In the Samuel Wait Papers there are two journals, one belonging to Samuel and one to his wife Sally. They have been transcribed and digitized for this project.
The journal of Samuel Wait begins on December 27, 1826, the day he and William Staughton left Washington, D.C. and began their journey south on a fundraising tour for Columbian College. The two would make their way from Washington through Virginia to North and South Carolina. The journal chronicles the travels, expenses and preaching engagements of the two men along with Samuel's internal struggles. Samuel writes to Sally shortly before his return home, "I have kept a journal from the time I left Washington, Dec. 27, 1826. This I intend to continue until I reach White Creek. From this you can, when I return, follow me around through all my wanderings."
It was during a stay in New Bern, NC that Samuel Wait met Thomas Meredith, who had also been a student of William Staughton's and was the former minister at the First Baptist Church of New Bern. While in New Bern, Wait was invited by the Church to preach to the congregation with whom he proved to be quite popular.
The financial situation of Columbian College and the fight for control over the Board of Trustees proved too much to bear, and both Wait and Staughton resigned their posts in March 1827. Soon thereafter the First Baptist Church in New Bern began to inquire as to Wait's future plans and whether or not he would consider moving to North Carolina to become their pastor. In letters to Sally he agrees that he will not make any decision until returning home. On June 1, 1827 Wait writes in his journal, "The brethren of the ch'h had a meeting this eve.--they unanimously wish to have me take up my residence among them, and are willing to engage that for the first year I shall have five hundred dollars." A month later Samuel Wait makes it home to White Creek, NY and notes "Preached in the afternoon at Wait's Corners and before sundown had the pleasure of seeing my dear family once more-having been absent about 6 months and a half, and traveled 11 hundred miles out and back again." The Waits moved to New Bern in the fall of 1827, and Samuel began pastoral duties at the First Baptist Church.
The journal of Sally Wait is much earlier than that of Samuel, dating from August 24, 1815 to July 10, 1817. It was during this time that Sally met Samuel and agreed to correspond with him. The journal ends shortly after their engagement. The diary never mentions Samuel by name, most of the time referring to him simply as "_______," although on one occasion Sally does call him "Mr. W." In addition to Samuel, Sally had two other suitors whom she refused; they too were never mentioned by name.
Much of Sally's journal is very typical of a person struggling for Christian identity in the Second Great Awakening. Her writing is filled with torment for what she believes to be her deplorable and offensive behavior in the eyes of God and the struggle through this emotional conversion. On an entry from August 31, 1815 she writes, "My birthday. An other [sic] year of my short life has closed, a few more setting suns or a few more years at most and I also shall close my pilgrimage and enter the grave the house appointed for the living." Her struggle with depression is evident in almost every entry. She writes on February 20, 1816, "Our family have all retired to rest and are now encircled in the embraces of Morpheus. I alone am up and continue to feel a strange restlessness to which of late I have ever been a stranger. The hours pass heavily away. To me all places are alike, in none am I satisfied."
Samuel was living and preaching in Sharon, Massachusetts during their correspondence.
It appears from her journal entry that Sally and Samuel became engaged in February
1817, "This morning _______ left me and will shortly return to Mass. I
shall probably see him no more at presant [sic]. A great distance will seperate
[sic] us for a long time. But a mutual exchange of thoughts by letters will
seem to shorten the hours. I have now placed myself in a situation, which is
in some respects new, but it does not make me unhappy. I now find myself under
the influence of a very strong attachment. It was long before I dare own this
to my own heart. But at length have been constrained to." The couple married
on June 17, 1818.