Peter Cartwright, an American clergyman, born in Amherst co., Ya., Sept. 1, 1785, died near Pleasant Plains, Sangamon co., 111., Sept. 25, 1872. His parents removed in his childhood to Kentucky, where about 1801 his religious zeal was aroused by an itinerant preacher, and he joined the Methodist Episcopal church. He was ordained as deacon in 1806, and as elder in 1808, and preached for many years to the backwoodsmen, upon whom his homely but forcible and earnest utterances produced a deep impression. In 1812 he was appointed a presiding elder, spent eight years in the old Wesleyan conference, four in the Kentucky, eight in the Tennessee, and over 45 years in the Illinois conference. He was a member of every quadrennial conference from 1816 to 1860, and again in 1868. He travelled 11 circuits and 12 presiding elders' districts; received more than 10,000 members into the church, baptized more than 12,000 persons, pronounced on an average four discourses a week for 33 years, and preached in all about 15,000 sermons.

His "Fifty Years a Presiding Elder," and the " Autobiography of Peter Cartwright, the Backwoods Preacher," edited by the Rev. W. P. Strickland (New York, 1856), furnish vivid pictures of the life of a frontier preacher.