John Mason Peck Biography Genealogy Trails

ILLINOIS GENEALOGY TRAILS

John Mason Peck
Transcribed by and Contributed to Illinois Genealogy Trails by JRice

On this site in 1831, John Mason Peck (1789-1858), pioneer Baptist preacher, author, and educator, established the school which became Shurtleff College. In 1817, Peck had left his home in New England with a vision "To bring the lamp of learning and light of the Gospel" into the undeveloped west. He, his wife Sally, and three children endured an arduous four month trip in a small one-horse wagon, settling in Rock Springs, near O'Fallon, Illinois.
There in 1827, Peck founded Rock Springs Seminary, the first institution of it kind in the state of Illinois. In 1831, the Seminary was moved to the growing city of Alton, where in 1836, the name was changed to Shurtleff College, recognizing the gift of $10,000 from Dr. Benjamin Shurtleff of Boston.
John Mason Peck is well described as a missionary and a teacher, an author, and an editor, a geographer and a cartographer, and a promoter of churches, schools, and western settlement. For thirty years, he was undoubtedly one of the strongest advocates of education and righteousness in the entire Mississippi valley. He traveled hundreds of miles by horseback or wagon, often under most difficult circumstances, while his wife and children bore his long absences with fortitude.
Peck was one of the foremost ministerial opponents of slavery in Illinois and provide great support to Governor Edward Coles' successful anti-slavery effort in 1824. In 1851, he was honored with a doctor of divinity degree from Harvard University. He died on March 16, 1858, and is buried in Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis. ( Historical Marker)

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Biography

The quiet home of Asa and Hannah Peck at their lowly dwelling in the parish of Litchfield South Farms, Connecticut, witnessed his birth on the 31st of October, 1789; and there for eighteen years he was reared in the simplicity, frugality, and industry becoming a child of the Puritans. The genealogical track of his family leads directly to Deacon Paul Peck, who in 1634 emigrated from Essex county, England, and soon after, with the pious Hooker, came to Hartford and founded the infant colony of Connecticut.

Nothing of peculiar interest occurred to mark the character of Peck's childhood, or early youth. His father was in very humble circumstances, and moreover was afflicted with lameness, which early threw a large share of the care and the toils of tilling the little farm upon this his only son. From the time he was fourteen years old his summers were faithfully devoted to farm work, while in the winter months he continued to enjoy the benefits of the common school—that pride of New England, and especially, in that period of her history, of the State of Connecticut. True, the range of studies was not more than half as extensive as at present. The aim was to teach boys and girls, gathered in the same little apartment, to spell and read well, to write a fair, legible hand, and acquire such familiarity with the fundamental rules of arithmetic as would enable them to keep their simple accounts correctly, to cast the interest which they paid or received, and generally to familiarize themselves with the established forms requisite for the transaction of ordinary business. Some geographical and historical books were used for reading-lessons, and thus a smattering of knowledge in these branches was secured. A geography with an atlas of maps, or a historical book adapted to the capacity of children, had not then been introduced to the common schools; and grammar was chiefly or wholly learned by imitating good usage without much knowledge of its rules. Good elocution was sometimes attempted to be taught by rehearsing memoriter fine select specimens of prose and poetic compositions ; but lest this should too much attract attention and pave the way for stage exhibitions, which were deemed too theatrical, judicious cautions were frequently administered both to teachers and scholars by the official visitors —the parson being one.

By James Affleck: No man was better known in the west than Rev. John Mason Peck in his day. He possessed a strong, vigorous intellect in an eminent degree, and an energy that shrank from no labor and research within his power. He united with the Baptist church in the state of New York, and in 1817 was appointed a missionary of the Baptist General Convention to the west. He went immediately to St. Louis and was for some years an itinerant missionary in Missouri and Illinois. In 1821 he located with his family at Rock Spring, where he established a seminary by money he raised in the east. He had charge of the seminary for some two years as principa1. He published, in 1834, "A Gazetteer of Illinois and Emigrant's Guide." that induced a large emigration from the older states to Illinois and other parts of the west. In 1835, Shurtleff College, of Alton, was founded by his exertions, and Rock Spring Seminary was transferred to that institution. It was said that during that year Mr. Peck traveled 6,000 miles and raised $20,000 for endowment of Shurtleff College. He was appointed corresponding secretary and general agent for the American Baptist Publication Society, with his residence at Philadelphia, Pa. After two years he returned to his family at Rock Spring. Tn 1829 he published a Baptist paper at Rock Spring, called "The Pioneer," the first Baptist paper published in the west, which he continued for

ten or twelve years, and in his appeals to the church for aid he always said he was at considerable loss. He contributed largely to the different periodicals and edited "Annals of the West." Mr. Peck, in connection with John Messinger, published a sectional map of Illinois, embracing many new features in maps. The Sunday school found in Mr. Peck a most efficient supporter. The temperance cause may hail him as its best friend. Morality and religion were greatly advanced by his untiring exertions in Illinois, Missouri and Kentucky, where he kept up his missionary work and preaching at frequent intervals for many years. Mr. Peck took an active part in 1823-4 in defeating the movement for holding a convention to alter or change the State constitution in order to establish slavery in Illinois. By his individual exertions and personal efforts he was greatly instrumental in saving the State to freedom. Being an agent of 'the American Bible Society, his duties led him into different portions of the State, where he could and did perform the double duty if distributing the scriptures and antislavery principles at one and the same time.

The records here, in the Baptist Church, show that Mr. Peck was called, in 1840, as pastor, served one year and nine months and then resigned. He was again called to preside over this (Belleville) church on the 21st of November, 1847, and served one year. In 1847 he was a candidate for delegate to the convention called to revise our State constitution—George Bunsen and John McCully were the Democratic nominees for that position, Mr. Peck ran as an Independent Whig, and knew more of the history and wants of Illinois than both his opponents, but was badly defeated. Coining from the state of Connecticut, the hotbed of Yankeedom and Abolitionism, Mr. Peck was not accorded a very cordial reception here by some of the Baptist ministers; especially the Lemens, Kinneys and the Badgleys. Mr. Peck convinced them that he was a regularly ordained Baptist minister and was entitled to their brotherly kindness and ministerial courtesy, but they never mingled much together. He was a favorite with the literary class and higher circles of society; was a frequent visitor of Governor Edward's the third Governor of Illinois, and baptized two of the Governor's children, Mrs. Daniel P. Cook and Ninian Wirt Edwards. Governor Edwards died of cholera on the 20th day of July, 1833, and Mr. Peck preached his funeral sermon, in the court house in Belleville, to a very large concourse of people.

Thomas Carlin, the sixth Governor of Illinois, became concerned about religion through the preaching of Mr. Peck, joined the Baptist Church at Carrollton and was baptized by immersion by Mr. Peck. Mr. Peck suffered a very serious loss by fire, in the destruction of his manuscripts, pamphlets, papers and other very valuable printed matter, the accumulations of a lifetime, which were stored in a room that caught fire, and. all were destroyed. In the history of John.M. Peck, how much of adventure, of peril, of lifelong devotion, of the truest heroism, a preacher and missionary of the Baptist Church for more than forty years; poorly fed, illy paid, constantly traveling over a country destitute of roads and bridges. During the last year or two of his life he was too feeble to stand while preaching and had to speak from a seat. The story of the early preacher is a tale of the heroic age, a type of a class that has almost passed away.

His family consisted of his wife and seven children; five sons and two daughters. None of his children inherited the energy and "push"' of the father. They all survived him, but are unknown outside their immediate neighborhoods. Mr. Peck died at Rock Spring, St. Clair county, Illinois, and was buried in Bellfontaine cemetery, St. Louis. There is a neat column of marble erected over his remains. It is ten or twelve feet high, with the following inscription carved on it: "John Mason Peck. Born at Litchfield South Farms, Connecticut, October 31, 1789; died March 15, 1858. My witness is in heaven; my record is on high."

sources: Picture by JRice;

Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society for the year 1908

Heroes of the Cross 1905

John M Peck by Ben Affleck

Forty Years of pioneer Life by John M Peck, Rufus Babcock 1864