Adam Shoemaker - The Emancipation Preacher

Adam Shoemaker was a courageous preacher and teacher whose commitment to abolition helped shape Abraham Lincoln’s vision of freedom.

Adam was born in 1779 in Westmoreland, Pennsylvania. His father, John Shoemaker, was a Revolutionary War veteran with the Westmoreland Rangers, and his mother, Catherine Hoover, was just eighteen when Adam was born. In 1801, Adam married Catherine Kate Hoosier in Kentucky, and together they had at least fifteen children, six sons and nine daughters.

Though Kentucky was a slave state, Adam was firmly against slavery. The thought of it was so abhorrent to him that, in 1814, he crossed the Ohio River into Rome, Indiana, even before Indiana officially gained statehood. He bought a farm there, and after his father’s death, his mother, brothers, and sisters all joined him in Indiana. By settling in free territory, Adam ensured his family lived by his principles.

In his new community, Adam worked as both a teacher and preacher. He taught school in Troy, Indiana, where he influenced many young minds, including a boy who would later become one of America’s most famous leaders: Abraham Lincoln. Adam also became the third minister at the Little Pigeon Creek Baptist Church, which the Lincoln family attended after moving to Indiana in 1816.

As both teacher and minister, Adam used every opportunity to speak out against slavery. His sermons were fiery and passionate, condemning Southern slaveholders, Northern traders, and even Hoosiers who ignored Indiana’s anti-slavery laws. His uncompromising stance and belief in emancipation earned him the nickname “The Emancipation Preacher.”

Lincoln’s stepmother, Sarah Bush Johnson, remembered how much young Abraham admired Reverend Shoemaker. She often saw the boy stand on a stump to deliver pretend sermons to other children, repeating Shoemaker’s words nearly word-for-word and copying his gestures and tone. These early influences helped shape Lincoln’s lifelong opposition to slavery and his conviction that all people deserved freedom.

After 1820, Adam moved with his family to Section 20 on Hurricane Creek, where he built his own Baptist church. He continued his ministry there, spreading his anti-slavery message and serving as a spiritual leader to the frontier community. His home, a simple log cabin, stood about half a mile from the church. Though the church is long gone, Adam lies in its old cemetery, surrounded by oak trees.

Reverend Shoemaker died in 1849 at age seventy, but his words lived on in the memory of Abraham Lincoln. Over a decade later, when Lincoln was on his way to his inauguration in 1861, he met Senator John C. Shoemaker, Adam’s nephew. Lincoln told him, “It was a teacher, Adam Shoemaker, who started me on the road to opposing slavery.” That remark revealed just how much Adam’s teaching had shaped him.

In 1863, Lincoln would issue the Emancipation Proclamation, a turning point in American history that led to the final abolition of slavery at the end of the Civil War. While Adam never lived to see it, his sermons helped lay the foundation for Lincoln’s moral convictions. Today, Adam’s restored cabin still stands along State Road 66 in Indiana, a reminder of the preacher whose words helped inspire a president to free millions.

Adam Shoemaker was more than a frontier preacher; he was a man of conscience, courage, and faith. His fight against slavery and his influence on Abraham Lincoln made him a hidden but vital figure in America’s path toward justice.

References:
“Reverend Adam Shoemaker.” FamilySearch.Org, ancestors.familysearch.org/en/KJZG-8VB/reverend-adam-shoemaker-1779-1849.
“Adam Shoemaker (1779-1849).” Find a Grave, www.findagrave.com/memorial/27300876/adam-shoemaker.
FamilySearch.Org, www.familysearch.org/service/records/storage/das-mem/patron/v2/TH-303-40746-392-16/dist.txt?ctx=ArtCtxPublic.

Key words:
Civil Rights, Justice, Courage, Conscience, Freedom, Responsibility, Challenge Injustices, Stand Up for Your Beliefs