History class gave us the big names from 1776. George Washington. Thomas Jefferson. Benjamin Franklin. But there was another remarkable figure moving through that same era, one most history books left out entirely.
They were known as the Public Universal Friend. And their story is unlike anything you have heard before.
A Life Changed by Fever
During the second year of the Revolutionary War, a person then known as Jemima Wilkinson fell gravely ill with a fever and slipped into a coma. When they awoke, they made a stunning declaration: Jemima was gone. A spirit sent from heaven now lived in that body, they said, one with no earthly gender. From that day forward, they went only by the name the Public Universal Friend.
This was 1776, a time of intense religious energy across the American colonies. The Great Awakenings had stirred up deep spiritual searching from New England to the frontier. Quakerism had grown into a major faith, and traveling preachers who visited Quaker communities were known simply as Friends.
The Public Universal Friend tried to speak at Quaker gatherings, but the Quaker Society of Friends rejected them, ejecting the entire Wilkinson family because of the Friend’s unconventional message. That rejection did not stop them.
A Movement Built on Welcome
The Friend began traveling across the northeast with their siblings, drawing followers wherever they went. People called the Friend “Comforter” or simply “P.U.F.” A new group took shape: the Society of Universal Friends.
This was no ordinary congregation. Many members were formerly enslaved people, unmarried women, and others who had found little welcome elsewhere. The Friend’s central promise was simple and powerful; there was room for everyone in heaven.
The Society rejected slavery outright. When slaveowners joined the group, the Friend persuaded many of them to free the people they had enslaved. The group also preached free will, universal salvation, celibacy, generosity, hospitality, and equal standing for women and men alike.
Controversy, Courts, and a New Community
As the Friend’s following grew, newspapers took notice, and not always kindly. Reporters fixated on the Friend’s gender presentation. When asked directly whether they were a man or a woman, the Friend answered with a phrase straight from scripture: “I am that I am.”
The prominence of women in leadership roles within the Society stirred up further controversy. By the late 1780s, the Friend and about 25 followers decided to seek a fresh start in the wilderness of upstate New York, near the Genesee River. By 1790, when the Friend arrived to settle there, around 300 people were already living on the land. The community later relocated to a place they called Jerusalem, New York.
The community faced real troubles. Internal tensions divided members. Former followers once tried to have the Friend arrested for blasphemy. The Friend escaped on horseback. When the case finally reached a judge, the ruling came down in the Friend’s favor, the judge declared that “blasphemy” in this context was not a punishable offense and then asked the Friend to deliver a sermon to the entire courtroom.
The Friend and a circle of devoted followers remained in Jerusalem until their death in 1819. Without their leader to hold things together, and torn apart by property disputes, the Society of Universal Friends soon dissolved.
Nearly 250 years later, the story of the Public Universal Friend still captivates historians and readers alike. It is a piece of American history that got left out of most textbooks, but one well worth knowing.