William Burke’s 1818 journey through New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey was a grueling but expansive mission to distribute Bibles and tracts. Setting out in June with a heavily loaded wagon, Burke distributed texts to a wide variety of communities, including soldiers at Greenbush, wilderness settlements along the Susquehanna River, and iron furnace workers in New Jersey. The trip was physically demanding, marked by treacherous terrain like the Tunkhannock Narrows and exhausting “mortar-like” sloughs where Burke resorted to prayer for the strength to continue.
Highlights of the journey included supplying French Bibles to escaped soldiers from Napoleon’s army, preaching to chained prisoners in a Wilkesbarre jail yard, and sharing his conversion story with hundreds of attendees at a Philadelphia Female Academy. Burke’s extensive mission was ultimately cut short in late September when he reached Long Island and received a letter informing him that his wife, Lettice, was dying. This prompted a hasty return home to East Haddam, arriving just days before she peacefully passed away.
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