Free Genius of Place by Justin Martin

shepherd.”
    As a fresh New Haven revival got under way, during the spring of 1846, Mary Ann Olmsted’s fondest hope was that her stepsons would take full advantage. Here, at last, was an opportunity for the young men to achieve the pure faith that their father had never managed. She dashed off a letter to Olmsted’s brother: “I think there is nothing he [John Sr.] so much desires for Frederick and yourself as to see you firmly established in religious principles. I do not doubt he regrets exceedingly that he did not take a decided stand when young , and knowing from his own experience the difficulties to be encountered at a later period of life, he is the more anxious you should improve the present most favourable opportunity for securing your present and eternal happiness.” Mary Ann Olmsted signed the letter: “The prayer of your still anxious, Mother.”
    In keeping with her wishes, Olmsted attended the revival in New Haven. He sat through marathon sermons. Dutifully, he spent hours praying for the salvation of his soul, as well as for the souls of his brother and friends. They, in turn, spent hours praying for him. Elizabeth Baldwin was present at the New Haven revival. To his great pleasure, she focused her prayers intensely on him, his brother, and the others in their set—well, everyone save for Charley Brace. His faith was already confirmed as true and pure, so he joined forces with the virtuous Miss. B.
    Mary Ann Olmsted noted “how highly bless’d has Miss Baldwin been in her efforts for the good of others.”
    â€œThank God for Miss Baldwin,” exalted Olmsted. “What an angel she will make! How glad I am!”

    For Olmsted, the prim flirtation he shared with Miss B. along with his very soul hanging in the balance must have made for a heady—and bewildering—mix. He prayed all the more fervently. He uttered religious phrases that had never before and would never again pass through his lips. To his brother, he wrote, “I feel, John, that God’s fever attended me in New Haven.... I am much happier than ever before. My faith is much increased; it is surety.”
    Mostly, he sounds like a man trying to convince himself. At one point during the revival, he felt a terrible throbbing in his temple. Was this, he wondered, that divine signal at last? In the weeks afterward, he concluded that it was simply a headache. Like his father, Olmsted appeared constitutionally unable to fall “under conviction.” Maybe he’d experienced too much cruelty at the hands of country parsons, not to mention the hypocrisy of Captain Fox, never uttering a curse word while beating the holy hell out of his sailors.
    Even so, Olmsted’s New Haven experience didn’t cause him to reject religion outright. Rather, he found himself unable to meet a strict standard of faith in a highly organized setting. The revival didn’t stick. His romantic life wasn’t exactly progressing, either. When Olmsted requested that Miss B. enter into a formal correspondence with him, she demurred, deeming such an intimacy “neither right nor best.”
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    Fresh from this pair of personal setbacks, Olmsted dusted himself off, looked around, and, in what was becoming a clear pattern for him, simply lit out in a new direction. He decided to become a farmer, a choice that made great sense. As of 1846, America was an agricultural nation, and farming was the profession, occupying nearly 70 percent of the labor force. Along with surveyor, clerk, and sailor—all jobs he’d tried—this was another line open to someone with Olmsted’s “smattering education.” What’s more, he’d recently served two brief agricultural internships.
    Olmsted didn’t want to become just any kind of farmer, though. Inspired, in part, by his brief stint at Yale and the Infantile Chemistry Association, he decided to become a scientific farmer. He intended to