1828 EBENEZER CHEEVER. Preacher Suffering Medical & Emotional Strain Looking to Leave Ministry.

August 2, 1828. Rev. Ebenezer Cheever of Hoosick, New York, to Dr. Daniel Adams of Mount Vernon, New Hampshire.

Rev. Ebenezer Cheever writes to Dartmouth graduate and medical doctor, Daniel Adams of Mount [Mont] Vernon, New Hampshire. He has apparently consulted him regarding ongoing medical issues.

My health has remained much as when I saw you. I have preached one sermon since I came home, but great faint in midst of it and was obliged to sit down. My heart at that moment, by a violent palpitation, ran far away from its own beat. 

He is contemplating leaving the ministry since this heart issue is at its most severe when speaking. He wants a note from the Doctor to use with his congregation at the appropriate time and is seeking connections for potential openings to teach classics or literature or similar, where he might lecture a few hours a week, but otherwise be retired and not need to use his voice. Something must have resolved. In 1834 we have record he took charge of the First Presbyterian Church of Newark, N. J., which under his administration, for twelve years, greatly prospered. About 1847 he accepted a call to the Presbyterian Church in Tecumseh, Michigan; in 1851 he received a call to Ypsilanti, and in 1855 returned to New Jersey, and established Hillside Seminary. He died Dec. 31, 1866.

1 folio page, stained as shown, but legible.