Some of America’s political and social identity today can be traced to the early frontier. After 1801 religion exploded across settlements in the Old Northwest and Kentucky. Not only were souls saved through camp meetings, but regular people also began applying the words “equal” and “independent” to themselves. The life of Eli P. Farmer, a circuit-riding preacher, politician, farmer, and businessman, is instructive. His autobiography includes accounts of Native Americans, brawls, flatboats, settlers, and revival meetings. Setting his story within the context of the Second Great Awakening, author Riley B. Case shows how Farmer’s life personified this religious movement, which gave birth to American evangelicalism, as well as values that would become idyllic to many Americans: self-sufficiency and individualism.

Riley B. Case grew up in Indiana and earned master’s degrees in divinity and the liberal arts. For forty-three years he was a United Methodist pastor in Indiana. A prolific author, Case has written for United Methodist church publications and authored several books, including Evangelical and Methodist: A Popular History (2004), Understanding Our New United Methodist Hymnal (1989), and other fiction and nonfiction titles.