WILKINSON. Jernima, American Jerusalem, visionary: b. Cumberland, R. I., 1753; d. erusalem, Yates County, N. Y., 1 July 1819. he was educated as a Quaker and at 20, after a severe attack of fever, professed that she had been raised from the dead, that her carnal life was ended and that henceforth her body was reanimated by the spirit and power of Christ. She pretended to work miracles, and, though entirely illiterate, induced many intelligent peo ple to become her followers, her attractive per son and extraordinary tact and shrewdness aid ing her in maintaining the imposture. In at a meeting of her disciples, it was resolved to found a colony in Yates County, N. Y., in the present town of Torrey. The next year 25 of her followers went to the new purchase and prepared the land for wheat. In 1789 two of the number purchased 14,000 acres of land in that vicinity, to which was afterward added the township of Jerusalem. The same year Jemima and a large number of her followers came, and a house was erected for hcr. She had taken the name of the 'universal friend,' and assumed a costume which belonged about equally to iither sex, as she asserted that in her spiritual body there was no sex. She was
accompanied by two °witnesscs,* Sarah Rich ards and Rachael Miller She exacted from her followers the most complete submission and menial tees, her influence over them being practIcally supreme. A farm of 1,000 acres was set apart for her special use and cultivated freely by her followers. She insisted on the Shaker doctrine of celibacy, and the exercises at her religious meetings re sembled those of that sect. She never relin quished her pretensions, but after some years her influence waned, and the latter part of her life was embittered by jealousies and annoy ances which she bore with no great fortitude_ After her death the sect was entirely broken up. Consult Hudson, 'Jemima Wilkinson, a Preacheress of the 18th Century' (1821); 'Memoir of Jemima Wilkinson' (Bath, N. Y. 1844).