Source: Google Books: Sibley, William Giddings. The French 500 and other Papers [Galliopolis] 1901

[page 63]

The confidence of the French in their ability to conduct themselves properly in secular affairs, was apparently as complete as in religious matters, for there is no evidence of any special restrictions having been placed upon them other that those which obtained by virtue of polite breeding and a few minor regulations adopted at a public meeting.

[page 64]

This is so different form the careful supervision at Marietta in 1788, that one section of the restrictive resolutions in force there is quoted here in contrast with the total absence of recorded moral injunctions at Gallipolis:

"Whereas, idle vain and obscene conversation, profane cursing and swearing, and more especially the irreverently mentioning, calling upon, or invoking the Sacred and Supreme Being by any of the divine characters in which he hath graciously condescended to reveal his infinitely beneficent purposes to mankind, are repugnant to every moral sentiment, subversive of every civil obligation, inconsistent with the ornaments of polished life, and abhorrent to the principles of the most benevolent religion, it is expected, therefore, if crimes of this kind should exist, they will not find encouragement, countenance, or approbation in this territory. It is strictly enjoined upon all officers and ministers of justice, upon parents, and others, heads of families, and upon others of every description, that they abstain from practices so vile and irrational."

The moral and religious censors of the Marietta colony also sternly forbade all service labor on the Sabbath, enjoining upon all, as conducive to civilization, morality and piety, the consecration of that day to "the public adoration and worship of the common Parent of the universe." A pillory, whipping post and stocks, conveniently located, inspired...[page 65]...great respect for these and other moral virtues in the Puritan Marietta colony, where there existed unwavering belief in the propriety of a strict surveillance over the conduct of individuals that would now be resented as an intolerable infringement on personal rights. Yet this puritanism, "believing itself quick with the seed of religious liberty, laid, without knowing it, the egg of democracy."


Links:
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"The Puritanic Influence in the Northwest Territory, 1788-1803" by Winfred B. Langhorst

"Early Religious Movements in the Muskingum Valley," by C. L. Martzolff

"Moral Policemen on the Ohio Frontier," by Paul H. Boase

"The First Church Organization in the Oldest Settlement in the North-West Territory," by C. E. Dickinson. (Begins on the 10th page)

Wickes, Thomas, Congregational Church (1847)

"Richest and Best / Is the Wine of the West": The Ohio River Valley and the Jewish Frontier," by Amy Hill Shevitz

Gage, Frances Dana Barker, Elsie Magoon, or The Old Still-house in the Hollow (1867), temperance, set in SE Ohio)

Punchard, George, History of Congregationalism (1881)

History of Washington County, Ohio : with illustrations and biographical sketches. [Cleveland] : H.Z. Williams, 1881. Chapter 27, pages 340-392. "Marietta - Religious History - The Churches" Includes:

Barker, John Marshall, History of Ohio Methodism(1898)

Sweet, William W., The Rise of Methodism in the West: Being the Journal of the Western Conference 1800-1811 (1920)

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