Hi... The information below is separated by source (in bold) and then the text from the source. I hope it helps explain the abundance of Lorenzo Dow's namesakes we all seem to have in our families! Jon Strickland Arlington, Virginia Herringshaw, Thomas William. Herringshaw's Encyclopedia of American Biography of the Nineteenth Century, Chicago, IL:American Publishers' Association, 1902. page 311 DOW, LORENZO, clergyman, author, was born Oct. 16, 1777, in Coventry, Conn. He was an eccentric methodist traveling preacher, especially vehement against the Jesuits. He was the author of Polemical Works; The Stranger in Charleston, or the Trial and Confession of Lorenzo Dow; A Short Account of a Long Travel; Journal and Miscellaneous Writings; and History of a Cosmopolite, an autobiographic work. He died Feb. 2, 1834, in Georgetown, D.C. Johnson, Rossiter, ed. Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, - Vol. I-X (10). Boston, MA: The Biographical Society, 1904. Dow, Lorenzo, pioneer Methodist, was born in Coventry, Conn., Oct. 16, 1777; son of Humphrey B. and Tabitha Dow. His education was limited to the instruction received at a district school. His early religious convictions led him to embrace the doctrines of the Methodists, although be was opposed by his parents in this as well as in his determination to become a preacher. In 1796 he applied for admission to the Connecticut conference, but was refused. The conference, however, received him in 1798, and in 1799 he was sent to Cambridge, N.Y., and after a few months was transferred to Pittsfield, Mass., and from there to Essex, Vt., all within one year. His conviction of a divine call to preach to the Roman Catholics in Ireland impelled him to visit that country and he sailed late in 1799. On his appearance in Ireland his eccentricities in dress and speech led hundreds to hear him and he was jeered and in many ways severely persecuted. He returned the next year to America, preaching in New York, Alabama and at Louisville, Ky., but in 1805 revisited both England and Ireland, where he instituted the camp-meeting. This custom was such an innovation that it led to controversy, resulting in the organization of the Primitive Methodists in England. After he left the first time for Ireland be severed his official connection both the ministry of the Methodist church, but continued to promulgate the prominent doctrines of Methodism throughout his life. His crusade against Roman Catholicism was especially directed against the Jesuits, whom he denounced as enemies to pure religion and to republican government. The prevalent opinion that he was of unsound mind detracted from the effect of his eloquence, and he was familiarly known as "Crazy Dow." He was, nevertheless, a powerful orator, speaking to men unaccustomed to listen to ordinary preaching and reaching out to the utmost borders of civilization in the south and west, where he awakened much controversy and serious thought. His wife, Peggy, to whom he was married in 1804, was his constant travelling companion. She died at Hebron, Conn., Jan. 6, 1820. In the same year he married Lucy Dolbeare. He was a voluminous writer and among his published books are: Polemical Works (1814); A Stranger in Charleston, or The Trial and Confession of Lorenzo Dow (1822); A Short Account of a Long Travel, With Beauties of Wesley (1823); Journal and Miscellaneous Writings, edited by John Dowling (1836); and History of a Cosmopolite, or Writings of the Rev. Lorenzo Dow, Containing His Experience and Travels in Europe and America up to Near His Fiftieth Year, also His Polemic Writings (1851), with numerous new editions. He died in Georgetown, D.C., Feb. 2, 1834. Eichholz, Alice, ed. Ancestry's Red Book, American State, County, and Town Sources. Rev. Ed. Salt Lake City, UT: Ancestry, Inc., 1992.    In 1803 Lorenzo Dow, who claimed to be a Methodist, did his first preaching in Alabama. Methodist missionaries were sent by the South Carolina Conference into the Tombigbee area in 1809. Today, some Methodist records for north Alabama churches are housed at Birmingham Southern College, and south Alabama church records are housed at Huntingdon College, Montgomery. Birmingham Southern College has a run of the state denominational newspaper, the Christian Advocate (1880–present).