Pioneer ProphetessAt the age of twenty four, the Rhode Island Quaker Jemima Wilkinson (1752 1819) recovered from a bout of fever with the pronouncement that she had been directed by a vision to preach to a "dying and sinful world." Announcing that Jemima had died and that her body now housed a new spirit, the Publick Universal Friend, this remarkably charismaticand notably scandal plaguedwoman gathered several hundred followers and settled to the west of Seneca Lake.