Collection Details:

Collection Name and Number: Whitfield Harrington Manuscript (Z/0451).
Creator/Collector: Whitfield Harrington.
Date(s):  1861.
Size: 0.30 cubic feet.
Language(s): English.
Processed by: MDAH staff, March 22, 1961; Redescribed by William Smith, 2024.
Provenance: Gift of Mrs. Orrin Swayze, of Jackson, Mississippi, on March 22, 1961.
Repository: Archives & Records Services Division, Mississippi Department of Archives & History.

 

Rights and Access:

Access restrictions: Collection is open for research.

Publication rights: Copyright assigned to the MDAH. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to Reference Services. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the MDAH as the owner of the physical items and as the owner of the copyright in items created by the donor. Although the copyright was transferred by the donor, the respective creator may still hold copyright in some items in the collection. For further information, contact Reference Services.

Copyright notice: This material may be protected by copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code).

Preferred citation: Whitfield Harrington Manuscript (Z/0451), Mississippi Department of Archives & History.

 

Biography:

Whitfield Harrington

Whitfield Harrington, the son of Martha Walters (1789-1852) and Hezekiah Harrington (1785-1853), was born on December 3, 1829, in Amite County, Mississippi, and had nine siblings. His parents were originally from South Carolina and moved to Amite County by 1820.

Harrington married Isabella Morrison on August 5, 1851, in Newton County, Georgia. Isabella, born in Georgia in 1833, was the daughter of Mary Tabler Parker (1812-) and John Morrison (1790-1839). Whitfield and Isabella had the following children: Frank Harrington (1853-), Bert Harrington (1862-), Mary Bertha Harrington (1863-1920), Young Harrington (1867-), John Harrington (1868-), and Emile “Emma” Harrington (1871-1956). By 1870, the family lived near Camden in Madison County.

Whitfield Harrington joined the church when he was 19 years old in 1848. Studied at Emory College in Oxford, Georgia, in 1851, but does not appear in the 1852 catalogue. By October 1854 he was licensed to preach and was admitted into the Mississippi Conference of the Methodist Church. He served his ministerial duties in Starkville and Attala (Sharon District), in Greenville District, and in Jackson and Camden (Vicksburg District).

On January 8, 1861, at the proceedings of the Mississippi State Convention, Reverend Harrington opened the convention at 10 o’clock with a prayer. On the following day, January 9th, after the convention had voted to pass the Ordinance of Secession, Reverend Harrington offered the revised version of the prayer included in this collection, “A Prayer for the Newborn Republic.”

In Vicksburg in 1863, Harrington served as army missionary and agent for the Soldiers Tract Association, when the United States Army captured and held him prisoner. Harrington received injuries that he suffered from for the remainder of his life. After the Civil War, he served in Camden for four years and in Canton Station for one year. In 1873, he was an agent for Whitworth College in Brookhaven and that June he gave the commencement speech for the graduating class.

In 1872, Harrington, F.M. Featherstun, and W.H. Watkins signed and adopted a resolution “that the Mississippi Annual Conference do hereby request the Reverend John G. Jones to prepare for publication a complete History of Methodism, as connected with the Mississippi Conference.” Harrington was ordained as the tenth minister at Galloway United Methodist Church where he spent the remainder of his life preaching the gospel as a minister. He may have been part of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry, and served as agent for the State Grange of Mississippi. In January 1874, he gave an address at the Ball of Hazlehurst, Grange, No. 22.

Whitfield Harrington died on May 12, 1874, and was buried in the family burial-ground in the Georgeville Cemetery in Holmes County, Mississippi. In 1880, Isabella was still living in Camden with her three youngest children.

 

Scope and Content Note:

The manuscript consists of three handwritten pages of a prayer titled, “Prayer for the New-Born Republic” by Whitfield Harrington, possibly a draft of the prayer Harrington offered on January 9th, after the State Convention had voted to pass the Ordinance of Secession. The text is not identical to the transcribed version included in the Proceedings of the Mississippi State Convention Held January 7th to 26th, A.D. 1861, but it is very similar in context and language that it resembles a draft. The envelope that accompanied the manuscript includes text: "Original of Prayer offered by Mr. Harrington after the adoption of Ordinance of Secession of Mississippi, Jan. 9, 1861." The words “Rev. Dr. C.K. Marshall” and “May” are scratched out and replaced with “Mr. Harrington” and “Jan.,” respectively.

 

Series Identification:

Series 1: Manuscript, “Prayer for the Newborn Republic,” 1861.
The series consists of three pages of handwritten text accompanied by an envelope that originally held the manuscript.

Box 1, folders 1-2

 

Box List:

Box 1, Folder 1: Manuscript, “Prayer for the Newborn Republic,” 1861.
Box 1, Folder 2: Envelope, 1861