Jerusha and her siblings were baptized by the Reverend Jacob Bigelow, minister of the First Parish Church in Sudbury from 1772-1816. Jerusha’s parents, Adam Howe, Sr. and Jerusha Balcom Howe, accepted the Sudbury First Parish Covenant on August 27, 1797, several weeks after Jerusha’s birth.

1797 is also the year a new church building was built in Sudbury on the site of the original, where it served as both a church and a meeting house. Separation of church and state would not be recognized until after 1846, when at that time Sudbury built a new Town Hall next door to First Parish Church and matters of town governance were divided from worship service.

In her journal, Jerusha occasionally shows glimpses of piety as she records poems and quotations of a religious nature, referencing Christ and alluding to a belief in heaven.

Jerusha may have also cultivated a penchant for philanthropy while away at school. Her charitable work for the poor is reflected in her journal, where she alludes to her faith and in which she copied passages written by religious leaders, such as Reverend David Stoner and Reverend Peabody (of Springfield), and writers like Lydia Huntley Sigourney, known for her commitment to education, writing, and charity as means to self-betterment.