SOURCE: Axelrod, Alan. “New World Genesis, or the Old Transformed.” In Charles Brockden Brown: An American Tale, pp. 53-96. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983.

In the following essay, Axelrod examines possible old world and new world sources for several of the characters and narrative elements in Wieland.

James Yates, known to the community of Tomhannock, New York, as a naturally gentle man, industrious, sober, and kind, threw his Bible into the fireplace, deliberately demolished his own sleigh, killed his wife, his four children, and his horse shortly after nine on a December evening in 1781. That afternoon, a Sunday, there being no church nearby, several neighbors had gathered at Yates's house to read Scripture and sing psalms. So cordial were his spirits that he persuaded his sister and her husband to remain until nine, long after the others had left. They engaged in serious, interesting, and affectionate conversation, Yates...