Presbyterian Church. In the 1840’s and early 1850’s Cheever wrote about many different causes ranging from suffrage to the Bible in schools. He also continued his education at New York University, where he received a D.D. in 1844. In 1846 he married Elizabeth C. Wetmore. The couple had a son, but the boy passed away in infancy. Soon after this, Cheever went to Europe again, this time as a corresponding editor at the New York Evangelist. Upon his return he was appointed as the minister at New York’s Church of the Puritans.
It was at this church that Cheever found his next controversial cause: abolition. Starting in 1857, Cheever started to publish tracts against slavery and he soon gained a reputation as an outspoken abolitionist. Not only did he decry slavery, but he attacked those who allowed slaveholders in their congregations. His position was that “The Church took no middle ground.” Cheever’s “radical” views and “acrid” tone made him the enemy of many pro-slavery advocates. But he also received his fair share of criticism from other abolitionists. For all his talk of denouncing slaveowners, he was reported to be friends with a slaveholding woman. There were also reports that his church had designated pews for “Whites” and “Blacks” and was unwelcoming to African American visitors. However, Cheever denied that he had any knowledge of the segregationist policies of his church. Despite these critiques, there’s no doubt that Cheever was firm in his anti-slavery stance. He argued so fiercely and unapologetically for the rights of enslaved people that his church was removed from the Congregationalist sect because “some of the Church could no longer endure so much Gospel Abolitionism.”
After the Civil War, Cheever continued to write about civil rights for African Americans. He also took a stand in debates between Christianity and science, advocating for scripture over new scientific discoveries. He retired from the pulpit in 1870 and moved to Englewood, New Jersey, with Elizabeth. He gave his New York City residence to the American Missionary Society, another one of his movements. In 1875, he returned to Bowdoin for the 50th reunion of his class. There, he gave a speech that contained his usual “aggressive eloquence.” Cheever died in 1890 at the age of 83. Since he had no heirs, the bulk of his money went to philanthropic organizations such as the Seaman’s Friend Society and the Home for Friendless Boys. Always acting with conviction, he left behind a wide legacy.