The Kingdom of Matthias: A Story of Sex and Salvation in 19th Century America

Elijah Pierson grew up in rural New Jersey in a strict Calvinist tradition. Unlike Matthews, he was raised in a prosperous Calvinist community, and like many young men of his generation, he moved to New York City to seek his fortune as a merchant. Pierson was weak, gullible and easily influenced. He worked hard in New York and eventually started a successful business on Pearl Street, becoming a prosperous trader who was well-respected in both business and evangelical circles.

Initially, he became involved with the Finneyite movement and then with the Perfectionist evangelical movement. After marrying his wife, both Pierson and his wife Sarah, joined the Retrenchment movement, which advocated the avoidance of luxury in dress, diet and furnishings. Pierson and Sarah were happily married and form a powerful husband-and-wife evangelical team; together, they established and ran several missionary outreach programs to help the poor.

However, when Sarah died of consumption in 1832, Pierson's grief drove him to madness and he became delusional. He started to hear voices and to have prophetic visions, making him vulnerable to manipulation. When they first met, Pierson believed that Matthews was a true prophet of God. Pierson abandoned his own church leadership position to serve Matthews, providing Matthews with money, lodging, and countless hours of service. Using his hard-earned wealth and influence, he established and funded Matthews’s Kingdom and became one of Matthews’s first and most dedicated followers. Pierson began to suffer from violent seizures, the last of which kills him, in part due to the fact that Matthews refused to provide Pierson with medical attention.

Benjamin Folger was a successful merchant and an associate of Elijah Pierson's. Like Pierson, Folger became convinced that Matthews was truly a prophet. He provided Matthews with financial support after Pierson cut him off and moved Matthews and his followers to his estate, which Matthews renamed Mount Zion. Folger was an opportunist and a womanizer, and he took full advantage of the sexual promiscuity encouraged at the Kingdom. He had a sexual relationship with Matthews’s daughter Isabella, as well as with Catherine Galloway and his wife Ann, even after she “unmarried” him in order to marry Matthews.

When the Kingdom fell apart, Benjamin falsely accused Matthews of theft. He also did everything he could to save his own reputation by stirring up public sentiment against Matthews and the Kingdom. He started rumors that Matthews and his servant, Isabella Van Wagenen, poisoned Pierson and defended his own actions by taking out advertisements in the newspapers.

Ann Folger was Benjamin Folger’s wife. Like her husband, she fell under Matthews’s spell and joined his Kingdom. At the Mount Zion estate, she became attracted to Matthews, and he to her. Matthews decreed Ann's Christian marriage void, and married her in a Kingdom ceremony, giving her the title of Mother of the Kingdom. Ann gave birth to a baby girl at the time of Matthews’s trial, and Matthews was almost certainly the father. When the Kingdom collapsed, she returned to her marriage to Benjamin Folger.

Isabella Van Wagenen was a former slave turned housekeeper, first to Pierson and then Matthews. She remained Matthews’s most loyal disciple to the end of his days as a prophet. Though she believed wholeheartedly that Matthews was a prophet, she saw his attraction to Ann as a weakness and a test of his faith—one that he fails. Along with Matthews, she was accused of murdering Pierson; they were both found not guilty. After the trial, Isabella successfully sued Benjamin Folger for slandering her and for falsely implicating her in Pierson’s death. She left Matthews and went to New England to join the Abolitionist and Suffragette movements, taking the name Sojourner Truth. Unlike Matthews, she left a remarkable historical legacy.