Timothy Flint

Timothy Flint was a New Englander and a Harvard graduate. After his graduation he became a Congregational minister and preached for twelve years before becoming a missionary in the Mississippi Valley. He was outspoken and blunt in his sermons, more concerned with practical issues than theology. He was often involved in controversy with his church members and sometimes had a hard time collecting his salary of four hundred dollars a year. When he lost his minister position he decided to move west and become a missionary. Flint traveled constantly for ten years up and down the Mississippi Valley from St. Louis to New Orleans from 1815 to 1825. His book, Recollections of the Last Ten Years, is one of the best studies of the American frontier of the period. While he did retain some of his New England prejudices, he had a great love of...