Jarena Lee is buried in an unmarked grave behind the church here. But who was she?
She was born a free woman in Cape May in 1783 and was sent away at the young age to become a house servant. While in Philadelphia as a teenager, she heard a sermon by Reverend Richard Allen. She had found religion and, after a deep spiritual struggle that pushed her to thoughts of despair and even suicide, was baptized into the church.
She was soon moved to preach, and shared this with Reverend Allen, but he told her that the Methodist Church did not allow for women preachers. She married a pastor here in Lawnside (then Snow Hill) in the early 1800s. While she was soon after given permission to hold prayer meetings and to speak after the sermon if invited by the pastor to do so, her husband did not want her to preach, so she refrained from doing so for the sake of her marriage. However in 1817, after the death of her husband, she was formally given permission by now Bishop Richard Allen to preach, becoming the first female preacher in the newly formed African Methodist Episcopal Church, the first independent black church in the United States. It was groundbreaking for a woman to be made a preacher in any church in the USA at that time, and she led the way for women of all color in this regard.
Jarena Lee began to tour the country to preach, traveling thousands of miles by foot and/or wagon in a single year and preaching , becoming a force in the Second Great Awakening then sweeping the United States. She also is known to have traveled to Canada to preach. However, as a woman and as an African American, she faced resistance wherever she traveled, becoming an early Civil Rights leader by necessity.
She left her life’s story in a book, The Life and Religious Experience of Jarena Lee, published in 1836, with a updated version, Religious Experience and Journal of Mrs. Jarena Lee, published in 1846. This was the first autobiography of an African American woman to be published in the United States.
Little is known of her life after the publication of her second book, but digging by Dr. Frederick Knight in archives discovered that she died penniless in Philadelphia in 1864. Nevertheless, she left a strong legacy in her wake as an early trailblazer for both African Americans and for women.
Mt Pisgah Church was first built in this location in 1808, building on a congregation that he first begun to meet here at Snow Hill in 1792. This is the third church at this location, this one having been built in 1911.
The cache is, of course, not located at these coordinates. At the given coordinates, you will find a memorial stone to Jarena Lee, which you will use (along with the informational sign located closer to the church building… see the secondary coordinates if you need help finding it, but it should be easy to find from the memorial stone). Use these two areas to help you find the final cache.
Coordinates are N 39° 52.AB2′ W 75° 02.CD4′
A = First number of the year she was posthumously ordained
B = number of the month she was posthumously ordained.
C = Number of books on the table in the picture on the monument
D = third number in the year women were first allowed a licesnse to preach in the AME church
Cache is only available during daylight hours, and not recommended for Sunday mornings. The cache is NOT located near and headstones, no need to disturb anything to find this. Please be respectful of the church and grounds.Parking not available along Warwick Road. Also, do not park on the dirt road through the graveyard, it's a driveway.