Rev. John Dixon Long (b.
1817 - d. 1894)
MSA SC
5496-51534
M.E. Preacher/Abolitionist, Talbot County
Biography:
John Dixon Long was a native of Worcester County, on the lower Eastern Shore of Maryland. His father, John W., was a slaveholder, recording two African-American bondsmen in the 1820 Federal Census.1 However, Long would alter remark that his mother, Sally Laws Henderson, had given him his "first antislavery lesson." She was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, an organization whose views on slavery had been much more definitive during her upbringing.2 John's mother died in 1828, with his father not far behind in 1834. There is no evidence that John W. Long bequeathed any human chattel to his son.
Young John began his ecclesiastical career soon after losing his parents, joining the Philadelphia Conference in 1835. Even at that time, the church was struggling with a growing schism over its policies towards slavery. After the General Conference in 1844, a southern faction officially broke away as slaveholding again became a potential ground for suspension or expulsion. Subsequent efforts to redraw district boundaries resulted in so-called "border Conferences," like those based in Baltimore and Philadelphia, which had to balance the interests of their politically diverse congregations. Though centered in the free territory of eastern Pennsylvania, the Philadelphia Conference also included Delaware, as well as the eastern shore of Maryland and Virginia.3 He would later claim that "we have 6000 slaves owned by 2000 members of the M.E. Church, all sheltered by the Discipline of our church."4 Long was fully certified as an M.E. minister in 1842, spending much of his service throughout the region where he was raised.
Following the 1844 split, church leaders refused to take a more definitive stand on slave holding and selling, fearing another mass exodus of congregants. This left antislavery preachers in an awkward and dangerous position, particularly those exhorting below the Mason-Dixon line. Long had correspondance with at least two colleagues who faced the threat of mob violence due to their opinions on the matter. The preacher still did not waver in his antagonism toward slavery and his dedication to free or bonded African-American parishioners, of whom there were many on the Eastern Shore. While serving there from the late 1840's, he was admittedly in poor health, "dependent, to a great extent, on the community for support."5 This made Long's efforts even more risky as his livelihood was directly tied to white citizens' opinions of him.
In 1853, Rev. Long actually started a Sabbath school for blacks in the St. Michael's district of Talbot County. He was strongly discouraged by church brethren, but continued on with the support of "a noble Christian lady" whom he did not name. Soon after, Long began to receive insulting letters. His operations were not formally disrupted until the spring of 1855, when "a report was in circulation that the negroes were going 'to rise and kill the whites' in Talbot County." This gave local power brokers the justification to confront the abolitionist preacher. Several prominent men, including newspaper editors and an ex-secretary of State, presented Long with a circular letter warning him to close the school. He refused, instead asking "why these gentlemen did not send circulars to all the rumsellers in the county ... I requested the officer to tell the gentlemen that the report of the insurrection was false and slanderous." The reports indeed turned out to be exaggerated or fabricated, but John D. Long defiance only confirmed the slaveholding elite's suspicions.6
However, it was not these incidences that drove him from Maryland. Long was concerned that his four sons "were beginning to imbibe the common prejudices of slave society -- hatred of work and of slaves." He moved his family to Philadelphia in late 1856, only to find that pro-slavery sentiment existed there as well. Along with a minority of Philadelphia Conference members including Rev. James M. McCarter, Long attempted to address the apparent indifference to the institution displayed by his religious Methodist Episcopal brethren. Both men were either ignored, or openly mocked when they brought up the issue at meetings. Reverend Long's vindictive response to this treatment was to write the book, Pictures of Slavery in Church and State. In the volume, he discussed first hand experience with slavery on the Eastern Shore, stopping just short of naming individual participants. Still, many who had known Long felt that they were being personally slandered and responded angrily.7
He also took to the northern newspapers to specifically shame slave holders associated with the M.E. Church leadership. One such criticism was directed at Samuel Pattison and other Dorchester County owners, who had placed runaway advertisements in 1857. Long would state in Zion's Herald that "Mr. Pattison has had a wrong moral and religious training with regard to slavery; and we, preachers of the Philadelphia Conference, have aided in giving him that training." Incensed by these direct attacks,fellow Dorchester County planter and preacher Rev. Levi D. Traverse submitted a rebuttal to the Cambridge Eagle. The whole exchange was published in McCarter's Border Methodism, Border Slavery, which further took Traverse and Pattison to task for their view on the subject. Reverend Long was ultimately turned on by fellow Philadelphia Conference members, who may not have disagreed with him but certainly did not appreciate the negative attention being drawn to the church. Long was "tried" at the 1858 convention, but charges were dropped without any substantive discussion about slavery. These proceedings were also detailed in McCarter's 1859 book.8
John Dixon Long continued to reside in Philadelphia until at least 1880, and was presumably there when he died in 1894.
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