Tom Hamm and the Public Ministers: Priscilla Hunt Cadwallader
- windycooler
- Jul 15
- 6 min read
Priscilla Hunt Cadwallader: The Courage to Be Faithful Anyway
There are people in our tradition who seem to shine a little brighter across the centuries—not because they were perfect, or always right, or even universally beloved in their time, but because they were faithful. Priscilla Hunt Cadwallader is one of those people.
We’re, as always, grateful to historian Tom Hamm for bringing Priscilla’s story to colorful life in a recent talk as part of our Friends Incubator lecture series on historic Quaker ministers. What he shared isn’t just a biography—it’s a testimony. Priscilla’s life opens a window into the lived realities of public ministry among 19th-century Friends: its power, its cost, and its enduring relevance.
Let’s start at the beginning.
A Life Set Apart
Priscilla Coffin was born in 1786 in North Carolina, into a Quaker family with deep roots. Her father’s side came from Nantucket, her mother’s from Pennsylvania. Priscilla was a cousin of Levi Coffin, who would become known as the “President of the Underground Railroad,” and a distant relative of Lucretia Coffin Mott, the legendary Hicksite minister and women’s rights advocate.
But it was also Priscilla’s own life that would carve a powerful path through Quaker history.
In 1811, she married Jabez Hunt, the son of a well-known North Carolina minister, Nathan Hunt.
Their marriage lasted just over a year—Jabez died suddenly, leaving Priscilla with a newborn daughter. A few years later, she moved west with her family to southern Indiana, where she joined the Blue River Monthly Meeting.
And it was there that her public ministry began.
In 1817, Priscilla was recorded as a minister at just over 30 years old. Four years later, she began traveling widely, visiting meetings across New York, the Delaware Valley, and New England. Her powerful preaching and presence made her a beloved figure among many Friends—and a controversial one among others.
Because Priscilla wasn’t just ministering—she was saying things that many weren’t comfortable hearing.
The Spirit Over the Letter
Priscilla’s theology shared deep resonance with the ideas of Elias Hicks, though it seems she arrived at them independently. She warned against elevating Scripture over the living presence of the Spirit. She spoke of Christ not as an abstract theological figure, but as someone who had lived in full obedience to the Light within—a model and intercessor for us all, not a sacrifice for sin.
She preached that evil wasn’t a personified devil, but the tendency in every human being to choose what is not loving, not true. And that such evil could be overcome by the power of the Inner Light.
These were bold ideas in their time—and they got her in trouble.
She was accused of devaluing the Bible, of being too mystical, too free-thinking. Orthodox Friends bristled. But others were captivated. In 1823, Hicksite leader Thomas McClintock described her as “an uncommon woman… Her language is sublime, chaste, accurate and clear. She possesses true eloquence, for every word is full of feeling.”
He also noted that in company, she was quiet—almost shy—but that wherever she went, people crowded around her, drawn to the presence she carried.
Tom Hamm shared a particularly arresting passage from one of her sermons, delivered in Philadelphia in 1822. In it, she laments what she saw as dead ritualism among Orthodox Friends:
"You have forms, but deny the power of the Eternal Word... like the persecuting Jews of old, after stripping the body of Jesus, you contend for the raiment—little heeding that when torn from the prepared body, healing virtue no longer remained in it... Religion among you is substituted opinion—hence contentions, divisions, and subdivisions. In blind zeal and self-will, the blessed truth and its advocates are judged down..."
To preach like this—to call out the spiritual emptiness she saw, to lift up the living Spirit—was risky. But Priscilla didn’t flinch.
Scandal, Suffering, and the Limits of Community
In 1827, Priscilla remarried another recorded minister, Joseph Cadwallader. It was a disaster almost from the start. Joseph was, in a contemporary's words, “brutal and licentious.”
While Priscilla was away on an extended and approved ministry journey in 1829, she became seriously ill and was unable to return home for years. Meanwhile, Joseph’s behavior worsened.
By 1835, Indiana Yearly Meeting sent her a letter—essentially asking her to return to her husband or face consequences. The logic was clear: a good minister couldn’t also be a wife who "abandoned" her marital duties.
Joseph, however, was not exactly a model husband. He opened a store selling “spirits & liquors,” was discouraged from speaking in ministry, and was ultimately disowned by Friends in 1836. The next year, he filed for divorce, and under Indiana’s relatively liberal laws, he got it.
Here’s where it gets remarkable.
Despite the scandal, Priscilla’s meeting stood by her. Blue River Friends didn’t disown her. They didn’t even censure her. Instead, they published a pamphlet in her defense—“Truth and Innocency Defended”—affirming her character and her call as a minister. And they continued to hold her in good standing.
Even in a time when divorce was unthinkable for a Quaker, they made an exception. They saw her. They believed her. They stayed with her.
Tom reflects that Friends of that era simply didn’t have the tools or structures to support ministers through personal crises like this (and I might argue we still have a long way to go). But even then, grace made a way.
The Later Years and Legacy
It took nearly a decade after her divorce before Priscilla resumed extensive travel. In the early 1850s, well into her sixties, she made three long trips to the Northeast.
To some, she was an inspiring elder—a reminder of the "old school" of traveling ministers. To others, she seemed out of step with newer reform movements. Unlike her cousin Lucretia Mott, Priscilla wasn’t aligned with the more radical politics of her Hicksite peers.
Still, as Tom puts it, “Everyone loved her as a lovable person.”
She died in 1859, buried near the meetinghouse at Blue River. A quiet resting place for a life lived so visibly, courageously, and faithfully.
What We Can Learn
Priscilla Hunt Cadwallader’s life is more than a story—it’s a mirror held up to our own condition as Friends today. Here are just a few things she helps us see:
Ministry is costly. Priscilla gave her body, her reputation, and her comfort for the sake of a call. Public ministry is not abstract—it is deeply embodied.
Spiritual gifts need community recognition. Being recorded as a minister gave her both protection and weight. It’s worth asking what we offer ministers today in the way of discernment and support.
Theological tension isn’t new. Her convictions around the Inward Light, the person of Christ, and the nature of evil were central to the Hicksite-Orthodox divide. Sound familiar?
Personal lives are public. Ministers, especially women, are often judged not just on their message, but on their family roles. Her story challenges us to ask: What kind of care do we really offer when a minister’s personal life doesn’t fit the mold?
Meetings can choose love over discipline. Blue River Friends didn’t get it all right—but they got this right. They believed her. They backed her. They wrote it down.
Conviction carries. Priscilla didn’t echo the trends of her day—she preached what she knew in her bones. That courage is part of our inheritance.
Today, we may not all be traveling preachers or fiery sermonizers. But we are still called—called to hear and live out the Light that dwells within us. To speak it, even when it’s inconvenient. To support one another, even when it’s complicated. To build a Quakerism that can hold faithfulness and humanity.
Priscilla Hunt Cadwallader did just that.
May we, too, have the courage to be faithful anyway.
Tom is Emeritus Professor of History and Quaker Scholar in Residence at Earlham College. He is the presenter in an ongoing series of short lectures for Friends Incubator on his personal favorite public ministers in Quaker history. Next month, he will share about John Woolman, who might be thought of as a Quaker saint by some. Let's get to know him better. Earlier this month we covered George Fox, himself! You can find the recording: here.
If you enjoyed this lecture and want to support the series with Tom and our new work to support public ministry in the Religious Society of Friends, please consider a gift: here.
Audio for this series edited by Martin Oliver (Baltimore Yearly Meeting and Northern Yearly Meeting).
Upcoming Events at FriendsIncubator.Org!
July 22nd: Learn about the first cohort of the Friends Incubator for Public Ministry with convener Windy Cooler.
Are you challenged by the concept of public ministry in your meeting? Come learn about the Friends Incubator for Public Ministry’s inaugural cohort learning experience, designed for those called to public ministry, their elders, and their worshipping communities.
Aug 20th - Sept 17th: What can public ministers learn from the "prophetic imagination" as explored by theologian Walter Brueggemann, and how do we apply lessons gleaned from biblical prophets to our labors right now?
Join Jim Webner (South Central Yearly Meeting and Baltimore Yearly Meeting) in this excellent five-week drop-in course.
Jim (MDiv) is a Quaker spiritual director, educator, and former LGBTQ+ ministry leader at Stony Run Friends Meeting.
More here: https://www.friendsincubator.org/event-list
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