Jesse Babcock Worden was born in Richmond, Rhode Island, in 1787, the youngest child of John and Elizabeth Worden and grand-nephew of Massachusetts pastor Peter Worden. He received only a minimal education in Rhode Island as a child, and following his father’s death around 1803, he left home to pursue a mercantile career, first in Connecticut and after 1808 in New York. In 1812-13 he served with the New York State Militia during the War of 1812. After being discharged from service, he moved to Sangerfield, New York, where he married Hanna Norton in late 1813; they had 5 children. Irreligious during much of his young adulthood, Worden had a strong conversion experience and was baptized in 1816. He subsequently chose to enter the ministry, and began preaching in Marcellus, New York, where he was ordained in 1819. While serving as a minster in Marcellus, Worden was also commissioned as a missionary several times by the Baptist Missionary Convention of New York, including to Northern Pennsylvania in 1825 and Ohio in 1832. In 1835 Worden was called to Montrose, Pennsylvania, where he had worked as a missionary, to serve the Bridgewater Baptist Church – for three years as co-pastor alongside Davis Dimock, and then for six years as sole pastor. In 1844 he moved again to become pastor of the Jackson Baptist Church in Jackson, Pennsylvania, where he remained until his death in 1855. Information retrieved from William Sprague, Annals of the American Baptist Pulpit, 1860. Volume available at ABHS.