The East-West Divide and Frontier Efforts of the Reverend Dr. Joseph Doddridge

Abstract

Pennsylvania historians today rarely mention the Rev. Dr. Joseph Doddridge (1769–1826) despite his contributions as a historian, horticulturalist, author, physician, and clergyman probably best known for his first-hand account entitled Notes on the Settlement and Indian Wars of the western parts of Virginia and Pennsylvania, 1763–1783. Following his formative years at his family fort in Washington County, Doddridge contributed to development on the trans-Allegheny frontier. Despite his numerous contributions to documenting regional history, founding churches, nearly becoming first Episcopal bishop of Ohio, and cultivating civic life along the headwaters of the Ohio, Doddridge has largely vanished from accounts of Episcopalian church history. His absence reflects bias in favor of bishops and East Coast viewpoints. By starting one generation too late, Episcopalian historians favored eastern regional narratives of American history by ignoring Doddridge and championing the Philadelphia-based Rev. Jackson Kemper and the Rev. Philander Chase of Hartford, Connecticut.