George Whitefield's family demand exhumation of remains, repatriation to UK; church won’t return
The great-great-niece of Great Awakening preacher George Whitefield wants his remains exhumed and sent back to England, a desire that appears unlikely to happen.
George Whitefield, an English Anglican was an itinerant preacher and evangelist who in the 1740s preached in a series of revivals that would be later called The Great Awakening. He frequently preached before large crowds throughout the American colonies and it is estimated that his sermons reached millions.
The evangelist died at age 55 in the parsonage of the Old South Presbyterian Church in Newburyport, Massachusetts. He was buried soon thereafter beneath the pulpit. In London, a funeral service was held for him at which John Wesley, the founder of Methodism and a contemporary of Whitefield's, preached.
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Yet according to Whitefield's great-great-niece, Vicki Kenderline, an American, the famed preacher wanted to be buried in England next to his wife and she claims that the historic church is ignoring his wish.
In a Tuesday interview with the Sunday Times (UK), Kenderdine said that soon after he died the church where he had preached his final sermons quickly buried him.
"By the time my family had gotten news of his death and traveled all the way up the coast, in the middle of winter, to collect his body, the people at this church, where he had preached only once, claimed his body as their own property," Kenderline said.
"It is my wish to go to Newburyport and finally collect my Uncle George’s body and fly him back to Gloucester, England, so he may rest in peace alongside his wife and only child . . . in the church he first preached in and attended as a child in school.”
Kenderline reportedly intends to raise approximately $50,000 (41,000 pounds) for this purpose.
Thus far, the church has shown no indication of releasing his remains to his ancestors, telling the outlet that Whitefield's dying wish was to be buried in the church crypt and that they have no authority to grant an exhumation.
This is not the first time that an exhumation of Whitefield has been attempted.
In 1770 several churches vied for his body, according to Sara Singleton, the pastor of Old South Presbyterian church.
Singleton is the first female pastor in the congregation's 271-year history and was installed in January of 2017. She noted that two local funeral directors were reportedly contacted last year and asked to exhume Whitefield's body, but that this was not something they were authorized to do.
A campaign in 1931 to have his body shipped back to England also failed.
