AREA HISTORY:  Jesse Kersey, Peach Bottom Township, York County, PA

Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Kathy Francis

Copyright 2006.  All rights reserved.
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History of York County, Pennsylvania.  John Gibson, Historical Editor.
Chicago: F. A. Battey Publishing Co., 1886.
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JESSE KERSEY – Page 770

Jesse Kersey, an eminent minister of the Society of Friends, was born in York, eighth month, 
fifth day, 1768.  His father, William Kersey, who was clerk of the York and Warrington Meeting, 
was married to Hannah Bennett, daughter of Joseph Bennett, one of the first settlers in the 
vicinity of Lewisberry, this county.  Jesse Kersey went to Philadelphia in 1784 to learn the 
trade of a potter, but was a constant and devoted student of sacred literature.  In 1789 he 
became a teacher in Chester County; in 1790 was united in marriage with Elizabeth Coates, moved 
to York, and pursued his trade until 1794; the following year he traveled a distance of 1,700 
miles in three months, through Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina, and until 1804 spent most 
of his time traveling in America, visiting Friends and preaching.  In the latter year he 
visited England and Ireland, returned home in 1805, and became a prominent preacher of the 
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting.  In 1814 he visited the South under a concern in especial relation 
to American slavery and the mode of deliverance from its evil consequences.  On his return he 
visited President Madison, to whom he presented his views on this subject, and was received by 
the president with great cordiality.  He then continued his travels through Virginia, holding 
meetings and discussing the great question of human bondage.  On account of his kind and 
persuasive manner he was treated courteously even by his strongest opponents.  He continued to 
preach until his death in Chester County, in the fall of 1845.  Jesse Kersey was a man of 
remarkable purity and simplicity of character, and is declared “to have gone to his grave with 
the benedictions of many thousands who knew him, and without the enmity of one living being.”  
He was a man of extraordinary endowments, and one of the ablest and most eloquent speakers 
among the Society of Friends.  Immense congregations always greeted him on his travels, as his 
fame had gone before him.  There was a dignity and nobleness about him that always commanded 
respect, and gave evidence of an exalted aim.  Says an able writer, “no more gratified and 
impressive powers of sacred eloquence have been heard in America or England than those which 
proceeded from the lips of Jesse Kersey.”