Jeremiah Hacker was a reformer and journalist who lived and wrote in Portland, Maine

Portland, Maine

Portland is the largest city in Maine and is the county seat of Cumberland County. The 2010 city population was 66,194, growing 3 percent since the census of 2000...

 from 1845 to 1866. Born in Brunswick, Maine

Brunswick, Maine

Brunswick is a town in Cumberland County, Maine, United States. The population was 20,278 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Portland-South Portland-Biddeford metropolitan area. Brunswick is home to Bowdoin College, the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, the Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum, , and the...

 to a large Quaker family, Hacker moved to Portland as a young adult where he worked as a penmanship

Penmanship

Penmanship is the technique of writing with the hand using a writing instrument. The various generic and formal historical styles of writing are called hands, whilst an individual personal style of penmanship is referred to as handwriting....

 instructor, a teacher, and a shopkeeper. Eventually he sold his shop in 1841 and took to the road as an itinerant preacher during the Second Great Awakening

Second Great Awakening

The Second Great Awakening was a Christian revival movement during the early 19th century in the United States. The movement began around 1800, had begun to gain momentum by 1820, and was in decline by 1870. The Second Great Awakening expressed Arminian theology, by which every person could be...

. He traveled through Maine

Maine

Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...

, telling people to leave their churches and seek their inner light

Inner light

Inner Light is a concept which many Quakers, members of the Religious Society of Friends, use to express their conscience, faith and beliefs. Each Quaker has a different idea of what they mean by "inner light", and this also varies internationally between Yearly Meetings, but the idea is often...

, or "that of God within."

Returning to Portland in 1845, he began writing and printing a reform journal called The Pleasure Boat

The Pleasure Boat

The Pleasure Boat was a reform journal published in Portland, Maine during the mid-nineteenth century by the Quaker reformer and journalist Jeremiah Hacker...

. He soon became known as an outspoken journalist who railed against organized religion, government, prisons, slavery

Slavery

Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...

, land monopoly, and warfare. Unhappy with how juvenile offenders were treated in the adult prisons, Hacker was influential in building public support for a Maine reform school

Reform school

A reform school in the United States was a term used to define, often somewhat euphemistically, what was often essentially a penal institution for boys, generally teenagers.-History:...

 which became the third in the country, after Philadelphia and Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

. Because of the culture of reform that existed in 19th-century New England

New England

New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...

, The Pleasure Boat

The Pleasure Boat

The Pleasure Boat was a reform journal published in Portland, Maine during the mid-nineteenth century by the Quaker reformer and journalist Jeremiah Hacker...

enjoyed wide circulation until the approach of the American Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

. On the brink of a war that many fellow reformers thought was unavoidable and morally justifiable, Hacker advocated pacifism

Pacifism

Pacifism is the opposition to war and violence. The term "pacifism" was coined by the French peace campaignerÉmile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress inGlasgow in 1901.- Definition :...

, and lost many readers. By 1864 he started another newspaper entitled The Chariot of Wisdom and Love

The Chariot of Wisdom and Love

The Chariot of Wisdom and Love was the second newspaper written and published by 19th-century reformer Jeremiah Hacker of Portland, Maine. Published between the years of 1864 and 1866, The Chariot of Wisdom and Love was a Spiritualist reform journal. The newspaper came to an end after the Great...

. After the Great Fire

1866 Great Fire of Portland, Maine

The Great Fire of Portland, Maine occurred on July 4, 1866 — the first Independence Day after the end of the American Civil War. Five years before the Great Chicago Fire, this was the greatest fire yet seen in an American city. It started in a boat house on Commercial Street, likely caused by...

 of 1866, Hacker left Portland and retired to a life of farming in Vineland, New Jersey

Vineland, New Jersey

Vineland is a city in Cumberland County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city had a total population of 60,724...

, where he died in 1895.