8 Several quantitative studies of religion in early America yield the following estimates of churches or meetings:
Denomination |
1650 |
1750 |
1775 |
1820 |
1850 |
Congregationalist |
62 |
465 |
668 |
1,096 |
1,706 |
Episcopalian |
31 |
289 |
495 |
600 |
1,459 |
Quaker |
1 |
250 |
310 |
350 |
726 |
Presbyterian |
6 |
233 |
588 |
1,411 |
4,824 |
Lutheran |
4 |
138 |
150 |
800 |
16,403 |
Baptist |
2 |
132 |
494 |
2,885 |
9,375 |
German Reformed |
0 |
90 |
159 |
389 |
2,754 |
Catholic |
6 |
30 |
56 |
124 |
1,221 |
Methodist |
0 |
0 |
65 |
2,700 |
13,280 |
Disciples |
0 |
0 |
0 |
618 |
1,898 |
Sources include: (1650): Edwin S. Gaustad, Historical Atlas of Religion in America (rev. ed. New York, 1976), 21-26; (1750 and 1820): unpublished research by Edward Richkind and Janice Bassil for the author; Howard K. Macauley, Jr., “A Social and Intellectual History of Elementary Education in Pennsylvania to 1850” (thesis, Univ. of Pa., 1972), II, 895-927; (1775): research directed by Marcus W. Jernegan for Charles O. Paullin, Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States (New York, 1932), 50; (1850): U.S. Census of 1850.
9 Historian Richard Vann finds that only one-third of English and Welsh emigrants to Pennsylvania carried certificates from Quaker meetings in Britain, and that less than 40% of Pennsylvania’s First Purchasers could be found in Quaker registers of vital events, or books of sufferings. He concludes that there were only about 2,000 “British Quaker emigrants in good standing” to Pennsylvania in the period 1681-99, but that many others were “attenders” or “sympathizers.” This estimate, as Vann himself is careful to point out, must be used with caution. It derives from records which were underregistered and regionally skewed. Most Quaker meetings kept no formal membership lists and the lines between “members,” “attenders” and “sympathizers” were very thin; see Vann, “Quakerism: Made in America?,” 157-72.
10 Edmund Peckover Journal, 1742-44, ms. HAV.
11Ibid.