to Enoch and Lydia (Ingalls) Mudge, he was converted under Jesse Lee, the pioneer of Methodism in New England, and entered the ministry in 1793.
[1] He labored as an itinerant preacher in Maine until 1799, when his health gave way and he was forced to retire.
[2] In 1811 he had much to do with passing the "Religious Freedom Bill,"[3] which repealed a law requiring Massachusetts taxpayers of any denomination to pay taxes to support the Congregational Church.
In 1814 he was chaplain to a Maine militia regiment that participated in the Battle of Hampden during the War of 1812.
There Herman Melville heard him preach, and Mudge was one of the models for the character of Father Mapple in Moby-Dick.