Burned-over district
The Burned-Over District was a name given by evangelist Charles G. Finney to an area in western New York State in the United States of America. He called it so because the area was a hotbed of religious revivalism, especially after attracting settlers in the period between the construction of the Erie Canal and the rise of the railroads.The area still had a frontier quality during the early canal boom, making professional and established clergy scarce, lending the piety of the area many of the self-taught qualities that proved susceptible to folk religion. As such the area spawned a number of innovative religious movements, all founded by lay people, during the early 19th century. These include:
- The
Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, better known as the Mormons.
Joseph Smith
lived in the area, and claimed to have discovered the golden plates that contained
the Book of Mormon
near Palmyra, New York.
- The Millerites.
William Miller
was a farmer born in rural Vermont
who moved to the area and found many converts there to his theory of an imminent
Second Coming.
His successor, Ellen
G. White, went on to found the Seventh-day
Adventist Church.
- The Fox sisters of Hydesville, New York conducted
the first "table-rapping" séances
in the area, leading to the American movement of Spiritualism
that taught communication with the dead.
- The Shakers
were also highly active in the area, and had several of their communal farms there.
- Finney himself preached at many revivals in the area, and was an early
precursor of Pentecostalism
in his preaching style that emphasized being filled with the Holy
Ghost over formal theology.