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Welcome to the Harry Hoosier Project

Welcome to the Harry Hoosier ProjectWelcome to the Harry Hoosier ProjectWelcome to the Harry Hoosier Project

Fayetteville, NC

Methodist Church in Fayetteville, NC the town where Harry Hoosier (aka Hosier) was born in 1750

    Atlanta, GA

    Hoosier Memorial UMC in Atlanta, GA named after Harry Hoosier

      Orlando, FL

      Bust at Harry Hosier Institute Asbury Theological Seminary in Orlando, FL

        Falls Church, VA

        Oakwood Cemetery in Falls Church, VA where Harry Hoosier gave his famous "Barren Fig Tree" Sermon 5-13-1781

          Chapeltown, DE

          Thomas Chapel in Kent County, Delaware where in 1784 Harry Hoosier became the first black preacher to deliver a sermon to an all white congregation. 

            John Street Methodist Church, New York City

            Outside John Street Methodist Church in New York City the site where on 9-11-1786 Harry Hoosier gave a sermon to over 1000 people after becoming the first  preacher to be highly acclaimed in a NYC newspaper.

              Miscellaneous Photos

              Former Harry Hoosier Hall located at a church camp in Waveland, MS was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005

                Philadelphia, PA

                Zoar Church plaque at the corner of 4th and Brown Streets in Philly. This was Harry Hoosier's burial site in 1806 but no grave stone has been found.

                  Historic St. George's United Methodist Church Philadelphia

                  Historic St. George's United Methodist Church operating continuously since 1769 houses Methodist archives and was frequently visited by Harry Hoosier.

                    What is a Hoosier?

                    Indiana Historical Society 2nd floor wall mural

                      In Summary

                       The term ‘Hoosier’ was popularized across Indiana with the publication of Finley’s poem in 1833.  Harry Hoosier died in 1806 and Finley knew of the word before he wrote his famous poem.  The brother of Finley’s grandfather helped raise Dr. Benjamin Rush who was a Founding Father and signer of our Declaration of Independence.  Rush stated accounting for his illiteracy, Hoosier was “the greatest orator in America”.  

                       

                      According to Wabash College Professor Stephen Webb:


                      It is probably no coincidence that the derogatory use of the term Hoosier begins to appear at the time of Hoosier’s ministry.  His congregations were rural and unsophisticated, and they mixed the races, two characteristics that would have prompted hostility and ridicule.

                      On the Appalachian frontier the term Hoosier became slang for people who were uneducated, so uneducated that they would follow a black minister. Later, as the term migrated west from Virginia and the Carolinas to Tennessee, and then North to Indiana, it came to mean simply someone who was uncouth or ignorant.  As Piersen suggests, the greater number of Methodists in Indiana than in southern states helps to explain how the term finally found its home.  In the end, the racial connotations were gradually stripped away and lost to history.


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