Evarts, Jeremiah, 1781-1831

American missionary, reformer and activist for the rights of Native Americans and a leading opponent of the Indian removal policy; treasurer and corresponding secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.

Jeremiah Evarts (February 3, 1781-May 10, 183 1) was a New England lawyer and philanthropist who abandoned his law career to become publisher of the Congregationalist paper Panoplist. Evarts was one of the founders of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and was the editor to the board's paper, Missionary Herald. In 1798, he graduated from Yale College and he received his Masters degree from Yale in 1805. In 1810, he assumed editorship of the Panoplist and devoted himself entirely to missionary work. He was a manager of the American Bible Society and vice-president of the American Education Society. On several occasions he visited the south and investigated the condition of the Indian tribes east of the Mississippi. He was strongly opposed to the removal of Cherokees to western reservations and wrote numerous essays condemning state and federal governments for their treatment of the Indians. The National Intelligence published his Essays on the Present Crisis in the Condition of the American Indians in 1929. The Jeremiah Evarts diary reflects on his continuing health problems and foreshadows his death from consumption in Charleston, South Carolina, while on his way home from a stay in Cuba where he had gone on a quest to restore his health.

The Dwight mission was named after Timothy Dwight who was president of Yale College. Cephas Washburn was from Vermont and he traveled to Arkansas in 1820 with Alfred Finney. Finney married Washburn's sister, Susanna.

Lawyer and philanthropist.

Lawyer, editor, and philanthropist.

Jeremiah Evarts (1781-1831) was a lawyer and philanthropist of Charlestown, Mass.