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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
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 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
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GEORGE GREY BARNARD'S LOUISVILLE LINCOLN 
 
 (■Copyright Photograph by Caufield and Shook, Louisville. 
 
 And used by special permission.) 
 
In The Ohio Valley 
 
 by 
 
 LUCIEN V. RULE 
 
 With Historic Summaries by 
 
 REV. CHAS. R. ERDMAN, D. D. 
 
 REV. THORNTON WHALING, D. D. 
 
 REV. HENRY VAN DYKE, D. D. 
 
 REV. WARREN H. WILSON, D. D. 
 
 PRESS OF 
 
 BRANDT & FOWLER 
 
 LOUISVILLE. KY. 
 
 1927 
 
Copyright 1927 
 
 by 
 
 LUCIEN V. RULE 
 
1Z0.071 
 
 •Tb my Friend 
 OTTO A. <ROTHERT 
 
Chapter Contents and Subject Index 
 
 The Basis of Abiding Union XII 
 
 The Log- Cabin and the Log College XVII 
 
 How the Ohio Valley Was Settled XX 
 
 I. FORERUNNERS OP LINCOLN 3 
 
 Forerunners and Restorers 4 
 
 II. My Romancer and Social Hero 6 
 
 III. The Old Louisville Presbytery 10 
 
 The Old Goshen Church 10 
 
 Dr. Crowe is Ordained 11 
 
 Fox Run Meeting House 11 
 
 IV. Gideon Blackburn and the Log Colleges of Long Ago 13 
 
 Gideon Blackburn and Grandmother Snowden 14 
 
 The First Log College and its Founder 15 
 
 Education and Regeneration 17 
 
 Gideon Blackburn's Log College and Teacher 18 
 
 Wisdom in the Backwoods 18 
 
 The School of Hardship 19 
 
 V. John Finley Crowe, Hanover College and Old Vernon Church 20 
 
 An Old-Time Home-Coming 20 
 
 Shying Off the Amen Corner 21 
 
 John Finley Crowe Described 23 
 
 Comes to Hanover 23 
 
 Early Religious Awakening- 25 
 
 Educated on Whiskey Money 26 
 
 "Whom. Having Not Seen, We Love" 26 
 
 Paying for an Education Long Ago 27 
 
 Old-Time Communion Meetings 27 
 
 Raising Money for Old Hanover 2 7 
 
 Murder of Prof. Butler 28 
 
 VI. THE GREATEST OF ALL KENTUCKIANS 30 
 
 VII. The Father of America's Greatest Sculptor 34 
 
 The Sculptor's Vision of Love and Death 34 
 
 The Mother Memories of a Great Father 35 
 
 Preaching His Own Mother's Funeral 36 
 
 The Love Side of Calvinism 37 
 
 VIII. Barnard's Own Story of His Louisville Lincoln 38 
 
 IX. Doctor Barnard As the Author Saw Him. . .\ 42 
 
 X. "A Sculptor's Dream" 46 
 
 XL Lincoln's Pastor in Springfield 51 
 
 Life of Rev. Jaimes Smith, D. D 5 5 
 
 XII. THE FIRST GREAT FORERUNNERS 59 
 
 The College and University 63 
 
 John Finley Crowe 64 
 
 Dr. Crowe and Dr. Blackburn 65 
 
 XIII. Parson John Todd and the Charlestown and Goshen Churches 66 
 
 The Jane Todd Romance 67 
 
 The Oldham Todds 67 
 
 Parson Todd's Pastorate 6S 
 
 Parson Todd the Educator 69 
 
 Tragedy of Parson Todd's Ministry 69 
 
 XIV. New Traditions of the Old Charlestown Church 71 
 
 Investigation by Pastor Hurst 72 
 
 James Vance 12 
 
 More About Jonathan Jennings 73 
 
 Thomas CI eland and Zachary Taylor 74 
 
 XV. The Romance of Samuel Snowden and Beautiful .lane Todd.. 75 
 
 Lines to a Lady 79 
 
 Selected for Miss Todd 79 
 
 The Parting Hour SO 
 
 Acrostic for Miss I. J. T Sit 
 
 XVI. Parson Todd Passes into History 84 
 
 Story of John Todd, Senior 84 
 
 John Todd, Junior 85 
 
 Dr. Edson Speaks for John Todd 86 
 
 The Case of Rev. James Moore 87 
 
 John Todd, the Scholar S7 
 
 A Lost Spiritual Portrait 87 
 
 XVII. Archibald Cameron and John Finley Crowe 89 
 
 VI 
 
Chapter Contents and Subject Index — Continued 
 
 XVIII. David Nelson, A Forerunner of First Rank 90 
 
 The Conflict with French Infidelity 91 
 
 XIX. Slavery and the Old and New School Struggle 95 
 
 XX. The Clergy of Old Virginia and New England 9 7 
 
 XXI. THE OLD SETTLERS' MBETIN' 102 
 
 The Orators of the Day 103 
 
 "Uncle Dan" Makes a Hit 103 
 
 Inspiration and Perspiration 104 
 
 The Honorable Spreadeagle 105 
 
 Congressman and Collegian 106 
 
 XXII. Freemasonry and Human Freedom 10S 
 
 Indiana 109 
 
 The Jennings Family 110 
 
 The Jennings Brothers 110 
 
 A School of the Frontier 112 
 
 XXIII. The Teacher of Jonathan Jennings 113 
 
 Judge Addison, the Poor Boy's Friend 113 
 
 The Boy Who Malkes the Man 114 
 
 Jonathan Jennings Goes to Indiana 115 
 
 "No Slavery in Indiana" ...! 116 
 
 XXIV. A Memorable Race for Congress) 118 
 
 Jonathan Jennings and Thomas Carr 119 
 
 XXV. Obadiah Jennings 121 
 
 Thomas and Alexander Campbell 122 
 
 Obadiah Jennings and Alexander Campbell 122 
 
 The Closing Years 123 
 
 Samuel K. Jennings 124 
 
 The Monument to Governor Jennings 124 
 
 Tragedy of the Two Jenningis Brothers 125 
 
 XXVI. THE OLD MT. TABOR CAMP MEETING 129 
 
 XXVII. John M. Dickey 134 
 
 XXVIII. Address at the Funeral of Rev. Ninian S. Dickey 137 
 
 Rev. N. S. Dickey 140 
 
 XXIX. The Father of Hoosier Home Missions 143 
 
 XXX. Rev. Ninian S. Dickey's Reminiscences of Rev. Henry Little 148 
 
 XXXI. PAGEANT EPISODES OF OLD VERNON TOWN 153 
 
 The Vawter Pioneers 153 
 
 Rev. Jesse Vawter ' 154 
 
 John Vawter of Vernon 156 
 
 Pageant Scenes of Indian Days 156 
 
 XXXII. Indian Terror of 1812 Across the River 158 
 
 XXXIH. Old Academy and High School in Vernon 167 
 
 Backwoods Ignorance Long Ago 167 
 
 Old Graham Church 168 
 
 Rocky Soil and Rugged Men 168 
 
 Early Baptist Teachers ■ 169 
 
 Hanover Sends Teachers to Vernon 170 
 
 William H. Venable, Poet-Teacher 171 
 
 Albert Edward Wig-gam .' 172 
 
 XXXIV. The Rod and the Child 175 
 
 XXXV. The Ward-Butler Tragedy 179 
 
 XXXVI. Guilty or Not Guilty? 183 
 
 XXXVII. A House Not Made With Hands 1S5 
 
 For Rank and File 185 
 
 George Shideler's Dream 1SG 
 
 A New Generation : 188 
 
 XXXVIII. THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 190 
 
 XXXIX. Bluegrass Abolitionists 195 
 
 Testimony of John Mason Brown 195 
 
 The Man Who Made Kentucky a Slave State 196 
 
 The Preachers and the Politicians 196 
 
 And a Friend of Thomas Jefferson 197 
 
 Another Forerunner Raised Up 197 
 
 A Church of Bluegrass Abolitionists 197 
 
 John Rankin Measures Up 199 
 
 Heroic Records Restored 199 
 
 Rev. John Rankin and Rev. John Rule 200 
 
 VII 
 
Chapter Contents and Subject Index — Continued 
 
 XL. Rev. John Rankin, Southern Apostle of Abolition 201 
 
 His Religious Awakening- 203 
 
 Educated under Dr. Doak 203 
 
 His Marriag-e 203 
 
 Sojourn in Kentucky 204 
 
 Apostle of Abolition 204 
 
 His Famous '"Letters On Slavery" 205 
 
 Other Notable Articles 205 
 
 Helps Mrs. Stowe with "Uncle Tom's Cabin" 206 
 
 Suffering- for Freedom 207 
 
 Last Days and Death 209 
 
 Sources 209 
 
 XLI. Lyman Beecher and Charles G. Finney 210 
 
 Rise of Charles G. Finney 211 
 
 Theodore Weld — The Young Abolitionist 214 
 
 XLII. Henry Ward Beecher at Lawrenceburg 217 
 
 Value of the Village Church 217 
 
 New Lamps and Hymn Books 221 
 
 His First Revival 222 
 
 First Sermon On Slavery 222 
 
 XLIII. The Beecher-Wilson Battle Over Old School and New 224 
 
 Youth and the Aftermath of War 22 1 
 
 Studying the Great Struggle 224 
 
 Saimuel R. Wilson 225 
 
 Lyman Beecher Meets his Antagonist 227 
 
 Joshua Lacy Wilson 227 
 
 Sbory of "Old Silver Fist" 227 
 
 Young- Wilson Awakens 228 
 
 How Lyman Beecher Came to Lane Seminary 229 
 
 Dr. Wilson Goes With the Old School 230 
 
 The Battle Royal Begins 231 
 
 Judge Wilson's Strong Defense 231 
 
 XLIV. Inside Story of the Old and New School Struggle 234 
 
 Dr. Wilson Called to Cincinnati 234 
 
 The Old First Church 235 
 
 Mutterings of the Coming Storm 236 
 
 Dr. Wilson's Son His Armor-Bearer 237 
 
 The Old School Adds a Champion 23 7 
 
 The Wilson-Beecher Battle Renewed 238 
 
 George Beecher Encounters Trouble 238 
 
 Albert Barnes Writes to Lyman Beecher 240 
 
 Beecher and Barnes Counsel Moderation 241 
 
 Dr. Beecher Acquitted: The Storm Breaks 242 
 
 XLV. The Abolition Crisis Comes 243 
 
 The Passing- of Colonization 244 
 
 Garrison Strikes the Slave Trade 244 
 
 The Voice of a Prophet 24 4 
 
 The South Aroused to Resist 245 
 
 The Irrepressible Conflict 24 7 
 
 XLVI. And There Stood Andrew Jackson 24 s 
 
 Rev. John Todd Edgar 249 
 
 Story of a Great Sermon 252 
 
 A Memorable Communion Service 252 
 
 The Crisis Over Slavery 253 
 
 A Famous Defense of Slavery 254 
 
 Andrew Jackson and the Federal Union 256 
 
 A Question of Social Conscience 257 
 
 XLVII. Cassius M. Clay, John G. Fee and Berea College. . 259 
 
 Cassius Clay and Wm. Lloyd Garrison 261 
 
 Beginnings of Berea College 2 64 
 
 Rev. John G. Fee 265 
 
 XLVIII. Dr. Samuel R. Wilson's Story of "The Declaration and Tes- 
 timony" 267 
 
 After Lincoln's Assassination 2 67 
 
 At the Pittsburgh Assembly 268 
 
 Conference of Border State Men 269 
 
 Meting in Dr. Van Dyke's Study 269 
 
 Dr. Wilson Faces Dr. Breckinridge 270 
 
 Action of the Kentucky Synod 27 2 
 
 An Open Door to Peace 2,2 
 
 Dr. Wilson's Tribute to Dr. Van Dyke 273 
 
 And to Dr. Scott 273 
 
 Alain Points Contended For 2,,.', 
 
 Dr. Van Dyke Summarizes the Crisis 27 1 
 
 VIII 
 
Chapter Contents and Subject Index — Continued 
 
 XLIX. A Political Tragedy and Its Lesson 276 
 
 How the Tragedy Came About 277 
 
 Thomas B. Terhune 279 
 
 The Law and the Prophets SO 
 
 Evading the Call of God , 282 
 
 The Return and Triumph 282 
 
 L. THE BEAUTY OP LINCOLN 285 
 
 LI. The Gideons and Gamaliels 2S8 
 
 LII. Spiritual Trail-Blazers 293 
 
 LIU. The Fruit of the Family Tree 297 
 
 IX 
 
REV. CHARLES R. ERDMAN, D. D., LL. D. 
 
 XI 
 
^Ut %-amim tit ^khihing 3dnmn 
 
 * * * * 
 
 TO CHARLES R. ERDMAN. 
 
 Once in the cycle of each hundred years 
 
 Cometh a crisis to the Church of God. 
 
 When truly "treading where the saints have trod," 
 
 We must encounter hidden foes and fears. 
 
 In Truth's behalf our lot is toil and tears; 
 
 For Freedom's sake we feel the chastening rod. 
 
 And consecrate anew the ensanguined sod 
 
 With Jacob wrestlings till the Dawn appears. 
 
 Summoned of Christ, the Wondrous Counsellor, 
 
 His undershepherd thou to paths of peace! 
 
 After the winepress and the wrath of War 
 
 Thy voice and spirit bade dark passions cease: 
 
 And with Love's vision lifted and sublime. 
 
 We face the future of our race and time. 
 
 If ever the words of Mordecai to Esther (in the period of ancient Jewish 
 peril as the providential hope and dependence of her people) were applicable to a 
 man of God in a momentous crisis of the Church and Nation, they apply to 
 Charles R. Erdman as Moderator of our U. S. A. Assembly at one of the supreme 
 moments of our history: "Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom 
 for such a time as this?" 
 
 That is why it is so eminently fitting for Dr. Erdman to have the "Fore- 
 word" of this centennial account of the spiritual and social Liberators of our faith 
 who blazed the way for the Kingdom of God in the Ohio Valley when Abraham 
 Lincoln was yet a youth. The issues and struggles of the Civil War were pain- 
 fully and perilously present upon the floor of every General Assembly in that 
 generation, one hundred years ago. And Charles Beecher most truly says of that 
 body, in the Life of his eminent father, Dr. Lyman Beecher: 
 
 "The General Assembly was one of the most impressive as well as powerful 
 bodies in the world. On its floor were some of the ablest, wisest, most enter- 
 prising, and influential men from almost every State in the Union. In its rela- 
 tion to educational, charitable, and missionary enterprises, in the appellate jurisdic- 
 tion of hundreds of local churches, it swayed a power rivalling, if not really sur- 
 passing, that of Congress, and affecting not merely the religious, but the civil 
 interests of the nation; opening an arena on which discussions of the most 
 momentous questions were debated by practiced speakers, animated by the highest 
 motives, temporal and spiritual, that can lend fire to oratory or enhusiasm to 
 controversy. 
 
 "In the eyes of multitudes of Christians, its symmetrical structure from Ses- 
 sion to Presbytery, Presbytery to Synod. Synod to General Assembly, was the 
 
 XII 
 
ideal of representative government, perfect in every detail, free from the defects of 
 civil organizations, scriptural, spiritual, a kingdom of Christ, 'clear as the sun, 
 fair as the moon, and terrible as an army with banners'. 
 
 Robert Ellis Thompson relates with a touch of humor, in his "History of 
 the Presbyterian Church in the United States," how Dr. Beman, Moderator of 
 the New School Assembly in 183 8, had on one occasion (after the adjournment 
 of an Assembly stirring and historic in these heated discussions) visited President 
 Jackson to condole with him over his political troubles. Old Hickory looked at 
 the Doctor with a gleam of grim humor in his eye, and said: "Now, to tell 
 you the truth, Dr. Beman, these fellows don't worry me half so much as do the 
 dissentions in the Presbyterian Church." 
 
 Even the President of the Unied States, who was himself a Presbyterian, felt 
 a deeper concern for the peace and unity of the Church of his faith and fathers 
 than he did for the pacification of his political enemies. And while those heated 
 issues had to be threshed out and fought over not only on the Assembly floor 
 but also on the field of battle and blood, may we not derive vision and truth 
 of untold value for our own times and tasks by a reverent and dispassionate con- 
 templation of those great souls and struggles? The peace, unity, and progress 
 of the Presbyterian Church of our entire country is no vain dream of the years 
 ahead; and Dr. Erdman's "Foreword" touches the living theme of our Civil 
 War with the same characteristic genius and gentleness that have enrolled him 
 among the great Moderators of our history. 
 
 THE BASIS OF ABIDING UNION 
 By The Rev. Charles R. Erdman, D. D., LL. D.. Princeton, N. J. 
 
 One of the darkest tragedies of all history was the war which was waged 
 between the sovereign States of the American Union. That such a conflict should 
 have occurred is almost as incredible as it is tragic, because of the sacred ties of 
 blood and brotherhood and inheritance and faith by which the contestants previ- 
 ously had been united. 
 
 What is hardly less surprising is the reunion which has come to pass, the 
 forbearance and forgiveness which have been manifested, and the loyalty to the 
 one government in its needs and its aims which has been shown by every section 
 of the great Republic. 
 
 More recently those who once might have chosen the blue or the gray have 
 fought in uniforms of the same color and followed the same flag. Half a cen- 
 tury of common effort and of national enterprise and progress has done much 
 to heal the wounds of war and to restore the consciousness of Christian brother- 
 hood which alone can be the basis of abiding union. 
 
 Sometime ago the writer was seated in the room in which General Robert E. 
 Lee died. My host might properly have been described as a distinguished son of 
 the Confederacy. He embodied the convictions, the culture, the genial disposition 
 and the best traditions of the South; while I was known to be in every sense 
 a Northerner. My father had volunteered in the first days of the war; he had 
 served under Custer and Sheridan and had been present at the fall of Richmond. 
 However, in the very home of Lee, I was being entertained with open-hearted 
 hospitality and with every mark of Christian courtesy. A little later I stood 
 
 XIII 
 
near the famous recumbent statue of General Lee, and addressed an audience of 
 American students on the subject of the characteristics which make for good citi- 
 zenship and which qualify men for efficient service in the Church and in the 
 State. 
 
 What made such an anomalous situation possible? Why should a representa- 
 tive of Princeton have been made welcome in Lexington? Why should such an 
 occasion pass without remark and be regarded as a matter of course? Above all 
 else, for this reason, that all of us concerned were meeting on a common platform 
 with mutual confidence as followers of Christ. Whatever else, due to memory or 
 conviction, might have divided us, a deep sense of loyalty to our Divine Master 
 and Lord, a desire to do His will, a belief that His laws contain the ultimate 
 solution for all the problems of social and political and industrial life, made us 
 consciously one. 
 
 There are other influences which assure an abiding union of the South and 
 the North, but none is more potent than the power of Christian faith. For 
 instance, there exists an unquestioning allegiance to a Constitution which, whether 
 interpreted as giving more or less power to the separate States or to the central 
 government, is everywhere accepted as the fundamental law of the land. 
 
 There exists, too, a universal love for the free institutions which have come 
 to us all as a rich heritage from the fathers of our country, under whose leader- 
 ship all the Colonies were united in securing national independence. 
 
 There are the great industrial and economic advances, bringing with incred- 
 ible rapidity changes in the social and political life of all sections of the land, 
 which have tended to unite us as a people bv bonds of common interest and 
 endeavor. The development of the great West and of Florida and of the Pacific 
 Coast has made us less conscious of the division between North and South. 
 
 The disappearance of slavery, an institution which was the occasion of bitter 
 discussion and of strife, an institution which no one desires to restore, has left 
 serious race problems, the solution of which is demanding the united interest and 
 effort of thoughtful citizens throughout the whole land. 
 
 There are serious questions of international relationships in which all our 
 people are equally concerned, which tend to make us realize our solidarity and to 
 appreciate our united responsibilities toward the sister nations of the world. 
 
 However, above all other ties upon which we must rely as securing the 
 unity of our national life is our trust in God and our loyalty to the leadership 
 of His Son. 
 
 Lincoln, with sad face and burdened heart, with charity towards all and with 
 malice towards none, longing to maintain the unity of the nation, is pictured 
 seated alone in the pastor's study adjoining the room in the church where people 
 had met for prayer; for he wished to hear their petitions, as his hopes for the 
 future of the nation were fixed upon God. 
 
 So. too, Washington firmly believed that national prosperity would be con- 
 ditioned upon a morality which was founded upon religion, and in his Farewell 
 Adress he spoke words which are of deep significance to those of us who believe 
 that the strongest tie which can unite a people is that of an abiding faith in God. 
 "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion 
 and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the 
 tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human 
 happiness — these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere 
 
 XIV 
 
politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A 
 volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let 
 it simply be asked, Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, 
 if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of 
 investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposi- 
 tion that morality can be maintained without religion." 
 
 There are in our country sinister forces threatening to undermine our national 
 institutions. Among these none are more deadly or more to be dreaded than the 
 indifference to religion which exists in some circles, and the actual hostility to 
 Christianity which is manifested in others. 
 
 As we look to the future, nothing will do more to heal the wounds of past 
 conflict or to remove the bitterness of present misunderstanding and prejudice 
 than an earnest and united effort to bring the youth of our nation, and indeed 
 all the citizens of our several States, into conscious and determined loyalty to 
 Christ. We who believe that the union is to be firm and abiding must strive 
 to maintain for it the basis of a brotherhood which itself is founded upon deep 
 religious convictions. 
 
 "America, America; 
 God shed His grace on thee, 
 And crown thy good with brotherhood, 
 From sea to shining sea." 
 
 XV 
 
BIRTHPLACE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 At the Old Lincoln Farm, near Hodgenville. — (Copyright 
 Photograph by Cau field and Shook, Louisville, and used 
 by special permission.) 
 
 XVI 
 
In American History 
 
 WITH A TRIBUTE TO "HISTORIC OLD HANOVER" 
 
 BY ALBERT EDWARD WIGGAM 
 
 XT*X ROFESSOR FREDERICK J. TURNER, of Harvard University, in 
 M his notable book, "The Frontier in American History," pays eloquent 
 r* tribute to 'Middle Western Pioneer Democracy" as a most vital 
 
 factor in the formation of our free institutions. He says it was 
 an impressive sight to witness the pioneers assembling in their community to 
 raise the log cabin of a neighbor and sanctify it by the name of home, the dwell- 
 ing place of pioneer ideals. He goes on to say that every worthy memorial of 
 that historical time symbolizes the fact that the past and future of our people 
 are knitted together eternally; that the sacred records of that heroic period "are 
 not unmeaning and antiquarian, but even in their details are worthy of preser- 
 vation for their revelation of the beginners of society in the midst of a nation 
 caught by the vision of a better future for the world." 
 
 Though the Ohio Valley felt its close relation to the Old South, says 
 Professor Turner, its people did not champion chattel slavery. The presence of 
 indenture servitude in the south sections of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois in pioneer 
 times accustomed the masses to look with toleration upon Negro bondage; and 
 the spirit of compromise and adjustment between the two extremes of North 
 and South over slavery prevailed deeply in the popular mind of this section of 
 the country: 
 
 "Kentucky furnished Abraham Lincoln to Illinois, and Jefferson Davis to 
 Mississippi, and was in reality the very center of the region of adjustment between 
 these rival interests. . . . The Ohio Valley was a Middle Region, with strong 
 rational allegiance striving to hold apart with either hand the sectional combatants 
 in the struggle. In the cautious development of his policy of emancipation we 
 may see the profound influence of the Ohio Valley upon Abraham Lincoln, 
 Kentucky's greatest son. No one can understand his presidency without proper 
 appreciation of the deep influence of the Ohio Valley, its ideals and its prejudices, 
 upon America's original contribution to the great men of the world." 
 
 Professor Turner insists that the religious freedom of the Old West and of 
 the frontier stamped itself upon the constitutions of Virginia and Pennsylvania: 
 that a free church and a secular state were one of America's supreme gifts to 
 modern civilization; and that we must own our lasting indebtedness to the 
 Presbyterian, Baptist and Methodist pioneers for this eternal vigilence and vision, 
 despite their rigid sectarianism and emotional character: 
 
 "Whether Scotch-Irish Presbyterian, Baptist or Methodist, these people 
 saturated their religion and politics with feeling. Both the stump and the pulpit 
 were centers of energy, electric cells capable of starting wide-spreading fires. They 
 felt both their religion and their democracy, and were ready to fight for it." 
 
 But Professor Turner is peculiarly impressive when he pays tribute to the 
 determining influence of the Middle Western Pioneer Democracy in shaping our 
 
 XV 
 
educational ideals. He cites the Indiana Constitution of 1816, which contained 
 a provision for "a general system of education, ascending in regular gradations 
 from township schools to a State University, wherein tuition shall be gratis and 
 equally open to all." He says this was a pioneer conception and was deeply 
 saturated with the similar ideal of Thomas Jefferson, who put forth his famous 
 outline of popular education when he founded the University of Virginia. How- 
 ever that may be, Prof. Turner addresses himself to the sublime fruition of this 
 ideal today: 
 
 "Nothing in our educational history is more striking than the steady pressure 
 of democracy upon the universities to adapt them to the requirements of all the 
 people. From the State Universities of the Middle West, shaped under pioneer 
 ideals, have come the fuller recognition of scientific studies, and especially those 
 of applied science devoted to the conquest of nature; the breaking down of the 
 traditional required curriculum; the union of vocational and college work in the 
 same institution; the development of agricultural and engineering colleges and 
 business courses; the training of lawyers, administrators, public men and journal- 
 ists — all under the ideal of service to democracy rather than of individual advance- 
 ment alone. Other universities do the same thing; but the head springs of the 
 main current of this great stream of tendency came from the land of the pioneers, 
 the democratic states of the Middle West." 
 
 Professor Turner makes soulful appeal to these great State Universities of 
 our Middle Western country to send forth a trained and intelligent leadership in 
 the social crisis that now confronts us — men with a Lincoln-like outlook and 
 a spirit of fair play and patience that will avail us in the clash of classes and the 
 mad rush for material gain: 
 
 "By sending out these open-minded experts, by furnishing well-fitted legis- 
 lators, public leaders and teachers, by graduating successive armies of enlightened 
 citizens accustomed to deal dispassionately with the problems of modern life, able 
 to think for themselves, governed not by ignorance, by prejudice or by impulse, 
 but by knowledge and reason and high-mindedness, the State Universities will 
 safeguard democracy." 
 
 There can be no doubt in the world that this sadly missing type of leader- 
 ship in social progress will be forthcoming in the crucial hour, and that much of 
 it will come from the halls of our state universities, as Professor Turner pleads 
 and anticipates. But the purpose of the present volume is to point out another 
 historic and heroic source of leadership that has never failed us in the moment of 
 destiny. We refer to the "Log Colleges" of long ago, the "Schools of the 
 Prophets" in our Western country, like Hanover down on the Ohio, and Old 
 Centre in Kentucky, which have made a special and imperishable contribution to 
 the intellectual and spiritual leadership of American Democracy in her hours of 
 travail and rebirth. 
 
 We are now in the midst of a centennial time of most holy memories. The 
 hundred-year history of the Old Salem and Madison Presbyteries and of the 
 Synod of Indiana is at hand; and we have asked a foremost man of science, a 
 faithful and devoted son of Old Hanover, to pay tribute to her peculiar worth 
 and work. In his summer sojourns at the lovely little hamlet of Vernon we 
 talked over in a most intimate and illuminating way the material of the present 
 volume; and Mr. Wiggam generously offered to write an introductory word on 
 the Lincoln Forerunners. But we asked him for a more precious and personal 
 
 XVIII 
 
word — his own reaction to the intellectual and spiritual atmosphere of his old 
 alma mater. He has given it in golden utterance: 
 
 HISTORIC OLD HANOVER 
 
 I suppose it is natural for a man to feel that his own college exerted a 
 peculiar and unique influence upon its students; but it does seem to me, after 
 all these years, that this was more true of Hanover than any of the Indiana 
 colleges of that time. I think without doubt that we had the best course of 
 Liberal Arts at that time in the State. 
 
 It is not the curriculum, however, but the teachers that make a college. 
 And Hanover at that time had an able and devoted group of teachers. By 
 common consent. Doctor Fisher, the President, stood head and shoulders over 
 everyone else, I still believe he was the greatest teacher of men I have ever known, 
 and that he was one of the truly great historic teachers of that day. He deserves 
 a place with Mark Hopkins and Horace Mann. 
 
 A good teacher can be made, but a great teacher has to be born. A good 
 teacher, like an ordinary man in any profession, is simply a man of good parts 
 who has been well trained. He is a common man endowed with common 
 capacities. But a great teacher is a common man endowed with genius. And 
 Doctor Fisher was such a man. 
 
 The moral influence of the other professors was also very great. They 
 were all men of the old, sturdy, uncompromising morals, and men who lived 
 lofty personal lives. We regarded them in the light of saints. Indeed, we used 
 seriously to debate whether Professor Garrett had ever committed a sin. I still 
 have doubts if he ever did. He looked like one of the Twelve Apostles, and 
 lived like one. And he was regarded at that time as among the half dozen 
 ablest Greek scholars in America. 
 
 Professors Morse and Young and Baird were also men of high teaching 
 ability md thorough scholarship. Professor Young's enthusiasm for science 
 carried his students constantly with him. Professor Baird gave me my first 
 inspiration towards literature. He was a great literary scholar and teacher. Later 
 he married me and my wife and we revere his memory. 
 
 The College sent out many preachers in that day, as the whole tone of the 
 institution was religious, although not denominational. A number of missionaries 
 were sent to foreign lands, some of whom exerted great influence upon national 
 destinies. Particularly I recall just now Sam Moffatt and Will Baird, who were 
 the chief men in the whole political life of Korea for many years, and were 
 powers with the whole country, and played a prominent part in the conflicts 
 with Japan. Professor Garrett's son, Joseph Garrett, also became influential 
 in China, and I understand is now regarded internationally as the greatest living 
 authority on Chinese literature and history. 
 
 It is inspiring to think of a little college with scarcely 150 students, and 
 with only seven or eight professors, and only a small endowment, hardly enough 
 now to equip one university department, exerting such an influence upon the 
 world. But it came from the lofty character and devotion of this small group 
 of men who made the faculty. 
 
 For it always has been, and always will be, that it is not laboratories, nor 
 big endowments, nor extensive libraries, nor athletic records, nor vast buildings, 
 but the quality and character of the men who live with and teach the students, 
 and who inspire them by their personal lives, which makes a college. And in 
 this respect, the Hanover of my day was as good a place as existed in America 
 for a boy to get the kind of education this country needs. 
 
 XIX 
 
fptp lift #Jps» JWI^n warn ^tltltb 
 
 f^^^^™"^ HE Ohio Valley was wrested from the Indians and settled by working 
 
 ■ I "^ people from the coast-line colonies and Europe. Thomas Jefferson 
 
 y, I J once said that laborers, not lawyers, were the fundamental makers 
 
 of America, for industry necessarily underlies the state. Or, as a 
 
 witty Irishman expressed it, "Folks may do without guv'mint but nivver without 
 
 grub!" 
 
 Even Washington was a working boy in Old Virginia before he became 
 a surveyor-soldier and foresaw the future of the Ohio Valley. Of the stream 
 itself Jefferson said: "The Ohio is the most beautiful river on earth; its current 
 gentle, waters clear, and bosom smooth and unbroken and rapid." "A single 
 instance" was the falls at Louisville, which was such a terror to the wives and 
 little ones of the early emigrants on their way from the South to the Northwest 
 Territory that they crossed at Utica, Indiana, a river village ten miles above. 
 The ferry at this point was very important and profitable from 1800 to 1825 
 when so many thousands of people without property in the South swarmed 
 upward into the newly opened prairie lands. From Old and New England. 
 New York and Pennsylvania, came other thousands in the white covered wagons 
 of pioneer times, braving death by Indians, disease and destitution, to cultivate 
 and civilize our beautiful Western country. Multitudes came down the Ohio 
 in flatboats, landing all the way between Cincinnati and Louisville. 
 
 Now, what were the causes that drew or drove our early ancestors to the 
 New World and the West? Some say the search for religious liberty; others 
 political emancipation. But Emerson, our greatest idealist, gave a third, funda- 
 mental reason, when he said in "English Traits" that every revolution in our 
 history involves a yeoman's right to his dinner! The movements of humanity, 
 like the migration of animals and birds, are a search for food and shelter, 
 the struggle for existence, which is primary with most of us. Our fathers 
 did love and die for religious and political liberty, and there was no mere spread- 
 eagleism about their solemn belief that in coming to America they were, like the 
 ancient Hebrews, escaping from "The House of Bondage" in the old world. 
 
 There was yet living at Henryville, Indiana, 1908-9, a grand old pioneer, 
 Uncle Tom Freeman. He was born the day Indiana was admitted to the Union. 
 He came of the sturdiest English stock, and his very name was significant of the 
 original English yeoman. No braver, better men ever lived on the face of the 
 earth, and the story of their exile and extinction is a sadder one than Goldsmith's 
 "Deserted Village" or Longfellow's "Evangeline." 
 
 At the close of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth century 
 the common people of England were mainly free peasants who owned their little 
 farms, or independent wage earners who owned cottage homes with several acres 
 attached. These men worked for the landlords, but there was still the open 
 common where the cow, horse and pigs might feed, and the free forest for 
 firewood. The old feudal lord's reliance for work or warfare was these sturdy 
 free-holders, who claimed the same right to the soil he did. 
 
 XX 
 
In the latter part of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century 
 Feudalism came to an end in England, and the modern commercial age began. 
 The old feudal barons had been rendered bankrupt by war, and a new generation 
 of money makers found the manufacture of woolen goods immensely profitable. 
 The old handicraft conditions of industry were done away at a stroke. The 
 feudal lords dispossessed the free peasant proprietors and the independent wage 
 earners of their little homesteads, and there was no choice left them but work in 
 the mines, mills and factories or emigration to America. Hence the significance 
 of Jefferson's remark that laborers and not lawyers were the real makers of 
 America. "The small landholders are the most precious part of a state," said he, 
 and he always defended their good name. 
 
 Sheep raising supplanted agriculture, and that was why the yeomanry were 
 dispossessed by the landlords and manufacturers. The average yearly income of 
 the peasant-farmer and independent cottager had formerly been from $300 to 
 $400 even in that primitive time; and the wealth of cities and towns was dis- 
 tributed and shared amongst the masses as never before or since. But when 
 industrial machinery supplanted individual handicraft a national tragedy was 
 enacted. Up in Scotland alone there were 200,000 beggars, and a writer of the 
 time declared that with the dispossession of the peasantry and the spoliation of 
 the villagers, manufacture and commerce were the parents of the national poor. 
 As Henry George said, there was poverty along with progress. In the forty-third 
 year of Queen Elizabeth the national poor rate was established, and the authors 
 of the measure seemed so ashamed of it that the bill contained no preamble 
 whatever. The English yeomanry speedily disappeared. 
 
 Thus originated the indentured servants who formed so large a portion of 
 the emigrants to America. They were really white slaves driven in chain-gangs 
 through the colonies by "soul drivers" and sold to Northern farmers and Southern 
 planters even before the arrival of the black man. Long afterward when the 
 Duchess of Sutherland gave cordial welcome in London society to Mrs. Harriet 
 Beecher Stowe for showing the horrors of American Negro slavery in "Uncle 
 Tom's Cabin," a noted humanitarian abroad wrote an article for the New York 
 Tribune stating facts about the dependent peasantry upon the estates of the 
 Dutchess, in comparison to which black slavery was white. The article created 
 an immense sensation. 
 
 The distressing conditions existing in all the coast states before and after 
 the American Revolution drove numberless emigrants to the Ohio Valley. Edward 
 Eugleston's novels are the social chronicle of these early days and deeds. 
 Eggleston's father was a Virginia planter's son, a graduate of William and Mary 
 College at seventeen, with the highest honors of his class and alma mater. He 
 "was bred a planter's son, and, of course, a white-handed stranger to all manual 
 labor," says Eggleston, "but he sent his sons to the country every year to farm." 
 And Edward's social sympathies for the Negro slaves and indentured servants 
 dated far back in his boyhood. He was an Abolitionist and a Humanitarian, and 
 while he pictured primitive social types with such humor, he made Hannah 
 Thompson, the bound girl at old man Means, his heroine in "The Hoosier 
 School Master." 
 
 The Thompson family, no doubt real people, were left destitute bv the 
 death of the father, an English emigrant to the Ohio Valley. Thus situated. 
 Hannah was bound out and the mother, nearly blind, was sent to the poor house. 
 
 XXI 
 
a frightful institution in those days. Eggleston satirizes it with the power of 
 Charles Dickens, who came to the Ohio Valley when Eggleston was a child, 
 looking after the rights of English emigrants who had been robbed by bogus 
 land companies. 
 
 Hannah was " the quiet drudge" who "milked the cows in the open lot 
 in the worst storms for three years." And nothing is finer than the discovery 
 of her crushed womanhood by the young school master opposing her at the 
 spelling match: "As he saw the fine, timid face of the girl so long oppressed, 
 flush and shine with interest: as he looked at the rather low but broad and 
 intelligent brow, and the fresh, white complexion, and saw the rich womanly 
 nature coming to the surface under the influence of applause and sympathy, he 
 did not want to beat." 
 
 Bill Jones was superintendent of the poor house, wnile Pete Jones was 
 county commissioner for the "charitable institution" in which Hannah's mother 
 was incarcerated. The school master discovers her: "And by the window in the 
 same room, feeling the light that struggled through the austy glass upon her 
 face, sat a sorrowful, intelligent English woman. Ralph noticed at once that 
 she was English, and in a few moments discovered that her sight was defective." 
 He inquired her name, and then "could not but remark the contrast between the 
 thorough refinement of her manner and her coarse, scant, misshapen pauper 
 frock of blue drilling. He did not know, for he had not read the report of the 
 boards of state charities, that nearly all almshouses are very much like this, and 
 that the state of New York is not better in this regard than Indiana. And 
 he did not know that it is true in almost all other counties, as it was in his 
 own, that Christian people do not think enough of Christ to look for Him in 
 these lazar-houses!" 
 
 The kindhearted Methodists take up a collection for the blind widow, and 
 the old soldier of 1812; a Kentuckian, by the way, adopts little "Shocky." the 
 poet-child who thought God had forgot! At the trial, when Ralph is cleared 
 and Hannah set free, Squire Underwood says to her: "This court feels in duty 
 bound to inform you that according to the laws of Indiana a woman is of age 
 at eighteen, and as no indenture could be made binding after you had reached 
 your majority, you are the victim of a deception. You are free, and if it can 
 be proven that you have been defrauded by a wilful deception, a suit for damages 
 will lie." 
 
 The poor girl walked ten miles by night to reach her mother, "knocked 
 and was admitted, and fell down faint and weary at her blind mother's feet, and 
 laid her tired head in her mother's lap and wept like a child, and said. O mother, 
 I'm free! I'm free!' While the mother's tears baptized her face and the mother's 
 trembling fingers combed out her tresses, and Shocky stood by and cried, 'I 
 knowed God wouldn't fergit you, Hanner!' " 
 
 Uncle Tom Freeman at Henryville knew the Egglcstons quite well when 
 they lived in Vevay. He built the house where Edward was born, and a little 
 cousin of his, Roxy by name, lived with the Egglcstons and doubtless suggested 
 the heroine of the noted novel with that title. Eggleston believed that his stories 
 would always be valued as social history. 
 
 XXII 
 
JOHN FINLEY CROWE 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 f\X\ Y GOOD FRIEND, Mr. Young E. Allison, to whom I went in quest 
 
 II of a characterizing and binding title for these centennial chronicles 
 J 1/ of the great Emancipation movement, and the great human Liber- 
 ators of the Old Louisville Presbytery, answered that any catchy, 
 striking title to a book or a sermon has "a certain amount of charlatanry in it." 
 He said that I should so arrange my material and tell my story that it would 
 move naturally and convincingly from the old home church and community of 
 my childhood and youth, where these great scenes and characters first dawned 
 upon me in local tradition — across the river into Southern Indiana, where the 
 history climaxes and where my own ministry of the past twenty years has enabled 
 me to gather and chonicle from local tradition first hand the memorable atmo- 
 sphere and personages that preceded and prepared the way for Abraham Lincoln 
 himself in due time. I may remark in passing that the noted English musician, 
 Francis Grierson, whose parents emigrated to Illinois in March, 1849, the year 
 after his birth, witnessed and experienced this same mystic and powerful revolution 
 in the souls of men and the society around them. The young man recorded his 
 impressions fifty years afterward in one of the greatest of all Lincoln books, 
 "The Valley of Shadows--Recollections of the Lincoln Country, 1858-1863." 
 
 I must next say that while I have long desired to publish the chronicles 
 I have assembled, it was the centennial jubilee of the Old Goshen Church of my 
 childhood near Louisville, and of my present pastorate at Old Vernon, Indiana, 
 above Madison, that made the book timely — but above all, the serene and 
 triumphant old age of my father, and Rev. J. R. Barnard (father of the Lincoln 
 Sculptor) both spiritual veterans of the Lincoln period, one in the South and 
 the other in the North. They were the yet living heroes of these pages whose 
 careers nobly revive and revision the other great legendary figures of enlighten- 
 ment and Liberty. The story of my father's ministry is to me the more impres- 
 sive because the little Labor Chapel he built and pastored from 1895 to 1915 
 represented and expressed the latest and greatest of all the social and spiritual 
 crises of American history. This little chapel and its pulpit were my own the- 
 ological seminary, under my father, and from it I went forth to preach the 
 gospel to those who labor and are heavy laden. From that little pulpit Lincoln 
 himself would have gladly spoken had he been alive in our own time and com- 
 munity. All this history would be mouldy and dead to me without this mem- 
 orable ministry of my father to the humble and lowly of our own day and 
 generation. The story of my mother's vision and life of service was interwoven 
 here also in the back ground of an Old Kentucky Home. Mr. Allison (without 
 having seen the general story at all) agreed at once that the mental and tem- 
 peramental as well as spiritual attitude of Lincoln as an Emancipationist rather 
 than an Abolitionist had its origin deep down and far back in these Old Ken- 
 tucky Home memories. 
 
4 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 FORERUNNERS AND RESTORERS 
 
 Every great age has its Forerunners and Restorers. Hence, let us try to under- 
 stand and appreciate the significance of these terms as applied to certain great 
 Preachers of Righteousness of the Presbyterian Faith around us here during the 
 Civil War when our nation was in travail with "The New Birth of Freedom." 
 
 The Forerunner was a precursor and herald of Salvation and Deliverance 
 in ancient Israel. He was an evangel of comfort and consolation to the sinful 
 and sorrowing. "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God." He was 
 to tell Jerusalem that her warfare was accomplished, her iniquity pardoned, and 
 that she should receive at the hands of the Lord double for all her sins, when 
 her heart was contrite with true repentance. The Forerunner was the herald of 
 equality and freedom also; but he was not a man or messenger of violence. 
 "He shall feed his flock like a shepherd; he shall gather the lambs in his arms, 
 and carry them in his bosom." At times stern and unrelenting as Truth itself, 
 yet always forbearing and forgiving as Love Divine. 
 
 The Restorer in ancient Israel had almost a similar mission. Isaiah, the same 
 great prophet, describes the conditions necessary to the Great Restoration: "To 
 loose the bonds of wickedness: to undo the bands of the yoke; and to let the 
 oppressed go free; and that ye break every yoke. 
 
 Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry; and that thou bring the poof 
 that are cast out to thy house? When thou seest the naked, that thou cover him? 
 And that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh? Then shall thy light 
 break forth as the morning; and thy healing shall spring forth speedily; and thy 
 righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy reward. 
 
 "Then shalt thou call and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he 
 shall say, Here am I. If thou take away from the midst of thee, the yoke (of 
 oppression) , the putting forth of the finger (of scorn or contempt toward the 
 humble and lowly) , and speaking wickedly (with strife and contention) : and 
 if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then 
 shall thy light rise in darkness, and thine obscurity be as the noonday. 
 
 "And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in dry 
 places, and make strong thy bones; and thou shalt be like a watered garden, 
 and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not. 
 
 "And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places; thou 
 shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called. The 
 Repairer of the Breach, The Restorer of paths to dwell in." 
 
 It was this Old Testament type of ethics that so deeply impressed mc in 
 the faith and life of my father, from my youth up, and finally drew me with 
 an irresistible passion and purpose to preach the same great gospel of Regener- 
 ation and Deliverance in Christ Jesus. As a child I took notice that my father 
 was different from other men and ministers. He seemed aloof and alone, like 
 an old Hebrew patriarch and prophet. His stern solemnity subdued and overawed 
 me: and it was years and years before I realized how kind and tender and just 
 he meant to be. At sixty years of age he came into the same great comprehension 
 and experience of the Gospel applied anew to the social problems of our time 
 that I myself had so fully and joyfully found. Human words cannot tell how 
 sweet and reconciling and forever unifying this new birth was to both of us. 
 We had come into it (or it had come into us) after suffering and struggle and 
 
FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 5 
 
 sorrow such as I never wish to witness again: but it was the same baptism 
 of the Spirit of the Lord spoken of again by Isaiah when he said that he was 
 anointed: 
 
 "To preach good tidings unto the meek (or poor) : to bind up the broken 
 hearted: to proclaim liberty to the captives: and the opening of the prison to them 
 that are bound: to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of 
 vengeance of our God: to comfort all that mourn: to appoint unto them that 
 mourn, to give unto them a garland for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the 
 garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. And they shall build the old waste 
 places: they shall raise up the formers desolations; and they shall repair the 
 waste cities, the desolation of many generations." 
 
 Just a little investigation convinced me that this faith and gospel which 
 my father believed in and lived with such deep and undeviating devotion was 
 the very same faith and gospel that moved and commanded the souls and lives 
 of the great Forerunners and Restorers of the Calvinistic type before and after 
 Abraham Lincoln in our national history. Lincoln himself, as his latest bio- 
 grapher, William E. Barton, so convincingly shows, was profoundly impressed 
 by a personal friendship with the Rev. James Smith (formerly of the old Louis- 
 ville Presbytery) who became Lincoln's pastor in Springfield, 111., when Lincoln's 
 little boy Eddie, died. He and Mrs. Lincoln found solace and comfort such as 
 they had never found before, and Dr. Smith brought unto Lincoln a new 
 experience of spiritual trust and dependence on God. Lincoln's faith, from that 
 time was characterized by the elements of a noble self-renunciation. For Lincoln, 
 great as he was in soul, (as Dr. Barton so powerfully shows) drew upon the 
 same sources of Divine Assistance and Consolation in those supreme periods 
 of national trial and testing when only prayer was left him. It was then that 
 "angels came and ministered unto him." And we are realizing today that our 
 times and tasks demand an equally "full measure of devotion" to make them 
 fruitful for those coming after us. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 i} ^vomamttt auh JiWial 'Jhtx-a 
 
 g ^y ND now let me record my undying debt to Edward Eggleston, who, 
 \/ ^X next to my father, awakened me to the mission and purpose of the 
 g^ J^ great Forerunners and Restorers. 
 
 In the pioneer times there was a Kentucky farmer by the 
 name of George Craig, who gave his slaves their freedom, sold his farm, and 
 moved across the Ohio River into Southern Indiana above Madison. He was 
 a man of unusual intelligence and culture for those days and built his new house 
 of stone while everybody around him used logs. He set out a fine young or- 
 chard of fruit trees and made every possible improvement upon his new land. 
 He was a model farmer and became the most widely known man in that section 
 of country. 
 
 But best of all, he was a believer in boys and girls. He had an old fashioned 
 family of children and was their constant chum and leader. He took a deep inter- 
 est in their education, and if there was a poor boy or girl of promise in the 
 neighborhood, he adopted them into his house and gave them the same chance 
 as his own children had. There was plenty to eat and wear in those good old 
 Hoosier days, and the boys and girls repaid his kindness by doing their part on 
 the farm and about the house. 
 
 Mr. Craig's home stood on the Ohio amid scenery of wonderful beauty, 
 and his boys and girls were aglow with health. One night a young lawyer from 
 the little town of Vevay, five or six mile above, came down to transact some 
 business with Mr. Craig. While they were talking, one of Mr. Craig's daughters, 
 a lovely young girl of eighteen years, entered the room to light a candle. 
 
 It chanced that the subject of conversation was particularly interesting, 
 and she paused to hear what was said. So struck was she by the young lawyer's 
 culture and charm of manner that she unconsciously lighted the wrong end of 
 the candle. He was amused, but also surprised and delighted to notice her interest 
 in their conversation, and addressed a few remarks to her directly. 
 
 She replied with such intelligence and appreciation that his heart was stirred 
 within him, and he was not long returning to renew the association. A romance 
 resulted, and in due season there was an old time wedding at the Craig mansion. 
 The happy young couple settled down in Vevay and became the father and 
 mother of Edward Eggleston, the First of the Hoosiers and the great novelist 
 of Boyhood on the Ohio. 
 
 Young Edward's father was a Virginian by birth and education, and 
 reared his children after the manner of farmer George Craig. Unfortunately, the 
 father was afflicted with tuberculosis, and his son Edward inherited the same 
 predisposition; so that his whole life was one long battle with ill-health. His 
 younger brother George was robust and sound to the core and they too became 
 chums and scouts in the great world of Nature around them. 
 
FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 7 
 
 Now the same year the "Hoosier Schoolmaster" was written, there was 
 born on the Ohio River, about fifty wiles below Madison, a Kentucky boy 
 who so loved and admired Edward Eggleston's every ideal that from his earliest 
 childhood he dreamed of becoming the successor of the great Hoosier romancer 
 and historian. The Hoosier School Stories first awakened within this youth the 
 vision and love of his own beautiful native Ohio Valley and its simple, demo- 
 cratic life. He made a steamboat trip to Cincinnati with his parents and brothers 
 when he was ten years old and wrote a little book about it, his first venture 
 into authorship. 
 
 Later on he learned to read and interpret the people of his own little 
 village, and wrote a series of "Corn-Cracker School Stories." These were naturally 
 in imitation of Mr. Eggleston's. They were crudely written on yellow wrapping 
 paper, done into a book, and illustrated by his own hand. But, as Mr. Eggleston 
 used to say about his own stories, "he had a good time writing them." So this 
 Kentucky youth entertained the family circle many an evening by reading the 
 chapters as they were written down after school hours, rollicking with the lively 
 incidents of the day. 
 
 EDWARD EGGDESTON 
 
 Singularly, this youth's villains invariably became the chief figures in his 
 tales, and the goody-goody boys and girls took the back seat, simply because 
 the bad boys always created more excitement in his school world. The others 
 never said or did anything worth while. In a word, he got interested in real 
 people and actual situations and wrote with such truth and naturalness that his 
 work in time attracted attention. 
 
 Now Edward Eggleston grew up amid the great anti-slavery struggle of 
 the forties and fifties of the last century in the Middle West and might have 
 wiitten a story thrilling with the mighty drama of his own time and generation, 
 because his own social awakening came through that same big struggle and drama. 
 
 The Hoosier Circuit Riders of early Methodism in Southern Indiana were 
 all anti-slavery men. Peter Cartright, the most famous of all backwoods preachers, 
 was their brave and devoted chieftain. 
 
8 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 Likewise the Presbyterian pioneer pastors and teachers were fearless Aboli- 
 tionists or uncompromising Emancipators. Father Dickey and his son; Father 
 Martin. Lyman Beecher and Henry Ward Beecher all followed in the wake of 
 Governor Jennings against slavery. 
 
 The Old Louisville Presbytery of a century ago embraced the entire region 
 covered by the Great Liberators of those pregnant years: and that is why we 
 letain the same spiritual basis and boundary in the story. 
 
 Imagine the influence this would have on a growing American boy. The 
 tradition of the Presbyterian church in Kentucky from its earliest history under 
 Father David Rice to 1860 was likewise anti-slavery in sentiment. Gideon Black- 
 burn confirmed Old Center College, Kentucky, in this social faith and John 
 Finley Crowe, founder of Hanover College, was a Kentuckian, ordained by the 
 Presbytery of Louisville; and he left the State because of his abolition senti- 
 ments. How could a boy come into manhood under such traditions without 
 imbibing the sentiments of freedom and humanity from his very birth? 
 
 Just imagine the influence of the Eggleston friendship alone upon his 
 character and life, especially privileged as he was to become a minister and 
 Social Crusader over the very territory and among the same type of people that 
 Eggleston loved so well. It was natural therefore, that the young pastor's message 
 should ring clear and true to the times in which he lived. 
 
 In the same way he went about among the boys and girls of the churches 
 and schools of the towns, villages and country places, telling the stories and 
 relating the incidents recorded in these pages. They were his own experiences 
 and discoveries, largely. He learned to love the Hoosiers just as he did the Corn- 
 crackers. He laughed and cried over the comedy and tragedy of their lives. So 
 did he encourage and cheer them in their heroic struggles with poverty and 
 hardship, unsympathy and social injustice. 
 
 The one ambition of his life seemed to be to love and serve the obscure, 
 kind hearted folks. At all events, he and his associate Crusaders lifted the torch 
 of truth and enlightenment amidst an enviroment of error and ignorance and 
 superstition that would have tested the mettle of any man. That they won out. 
 we think our story will aboundantly testify. Ours is the Age of Gold, doubt- 
 less; but the Golden Age presses hard upon its heels. 
 
 No one but the young pastor himself knew the agony of mind and travail 
 of soul he experienced trying to reconcile the old religious and the new social 
 ideal. He did not compromise or emasculate his message. He simply re-experi- 
 enced and expressed the dream of human freedom in prayer and song and story 
 for the untutored rural mind and heart. 
 
 Edward Eggleston was a Methodist Circuit Rider in Southern Indiana; 
 but he was the same age in years as my father: and I have joyfully recorded 
 the story of Rev. J. R. Barnard, D. D., father of the great Lincoln Sculptor, 
 because he, too, was educated in the same time and ministry and seminary as 
 my father and still survives with vision and devotion unabated. It was the 
 crowning honor of my own young life to be ordained to the ministry by the 
 same Old Louisville Presbytery that made possible the work and spiritual rewards 
 of the Forerunners and Restorers herein described. The Centennial Celebrations 
 of the Old Goshen and Vernon Churches have been in the nature and spirit of 
 
FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 9 
 
 popular festivals in Ancient Israel. And these Centennial Chronicles of the holy 
 men and women who preceded and came after Abraham Lincoln, were written 
 as a testimony for all the coming years. Because the history is, after all, local, 
 we have given it in fuller detail. Otherwise, it has been totally forgotten and 
 left to oblivion. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 
 ^^^**-] EW and valuable historical facts have been brought to light in connec- 
 ^* m r\ tion with the Goshen Centennial. We referred to the union of the 
 iJ Charlestown and Goshen Presbyterians under "Parson" Todd and 
 
 other pastors long ago. The old Louisville Presbytery then embraced 
 all this section and Southern Indiana, and the meetings of Presbytery brought 
 together some famous pioneer preachers. Rev. John F. Crowe, founder of 
 Hanover College, near Madison, Ind., and of the Vernon Presbyterian Church, 
 twenty-three miles north of Madison, was ordained by this old Presbytery of 
 Louisville. He was an outstanding anti-slavery leader. Gideon Blackburn, 
 founder of the Goshen church, was another. And a third was old Father John 
 M. Dickey, founder of the Presbyterian church in Indiana, as many called him. 
 These men were all Southern born and were imbued with the sentiments of 
 Washington and Jefferson and Franklin and all the Revolutionary fathers on 
 slavery before the institution rooted itself in the cotton-raising South. Their 
 sentiments were moral and not economic. 
 
 This old Presbytery of Louisville met at the old "Harrods Creek Union 
 Meeting House," in the locust grove by the pike on the Wood Mount farm 
 between Goshen and Prospect, in the spring of 1825. Rev. W. H. Hopper, 
 D. D., stated clerk of Louisville Presbytery, U. S., has made careful examination 
 of the faded, musty old records in his custody and has given us what facts he 
 finds about the Goshen church and about the ordination of Rev. John F. Crowe. 
 We write this here for permanent record in our church annals. Dr. Hopper 
 says he finds no direct reference to the organization of the Goshen church in 
 1825; but Presbytery met at the "Union" or "Harrods Creek" church and 
 adjourned to the Goshen church. We are sticking to the date given in the old 
 Goshen church records, which is 1825, and let the matter rest there until further 
 researches and disclosures by Dr. Hopper change it. 
 
 And since we were celebrating the Vernon Church Centennial, May 11, 
 1925, the facts about Rev. John F. Crowe's ordination were no less valuable. 
 Hanover College was joining with us in this celebration. 
 
 THE OLD GOSHEN CHURCH 
 
 "Louisville, Ky., April 3. 1925. 
 "Rev. Lucien V. Rule, Goshen, Ky. 
 "My Dear Brother Rule: 
 
 "I am enclosing to you extracts from the minutes of the Presbytery of 
 Louisville in regard to the ordination of Rev. John F. Crowe, as requested. 
 
 "In regard to the organization of the Goshen church, may I state that I 
 was unable to find any record of it in the minutes of 1825, or near that date. 
 
FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 I 1 
 
 If there is a likelihood of any mention of it at some other date, I will be glad 
 to look further. The minutes of those years are indistinct and the reading is 
 difficult. If you can give me any assistance before I make another search it 
 will help. The only reference I could see to Goshen was that the Presbytery 
 met at the Goshen church for the spring meeting of 1825. The adjournment 
 preceding that was to the Harrod's Creek church, but the meeting is recorded 
 held at Goshen church. Just what identity existed may be known to you. I 
 shall be glad to continue this investigation at your suggestion. 
 
 "Very sincerely, 
 
 "W. H. HOPPER, Stated Clerk." 
 
 DR. CROWE IS ORDAINED 
 
 John Finley Crowe lived at this time in Shelby County, Kentucky and 
 was a young man of rare genius and culture, "Ye have gotten from President 
 Millis of Hanover College some very interestin .'acts about his history, which 
 we will give in another chapter. The old churches mentioned below were in the 
 country outside of Louisville. 
 
 Grove where the old '"Harrod's Creek Union Meeting- 
 House" stood, on Wood Mount farm, between Goshen and 
 Prospect, on River Road 11 miles above Louisville. Here 
 the Old Louisville Presbytery met in April, 1825. This old 
 dhurch and the Goshen Church were organized by Gideon 
 Blackburn. 
 
 FOX RUN MEETINGHOUSE, JUNE 7, 1816 
 
 "The Presbytery met according to adjournment and was opened by a sermon 
 from Revs. 2:10, by the Moderator, Rev. Samuel Shannon. Mr. John F. 
 Crowe being dismissed from the Presbytery of West Lexington and recommended 
 to the care of the Louisville Presbytery as a licentiate in good standing, he was 
 therefore received in that character under the care of this Presbytery." 
 
12 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 THURSDAY, SECOND DAY, OCTOBER, 1817 
 
 "The Presbytery of Louisville met at Pennsylvania Run Meeting House 
 agreeable to the call of the Moderator and was opened by a sermon by the 
 Rev. John M. Dickey, from Ps. 2:12. Rev. Daniel C. Banks was chosen 
 Moderator, Rev. James Vance was chosen Clerk. Presbytery adjourned to 
 meet at Mr. Vance's tomorrow night at 7 o'clock." 
 
 FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8. 1817 
 
 "Presbytery met agreeable to adjournment. Mr. John F. Crowe, a proba- 
 tioner under the care of our Presbytery, having been appointed to ride in the 
 character of a missionary three months in a country not supplied with ordained 
 ministers, and it being proper that he should be qualified for the full work of 
 the ministry in such a case, the Presbytery considered it expedient to attend 
 to Mr. Crowe's examination with a view to his ordination. Mr. Crowe being 
 examined in Experimental Religion and appointed to preach a sermon, Presbytery 
 adjourned to meet at Pennsylvania Run Meetinghouse at 12 o'clock. 
 
 "12 o'clock — Presbytery met agreeable to adjournment. Mr. Crowe deliver- 
 ed a sermon from Rom. 3:21-22. Presbytery resumed the examination of Mr. 
 Crowe on Philosophy, Theology, Ecclesiastical History, Languages, etc. Pres- 
 bytery adjourned to meet this evening at Mr. Vance's at 7 o'clock. After due 
 consideration Mr. Crowe's examination and trial for ordination was unanimously 
 sustained. On motion, resolution that it be expedient and proper to proceed 
 to ordain Mr. Crowe tomorrow at 1 2 o'clock. Mr. Cameron was appointed 
 to preach the ordination sermon, Mr. Banks to preside and make the consecration 
 prayer and give the charge to Mr. Crowe and Mr. Scott to make the concluding 
 prayer. Presbytery adjourned and met Saturday morning. 
 
 "At 12 o'clock the Presbvtery proceeded to the duties preparatory to the 
 ordination of Mr. Crowe. Rev. Cameron preached the ordination sermon from 
 I Tim. 4:16 and Mr. Crowe was then solemnly ordained and set apart to the 
 Gospel ministry by prayer and laying on of hands of the Presbytery. The 
 consecration prayer was made and the charge given by the Rev. Daniel C Banks, 
 and the concluding prayer by the Rev. Samuel Scott." 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 (bxiuunx ■£\\ackhxi%n muh ifp %&$ (fy&lltgtm 
 
 ISTORY then has given a very high place to Dr. John Finley Crowe, 
 ^T^™| the founder of Hanover College, forty miles up the river from us. 
 
 I ^ History has also given to Dr. Gideon Blackburn, who went from the 
 pastorate of the Presbyterian churches at Louisville and Goshen to 
 Centre College, an equally high renown. Dr. Blackburn put his choicest work 
 in the Presbyterian Academy, conducted by his son at Goshen. We are now 
 sure that Dr. Blackburn himself took part, when he had time to instruct the 
 pupils. He stands out in history with great significance. He was of the Lincoln 
 type, as the following rare outline of his character will show: 
 
 "The early history of the late Dr. Blackburn is a remarkable instance of 
 perseverance in the face of difficulties. Left an orphan and penniless, when 
 about eleven years of age, (being defrauded out of the handsome patrimony of 
 twenty thousand dollars) a kind schoolmaster gave him instruction gratuitously; 
 and he obtained a situation in a saw-mill, where he tended the saw from dark 
 till daylight, studying by a fire of pine-knots. In this way he earned a dollar 
 every night, and made rapid proficiency in his studies. Thus he struggled on 
 till ready to enter college. To defray his new expense, he labored as a surveyor 
 for four months, frequently sleeping in a cane-brake to avoid the Indians and 
 having no other shelter from the rain but a blanket. He received for his pay 
 fourteen horses, valued at forty dollars apiece. These he took to Maryland and 
 sold for fifteen hundred dollars, with which he discharged all his debts and went 
 through Dickinson College. 
 
 "Thus early inured to hardships, he was admirably fitted for the arduous 
 duties of a missionary to the Cherokee Indians, to which he was appointed by 
 the General Assembly in 1803, when thirty-one years of age. In this field he 
 labored with great success for seven years, when want of health and other reasons, 
 induced him to relinquish his post. 
 
 "Dr. Blackburn was admired as one of the most impressive and popular 
 orators of the West. In theology he sided warmly with the New School party. 
 The last years of his life were employed in a scheme for building up a college 
 in Illinois by means of an extensive land agency, a certain portion of all the land 
 purchased being appropriated to the college." 
 
 Francis Snowden and his wife were the pioneer people who were more 
 closely associated with Gideon Blackburn when he founded the Old Goshen 
 church. Elder Snowden came of a Catholic family in Maryland and his wife, 
 who was a Winchester, came of a Catholic family in Louisiana. Their daughter, 
 Mary, was a pupil at the Blackburn Academy near Goshen and her most intimate 
 friend was Adalinc Caldwell, of Charlestown. During the War of 1812 and dur- 
 
14 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 ing the Indian Wars of the same period, Gideon Blackburn figured heroically in all 
 these events and when he came to Louisville as pastor in 1823 he exerted a far- 
 reaching influence over the Upper River Road Country above Louisville. The 
 Goshen congregation embraced the leading families of this entire section. 
 
 Our mother remarked one day that she inherited her mother's friends. 
 Adaline Caldwell, her mother, married Thomas J. Woolfolk, her father, and 
 they were from the first very intimate with the family of Francis Snowden. 
 Mary and Adaline were not only school chums together under Gideon Blackburn 
 and his son, John, at the Old Academy but their friendship continued unabated 
 through life. Mary went South and was married to a Catholic and her brother, 
 Richard, also married a Catholic; so there was always religious tolerance in the 
 Snowden family. Mary was very reserved and some people declared that she 
 became so after she married a Catholic; but Adaline said she was always reserved 
 and people just did not understand her. She was true as gold to her friends. 
 There is no record or tradition that Gideon Blackburn ever abused or spoke in 
 a hostile manner of Catholic believers; for the record is all to the contrary that 
 Catholic people were often fascinated with his presentation of the gospel and 
 became Protestants of their own free will and accord. It was so with the 
 Snowdens and Francis Snowden never allowed the Catholic faith abused at 
 his family table. 
 
 GIDEON BLACKBURN AND GRANDMOTHER SNOWDEN 
 
 Richard Snowden built a beautiful home in Louisville and lived there 
 some time with his family, Robert, Mary and Lavinia. His parents remained at 
 the old homestead near Goshen. They were very simple, quiet folks but exceed- 
 ingly hospitable and generous. In fact, the old home maintained its tradition 
 and custom until the very last Snowden crossed its threshold. Richard Snowden 
 met with financial reverses and in due season the old home in the country was 
 sold. Grandmother Snowden, as everybody called her, lived close to the century 
 mark and removed to the city of Louisville with her grandson, Robert and his 
 family. Before she went away death had visited her almost as grievously as it 
 did Naomi of old. Mrs. Fannie Ayres, her granddaughter and Mary Ayres. her 
 great granddaughter were stricken and died within a few hours of each other. 
 Our mother went down to spend the day and night with her and to comfort 
 her, and while she was there word came that Grandmother Snowdens sister. 
 Mrs. Hall, of Shelbyvillc, had died. It was necessary to tell her this also and 
 she bore it with a beautiful faith, saying, "We will not be separated very long." 
 
 To Grandmother Snowden we arc indebted for the local accounts of Gideon 
 Blackburn's coming to the community church and of his matchless eloquence. 
 She also left after her an original steel engraving of Dr. Blackburn, which has 
 been the means of preserving his saintly features to posterity. Without this 
 original no adequate portrait of him would have survived. We are enabled now to 
 trace out clearly the sources of that inimitable and inspired eloquence which 
 caused one of his old pupils to say that he was always followed by "weeping, 
 wondering and admiring audiences." As we question today how this border, 
 backwoods boy became one of the greatest masters of American eloquence, we 
 can but believe there was great gift and grace in his ancestral line. His native 
 county, Augusta, in Virginia, was a frontier region, at the time of his birth 
 
FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 ]=> 
 
 August 27, 1772, but the boy's people were Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, in very 
 humble circumstances, indeed, but devout and noble-minded; and the boy 
 Gideon was named for a maternal uncle, Gideon Richie, "a pious young man 
 without family, who, observing that he was a youth of much more than ordinary 
 promise, so far adopted him as to undertake to educate him at his own expense. 
 He became hopefully the subject of renewing grace at the age of about fifteen." 
 
 GIDEON BLACKBURN 
 
 THE FIRST LOG COLLEGE AND ITS FOUNDER 
 
 Young Gideon lived most of the time until his twelfth year with his 
 grandfather, General Blackburn, of Old Revolutionary days, and we may well 
 imagine that he exerted a decided influence upon the lad's future. In fact. 
 he was surrounded by most excellent people on both sides of the house, and he 
 is enrolled with the group of great pulpit orators and public speakers produced 
 by a type of pioneer school which first bore this name set up in Pennsylvania 
 about the year 17 28 by Rev. William Tennent, an Irish minister of the Episco- 
 pal church, who was born in 1673. He was a graduate of Trinity College. 
 Dublin, and after ordination acted as chaplain to an Irish nobleman, but con- 
 scientious convictions and an increasing family, decided him to migrate to 
 
16 
 
 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 America, where he landed in Philadelphia, in September, 1718. He was cor- 
 dially received by a maternal cousin, James Logan, who was a prominent public 
 official and who ten years later gave him the fifty acres of land upon which 
 the original "Log College" was built. 
 
 Mr. Tennent came to America so well recommended that within two weeks 
 of his arrival it was made possible for him to enter the Presbyterian church and 
 ministry. Upon his location at Nashaminy, in Bucks county, Pa., in 1726, 
 "being deeply impressed with the importance of a well-educated as well as pious 
 ministry, he resolved on establishing a school at which young men might acquire 
 the requisite qualifications for the sacred office. He was admirably fitted to con- 
 duct such a school, being a fine general scholar, as well as a thoroughly read 
 theologian; and with the Latin language he was so familiar, that he could write 
 and speak it, not only with perfect ease but with remarkable elegance. He is 
 said to have delivered a Latin oration before the Synod, not long after he was 
 admitted a member, which was greatly praised for its correct and splendid 
 diction and which showed the most finished education which at that time was 
 obtained in the mother country." 
 
 FRANCIS SNOWDEN 
 Sturdy old Pioneer EQder of Goshen Church. 
 
 His noble ideal of making education democratic in America is next witnessed" 
 when we are told that he erected an humble building on the land given to 
 him by his cousin, James Logan. The building stood within a few steps of 
 his own house; and it was but a short time until students flocked to his 
 quarters. "His expectations in this enterprise were more than realized." says 
 the historian, "for here before many years had passed, had been educated a con- 
 siderable number of the most distinguished Presbyterian Ministers of their 
 time. Among them were Tcnncnt's own sons, Samuel and John Blair, William 
 Robinson and others. It may safely be said that the establishment of this 
 institution, known as the "Log College," marked an epoch in the history 
 of clerical education, at least in the Presbyterian church, in this country." 
 
FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 1" 
 
 EDUCATION AND REGENERATION 
 
 The Presbyterian historian says the Log College was located about 
 twenty miles north of Philadelphia and hands down to us a vivid account of 
 the great purpose inspiring the founder, Rev. William Tennent: "The spirit in 
 which the institution was established augured well for its future. In Ireland 
 and Scotland the signs of prevalent worldliness, foreshadowing a sad apostasy, 
 were already apparent. In this country the primitive zeal of Makemie's compeers 
 was already on the decline. Revivals of religion were nowhere heard of, and 
 an orthodox creed and a decent external conduct were the only points on which 
 inquiry was made when persons were admitted to the communion of the 
 church. Vital piety had almost deserted the church. The substance of preach- 
 ing was 'a dead orthodoxy,' in which little emphasis was laid upon regeneration. 
 a change of heart, or the terrors of the law against sin. With such a state 
 of things Mr. Tennent had no sympathy. His warm evangelical spirit led 
 him to strive with all his energies, to effect a change. The young men who came 
 under his influence in their course of education were inspirited to become his 
 efficient allies." 
 
 Home of Elder Francis Snowden, Goshen, Ky., when G'ideoi 
 Blaclkburn was such a welcome guest. 
 
 The establishment of this famous Log College, called so in contempt, 
 the historians tell us, was in providential preparation for the great revival 
 of which the Wesleys and Whitefield were the exponents, nearly two cen- 
 turies ago. Of this place of prayer and light and liberty Whitefield himself 
 wrote: "The place wherein the young men study is, in contempt, called THE 
 COLLEGE. It is a log house about twenty feet long, and near as many 
 broad; and to me it seemed to resemble the school of the old prophets, for 
 their habitations were mean; and that they sought not great things for them- 
 selves is plain from those passages of scripture wherein we are told that each 
 of them took them a beam to build them a house; and that at the feast of 
 
18 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 the sons of the prophets, one of them put on the pot whilst the others 
 went to fetch some herbs out of the field. All that we can say of most of our 
 universities is, they are glorious without. From this despised place seven or 
 eight worthy ministers of Jesus have lately been sent forth." 
 
 Thus on the frontier of Pennsylvania stood the New World School of the 
 Prophets that raised up men and ministers who turned the spiritual tide 
 for after generations; and in the good green woods near Goshen Gideon Black- 
 burn and his son John established an Academy and church which were intended 
 to lay similar foundations for the future. In subsequent chapters we shall 
 see how the pupils of these institutions passed out with a vision and devotion 
 that revolutionized the age and society in which they lived and labored. 
 
 GIDEON BLACKBURN'S LOG COLLEGE AND TEACHER 
 
 Samuel Doak was the man who educated Gideon Blackburn. He was of 
 Scotch-Irish descent, born in Virginia in 1749, of devout Presbyterian parents; 
 labored on the frontier farm till he was sixteen years old; experienced saving 
 grace; and began his own education in a border school which was the Log 
 College out of which Washington and Lee University, at Lexington, Va., 
 afterward grew. We thus see this line of Log Colleges belting the entire 
 territorv of early times. Young Doak begged his father to put all his inher- 
 itance into an education for him ; he boarded himself in a hut near the school 
 house or college, tutored other pupils, and mastered the classics sufficiently to 
 enter Princeton College, New Jersey. 
 
 This young man, Samuel Doak, was licensed to preach by the Hanover 
 Presbytery, Virginia, in 1777; and later on he removed to the border territory 
 of North Carolina and East Tennessee. Here he had some trying experiences 
 with the Indians, such as his future pupil, Gideon Bi'ackburn, endured in his 
 early ministry. He was a member of an early territorial convention to form 
 a constitution and endeavored to incorporate a clause pledging the new common- 
 wealth to establish a university by the year 1787 and to endow it liberally. 
 But in this he was disappointed, and so he removed to a community on what 
 was then Little Limestone, Washington county, North Carolina. Here he pur- 
 chased a frontier farm, built a Log College and Church, and established himself 
 as a pastor and teacher of youth. This tvas the first infant college planted 
 in all the great Mississippi Valley. The North Carolina legislature first in- 
 corporated it as Martin Academy, in 1785 and in 1795 it became Washington 
 College. Mr. Doak was the head of it from 1785 to 1818. His church 
 ciders were his board of trustees, with some outside additions. He once attended 
 the General Assembly in Philadelphia and brought back upon a pack horse 
 the nucleus of a college library tied up in a big sack. 
 
 WISDOM IN THE BACKWOODS 
 
 Imagine a man somewhat above the middle stature, with a large muscular 
 frame, well formed, and in later life rather inclined to corpulency, full chest, 
 wide shoulders and short neck indicating apoplexy, of which he afterward 
 died — and you have the physical outline of Rev. Samuel Doak, this great back- 
 woods teacher and scholar who trained Gideon Blackburn for the gospel 
 
FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 19 
 
 ministry. He was a solemn and commanding man. His voice was powerful, 
 even stentorian, but not musical ; but he knew how to train up great preachers. 
 His eyes were deep blue and at times seemed lustreless, for he was not a man 
 to give way to feeling and emotion; nor was he a brilliant and inspiring in- 
 structor. He was solid and sensible, thorough and dignified, and controlled his 
 pupils with a masterly will and unfailing helpfulness. 
 
 Dr. Doak was a man of peculiar habits at home and in the school room. 
 He read less and spent hours in secluded thought as he became more and 
 more familiar with the subjects he taught. He was kindhearted but gave 
 no attention to conversation or conviviality. His sermons and college subjects 
 absorbed all his leisure and meditation. He was hospitable but turned all 
 visitors over to the family to entertain when he was busy. When he left the 
 class room he went to his study, reclining in a big arm chair, bent his head 
 back, closed his eyes, and in pure abstract reflection prepared his sermons and 
 lessons for the congregation and the student body. 
 
 In the class room Dr. Doak pursued the same plan. He lay at ease in his 
 big chair and could hear two or three classes in the languages recite without 
 confusion at the same time. He did not divide his pupils into Fresh, Soph, 
 Junior and Senior, but allowed each one to make progress and advance ac- 
 cording to his individual capacity and inclination. Furthermore, he encouraged 
 and required his boys to do their own thinking; he sternly rebuked stupid 
 subservience, and enthused his classes to stand upon their own opinions and 
 to respect others for so doing. He went back to the subjects of chemistry 
 and Hebrew when he was sixty-five years of age and mastered them himself 
 as they were not in the college course when he attended Princeton as a youth. 
 
 THE SCHOOL OF HARDSHIP 
 
 The section of country where Dr. Doak's Log College was located was 
 at the union of Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee. Meal was so scarce 
 when he went there that he was compelled to return thirty miles to get it and 
 other supplies. The Cherokee Indians were round about that section of country 
 ^nd hostile to the settlers. They came to the cabin where young Doak and 
 his wife lived at that time. He was away. Mrs. Doak heard the dogs barking 
 and slipped out with her infant child to hide in the woods. She saw the red 
 men enter the cabin, remove some of the furniture and set fire to the house. 
 Her little babe did not awaken, nor did she make any outcry. She escaped 
 by a blind path ten miles to the nearest station, where she found her husband 
 the next day. 
 
 These adventures were common experiences. One Sunday at service the 
 cry of "Indians, Indians — the Ragsdale family is murdered," rang out on the 
 air. Pastor Doak stopped, led in a word of prayer, dismissed the congregation, 
 seized his rifle and led the men against the savages. Another time his classes 
 were interrupted by the same alarm. He dismissed his school and went with 
 his pupils to join the nearest military command to repel the attack. It was 
 this schooling in courage and initiative, in faith and fearlessness, that made 
 Gideon Blackburn so great a leader, a veritable Gideon from his youth up. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 a\xh (01 it 3Jrrutm Clmxch 
 
 ^^^^^■^ HE Vernon, Indiana, Presbyterian church celebrated the one hun- 
 | I "^ dreth anniversary of its origin Sunday night, May 10, 1925, in a 
 
 V I S magnificent service of music, song and public address. On that 
 
 memorable evening honor and reverence were bestowed upon one 
 great and intrepid spiritual pioneer, Rev. John Finley Crowe, the founder of the 
 Vernon church and the father of Hanover College, down on the river twenty- 
 three miles away. As a similar meeting will be held before long at the Goshen 
 Presbyterian church in honor of Dr. Gideon Blackburn, founder of the church 
 and early President of Centre College, Danville, Kentucky, when Dr. Crowe 
 was laying foundations of a like character at Hanover and Vernon, we will 
 tell the story of this celebration and of Dr. Crowe in a worthy manner. 
 
 President Millis of Hanover College could not come to Vernon for the 
 address on Dr. Crowe, but sent in his place one of the most gifted, humor- 
 ous and eloquent ministers in all the Synod of Indiana — Rev. Dr. Frank O. 
 Ballard, Professor of English Bible at Hanover College. Dr. Ballard, with Mrs. 
 Ballard, Prof. Chas. R. Glazer, musical director at Hanover, singers of rare 
 excellence, arrived in Vernon at 6 p. m. and were met by Elder Nauer of the 
 Men's Brotherhood, Elders Jordan, Carney, Wagner and Benson. Deacons 
 Jordan, Welker, Eitel and a large committee group escorted the visitors to 
 an elegant supper at the hotel, after which Dr. Ballard addressed the company 
 on the subject of a community house in Vernon — the need of it; how Mr. 
 Graham Brown, of Louisville, had assisted Madison in building such a hall 
 to keep its boys and girls off the streets at night, and out of evil associa- 
 tions. 
 
 AN OLD-TIME HOME-COMING 
 
 Dr. Ballard then recalled his boyhood town, Athens. Ohio, a university 
 center, where one of the most delightful home-comings imaginable was given; 
 and where a little runt of a street Arab about town, since risen to fortune and 
 public notice, starred as the benefactor of his native place. Thus, said Dr. 
 Ballard, an old home community like Athens or Vernon may call and count 
 upon its loyal sons and daughters from all over the land to do their bit for 
 a worthy community enterprise when they come back to the old roof tree. 
 It so happened that a Vernon young man, Roy Hinchman, chairman of the 
 North Vernon Board of Deacons, was in the audience that evening; and his 
 meeting with Dr. Ballard was delightful because he had spent quite a number 
 of years in Athens, Ohio, with his family before returning to North Vernon 
 
FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 21 
 
 to live. Mr. Hinchman is a most cultured and companionable Freemason; 
 and we look to him to do many things for the young people of the commu- 
 nity. Prof. L. A. Jackson, of the Vernon High School, was another leadei 
 of youth present whose work counts in the future of the town. The Indiana- 
 polis Sunday Star announced an article on the proposed Vernon Community 
 House, to appear May 17. 
 
 The old Vernon church was built in 1837, was enlarged ten years ago, and 
 had been beautifully repaired and repainted for this centennial year. It was 
 crowded on the night of the celebration with people from all the region 
 round, the North Vernon and Vernon people predominating. The songs of 
 the Hanover singers were exquisite; and then the musical talent of the Vernon 
 church, led by Prof. Jackson and Mrs. Nauer, pianist, gave a series of songs and 
 anthems that delighted the audience. 
 
 WifiF ,■ 
 
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 JLli - &$m 
 
 W-i^C " t ■ 
 
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 r " " ; ^'^'^mJr'-^'-^'- 
 
 
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 l^^-.fcJ'M^ • • '^"* . 
 
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 HANOVER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 
 Hanover Presbyterian Church, founded February 11, 1S20, by Rev- 
 Thomas C. Searl, who was pastor of Madison and Hanover Churches, being- 
 installed by Louisville Presbytery August 13, 1820. He died October 15, 1821. 
 January 16, 1823, Hanover Church called Rev. John Fin ley Crowe, of Shelby- 
 ville, Ky., as pastor. He accepted, moved over in May, 1823 and was ins tall lied 
 August 13 by Louisville Presbytery. He had been teacher of an Academy 
 at Shelbyville, Ky., and pastor of all the region around. He conducted Sun- 
 day Schools among the slave® with' great success and preached to them, but 
 buildings were denied to him. He then began publishing a carefully edited 
 Anti-Slavery paper. Protests, warnings and threats followed. He suffered 
 great mental distress, the loss of his paper amd the support of his people; 
 but he determined to go ahead with his crusade. The call to Hanover came 
 and he wrote, "By the good hand of G-od upon me, have I been preserved 
 through dangers and led. as I trust, by a wise and holy Providence to 
 Hanover, Indiana, the land of civil and religious liberty." President Millis, 
 of Hanover College, insists that Dr. Crowe's dream of abolishing human 
 slavery was deeply identical with his vision of Evangelism and Missionary 
 Service. In a word, it was a spiritual conceptiom and purpose from which 
 he never wavered. 
 
 SHYING OFF "THE AMFN CORNER" 
 
 Dr. Ballard kept the crowd in rare good humor between his inspiring 
 descriptions of the life and work of Dr. Crowe. He said he had always 
 wondered why church people of Scotch-Irish descent shy of sitting up front 
 
22 
 
 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 in service. But when he saw a pastoral subscription list of the old Hanover 
 church during Dr. Crowe's stay there, he understood. John Smith sub- 
 scribed two bags of corn. Peter Brown gave three bags of potatoes. Isaac 
 Jones put down some other food article for man or beast; and the front of 
 the church was used by the deacons to pile the pastor's salary up in front 
 
 THE OLD VBltXOX IMtKSBYTEUlAX CHURCH 
 Erected in 18,37. 
 
 of him, as scarcely any money was to be had in those hard times. Dr. Ballard 
 said that the head of the family always brought his rifle into the church 
 with him and ushered the wife and children in the pew first, setting his firearm 
 against the seat, in case of sudden Indian attack. Since we arc creatures of 
 hereditary habits we sit back in church today and the man always hands the 
 lady and little ones into the pew as long ago. 
 
FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 23 
 
 JOHN FINLEY CROWE DESCRIBED 
 
 Dr. Ballard's word picture of John Finley Crowe was that of a spiritual 
 artist — being in substance somewhat as follows: "One hundred years ago 
 this May 11, there came into these woods and wilds upon horseback a tall 
 spare, wiry young man of thirty-eight years. There was a light in his eye 
 and his tread was firm, for he came as another apostle of the cross to plant 
 this church in the western wilderness, as he planted many more. Before he 
 had finished his career he had traveled as far as Saint Paul from Arabia to 
 Rome. This is the Presbyterian centennary period in Southern Indiana. The 
 town of Hanover celebrated five years ago; the Carmel Presbyterian church shortly 
 before, and now yours. One hundred years seems very long to most of us. 
 When I was a wee lad five years seemed like an age; but now it seems but a span 
 of time. 
 
 "There is no contemporary of Dr. Crowe's coming here in the town 
 tonight. There is a painting of him in Hanover College chapel, with other 
 fascinating portraits to me. His is a full length likeness, with idealized college 
 buildings in the background of the Greek type of architecture. He was a strong, 
 vigorous, pioneer soul who braved Indians and fevers and wild beasts, riding 
 through swamps and thickets, swimming creeks and rivers, to organize churches 
 in Indiana and Illinois. John M. Dickey, James H. Johnson, Telle H. Brown, 
 George Logan, a layman, called Squire Logan, a giant in strength, called up 
 before the church now and then for the errors of the flesh, but a brave, good 
 brother nevertheless; Judge Dunn, called Captain Dunn for his service against 
 the Indians — these were a few of the men of God around John Finley Crowe. 
 Dunn and Crowe together gave the land for Hanover College. Dunn was 
 from Danville, Kentucky. He came over here as an Abolitionist and took up 
 land in the forest. His was the first name on the charter roll of twenty- 
 three members of Hanover church that called young Crowe over here from 
 Shelbyville, Kentucky, in 1823. They both sleep now in the beautiful old 
 cemetery at Hanover overlooking the Ohio — God's Acre; and their works do 
 follow them. Judge Dunn pushed on to Crawfordsville, Ind., in those early 
 times and was a charter member of the Presbyterian church there and gave 
 the campus for Wabash College. Not long ago I had a little boy call the roll 
 of the charter members of Old Hanover church — one after another, and there 
 was no response, for they have all long since responded to the roll on high. 
 
 COMES TO HANOVER 
 
 "There was a young pastor at Hanover before Dr. Crowe came. His 
 name was Searl, and the name Hanover was first given to the town in honor 
 of the old home town of the pastor's wife in Hanover, New Hampshire. It 
 was first called New Hanover and South Hanover down here, having no 
 pioneer name but the "Dunn and Logan Settlement" until the church and town 
 took on the name mentioned. Pastor Searl was a great scholar and was on 
 the educational board that framed the laws of the early school. His death 
 was a calamity; but there were numbers of those fine young men who came 
 from the East and South who came out here and perished one after another 
 in the wilderness. Hanover College was founded to help raise up a native 
 Presbyterian ministry that could endure the climate and its hardships and serve 
 the pioneer people. 
 
 "Now John Finley Crowe's ancestors were English people. His paternal 
 grandfather came from England. His paternal grandmother was a Grigg, 
 a Scotch Presbyterian. There were six sons and four daugters. The father of 
 
FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 25 
 
 John Finley Crowe was Benjamin Crowe, a Revolutionary soldier who married 
 Anne Grigg and removed to North Carolina. His military skill in fighting 
 Indians was such that a pioneer station was named for him in the Tar Heel 
 State. 
 
 "By the shifting of territorial boundary lines John Finley Crowe was 
 born in Tennessee June 17, 1787, two years before the adoption of our con- 
 stitution as a united nation. He died at Hanover January 17, 1860, aged 73 
 years. It is of interest to mention that just before his death, being very far 
 gone, a messenger came over that Sunday morning to tell him that prayers had 
 been offered in his behalf at the church services. Dr. Crowe remarked, 'I did 
 not think they prayed for the dead.' 
 
 NORTH VERNON PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 
 EARLY RELIGIOUS AWAKENING 
 
 "In 1802 John Finley Crowe and his foreparents removed to Louisiana, 
 and he tells us in one of the several memoir manuscripts left by him that the 
 Sabbath Day had not then crossed the Mississippi River. We next find the 
 family in Missouri. There were no church privileges. The people did not 
 appreciate the gospel and yet this lad had determined to become a minister 
 before he was converted. At thirteen years of age he had a serious illness and 
 reflected long and deeply on his spiritual condition. Yet thus far there was 
 no spiritual experience. A Methodist evangelist who penetrated those wilds 
 found the people so rude, the Indians so bad, and the prospects so poor to 
 preach that he returned to a more settled country. But this backwoods boy 
 
26 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 was not without witness. There was a manhood and Christian modesty about 
 him always, but he heard the whisper of a great destiny. The gentle breeding 
 and quality of the youth were evident; his bones were ivory and the gospel 
 made a hero of him. Somehow the Word of Life found him in the back- 
 woods country and called him to become a man of God. 
 
 EDUCATED ON WHISKEY MONEY 
 
 "He was poor. He cleared six acres of land for $60 with which to pay 
 for an education. Just think of the prodigious amount of labor that involved! 
 He got a horse, saddle and bridle and rode 400 miles through the woods from 
 Missouri to Danville, Kentucky, where he heard that a Dr. Priestly had a 
 classical school. But it was before the days of Centre College by some years, 
 and Dr. Priestly had removed to Nashville. But the lad had an uncle, William 
 Crowe, near Danville. Two cousins lived there; and they were a jolly, 
 pleasure-loving family; but John Finley Crowe's mind was on spiritual light and 
 the passion for an education. An older man helped him. He went on into 
 his quest for a school or academy where he might pursue his studies. He sold 
 his horse for $100, got employment in a distillery and got pay for his labor 
 in good whiskey. He had no evil conscience about it at the time for it was 
 the universal custom. He shipped it to St. Louis; and after a classical training 
 at Transylvania University at Lexington for two years he set out for Princeton 
 Seminary, New Jersey, where he attended in 1814 and 1815. We may remark 
 in passing that John Finley Crowe left his comment on record about the liquor 
 business. 
 
 'I trouble to think I got the money for my education with a poison 
 more deadly than the Plagues of Egypt.' 
 
 "WHOM. HAVING NOT SEEN, WE LOVE" 
 
 "He likewise was an Abolitionist. The Blythe family were Kentucky 
 landlords and slaveholders; but they freed their slaves and got John Finley 
 Crowe to teach them the rudiments of an education to fit them for liberty. He 
 came over here from Shelbyville, Kentucky, where he published an Anti-Slavery 
 paper. One hundred years ago this May 11, he came up here to Vernon and 
 organized your church. He must have been very happy here. Somehow the 
 spirit of a first founder nearly always inheres in the rocks and trees and soil 
 of a place, the spirit of the locality wc call it. But I have studied the life and 
 portrait and work of John Finley Crowe down there at Hanover until I have 
 come to love him with a very intense and personal feeling. Is it not strange 
 and beautiful how wc can have a sentiment for the soul of some one we never 
 saw or knew in the flesh.''" 
 
 Dr. Ballard made reference to manuscripts of college history left by Dr. 
 Crowe. The Board of Trustees in 1857 requested him to prepare such a his- 
 tory from personal knowledge and memory. We saw a copy of it at Hanover 
 a few months ago, visiting Dr. Millis for information about Dr. Crowe. Wc 
 gathered many interesting points which Dr. Ballard touched on in his address. 
 
FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 27 
 
 PAYING FOR AN EDUCATION LONG AGO 
 
 The Manual Labor System was introduced into the college at the beginning 
 to provide the students a means of self-support and to keep them in good health 
 by exercise; but it failed because the cost of equipment was too heavy. This 
 was the same system in operation at Oneida Institute New York, years ago 
 and was contemplated at the Masonic Academy at La Grange, Kentucky, back 
 in the forties. It was abandoned for the same reason. We understand that 
 Blackburn College is on this basis of self-help through manual labor, but is 
 assisted by state aid. 
 
 The boarding of the pupils was a problem at Old Hanover. The first 
 Academy was an old log weaving room cleared by Dr. Crowe, into which he 
 gathered six boys. Three became ministers and three of them doctors. As the 
 number of pupils grew the families in the village agreed to take them in to 
 board at 75 cents a week, which hardly paid the wear and tear on the furnit- 
 ure, so they complained later on. Judge Dunn then came to the rescue by prom- 
 ising to lay out the village lots and induce good families to move to Hanover 
 with a view of boarding the pupils. This was done and has ever since been 
 customary until the modern dormitory and fraternity house proposition superseded 
 it in great measure. 
 
 OLD-TIME COMMUNION MEETINGS 
 
 With reference to Dr. Crowe's pastoral labors, be it said that a century ago a 
 group of churches like Hanover, Vernon and other points would unite in turn 
 for the sacramental service of several days, which was celebrated every fall 
 and spring, and was regarded as a great season of grace. The pioneer people 
 went back home greatly strengthened and built up to endure the hardship 
 and privation of their lives until the next season came round. Two or three 
 ministers were generally on the ground and frequently a revival would result. 
 
 In those days Indiana, Illinois and Missouri united in one synod and in 
 October 1829 that body met in Shoal Creek, forty miles from St. Louis. The 
 members of the Madison and Salem Presbyteries, which had by that time 
 been formed out of the Old Louisville Presbytery, met at the Vincennes church 
 the Sabbath preceding and delighted themselves in a season of grace. Then in a 
 cavalcade of fifteen ministers and elders horseback they moved westward through 
 the prairie and woodland. The boundless prairie seemed like an ocean before 
 them, with clumps of trees here and there like islands. They would often 
 stop at one cabin and pile into one room about the fireplace, using their 
 saddles for pillows and their blankets for covering. The family usually stayed 
 in an outhouse. 
 
 RAISING MONEY FOR OLD HANOVER 
 
 On December 6, 1830, Dr. Crowe set out for the East to get funds to 
 rebuild a brick house built by community labor for the college, bur which 
 caught fire, unfinished, one day when some children went in while the workmen 
 were away at dinner. Setting fire to some shavings, the children uncon- 
 sciously brought desolation. The description of this journey and mission of 
 Dr. Crowe was one of the most impressive given by Dr. Ballard. He met with 
 
28 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 no success in Philadelphia because of business depression. He went to Princeton 
 and New York City and was handed politely from place to place to get rid 
 of his importunities. From Albany to Troy, New York, he traveled, with 
 many a heart-breaking experience and finally returned home with what he had 
 picked up, $3,000 and 100 volumes. The students were rail-splitters and 
 cut cord wood and were called the school of the prophets at the outset; but they 
 became proficient in burning brick and gradually, despite fire and tornado, the col- 
 lege buildings appeared. 
 
 The Oldham county. Kentucky students at Hanover were as follows in 
 Dr. Crowe's time: Milo Adams, 1833; Henry G. Duerson, 1834; James A. 
 Curry, 1835; Robert T. Edmondson, George Givens, James D. Adams, Robert 
 Foster, Richard Wilhoyte. Benjamin H. Benjamin, of Springfield, Ohio, a popu- 
 lar student was drowned in the river near Hanover July 2, 183 9. 
 
 MURDER OF PROF. BUTLER 
 
 William G. Butler, born in Jefferson county, Indiana, in 1823, was in 
 Hanover Preparatory in 1841-42. He taught the Academy in Vernon, and 
 Dr. Ditzler of Oldham county told us that he taught school in the old log 
 school house near Goshen, Kentucky, on the farm of John C. Pierce. This 
 Butler graduated at Hanover in 1846 and afterwards became superintendent 
 of the Louisville High School. He was murdered in 185 3 by Matt Ward, of 
 Louisville for whipping Ward's younger brother. It was a brutal murder 
 but Ward's family and money and influence got him a vigorous defense and 
 he was cleared. Such are the local memories and traditions brought to light 
 by the old centennial at Vernon and Goshen churches. People at Vernon said 
 that Dr. Ballard's address on John Finley Crowe was like they imagine 
 it will be to meet these heroes of the cross in the heavenly land. 
 

 George Grey Barnard and his first great masterpiece 
 "Two Natures Struggling Within Me." 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 •U* ^>xt^itml ®t SUI Xitnhuki&mm 
 
 g\ T is generally conceded that Abraham Lincoln was the greatest of all 
 jm VJ Kentuckians, and the most typical of all Americans. He looms tall 
 X^,_ , ^X and sombre and sublime on the human landscape, yet illuminated 
 
 and glorified with a melancholy humor like the subdued sunlight 
 of Indian summer days. Ida M. Tarbell in her latest book on Lincoln intimates 
 that Mary Todd, his wife, occasionally twitted him on his scrub stock ancestry 
 in comparison with her own blue blood lineage; and, really, most Southern 
 people think of Lincoln as a sort of Corncracker scrub and a Southern Indiana 
 barbarian or backwoodsman. His proverbial love for the common people 
 and the poor sets him down as a product of the so-called lower classes in spite 
 of all that Miss Tarbell and other biographers have said and done to make his 
 parentage middle class and respectable in the eyes of our "natural and social 
 superiors," the highborn rulers of this "land of the free and home of the slave." 
 In fact it would do us all a world of good to get down to the mudsills of human 
 society once more with Lincoln and to rub shoulders with the real dirt farmers 
 and common laborers who constitute the subsoil of social America today. 
 
 On the other hand it is very amusing to note how the best Southern 
 Indiana people regard the present-time Kentucky type of emigrant, the tobacco 
 growing tenant who moves over there to find cheaper land and less severe com- 
 petition in the battle for daily bread. A humorist druggist in a Southern 
 Indiana town said to a traveling salesman not long ago that these new-comers 
 from Kentucky were ruining the Methodist church and the Democratic party 
 of that section by purchasing their land and enabling the middle class Methodist 
 farmer Democrats to move elsewhere! And even today the amazing human 
 sympathies of Lincoln identify him traditionally with these "Nogood Naza- 
 renes" of the Old Home State. Be that as it may, Abe's shoulders are broad 
 and he can stand it ! 
 
 But on Tuesday night, December 9, in the year of 1924. we journeyed 
 to Madison, Ind.. to spend the evening and have a heart to heart talk with 
 Rev. Dr. J. R. Barnard, father of the greatest American sculptor. George Grey 
 Barnard, creator of the massive and elemental Lincoln who stands near the 
 Louisville Pree Public Library. We wanted to trace back the stream of Pres- 
 byterian parentage that fathered the one sculptor on our continent who con- 
 ceived Abraham Lincoln aright. We wanted to look in the face and into the 
 soul of the mighty man of God from whose loins sprang one of the noblest 
 artists of all time, one of the elect few not born to die who dug back to the 
 root original of the elemental man 1 incoln and recreated him for the gaze 
 and wonder of all generations. 
 
THE GREATEST OF ALL KENTUCKIANS 31 
 
 In an old-fashioned vine-covered brick home, two or three avenues above 
 the Ohio, lives Doctor Barnard, the vital and deep-visioned pastor and chaplain 
 of the Madison Hospital for the Insane, still pondering human problems and 
 preaching the gospel of the Son of God at eighty-six years of age. He is a live 
 and virile little man with a most impressive head and countenance crowned and 
 adorned with curly white hair and beard. He greets you with a hearty handclasp 
 and seats you facing him in his cozy library, the walls of which are crowded 
 with books and with photographs of his famous son's sculpture creations, amid 
 which Lincoln towers dominant and dynamic. 
 
 In Barnard's Lincoln the elemental man, not the cave man, but the basic 
 human being, "made in the image of God," was bodied forth — with the 
 muscle and sinew of might and mastery but also with the soul and spirit 
 of a great, compassionate humanity. In all his artistic conceptions as a 
 sculptor Barnard sought after the original thought and idea back of life and its 
 mysterious forces. The group of Labor and Love set forth the ultimate goal 
 of human existence with a joyful outcome. The group of Labor and Sorrow 
 showed the Prodigal wasting his effort and labor for that which satisfieth not — 
 seeking in sinful pleasure and dissipation the happiness and thrill that he never 
 really found, and coming back at last bare and abased, pitiful and repentant, to 
 the feet of Forgiving Fatherhood. 
 
 Now it must be evident that the parental lineage of such tremendous human 
 themes is worthy of our closest attention; and with breathless interest we ques- 
 tioned Doctor Barnard to tell us something of his own remarkable life and 
 ministry. 
 
 He was born up in the mountains and valleys of Tuscarora, Pennsylvania, 
 of Scotch Presbyterian people, who were like the Tennent family of Colonial 
 times, founders of the early Log College system of education and evangelism 
 in our popular life. Doctor Barnard's father was a miller, a keen-minded 
 Scotchman who thought and spoke the truth and controlled his emotions and 
 sensibilities. He was not a professional religionist nor a doctrinal disputant. 
 As a matter of fact, he resembled Lincoln somewhat in holding aloof from 
 the controversy of creeds, suspending judgment so to speak, till all the evidence 
 was justly weighed. Of course that attitude was intolerable to the man 
 of action in such matters; but Doctor Barnard remarked that it was the deep 
 religious consciousness of Abraham Lincoln beneath all the requirements and 
 conformities to creed and ceremony, the recognition and acknowledgement of 
 God in his own soul and the world of Nature and Man around him, that really 
 counted. The man Lincoln truly lived and moved, labored and loved his fellows 
 in the light of that abiding, almost fateful consciousness of and confidence in the 
 Unseen God of his being and destiny. 
 
 Close akin to that realization, in Doctor Barnard's opinion, lies the belief 
 in the overruling providence of God in our lives and the lives of others — 
 controlling and directing the conditions and circumstances of our lives toward 
 some ultimate good or goal. "Even though he slay me. yet will I trust in 
 Him" — choosing our own way but confident that He directs our steps; laying 
 our lives and our all upon the altar of sacrifice and service, or even of mar- 
 tyrdom, as Lincoln did. How wonderfully in the life of Lincoln was this 
 idea demonstrated and exemplified, even in his cruel and sudden assassination! 
 
32 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 Even "the deep damnation of his taking off" worked out "a far exceeding 
 weight of glory" that has long since "justified the ways of God to men." 
 It was the fellowship of such struggle and suffering and tragedy that lifted 
 Lincoln from the humble level of a seeming backwoods buffoon and barbarian 
 to the sublimest heights of human martyrdom and love and adoration. 
 
 But, as in the life of Lincoln, the mother was the dominant influence 
 and personality, so in the life of the great sculptor's father the mother was 
 the supreme factor in the family life. She suffered a great deal from sickness 
 in her life and used to lie upon her bed or couch and read the Bible aloud 
 as they did in those days. The Senior Boy Barnard played about as a child 
 and when his mother read the story of Jacob and Esau, of Joseph and his 
 brethren, of Moses and Samuel and David and Jonathan, it arrested his attention 
 and gripped his imagination. This mother of long-ago gave her boy to God 
 in his infancy; and her prayers were always like Hannah's for her son Samuel — 
 to be a prophet of the Lord. He went to school as a child from five to 
 twelve at the little mountain school house. Then one day an old Elder by the 
 name of Patterson — who was one of a group of godly men in those mountains 
 with an ideal of education for promising youth — asked the boy Barnard how 
 he would like to go to the academy as a beneficiary of this man Patterson's 
 scholarship? The boy answered with beaming countenance that he would 
 like it the best in the world. And thus he entered on the course of education 
 and training that did for him and his generation precisely what the Old Log 
 College of the Tennent familv did for the promising ministerial timber of Colo- 
 nial times in Old Pennsylvania. 
 
 But there was a revival meeting under way at the Academy that was 
 iweeping everything before it. An evangelist who had been a reporter and 
 newspaper man of those times was wonderfully converted and became a power 
 in the pulpit with young men. His name was McClain or McLane and he 
 had been a home missionary in the state of Iowa. He was an orator of the 
 earlier generation of natural-born public speakers — "a flame of fire," as 
 was said of James Otis. He had brought the whole student body under con- 
 viction of sin and earnest seeking after regeneration. 
 
 The academy was a brick building with a large frame addition, much 
 like the Tennent "Log College," and when visited by fire later on, the basement 
 of the church was used for class room work. In this revival meeting nearly 
 every student had come into the glad new life of salvation but young Barnard 
 and his room mate — a tall, slender fellow by the name of Webster. Barnard 
 was not exactly dodging the gospel; but he usually went home after school 
 and had not been present to fall under the influence of the evangelist and the 
 message of saving grace. Besides, at that time his mind was intent on studying 
 medicine and his ideal was the positive old Scotch physician who " T "«s by 
 no means a religious man; and of course Barnard was not interested. But one 
 of his teachers kept insisting that he stay over at least one night and hear 
 McLane; and out of deference to his teacher friend, Barnard, near the close of the 
 revival services, put it up to Webster to attend just that time. Webster answered. 
 "Well, we will go to the meeting tonight." 
 
 When they got there they saw 300 or 400 students and other people 
 from the surrounding country packed into the assembly room of the Academy 
 
THE GREATEST OF ALL KENTUCKIANS 3 3 
 
 church. The evangelist took as his text, "He is able to save unto the utter- 
 most all them who come unto God by Him." Gradually, almost unconsciously, 
 the gospel message penetrated the mind and gripped the will-power of young 
 Barnard and Webster. The evangelist was an absolutely sincere, consecrated 
 man, and he swept his hand over the heart-strings of his hearers with a touch 
 that caused "chords that were broken to vibrate once more." It was tho amaz- 
 ing grace of God that seized upon the spirits of these two young men and 
 brought them under deep and genuine conviction of sin and yearning after sal- 
 vation. 
 
 When the invitation was given one after another of their companions 
 who yet lingered arose and went forward to the altar or inquiry corner. Barnard 
 turned to take his hat to go outside and cast an inquiring glance at Webster. There 
 he sat, electrified, the tears streaming down his cheeks. Webster picked up his 
 hat also, and Barnard intended following him outdoors; but instead Webster 
 turned up the aisle toward the altar with the workers and inquirers. Bar- 
 nard involuntarily followed Webster and a great load rested heavily upon his 
 soul. He felt the unbearableness of his sinful condition and sought release 
 for the space of perhaps forty-eight hours, when like the wind that bloweth 
 where it listeth (thou hearest the sound thereof but canst not tell whence it 
 cometh nor whither it goeth) the Spirit of God lifted the intolerable burden 
 and saved Barnard and Webster unto the uttermost. 
 
 So complete was Barnard's experience of the joy of salvation that he 
 decided then and there to give his life to the gospel ministry and forthwith 
 went to tell the old Scotch doctor that he must now give up the study of 
 medicine. He got a good round cursing for this announcement and for break- 
 ing his purpose and promise to be a physician. But Barnard bore this with 
 patience and the old doctor afterward sat under the preaching of young Bar- 
 nard while he was preparing for the ministry ; and in due season Barnard 
 saw him also happily converted and elected a ruling elder in the Presbyterian 
 church. Thus, as in the case of many others whom we have witnessed won- 
 derfully regenerated and consecrated to a life of service utterly contrary, perhaps, 
 to first intentions, young Barnard was turned into the course and career that 
 the Providence of God prepared him for. We shall follow his story into the 
 future. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 <X- he 3"alhcr of ^mrrmvs flirt air &1 ^culxiiot 
 
 f^^^^^ HE Kentucky philanthropist, Bernheim, who gave the replica of George 
 ■ 1"^ Grey Barnard's Lincoln to the city of Louisville, lost his wife not 
 
 %J J long ago and commissioned the great sculptor to prepare a suitable 
 
 memorial of her. About Thanksgiving of the year 1924. he was 
 on his way to Louisville to see Mr. Bernheim, and also to Madison. Indiana, 
 to see his father. When he reached Pittsburg he was taken suddenly ill 
 
 and was advised by his physician to return to New York, which he did. 
 The Bernheim Memorial was expected to be one of the most beautiful and im- 
 pressive ever set up in Kentucky. The sculptor has not yet permitted any one 
 to see it, or any description of it to be given to the press; but some of his 
 noblest conceptions have been on the theme of Death. 
 
 Some time ago (it is said) there was an old friend of the Barnards at 
 Muscatine, Iowa, where they lived, who had lost her husband, and she wanted a 
 memorial expressive of her love. The sculptor worked on it some time. To 
 him the old mediaeval conception of Death as a shrouded skeleton with a scythe. 
 a vision of terror and horror, was a false conception. Barnard again conceived 
 Death as the Greeks did and made the figure of a lovely maiden with rose 
 petals falling at her feet — leading onward and upward from one form and stage 
 of life to another. She represents Eternal Youth, Immortality, which is the 
 true conception. 
 
 THE SCULPTOR'S VISION OF LOVE AND DEATH 
 
 To the soul of Barnard Beauty was always akin to Holiness. When he 
 looks on the human form divine there is nothing lustful or unclean, but the 
 pure sensitiveness to perfect loveliness; and likewise, in his conception of 
 Death, the old horrors and revulsions of fear were forgotten in the dream 
 of Eternal Youth. When his mother died a few years ago there came to him an 
 even greater vision of the New Testament teaching; and he said to his father 
 one day in a letter that he had a vision of eternal things and of the Life 
 Beyond; and was satisfied, and even comforted, in the mother's decease. 
 
 The son of the man who died in Muscatine. Iowa, was an editor and 
 came to Chicago and became a manufacturer of printing press material and 
 grew very wealthy. He played an immense part in Barnard's future; and doubt- 
 less it was the memorial to this man's father that gave Barnard his noble vision 
 of victory over death. 
 
 But in June of the year 19 24 on our visit to the sculptor's father in 
 Madison, Ind., he showed us a picture of the mother in her younger girlhood 
 when he first loved and married her. It was the face of girlhood sensitive to 
 
THE GREATEST OF ALL KENTUCKIANS 
 
 35 
 
 beauty and sweet sound. She was something of an artist and musician herself, and 
 she gave to the son his dreams of beauty and loveliness, while the father stamped 
 upon him his powers of thought, his noble conception of truth. 
 
 REV 
 
 R. BARNARD, D. D. 
 
 Rev. J. R. Barnard, D. D., of Madison, Ind., on a visit to his first pas- 
 torate of Tyrone, Pa., in the suimmer of 1924. He is standing 1 with the 
 Rev. Francis Shunk Downs, then pastor. Dr. Barnard was a strong: man of 
 God in the pulpit in Civil "War days. He wias always a patriot but never 
 a partisan. His was supremely the ministry of consolation and faith in the 
 dark hoairs of battle and bereavement, of invasion and suspense. Being- 
 drafted into the Union service, he called upon Governor Curtain, by apecial 
 agreement, for ,a chaplaincy. But the Governor ordered Dr. Barnard to 
 remain in his pulpit and among his people at home to sustain the spiritual 
 morale through such crises as the Battle of Gettysburg. He was called to 
 the front on one notable occasion of triumph to participate in the patriotic 
 exercises. Dr. Barnard was one of the most remarkable men in the American 
 ministry. He was the close friend of Edward Bggleston and performed the 
 ceremony of his second marriage at Madison. 
 
 THE MOTHER MEMORIES OF A GREAT FATHER 
 
 In this connection, it is timely to relate what Dr. Barnard, the father 
 told us of his own mother memories, since they disclose an ideal of love and 
 devotion that most truly descended to the great sculptor. Dr. Barnard's father 
 and mother lived on a little ancestral farm of sixty acres back in Pennsyl- 
 vania during his boyhood. The farm was mortgaged and the mother went to 
 Elder Patterson, who educated her son, and asked him to trust her with the place 
 for her lifetime, which he did. Thus as long as she lived she held her little 
 family together; but at her death the farm passed out of the family possession for- 
 
36 
 
 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 ever. She was one of the great mothers of the world, and left to each of her 
 children the legacy of an immortal love memory. 
 
 Dr. Barnard said that in his earliest ministry the physical horror of death 
 and the grave appalled him. He dreaded the face of Death, the Great Destroyer, 
 though he felt the confidence and fortitude of faith to meet it. But when word 
 came that his own dear mother was passing away, he met Death at close range. 
 It was on a cold, dreary, March day; and his mother was dead when he reached 
 home after the fatal summons. It chanced that the pastor on the charge, a man 
 by the name of Hamilton, who was expected to preach the funeral discourse, was 
 delayed from arriving at two o'clock, the hour set for the service. The roads 
 were very muddy and hard to cover; and the time passed painfully until three 
 o'clock, when young Barnard saw that night would fall before the funeral 
 and burial would be over. The little cemetery was distant some two and a 
 half miles from the home. 
 
 Birthplace cufl George Grey Barnard, Presbyterian 
 Manse, Bellefonte, Pennsylvania. 
 
 PREACHING HIS OWN MOTHER'S FUNERAL 
 
 The conviction that he ought to rise up and conduct the service himself 
 in memory of such a mother, who had meant so much to him. seized him 
 with overpowering persuasion, and he at last summoned courage and self-control 
 to do what he had never dreamed of attempting until that hour and emergency. 
 Thus he preached his own mother's funeral and said those things which a loving 
 son could say about her. Strange to relate, the former fear and horror deserted 
 him and he was enabled to master a state of mind that had hitherto deeply 
 depressed him. 
 
 After that trying experience he faced Death again in the tragical passing of 
 two lovely children of his own. One, a little babe of four months, who was 
 taken with the wife and mother one day in a buggy to a distant point and lifted 
 out of the mother's arms by the father as they got out. The wind, cold and 
 raw. blew the covering aside and struck the little fellow full in the face and 
 chest. He flinched as though he had been struck a blow and in forty-eight hours 
 
THE GREATEST OF ALL KENTUCKIANS 3 7 
 
 he was dead. Dr. Barnard was terribly grief-stricken, blaming himself, but God 
 gave to the mother and father a measure of peculiar consolation. 
 
 Sometime later a still more grievous blow befell them. Another child 
 of about two and a half years died of an epidemic that carried away thirty-six 
 children in the town. The mother could not bear to see the child die and the 
 father and nurse watched its little life ebb away. Its great blue eyes looked up 
 as if in the face of God and they buried it away with the eyes unclosed. Dr. 
 Barnard said that somehow he was enabled to find the Heart of an Infinite 
 Compassionate Father even in these terrible losses. The wife and mother was, of 
 course, well-nigh inconsolable, but she bore her grief with equal heroism and 
 Dr. Barnard said that his own contact with Death, in the case of his children 
 and mother, solaced and supported him even down to the death of his own 
 beloved companion a few years ago. 
 
 THE LOVE SIDE OF CALVINISM 
 In this connection also we were very anxious to inquire into the origin of 
 the great human compassion that characterizes the son's sublime work in stone and 
 marble and bronze. We asked Dr. Barnard to tell us something of his own 
 vision of love to God and love to mankind as a spiritual realization and experi- 
 ence. He answered that he went to Princeton Seminary, New Jersey, just prior 
 to the outbreak of the Civil War and studied theology at the feet of that great 
 Presbyterian teacher, Dr. Charles Hodge, who was also the instructor of our father 
 a few years after Dr. Barnard graduated. Dr. Barnard combined in himself the 
 most perfect mastery of theology and the most gracious spirit of the gospel 
 drawn directly from this noble instructor. Dr. Hodge lived and taught a love 
 to God and love to mankind that embodied the very essence of religion. He 
 took his turn in the chapel talks Sunday afternoons and as he expounded the 
 mysteries of grace to his students the tears flowed down his cheeks in a manner 
 that moved every auditor with the power of his sincerity and undoubted devotion. 
 Dr. Barnard insisted that even out of the heart of Calvinistic theology, as taught 
 by Dr. Hodge, there flowed a stream of love and mercy and human kindness. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 
 ft N MAY 19, 1920, it was stated in the morning Courier- Journal that 
 
 fm VJ Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Bernheim, of Louisville, would donate to the 
 
 V^ J city a bronze reproduction of George Grey Barnard's Lincoln and 
 
 that the sculptor would visit Louisville to select the site. The 
 
 proposal of the philanthropist and his wife was made at a dinner given to the 
 
 Board of Education at the Pendennis Club. Mr. Frank N. Hartwell represented 
 
 the Bernheims. 
 
 Mr. Bernheim presented the statue with the hope that future generations 
 might be inspired by the memory of Lincoln. He said that the career of the 
 great, loyal rail-splitter had stood out before him as an incentive and encourage- 
 ment ever since he came to America as a poor emigrant boy seeking the boon 
 of human freedom. He hoped the same inspiration might be passed on to every 
 other emigrant boy whose longing eyes were turned toward our shores. The gift 
 was graciously and gratefully accepted by the Board. 
 
 The statue, as it stands in place near the Free Public Library is fourteen 
 feet high, without beard, as when Lincoln debated with Douglas in 1858. It was 
 first thought wise to set up the statue in front of the Louisville Male High School 
 but the decision was postponed until the arrival of Mr. Barnard. This great 
 work of art and humanity has been reproduced and erected in London. Paris. 
 Cincinnati and even in China. The sculptor said that Lincoln was a hero in 
 every civilized land. Even the Orientals look and long for a Great Emancipator 
 like him, and the school children of China carry banners with his name upon 
 them. Russia asked for a statue of Lincoln like that in Louisville. 
 
 Yet this tremendously realistic work of art called down upon the sculptor's 
 head a storm of protest on both sides of the Atlantic. The original was unveiled 
 and dedicated several years ago in Manchester, England. The critics said that 
 Mr. Barnard stressed crudity and roughness as outstanding characteristics of 
 Lincoln, while entirely failing to portray the idealism of the great Kentuckian 
 and Liberator. Especially did the critics cavil because the sculptor selected an 
 uncouth mountaineer as his model in executing the work. 
 
 The Louisville Herald came to the front with a vigorous defense of the 
 statue as a Lincoln portrayal and interpretation: "Superbly and defiantly this 
 is Lincoln, the Kentuckian, gaunt and of giant stature, the man of a career stormy 
 and troubled, holding the destinies of a nation in his grasp, steadfast and un- 
 afraid." 
 
 When Mr. Barnard arrived in Louisville he said that the controversy over 
 the statue started about the clothes of Lincoln. He put the soul of Lincoln 
 
THE GREATEST OF ALL KENTUCKIANS 3 9 
 
 in his wearing apparel. He studied Lincoln's face for two years as no other 
 human had ever done; and he put some wrinkles of that sad and homely counten- 
 ance into the trousers and coat of the man. Then the academicians, as Mr. 
 Barnard called his critics, hurled their scorn at his mighty Emancipator. They 
 thought the sculptor himself was done for; that he had ruined his reputation with 
 the present generation and with posterity. But Barnard only laughed at his 
 critics. He told how President Roosevelt came to his studio one day and de- 
 manded to see the Lincoln statue. Left alone in the room with it. Lincoln 
 became almost alive to Roosevelt and Barnard heard Roosevelt say, "At last we 
 have the real Lincoln of the Lincoln and Douglas debates." 
 
 In an interview while in Louisville Mr. Barnard told how he came to 
 create his famous Lincoln. He said his mother was born in Springfield, 111., 
 next door to Lincoln's home and from his childhood up it had been his ambition 
 and dream to model the mighty Liberator. He said he believed his Lincoln 
 was closer to nature than others because he was himself a naturalist before he 
 became a sculptor. At the age of six years Barnard studied shells with an old 
 sea captain. He next stuffed birds and sketched and modeled them. So when 
 he came to create his Lincoln he wanted to visualize Lincoln the man, not Lin- 
 coln the President. That is another reason why the work is so misunderstood. 
 
 The time of Mr. Barnard's visit to Louisville was in June, 19 20. He talked 
 in a free and fascinating way about his love for nature and humanity, and he 
 bubbled over with good humor. He said that Kentucky was to him the land of 
 Daniel Boone, Abraham Lincoln and the Kentucky Cardinal. He was the guest 
 of the Bernheims at their Anchorage home: and he brought along with him his 
 little daughter, Barbara, "to take care of him. keep his tie straight, see that 
 he did not miss trains and that he did not misbehave." He lunched at the 
 Seelbach and went on a tour of the city to select a site. 
 
 Newspaper men remarked about Barnard that the big thing was his interest 
 in human life and the life of all nature around him. This interest showed in 
 every stroke of his art. He knew the soil and farming. He was alive to Russia 
 and her big place in the perspective of the World War. He understood history 
 from an economic and social point of view. He had abiding faith in the outcome 
 of world events, provided men had vision and lived up to it: 
 
 "Oh, yes, I have faith in all men. There is good even in the murderer 
 and we may acquire much from the cobbler and the blacksmith. Kentucky here 
 is full of material for the artist still untouched. She is waiting for the sculptor 
 and painter more than any state in our country, I believe. Twenty years ago 
 my friend James Lane Allen wanted me to make a monument illustrating the 
 great history of Kentucky; and some day I may do so. but not now. In future 
 we must go to life and not back to Greece and Rome for our models. The 
 technique of the ancient masters must not be forgotten; but wc must go out into 
 life with the people and events of our own time." 
 
 The newspaper men said that the religion of humanity and service fairly 
 effervesced in Mr. Barnard's conversation. As he stood before a beautiful Kentucky 
 tree he cried out, "Nature is so marvelous that it maddens me. As a boy I 
 wanted to own a tree, but it seemed far out of my reach, like the stars and the 
 milky way. But after making some money I bought a bit of land and early 
 one morning went out to see my tree. I told the tree it was my own, root 
 
40 
 
 FORERUNNERS OF EINCOLN 
 
 and branch. The tree answered that it was not my own at all, just because I 
 had the power to cut it down and destroy it; for then it would be dead and 
 would belong to nobody. The tree said that only he who loved it and reverenced 
 it and protected it from the vandal truly possessed it." 
 
 The newspaper men were no less astonished at a remark the sculptor made 
 about the races: "No, I don't care for the races. Years ago I made up my 
 mind never to gamble but to make what I could with my own hands. I have 
 had many opportunities for speculation but I let them all go." Perhaps the 
 newspaper men missed altogether the fundamental loyalty and truth in the great 
 sculptor's reverence for human toil and his hatred of anything that savored of 
 unscrupulous advantage and unfair dealing. His love for Lincoln the great 
 Emancipator of human toil would have been essentially pretense and hypocrisy 
 
 Interior view of the Old First Presbyiterian Church. Spring-fiedd, Illinois 
 where Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln worshipped. The Lincoln Pew is draped and 
 observed half way down the aisle. 
 
 if he had thought or said otherwise. Not that he was in any sense a narrow- 
 minded Puritan, crying out against sport and beautiful animals and the excite- 
 ment and thrill of contest. No, it was the sordid, dishonest, lecherous, exploia- 
 tion of it all that he abhorred. 
 
 It is said that Barnard's Lincoln in Cincinnati, which was the gift of Mr. 
 and Mrs. Charles P. Taft to the city, was a very notable triumph of the sculptor's 
 conception of Lincoln and the common life. Mr. Robert C. Clowry, at one time 
 President of the Western Union Telegraph Company, made a statement that he 
 lived in Springfield. 111., before the Civil War and knew Lincoln well enough to 
 testify sixty years after that Barnard's statue was a masterpiece in likeness to 
 the original and in workmanship." This statement prefaced the little book 
 gotten out after the dedication of the statue. Barnard received his commission 
 
THE GREATEST OF ALL KENTUCKIANS 41 
 
 in December, 1910, and completed the work early in 1917. It was first put 
 on exhibition in the grounds of Union Theological Seminary, New York City, 
 and afterward removed to its present location in one of the parks of Cincinnati, 
 where it was dedicated with memorable ceremonies. March 31, 1917. 
 
 We have read with profound interest the sculptor's own interpretation of 
 his work, published after the Cincinnati statue was unveiled: "My earliest 
 recollections are of my grandfather's talks of Douglas and Lincoln. A friend 
 to both, he often told stories of Douglas, princely, stately, elegant and Lincoln 
 rising from poverty to President. This left but one image in my childhood mind, 
 the mighty man who grew from out the soil and the hardships of the earth. 
 He who had within him that indomitable spirit, that great call and followed it 
 straight to his destiny." 
 
 Mr. Barnard deeply realized also the tragic youth of Lincoln in Southern 
 Indiana, for he makes this moving reference to it: "We are all tools to the 
 Creator, bad or good. Lincoln was chilled in all the streams of life, to make 
 ready the tool of the nation and mankind. Many have stood at the bedside 
 of their dead mothers, but few at seven years of age have helped to make the coffin 
 and dig the grave of a mother. And such a mother as Lincoln's must have been 
 made greater his agony, left a memory so vital that through life this giant, phys- 
 ically and mentally, 'mothered' his neighbors, his State and his country. 
 
 "This 'man of all men' held motherhood within him as great in its strength 
 and gentle spirit, its forgiveness and yearning, as the wisdom and will of the 
 manhood within him." 
 
 Barnard dug down to fundamental truth and reality in his immortal por- 
 traiture and here he hurled infinite scorn at the untruth and insincerity of his 
 shallow critics: "With the order for a Lincoln, my work began. An imaginary 
 Lincoln is an insult to the American people, a thwarting of democracy. No 
 imitation tool of any artist's conception, but the tool God and Lincoln made — 
 Lincoln's self — must be shown. I found the many photographs retouched so 
 that all form had been obliterated. This fact I have never seen in print. The 
 eyes and mouth carry a message, but the rest was stippled over, to prettify this 
 work of God, by the photograhers of the time. Nearing election, they feared 
 his ugly lines might lose him the Presidency. So the lines were softened down, 
 softened in cloudy shades of nothingness — this man, made like the oak trees 
 and granite rocks. To most the life mask is a dead thing: to the artist life's 
 architecture. We and future ages have this life mask to fathom, to interpret, to 
 translate." 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 Wtirr J&atnatb am tift %,%%1\%®t ^a*m fiint 
 
 f | EAVING FOR an ocean voyage for his health in 19 25, George Grey 
 
 ^^ Barnard mailed a letter to his father telling what an influence that 
 
 < ^>% J father's life had exercised over him: "If the Christ needs proof in 
 
 men of the Life, you are the living testimony to the perfect life of 
 
 those who follow Christ; and all love you." 
 
 Among the supreme spiritual privileges of life have been our successive 
 interviews with Dr. Barnard, because they revealed the soul of his son. the great 
 Lincoln sculptor. From our notes of these interviews we are enabled to put on 
 record many personal but precious and imperishable facts that illumine the story 
 of truth and tragedy in chiseled stone. Intimate communion with the great man 
 of God who fathered such a son discovers inevitably the spiritual sources and 
 origin of this master artist's triumph. We shall use our most careful discretion 
 in assembling and recording the facts above alluded to. 
 
 Dr. Barnard once made an address before a Business Men's Club in a 
 Pennsylvania town, where he said he tried always to never let the man be lost 
 in the minister. The human was never obscured by the ecclesiastic. So many 
 men of the sacred cloth give the hard gloved hand and become coldly ministerial 
 iust as soon as a man of the world comes within the radius of their presence. 
 On this occasion a man who made no profession of religious faith told Dr. 
 Barnard he had left after him one of the greatest thoughts ever communicated 
 in the town. Dr. Barnard simply lived out the principle implied in "the Word 
 made flesh." 
 
 "Nothing is farther from the spirit of Christ." said he. "than a cold, 
 professional aloofness from our fcllowmen. I was born and cradled in the bosom 
 of democracy. I was never a fire-eater nor an agitator. I always believed in a 
 lawful and constitutional approach to all social and political problems. I instinc- 
 tively resolved not to be offensive in the speeches I made for the Union during 
 our Civil War. After the war was over I was called upon to address ten 
 thousand people at a Fourth-of-July celebration, when all the radicals wore 
 rejected by the committee and the public. They chose me unanimously simply 
 because, as a minister, my message and spirit did not wound and offend." 
 
 Dr. Barnard was always a keen student of great oratory. He had a classmate 
 by the name of Kellogg, who had a wonderful power of impersonation. A noted 
 impersonator of the old days before the Civil War came to the institution and 
 gave exhibitions of his power to reproduce the impression, voice, eloquence and 
 magnetism of Clay, Webster. Calhoun and other stars of the National Senate. 
 This was a gift almost identical with the dramatic art: and one day the young 
 man Kellogg astonished everybody by the same imitation and impersonation. He 
 was a ready speaker on occasion: but this unusual faculty was revealed to him 
 by contact with a master of the art. Yet the climax of human eloquence, such 
 
THE GREATEST OF ALL KENTUCKIANS 
 
 43 
 
 as Lincoln's Gettysburg speech, is purely spiritual and inspirational and could 
 never be imitated or counterfeited by the dramatist and impersonator. 
 
 "One of the saddest oversights of conventional religious people," said Dr. 
 Barnard, "is their failure to recognize the approaches of God's providence in the 
 conversion of unusual men. Ordinary evangelists will often prescribe certain set 
 limitations to the operations of the Holy Spirit, who worketh when, where and 
 how He pleases. Many years ago I read a book, and I have it somewhere in 
 my library, describing a group of these exceptional spiritual experiences. It was 
 a long-gone forerunner of Prof. James' 'Varieties of Religious Experience.' We 
 sorely need today a deeper understanding and interpretation of such cases. Merely 
 conventional evangelists often fall short of the great outside mass of men 
 altogether. 
 
 REV. J. R. BARNARD, D. D. 
 The favorite likeness of Mrs. Barnard. 
 
 "The religious experience of Abraham Lincoln is perhaps the most typical 
 that could be cited, where those two great-souled Presbyterian pastors of Civil 
 War time, Dr. Smith in Springfield, and Dr. Gurley later in Washington, became 
 his close spiritual companions and brought him to a marvelous realization of 
 grace and comfort. The awakening of the human soul to divine realities is 
 
44 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 sometimes so sudden and astounding that it is foolish and presumptuous to set 
 down narrow and dogmatic conditions and ignore these unusual cases. But 
 perhaps this is the old line of demarkation between the priest and the prophet. 
 
 "That reminds me of the first exhibition of my son's great masterpiece, 
 'Two Natures Struggling Within Me/ together with other works of his hand, 
 ia New York years ago. I was standing by when a group of men entered the 
 gallery. One of them said, 'Ha, what sort of a pugilistic encounter have we 
 fiere?' You see he was utterly devoid of spiritual insight and understanding. 
 He could catch sight only of the rough, outer symbol of the great elemental 
 struggle and conflict between the material and the moral, the physical and the 
 spiritual, the selfish and the social, the animal and the human, the noble and 
 redeeming outcome and consummation of which was stamped upon his creation 
 by the hand of the artist, but to which the superficial spectator was utterly blind. 
 This same theme includes the struggle for existence and all the warfare and 
 conflict throughout nature and the kingdom of man." 
 
 In a most impressive manner Dr. Barnard then proceeded to show how the 
 Gospel principles of sacrifice and reconciliation come in to modify and mitigate, 
 and even to humanize, this universal struggle and warfare and conflict. It was 
 the discovery of these principles underlying the death-grapple of the North and 
 the South in the 'irrepressible conflict' set forth by Lincoln himself that finally 
 brought about his deep consciousness of God in it all. Dr. Barnard related an 
 experience he had going out as a young preacher to be the undershepherd of a 
 flock in Pennsylvania where a rugged old pastor had ministered for fifty years. 
 He was a great shaggy, overshadowing figure, Lincoln-like in the size of his 
 body, feet and hands, and possessing a voice and manner almost forbidding in 
 his lack of the graces and attractions of the Gospel. 
 
 "This man wrote out and read his sermons, and you would have supposed 
 he had no hold on his audience whatever. But the utter integrity, honesty, and 
 childlike simplicity and directness of his great soul drew all classes and conditions 
 of people to him. By and through his devotion to his people, little children 
 loved him and came to him instinctively. Strangers opened their hearts to him 
 as to a Father in Israel. This great Lincoln-like man of God disarmed all my 
 fears and misgivings completely; and I sought from that time onward to get 
 away from the dry-bone type of theology and to make my own preaching human 
 and sympathetic and helpful. 
 
 "My own conversion, already described elsewhere, convinced me how God 
 comes into our lives sometimes at the most startling and unexpected crisis: and 
 the salvation of the individual soul is often preceded by the patient, persistent 
 appeals and persuasions of some devoted friend who will not let him rest until 
 the crisis arrives and the crucial point has been passed. In my own case, you 
 know, it was such a friend whose gentle importunities finally prevailed on me 
 to stay just one night at a revival meeting in the Old Academy of my student 
 days; and the dramatic awakening of my skeptical companion, who himself led 
 the way to the altar as I followed, changed the whole tenor and course and 
 purpose of my life in one hour of time. What else could such an experience be 
 but providential? 
 
 "When you come to tell the story of Lincoln's great religious awakening 
 you will doubtless recount details just as ordinary and human as mine were: but 
 what a mighty outcome there was in his case. Now for this very reason, namely, 
 
THE GREATEST OF ALL KENTUCKIANS 45 
 
 the providence of God in small things, I do not want to be unjust in any degree 
 even to the seemingly narrow religionist. There is a type which, on first 
 acquaintance, seems gracious and companionable, but on closer contact shows 
 up peculiarly stubborn and dogmatic and even contentious. It is the Puritan 
 bordering on the Pietist. I had a Princeton classmate who went out into the 
 ministry and after a few years had a conflict with his Presbytery by preaching 
 an insistent doctrine of perfection. He was always a gentle and loveable character, 
 and it seemed very strange to me that he should have any conflict at all. Some 
 years afterward I was in his home city and called upon him and found him in the 
 midst of a most worthy work as a Methodist minister. I told him I was sorry 
 to hear of his leaving our communion and wondered why he could not live and 
 serve the Master just as well under our standards. He said no, it was not 
 possible to him. He was absolutely sincere and honest in those points at variance 
 with our Confession and made the change as a matter of conviction. I saw that 
 it was so; and after his death his son took the trouble to write me in detail how 
 dearly beloved his father was among the people he had pastored, and what a 
 worthy work he had accomplished. He knew that I appreciated and respected 
 his father; and that is why he took the pains he did to convince me of his 
 sincerity and devotion to conviction and duty. The idea is to do every sincere 
 follower of Christ full justice and not judge any narrowly or unkindly. 
 
 "But I want to insist that the old Calvinistic Theology did produce very 
 gentle and noble Christian character. This was demonstrated by Dr. Charles 
 Hodge himself, who was perhaps the greatest theologian of the Presbyterian 
 Church; for he was the very incarnation of loving kindness." 
 
 Dr. Barnard here produced a group picture of the faculty of Princeton 
 Seminary, with Dr. Hodge in the midst, with a most benignant and spiritual 
 expression of countenance. It was at the feet of such a teacher of religion that 
 Dr. Barnard imbibed the just and noble conceptions of truth that made him 
 such a power in the ministry at the crisis of Civil War. 
 
 "The gospel man should be the broadest-minded and most unprejudiced 
 spiritual leader in all the world," he said. "I passed from LaFayette College 
 to Princeton Seminary when the storm-cloud of the great conflict was hanging 
 low on the horizon. I heard the Abolition denunciations and feared that their 
 effect in the coming struggle would be hardening and cruel. The ultimate solution 
 was bound to be remedial, merciful and humane, as Lincoln profoundly realized. 
 It seems to me that in the very heart of the Christian experience there must of 
 necessity be the element of social justice and the vision of right human relation- 
 ship. We cannot for one moment admit that only men of radical and violent 
 views, atheists and anarchists, are the defenders of human liberty and the rights 
 of the down-trodden and oppressed. To admit such a thing would be a terrible 
 indictment of our faith. Yet it may have been the very absence of this essential 
 element in current religious teaching that made Lincoln so hesitant about connect- 
 ing himself with the church. At all events his spiritual experience included 
 something of devotion to humankind that he sighed for and sorely missed in the 
 religion of his time, and which the religion of our own time can never omit or 
 lose without utter disaster." 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 "% ^t%il 4 fi®x 1> %i Wxtmn" 
 
 ONE DAY in January, 1926, while talking to Dr. Barnard on the 
 subject of his son's recent sculptural creations, he took from his 
 desk a clipping from a paper in Tyrone, Pennsylvania, describing 
 in a most vivid manner the vision and dream his son had of a 
 worthy World War Memorial for America: 
 
 "Around a home dinner table in New York sat recently ten men who 
 collectively have done much within the last fifteen or twenty years to help 
 America. They had come together to talk over a matter of large possible meaning 
 to the people of this and perhaps other lands. 
 
 "The Great War was the first cause of this conference. America's part in 
 the struggle moved New York, like other communities, to thoughts of a memorial. 
 Various things had been suggested; but near the close of the session a stocky 
 man of nearly sixty years, in whose eyes the fire of youth still burns, arose 
 and said: 
 
 ' 'I have heard much about things that are big and tall; but something 
 vaster than the Pennsylvania Station, and higher than the Woolworth Building 
 has not been mentioned. The greatest height a man's mind can conceive is that 
 covered by a child's hand, reaching up to its mother's heart.' 
 
 "Of course, the meeting sat up. 'Who is he?' whispered one man to 
 another. 'George Grey Barnard' came the whispered reply. 
 
 "It was the famous sculptor, born out in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, the son 
 of the very first pastor of our church, Rev. J. H. Barnard, D. D., who was 
 ordained and installed June 12, 1860, in our church. Rev. Mr. Barnard is 
 still preaching in Madison, Indiana. 
 
 "Mr. George Grey Barnard continued: 'The trembling, seeking hand of a 
 hurt and tired world-child today is reaching up to the heart of the Mother of 
 Peaceful Progress. Let us catch this yearning, and hold it for the inspiration 
 of ourselves, and those who come after us, in a form as impressive and imperish- 
 able as our hands can lift. 
 
 'Our American metropolis possesses one of the most wonderful sites in 
 the whole world. Fort Washington Point, that beautiful cliff at the northwest 
 corner of Manhattan, was predestined by history as well as nature to become the 
 site upon which the temple of this nation's greatness should rise. For on the 
 plateau at the north end of Fort Washington Avenue arc still the rocks and 
 trees that witnessed the struggle of Washington's soldiers with the Hessians.' 
 
 "Mr. Barnard pointed out minutely how the memorial should be made: 
 but there is, of course, no thought of one. or even ten sculptors, accomplishing 
 this project. The work would require years of effort on the part of perhaps half 
 a hundred men and women, gifted with the power to put life-meaning into 
 bronze and stone. It was to point a way, if possible, to a real start, that the 
 
THE GREATEST OF ALL KENTUCKIANS 
 
 47 
 
 ten men met in quiet conference. They knew that the owner of this marvelous 
 site, John D. Rockefeller, stands ready to give it to the people, if assured of 
 its use for this purpose." 
 
 We asked Dr. Barnard how it was that against the background of the 
 American mountains and frontier, in a new country, only one generation removed 
 from the most primitive conditions of culture, he could become the father of one 
 of the greatest sculptors of all time? 
 
 Doctor Barnard as he appeared at the time of his death 
 in April, 1926 
 
 He answered: "That is a question of biology." His father was a violinist 
 and architect. Mrs. Barnard, the sculptor's mother, was an artist and musician 
 who could have cultivated her talents to the point of real accomplishment. In 
 the Grubbs family, which was the name of Mrs. Barnard's people, there was a 
 sister of Mrs. Barnard's living in London, who traced the Grubbs back to the 
 Danes and Swedes of the Eighth Century; and one picture in those ancestral 
 generations was so much like Mrs. Barnard that any one who knew her would 
 have remarked upon the resemblance. The hair was dark and the eyes were blue; 
 and Dr. Barnard showed us a wonderfully sweet and impressive picture of his 
 wife, taken from an old daguerreotype of 185 8 or 1859. 
 
 Mrs. Barnard, mother of the great sculptor, was born across the street from 
 the Lincoln home in Springfield, Illinois. Lincoln took her in his arms when 
 she was a little girl. Dr. Barnard said he never knew her to be moody or 
 despondent in all the fifty-nine years of their married life. He met her at a 
 little town out of Philadelphia during his student days at Princeton Seminary 
 before the outbreak of the Civil War. He had gone down there from Princeton 
 
48 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 as a pulpit supply for that Sunday; and she was in the audience. The impression 
 seems to have been mutual, immediate and permanent. 
 
 Mrs. Barnard was the daughter of George G. Grubbs. He was a Virginian 
 by descent with some of the striking characteristics of a Southern gentleman of 
 the old school — speculative and venturesome at times in his investments; open- 
 hearted and free-handed in hospitality and family life; perhaps not sufficiently 
 worldly-wise in money matters. Yet. since money meant so little to him. this 
 characteristic was strong in his distinguished grandson and namesake — George Grey 
 Barnard, who, like a true artist and idealist, has nothing of calculation, cunning 
 or selfish accumulation in his makeup. 
 
 George G. Grubbs was an Eastern man who went to Springfield. Illinois, 
 back in the forties and made lots of money in real estate. He knew Lincoln and 
 Douglas personally and heard them debate. His stories of these mighty men 
 afterward influenced the sculptor profoundly. Mr. Grubbs returned East in 
 subsequent years and lived in the vicinity of Philadelphia. The home was a 
 lovely cottage and his income was sufficient for comfort. But his wife developed 
 tuberculosis and he took her to Minnesota, where she passed away. Mr. Grubbs 
 himself died about seventy years of age. He brought his wife back to Philadelphia 
 for burial. He was not a man to complain of misfortune, but made the best 
 of life even in adversity. He was very resourceful and when the Civil War was 
 raging he repaired his financial losses by opening a manufacturing establishment 
 to produce some essential article about the Federal officer's uniform. 
 
 Dr. Barnard visited the old church and graves of his parents up in the 
 Pennsylvania mountains during one of his trips back East. He made a careful 
 survey of his early childhood environment and influences. The older generation 
 were all gone and only one old man was left in the church who remembered 
 the former times. Dr. Barnard's birthplace was at Pleasant View, in Juniata 
 County. As he stood at the graves of his father and mother up there in the 
 Tyrone Valley the sad memory of his mother's funeral came back to him with 
 surprising force. A big Scotch Presbyterian minister was to have conducted it, 
 but his vehicle broke down in the woods on the way, and he was unable to obtain 
 another. So dark was coming on; and Dr. Barnard himself told his father that 
 he would conduct the service as best he could. He resolved from that experience 
 never to say anything at a funeral that would leave an unhappy impression. 
 Dr. Barnard closed his wife's piano after her death and has never opened it since: 
 but he does not sorrow in these losses as those who have no hope. His son was 
 awakened to a profound conviction and vision of immortality after the mother's 
 death; and in the memorial to Mrs. Bernheim, of Louisville, he has created a 
 masterpiece that will be reproduced in marble at the grave of his mother in 
 Madison, Indiana. This memorial is the figure of a woman with something of 
 the same hope and promise as in "The Rose Maiden," but more mature and 
 motherly. It is called, "Let there be Light." 
 
 In the Pennsylvania mountains, where Dr. Barnard was born, the snow 
 often lay six feet on the level and you could not get out except on horseback. 
 But Dr. Barnard always thanked God he was not a hot-house plant, but had faced 
 the difficulties and struggles of life. He always faced these with courage and 
 hope, and with the idea of bettering even the worst conditions. He possesses 
 a profound faith in what he calls the providences of human life. He instanced 
 the story of Joseph and his Brethren to illustrate this faith that God's hand 
 
THE GREATEST OF ALL KENTUCKIANS 49 
 
 is in all the events of our lives and that He overrules them for some good end. 
 There is nothing else to do under some circumstances but to submit and trust 
 God for the final outcome. That was all Joseph could do amid the hate and 
 cruelty of his Brethren; but in the end his old father and all the family were 
 assembled in the Land of Goshen, reconciled and happy. He said in this connec- 
 tion that we should always have our eyes open to recognize good wherever we 
 find it; be tolerant of other people's religious viewpoint; and to recognize that 
 God's providences operate in a thousand ways and means that we scarcely dream 
 of. He dwelt very tenderly upon the beautiful friendship of Dr. Gurley, 
 Lincoln's pastor in Washington during the Civil War. He said that he was in 
 the East and knew quite well the great influence Dr. Gurley had over Lincoln 
 spiritually; that he was much closer to the President's real soul than the politi- 
 cians could possibly be, and understood him a great deal better. He instanced 
 this experience again to prove the presence and purpose of God in our national 
 history; even down to the last dark tragedy of the assassination, which was 
 overruled to the majesty of God's justice and the infinitude of his merciful love 
 as the years passed on and the figure of Lincoln arose sublime and immortal as we 
 now behold it. 
 
 We have dwelt upon the spiritual unfoldment of Dr. Barnard somewhat in 
 detail because it was always the impression of George Grey Barnard that he got 
 his philosophy of life from his father, and his artistic instinct from his mother. 
 There were two of Dr. Barnard's family who were violinists and architects. 
 Dr. Barnard himself was in no sense a mechanic but an idealist. He laughingly 
 said he could not even drive a nail. However, he told George one day that he 
 could shut his eyes and faces would come up and pass before him in endless 
 procession that he had not seen before. George said he had often watched his 
 father draw human faces and animals involuntarily. Dr. Barnard is certain that 
 his son's creative and constructive gift is an inheritance from his Barnard fore- 
 bears. His love of nature and the open is also a pronounced paternal inheritance. 
 
 Dr. Barnard had two uncles who left the old home in the Pennsylvania 
 mountains in early days. One went to West Virginia, built a log cabin and 
 lived and died there. The other brother enlisted among the volunteers in the 
 war with Mexico. He wrote letters home on a drumhead. He was a world- 
 rover and would be gone from home six or seven years at a time. He would 
 tie a few belongings in a bandanna handkerchief and walk over the mountains 
 to the West. He was full of stories and life and fun. He carried a violin with 
 him and was a droll companion. He would slip away without saying goodbye. 
 
 Dr. Barnard said that the differences of inheritance in brothers was a deep 
 problem of biology and psychology. His other son, Evan, loved the open and 
 went to the Southwest. He did not like school or restraint. He settled on a 
 ranch in Oklahoma with several other cattle men and fixed the dwelling com- 
 fortably. He made a promise to his father before he left home that he would 
 never drink or gamble, and when he returned to see his father and mother, the 
 first thing Dr. Barnard said to him was, "Evan, have you kept your promise?" 
 "I have, father," he answered, looking the minister squarely in his eyes; and the 
 father and mother greatly rejoiced. 
 
 The story has often been told how George rebelled against making a speech 
 at school and ran away with a schoolmate to Chicago, where they found a way 
 of making expenses and heard Joe Jefferson in "Rip Van Winkle." This contact 
 
50 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 was calculated to make a lasting impression upon George. He later became a 
 jewel engraver and made a bust of his sister while they lived in Muscatine, Iowa. 
 That discovered his genius for sculpture. He had stuffed and mounted birds 
 and other nature specimens until he had quite a collection. Then one day he 
 got hold of some blue clay and took his sister up in the garret and made the 
 model of her. She had exquisite eyes. 
 
 So another memorable day George came to his father and said. "Father, I 
 am going to Paris to study." He had gotten two or three hundred dollars for 
 the head of lovely girlhood he had modeled, and that determined him to go to 
 the Mecca of all creative art. The father was astonished, but saw at a glance 
 that it was no use to oppose him. He merely said, "George, I doubt the wisdom 
 of it; but maybe you are right." 
 
 Young Barnard went to Paris when he did not even know enough French 
 to order a meal. A young man sitting close by said to him, "Maybe I can 
 help you." They were both Americans. The young man's name was Charles 
 Black, of Indianapolis, a singer. They became fast friends. There was another 
 American, a Mr. Clark of New York, who was a third in this trio of friends, 
 and he took such a deep interest in the work George dreamed of doing that he 
 assisted in setting up his first studio. He had only executed his juvenile efforts 
 back home and he spent three or four years in hard study in Paris. But he 
 foresaw what his work would be. He got a great block of marble, too heavy 
 to transport through the streets of Paris and it had to be cut down to the proper 
 dimensions. He wrote home, but never gave much account of what he was 
 doing. There was the reserve and tireless patience of the real man and artist 
 in him. He toiled away for about six years and the result was "Two Natures 
 Struggling Within Me." 
 
 No one knew until this masterpiece was uncovered on exhibition just what 
 he had wrought. The eternal struggle of man with nature and with man was 
 in his mind. "The Hewer" was another great creation depicting man's attack 
 on the forest and leveling the way for civilization and progress. This youth 
 of twenty odd years was already an incipient Michael Angelo. He passed from 
 these elemental subjects to the loftiest soul themes. "The Friends," executed out 
 of a block of marble, and representing the outstretched hands of comradeship and 
 brotherly love feeling for each other through the block of marble, which symbol- 
 ized any intervening obstacle or hindrance of human life, was a triumph of 
 indescribable beauty and nobility. It most probably expressed the bosom com- 
 radeship with Charles Black and Mr. Clark. It was made for a friend of Mr. 
 Clark, his first patron. Dr. Barnard one day asked George what this master- 
 piece meant. George answered that each one should seek to discover in it a 
 meaning for himself, which is true poetry. 
 
 His last great dream grew out of the World War. He is restless till he can 
 get to work upon it. A woman and a child arc the chief figures because they 
 are the greatest sufferers from war. He intends to stigmatize War and to exalt 
 Peace; and this is the climax of his life's work to the present hour. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 f^ N RESPONSE to our communication with the First Presbyterian 
 
 fm ^-1 Church of Springfield, Illinois, with reference to Rev. James 
 
 ^^ J Smith, D. D., the pastor and personal friend of Abraham Lincoln 
 
 and his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, during their great sorrow in the 
 
 loss of their little boy, Edward Baker Lincoln, February 1, 1850, we received 
 
 from Mr. Isaac R. Diller, Clerk of Session, a Seventy-fifth Anniversary Story of 
 
 the Church and the following letter about Dr. Smith: 
 
 Springfield, Illinois, November 28, 1925 
 Rev. Lucien V. Rule, 
 Goshen, Ky. 
 Dear Brother Rule: 
 
 Dr. Thomas gave me your letter of the 6th inst. to answer, and I enclose 
 a copy of the Seventy-fifth Anniversary Souvenir of the First Presbyterian 
 Church, which contains a cut of Dr. Smith, and also those of the exterior and 
 interior of the Old Church which Mr. Lincoln attended — showing the family 
 pew as draped by a flag on the occasion of the centennial anniversary of his 
 birth, at which time Dr. Logan preached the sermon in the Old Church, although 
 at that time it was the property of the St. John's Lutheran Church. 
 
 Since that time the old building has been torn down and replaced by business 
 houses, but the Lincoln pew is now preserved in our present building. In a 
 frame kept with the pew is a picture of the interior, with a plot of the old 
 church, showing more clearly the location of the Lincoln pew, and the copy of 
 a letter written by Mrs. Lincoln in April, 1861, to the wife of the Chairman 
 of the Pew Committee, saying she had intended to request that upon their return 
 at the end of his term, they might have the promise that they could have the 
 pew again, which they had occupied for ten years, and to which they were 
 greatly attached. 
 
 I am sorry that I cannot get an original photograph to send you, but feel 
 sure they can get cuts from these prints. 
 
 Last October I was in Lexington (Kentucky) and visited the interesting 
 Library of Transylvania College, and asked the accommodating librarian to show 
 us some of their most treasured volumes, which she did, and then came with 
 a calf-bound book in her hand saying this was one they valued most highly, 
 on account of the fact that its contents had greatly influenced the religious life 
 of Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 I recognized it, as I had seen the copy Miss Nettie Smith has, but had 
 never read it. I told the lady the writer of this book was the second pastor 
 of the church to which I belonged in Springfield. After my return, I was talking 
 to an old friend who as a boy had heard Dr. Smith preach very often; and he 
 told me he had a copy of Dr. Smith's "The Christian Defense," and would 
 let me have it to read, which I did with great interest. 
 
52 
 
 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 I have not read Dr. Barton's last book, so do not know how much or 
 little he says about Dr. Smith. You may know that as a young man he was 
 an infidel and came over to this country to lecture on Infidelity. While in 
 Kentucky or Tennessee he came under the influence of the Cumberland Revival 
 and was converted; and, like Paul of old, began to preach the faith he one? 
 tried to destroy. The two volumes bound together in this book were the sub- 
 stance of a series of nineteen debates he had with a noted infidel in Mississippi. 
 You may also know how Lincoln became interested in the book, so I will not 
 go into that. 
 
 REV. JAMES SMITH, D. D. 
 Pastor of Abraham Lincoln at Spring-field, Illinois, 1850 — '56 
 
 Lincoln's biographer, Dr. Barton, says that Lincoln's habit of church 
 attendance showed no marked cihange until 1850, when his second son. 
 Edward Biaker Lincoln, died. The date was February 1. Mrs. Lincoln had 
 been a Presbyterian from her youth, but attended the Episcopal Church in 
 Springfield after her marriage and became a member of it. In this sore 
 bereavement the Episcopal pastor was out of town and Dr. Smith, of the 
 First Presbyterian Church, was called in to conduct the funeral service. His 
 acquaintance with Lincoln had been but casual: now it became close and 
 cordial. He found Lincoln deeply ^depressed in spirit, and this led to a 
 number of very intimate conversations between them. Mrs. Lincoln removed 
 her membership to Dr. Smith's Church; and Lincoln took a pew there and 
 attended regularly with her. He afterwiard saw a book by Dr. Smith. "The 
 Christian's Defence," which was the substance of the debaters Dr. Smith had 
 with a noted skeptic in the South. Lincoln saw' the book while on a visit 
 to Mrs. Lincoln's relatives in Kentucky the spring alter little Edward's death. 
 He sought a closer friendship with Dr. Smith upon his return to Springfield. 
 and bore witness to the influence the book had over him. Elder Thomas 
 Lewis of Dr. Smith's Church says the Lincolns put their children in Sunday 
 School; and that Mrs. Lincoln came into the church on profession of faith 
 during a revival meeting which she and her husband attended constantly- 
 including the inquiry meetings. Mrs. Lincoln was converted in this revival, 
 and all of his friends expected him to make a public profession and unite 
 the same time his wife did. But he was absent in Detroit on an important 
 case when the new converts were received into the church. However, he 
 said to Dr. Smith that he was deeply convinced of the truth of the Christian 
 religion, and the session of the church invited Lincoln to make an address 
 on the Bible. It was delivered to a crowded house and was a most impres- 
 sive utterance. From this time on Lincoln was a profoundly changed man 
 in spirit. Dr. Smith was a Southern man in his sympathies but not a se- 
 cessionist. He always said Lincoln was a converted man. 
 
THE GREATEST OF ALL KENTUCKIANS 53 
 
 Dr. Smith is the only one of the eight pastors of our church whom I never 
 remember having seen, as his ministry ended in 185 6, and I was born in 1854. 
 His son continued to live here, so his grand-daughters and great grand-sons are 
 still members of our church and faithful workers in it. 
 
 What deeply impressed me in reading his book was that the very teachings 
 Dr. Smith fought against as rank infidelity are now preached in many of our and 
 other church pulpits as modernism. Dr. Olmstead has many successors advoca- 
 ting in the pulpits and seminaries of evangelical churches the doubts and denials 
 of the truth of the Bible, with which he filled the minds of the youth he misled. 
 Again trusting you can secure some data for your historical article from 
 this Souvenir, which you can keep if you so desire, I remain 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 ISAAC R. DILLER, Clerk of Session, 
 First Presbyterian Church. 
 
 From Miss Jeanette E. Smith, 1028 East Monroe Street, Springfield, 
 Illinois, we received the following letter in reply to our request for data con- 
 cerning her grandfather, Rev. James H. Smith, D. D. : 
 
 Springfield, Illinois, December 21, 192^ 
 Rev. Lucien V. Rule; 
 
 My dear Sir: 
 
 You will please pardon my seeming neglect in answering your very interes- 
 ting letter. In the first place your letter went to another Miss Jeanette Smith 
 in our city; but finally reached me. That fact and my sister ill in bed for more 
 than a week after that, and other duties, have delayed me. 
 
 I am enclosing my grandfather's picture, trusting you for its safe return, 
 as I prize it very much. It is the same I loaned Dr. Barton and Wm. J. Johnson, 
 the latter writing. "Abraham Lincoln, The Christian." He has my grandfather's 
 picture in his book; also one of the church where he preached and which Lincoln 
 attended in Springfield. You may have seen it. 
 
 The articles or manuscript are just what I loaned Dr. Barton and Mr. 
 Johnson. Will send them if you would like to see them for yourself; but I 
 could give you a little more of his personal life if you would like to have it. 
 I will be very glad to do this immediately after Christmas. 
 
 I have a picture of his boyhood home, a beautiful place in Scotland; a 
 picture of his monument in Glasgow, where he is buried; and a copy of his 
 funeral cortege. I know he spent the biggest part of his life in the South; but 
 do not think he advocated slavery. 
 
 My brother, sister and self had a most interesting auto trip through a part 
 of Kentucky in October — going to Mammoth Cave, Lincoln's Birthplace and 
 Louisville. Going through Shelbyville to Lexington, we saw the spot where we 
 were told our grandfather used to preach. 
 
 Wishing you great success with your book, "The Forerunners of Lincoln," 
 also the best wishes of the season, I am 
 
 Cordially yours, 
 
 JEANETTE E. SMITH. 
 
54 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 A few weeks later we received a second letter from Miss Smith: 
 
 Springfield, Illinois, January 26, 1926 
 Rev. Lucien V. Rule. 
 
 My Dear Mr. Rule: 
 
 I received your letters acknowledging the receipt of my grandfather's photo- 
 graph, also the pictures and papers sent later. I am truly glad to be of that 
 Household of Faith in God both by personal knowledge and inheritance; and I 
 thank you for your kind expression of appreciation of the latter. I have that 
 godly ancestry on both sides of the house (all Presbyterians) . 
 
 REV. PHINEA'S D. GURLEY, D. D. 
 
 Dr. Barton tells us that Lincoln's pastor in Washington wias Rev. 
 Phineas D. Gurley, D. D., of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Churoh. 
 Dr. Gurley's grandson, Captain Gurley, says that Dr. G-urley sat with Lincoln 
 on the rear porch of the White House during- the trying suspense of the 
 Second Battle of Bull Run. The President's anxiety became so great that 
 he knelt in earnest prayer with his pastor. Lincoln attended the weekly 
 prayer meetings o'f the church, and, to avoid unpleasant publicity, sat in 
 the pastor's study with the door open. He said the prayers giave him more 
 comfort than the public addresses. He once said to Dr. Gurley that while 
 he might not be able to conscientiously subscribe to all points in the Con- 
 fession of Fiaith, yet if the chief requirements of a follower of Christ were 
 to vow his love to God with all his heart, soul, mind and strength, and his 
 neighbor as himself, he coufld and intended doing- that. Dr. Gurley was 
 very close to Lincoln in his personal bereavement in Wasihington and 
 preached the funeral sermon at the time of his tragic death. 
 
 Dr. Gurley was a native of New York State (November 12, 1S16) and 
 was descended from Scotch Covenanters. His mother was a devout Meth- 
 odist. He was a graduate of Princeton Seminary, and was called, ordained 
 and installed pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, Indianapolis, Decem- 
 ber 15, 1840. He was a scholarly, powerful proacher of the gospel'. He 
 later became a pastor in Washington City and Chaplain of the U. S. Senate. 
 In 1859 he became pastor of a united body of Preslbyterians in the New 
 Vork Avenue Church, where the Lincolns afterward worshipped. He was 
 supremely comforting in times of trouble and sorrow, and hence his deep 
 influence over Lincoln. Dr. Gurley was a foremost man in the councils of 
 the General Assembly in Civil War times. He always upheld Lincoln and 
 defended his memory from the imputation of skepticism. Dr. Gurley died 
 September 30, 1868. 
 
THE GREATEST OF ALL KENTUCKIANS 55 
 
 I am sending you in a few days a sketch of my grandfather's life, such as 
 I have heard from older relatives, and which you may use or not as you see fit. 
 
 It may interest you a little to know that my sister a few years ago married 
 Mr. Ninian W. Edwards, a grandson of the Mr. Ninian W. Edwards mentioned 
 by Dr. Barton and Dr. Johnson in their books, as the brother-in-law of Mr. 
 Lincoln. He is also the grandnephew of Mrs. Lincoln. 
 
 My grandfather has one great grandson, William Gordon, of Kentucky, who 
 is a minister. He was in Greenville, Kentucky, two years ago, but I don't think 
 he is there now. My grandfather has three great grandsons bearing his name 
 (Smith) , the sons of a brother, who died when they were small. They are now 
 20, 22 and 24 years of age. My sister and I had the raising of two of them. 
 One of them is engaged in Y. M. C. A. work here in Springfield. 
 
 I have always been much interested in my grandfather Smith since I have 
 been of an age to appreciate what he has done. I did not send you his book, 
 as I thought you might have access to one of them at Lexington, Cincinnati or 
 Centre College. I do not like to let it out of my hands, for fear of fire or 
 accident; but am always glad to let anyone see it here at home. I made Dr. 
 Barton that offer, as he was in Springfield on several occasions. I also told him 
 of one in Chicago. I shall be interested to know when your book is out. 
 Sincerely and cordially yours, 
 
 JEANETTE E. SMITH. 
 
 On February 2, 1926, Miss Smith sent us the sketch of her grandfather's 
 life, published herewith, which brings to light some facts not mentioned by Dr. 
 Barton in his "Soul of Abraham Lincoln." 
 
 LIFE OF REV. JAMES SMITH, D. D. 
 
 Rev. James Smith, D. D., was born in Glasgow, Scotland, May 11, 1798, 
 the son of Peter and Margaret (Bruce) Smith, his mother being a descendant 
 of the royal Bruce family of Scotland. While he was yet young, his father died 
 in the year 1806. His mother, considered a beautiful woman, died later. 
 
 His father's brother, Hugh, raised both him and a brother George, at his 
 home Newton Airds, near Dumfries. James received a liberal college education. 
 His Uncle expected him to go into foreign trade, but when he was twenty-one 
 years of age he married Elizabeth Black, and both came to the United States. 
 (His brother George when a young man was lost at sea.) 
 
 Before coming to the United States he received some inheritance money, 
 which he lost soon after coming here through his generosity in going on a note 
 for a friend, which note he had later to pay. He was then compelled to earn 
 his livelihood by his pen, contributing articles for papers and magazines. 
 
 In his young manhood, through his readings of Paine and others, he became 
 one of their followers, and when living in Southern Indiana went with some 
 other young men of kindred spirit to break up a Methodist Revival in the neigh- 
 borhood, but instead was converted. No Presbyterian Church of our denomi- 
 nation being there, he united with the Cumberland Presbyterian Church (the 
 family in Scotland were Presbyterians.) 
 
 After a course in Theology, in which he was thoroughly Calvinistic, he 
 went to preaching, and remained an ordained Minister of the Gospel as long as 
 he lived. The pastorates he held, that I knew of, were at Russellville, Bowling 
 Green and Shelbyville, Kentucky. From Russelville he went to Nashville, Ten- 
 nessee, where he lived for about ten years, and where he owned the first steam 
 printing press west of the Alleghany Mountains. He had no pastorate here but 
 did the publishing for the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. He did a great 
 deal of evangelistic work in the Southern States. 
 
56 
 
 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 During the camp meetings of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, which 
 were held every summer, he was one of their most convincing preachers. He 
 was a fine orator and had an unusually strong and clear voice, which could be 
 heard at a long distance. 
 
 I think it was while at Bowling Green that he had the debate with Mr. 
 Olmstead at Columbus, Miss., which he later compiled in book form and pub- 
 lished, called "The Christian's Defence." His second eldest daughter, Katherine. 
 was his constant helper, taking all his dictation in writing for the book. 
 
 From Bowling Green he went to Shelbyville, Kentucky. Part of his work 
 there was to build a new brick church. He left Shelbyville on account of his 
 health. The doctor advised change of scene, so he and his wife spent some time 
 traveling in his carriage, their family remaining in Shelbyville. 
 
 Boyhood Home of Doctor Smith, Newton Airds, near 
 Dumfries, Scotland. Here he lived with an uncle, after 
 his father's death, and was given a thorough collegiate 
 education. 
 
 He regained his health and did some evangelizing just previous to his call 
 to Springfield, Illinois. He became pastor April 11, 1849, which he held until 
 December 17, 185 6. (From the material you have you know of his work in 
 Springfield and his connection with Mr. Lincoln.) On March 26. 1856, while 
 holding the pastorate at Springfield, he was appointed Director for life of the 
 American Bible Society, dated and signed by officers at New York. 
 
 After leaving Sprinfield, for two or three year he acted as agent for Peoria 
 Illinois University. He must have lived in Belleville, Illinois, for a while, for 
 his library was sent from there to a married daughter's in Chicago. When she 
 died in about 1881 and the house was sold, it was scattered and I do not know 
 what became of it. 
 
 My grandfather and grandmother had eight children, six daughters and two 
 sons; the sons, Hugh and James Bruce (the latter my father) being the youngest. 
 My two brothers, (one deceased) my sister and myself were the only grand- 
 children bearing the name of Smith. My Uncle. Hugh Smith, had no children. 
 There are now living six grandchildren, three in Springfield, two in Kentuckv 
 
THE GREATEST OF ALL KENTUCKIANS 
 
 57 
 
 and one in Wisconsin; a large number of great grandchilden and some great, 
 great grandchildren. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln appointed Mr. Hugh Smith, my uncle, as consul to Scotland: 
 with the understanding that the place was in reality given to his father. Hugh 
 Smith soon returned to this country, and his father, Rev. James Smith, was 
 appointed Consul to Dundee, Scotland, which place he held at the time of his 
 death. His remains were taken to Glasgow, where he is buried in the same grave 
 with his father and mother in the family burying ground. My grandmother 
 went to be with my grandfather shortly after his appointment, but was here in 
 the United States on a visit to her children when he died. She is buried at Oak 
 Ridge with four of her daughters here in Springfield. While at a cousin's 
 recently, I read a letter from his secretary in Scotland, telling of his illness and 
 death, and he remarks about his big heart and big brain of unusual intellect. 
 
 By his grand-daughter, 
 
 January, 1926. JEANETTE E. SMITH. 
 
 Burial Place and Monument of Rev. James Smith, D. D.. Glasgow, Scot- 
 land. The Inscription reads: 
 
 "Rev. James Smith, D. D. Son of Peter and Margaret Smith, was born 
 at Glasgow, May 11, A. D.. 179S. A minister of the gospel for forty years 
 in the United State of America. In his declining years he was appointed 
 U. S. Consul at Dundee by Abraham Lincoln, whose pastor he had been: 
 and he departed this life July 3, A. D.. 1871. A Sinner Saved by Grace." 
 
 At the funeral of Dr. Smith the order of the procession was as follows: 
 U. S. Consul; Dr. Smith's funeral Cortege; detachment of police: town 
 officers; hearse with military on either side; chief mourners: magistrates 
 and town consul, with naval officers on either side: Chamber of Commerce; 
 public bodies and other civilians, four deep; detachment of police. 
 
 Thus was he highly honored at his decease. The facts and pictures 
 are furnished by Dr. Smith's grand-daughters. Miss Jeanette E. Smith; Mrs. 
 N. W. Edwards, and grandson, Mr. B. H. Smith 
 
"BEAUTIFUL JANE TODD" 
 AS MRS. WILLIAM MITCHELL 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 ht !E%%m\ %%t'a\ *]§VL%txxLWxt%& 
 
 CENE — A cabin in the woods nearby or in the little log village of 
 Danville, Ky., in the month of February, 1785. A bunch of young- 
 sters in coon skin caps and untanned leather trousers gathered shy 
 and giggling, about the door, shrugging their shoulders and stamping 
 their feet to keep warm. They nudged and pushed each other with juvenile en- 
 ergy and mischief and if any girls were there they were jostled with the rest. 
 They all looked toward the door with some dread. Directly it opened and a tall, 
 dignified Presbyterian minister called pleasantly: 
 
 "Come in, children." 
 
 They entered obediently, mechanically, and without a word, standing con- 
 fused in the middle of the small room before the open fire place. Some of the 
 minister's own children eyed the newcomers timidly. 
 
 "Lay your caps here," said a sweet-faced, motherly woman, evidently the 
 wife of the minister, relieving the awkward urchins of their primitive headgear. 
 
 "Have seats here," said the minister, motioning to some improvised slab 
 benches arranged about the room. 
 
 There were no text books except those in his possession, and the eager 
 youngsters with rumpled hair and ruddy cheeks never took their eyes off the 
 tall, awesome preacher who was to teach them the rudiments of knowledge. They 
 did glance about anxiously to see if he had a bunch of beech rods to rule the 
 roost; but seeing nothing of the sort they returned to their first, instinctive 
 feeling that it would be a bold boy or girl indeed who dared disobey such a 
 solemn, dignified master of ceremonies as that. 
 
 Anyhow, in half an hour they were listening in open mouthed wonder as 
 he taught them the three R's, and other subjects familiar to the juvenile mind of 
 long ago. The good minister's wife was ever ready to assist with word or smile, 
 and the urchins took no note of the lapse of time. The teacher was Father David 
 Rice and the school "Transylvania Seminary," so called to soften and refine the 
 first backwoods school in the State of Kentucky. 
 
 Memories of his own solemn boyhood came back as the good man guided the 
 feet of tender youth along the path of knowledge. He felt a great and noble 
 sympathy for every child growing up in ignorance around him. He recalled how 
 his grandfather, Thomas Rice, had come to Virginia as a colonial adventurer, 
 and established himself on a small farm in Hanover County. Returning to Eng- 
 land to claim an estate which had been left to him, he was murdered on ship- 
 board. The sailors said he had died at sea; but his family and friends always 
 believed he met with foul play. 
 
 "My father was left in poverty with his widowed mother and a large fam- 
 ily of children," said the teacher in the afternoon when the lessons were over. 
 "But the Lord never allows his own to perish. They were provided for, some- 
 
60 
 
 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 Monument to Father David Rice, Danville, Kentucky, first Great Eman- 
 cipator, buried near Dr. Ephraim McDowell, famous "Father of Ovariot- 
 omy," the first great surgeon of abdominal diseases. In the classic old 
 cemetery of the First Presbyterian Church. The bones of Father Rice 
 were removed from an obscure caibin home family burial ground down in 
 Green County by Rev. E. M. Green, D. D., of Danville. 45 years ago. by 
 order of the two Synods of Kentucky. The bones of Mrs. Rice were partly 
 recovered and reburied at Danville. 
 
 A full and thrillingi account of this historic removal and reburial is 
 given in the Companion volume, "The Light Bearers," in the chapter called 
 "The Mantle of Elijah." 
 
 A notable group of Pioneer Baptist Emancipators were contemporaneous 
 with Father Rice in Kentucky. Dr. J. H. Spencer, the Baptist historian, 
 enumerates them: Cornelius Duese, John Murphy, John H. Owen, Elijah 
 Davidson and Carter Tarrant, in Green River Association, where Father 
 David Rice lived and died. Joshua Carman, Josiah Dodge and Thomas 
 Whitman preached with power against slavery in the Salem Association. 
 William Hickman, John Sutton, William Buckley. Donald Holmes. George 
 Smith, George Stokes Smith and David Barrow bore witness against slavery 
 in the Elkhorn and Bracken Associations. Carter Tarrant wrote a history 
 of the Baptist Emancipators. He was a native of Virginia and died as an 
 army chaplain in New Orleans during the War of 1S12. David Barrow was 
 the most distinguished preacher among the Baptist Emancipators. He was 
 a Hero of the Cross on the border. Born in Virginia in 1753. on the farm, 
 he was largely self-educated. He was converted at sixteen and licensed ana 
 ordained in 1771. He served in the Revolution for one enlistment and then 
 returned to preaching. In 1778 a mob oif young Episcopal high-blood rough- 
 necks attacked and ducked Mr. Barrow in Virginia till he was nearly 
 drowned. Obscene songs were sung when he had given out a hymn am] 
 the crowd assembled to hear him was terrorized. But a solemn fate soon 
 befell some of the ruffians. Mr. Barrow had a vision of universal liberty 
 while fighting for American Independence. He liberated his slaves: and 
 came to Kentucky in 1798. He was wise and reasonable in his emancipation 
 preaching-: but in the excitement and persecution lie was excluded from 
 church fellowship and gathered "the friends of humanity" into a small but 
 impressive Association of Churches. He wrote a pamphlet of 64 pages 
 against slavery and deserved rank beside Father Rice. His efforts were 
 regarded as fruitless but he bore withness to Freedom. He died in 1S19. 
 
THE FIRST GREAT FORERUNNERS 61 
 
 how, and my father became a humble farmer with food and raiment for his family 
 and was therewith content. He never owned a slave. My father and mother 
 were opposed to slavery. She taught me that it was wrong to buy and sell 
 human flesh. She hated the injustice done to our fellow creatures." 
 
 The children listened with bated breath and the minister's eyes burned 
 with a peculiar fire at this reference to human slavery. Then his voice softened 
 and he went on: 
 
 "My father and mother were godly people. They taught me the Lord's 
 Prayer and the Commandments almost before I can remember. When I was only 
 six or seven years old I prayed earnestly to be saved. Many times I would weep 
 in secret; and after two years I thought I had found the Lord. I was very happy 
 for a while. 
 
 "When I was a boy back in Old Virginia people did not keep the Sabbath 
 holy as they should. They would take a bath and change their clothes, and after 
 reading the Bible a little would go off to hunt and fish and have their pleasure 
 in sin. I knew this was wrong, and one day I went to see a boy friend of mine. 
 I told him how we ought to pray and meditate and read God's holy word and 
 asked him to go with me into the woods apart where we could meet God alone. 
 
 "He laughed and made a bargain with me that if I would play ball with 
 him he would then do as I wished. I consented with a heavy heart, but he broke 
 his word and went on his way. I begged him with tears to repent, but he would 
 not, for Satan had hardened his heart. 
 
 "When I was about thirteen years of age I felt a deeper conviction of sin 
 than ever and the need of being born again. I prayed seven times a day, but 
 became more miserable than before. I saw my love of self. I realized my lost 
 condition and cried to God again for mercy. I was on the brink of despair. I 
 groped in darkness until the grace of God opened my blinded eyes and enabled 
 me to see my Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Today, if ye will hear His voice, 
 harden not your hearts. My little children, He calls you now; obey His warning 
 and His word before it is too late!" 
 
 The minister stood tall and solemn in the winter twilight. A ray of red- 
 dish golden light illumined his saintly countenance as he closed the school with 
 prayer and dismissed the children with his blessing. His manner was tragic in 
 its melancholy solemnity. The little folks left the room awed and subdued into 
 a silence painful and depressing beyond words to tell by this mounrful story of 
 boyhood in the long ago. 
 
 For three memorable years Father Rice and his good wife taught the little 
 school at Danville. Whenever be was away on his preaching tours Mother Rice 
 with signal ability and success instructed the children. She was a minister's 
 daughter and a woman of unusual character. Father Rice had met her in his 
 student days up in the beautiful Pennsylvania mountains. His heart went out 
 to her and they pledged their mutual love. He was not able to wed her until 
 he was ready to become a settled pastor in Virginia. She then became unto him 
 a staff of life and hope. She went with him into the Kentucky wilderness and 
 braved all the terrors of Indian attack, privation and poverty, and sustained her 
 husband's spirit through years of darkest melancholy and despair. 
 
 In the little school room of their humble cabin home she told the Bible 
 stories over and over to the charmed ears of the little ones. She reared and trained 
 eleven children of her own and saw every one of them, without a single exception. 
 
62 
 
 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 become godly men and women. She sought out the young people of the commun- 
 ity and impressed upon them noble ideals of life. Even in that backwoods time 
 and place she wrote letters of love and counsel to all her husband's flock who 
 were in trouble of mind or distress of body. Men and women in every walk 
 of life came gratefully to that little cabin door as to "The House By the Side 
 of the Road." No man knoweth the spot of its location today; but those three 
 immortal years, from 1785 to 1788, laid the foundation of education, culture 
 and character in the State of Kentucky for generations to come. 
 
 The type of log cabin school taught by Father Rice is still found today on 
 the farm of Mr. John Pierce, near Goshen. This cabin held a school of this 
 sort for many years, and Presbyterian preachers and teachers who afterward be- 
 
 Typical Pioneer Log- School House of 100 years ago. 
 still standing- as a dwelling o-n the farm of John C. Pierce 
 near Goshen, Kentucky. Tradition says that Prof. "Wm. 
 H. G. Butler, of Hanover CoUlege, taught here some years 
 before he was so foully murdered in Louisville by Matt 
 Ward. Other notable men taught in this little Log Cabin 
 Academy. 
 
 came widely known sat behind the wooden desk of that little school room one 
 hundred years ago. This school near Goshen was contemporaneous with the 
 famous Log Cabin Academy conducted in the old Marrs house now owned by Mr. 
 Giltner Snowden. 
 
 But another impressive thing we wish to mention here is the fact that 
 back of the very first public school in the State of Kentucky, taught by Father 
 Rice, was the powerful and uplifting force of Freemasonry. Samuel Daviess, 
 of Virginia, Grand Master of Kentucky in 1826, was the man and Mason who 
 brought Father Rice, his pastor, from Virginia to Kentucky to shepherd the 
 uncared-for pioneers and to teach their children the elements of English and 
 moral character. 
 
 There is something sublime in contemplating the unity of the Masonic 
 Lodge and the Presbyterian Church of Oid Virginia in planting the public school 
 
THE FIRST GREAT FORERUNNERS 63 
 
 in the wilds of Kentucky long ago. This unity runs back to Old Scotland where 
 light and enlightenment went hand in hand with religion. We can never under- 
 stand the noble dream that the Grand Lodge of this State had in establishing 
 the Masonic Home and School at LaGrange until we are familiar with these 
 early chapters in the history of education when our State was young. So we will 
 close this account with a brief sketch of that master man and Master Mason, 
 Samuel Daviess, who brought Father David Rice to Kentucky: 
 
 "Samuel Daviess was a brother of Joseph Hamilton Daviess, Grand Master 
 (1811) who fell at Tippecanoe. The Daviess family went from Scotland to the 
 north of Ireland where they took refuge from persecutions. Samuel's father, 
 Joseph Daviess, married Jean Hamilton and came to America, making their home 
 in Bedford county, Virginia. Thence they came to Kentucky, and settled near 
 Danville. 
 
 "Samuel Daviess was a man of strong character, a Presbyterian, and evi- 
 dently devoted to his church, for he went back over the mountains to Virginia 
 after his pastor, Rev. David Rice, whom he brought to Kentucky on horseback 
 to become a pioneer of Presbyterianism here. 
 
 "Samuel was educated in Harrodsburg, and became a practicing lawyer, 
 moved to that place and, at the death of his father, took charge of the younger 
 children, whom he educated. He represented his district in the Lower House, 
 afterwards in the Senate of Kentucky, a?.d died September 30, 1856, aged 83 
 years. The Grand Lodge in noticing his death declared: 'He was a good man, 
 and bore himself honorably and creditably, and was an excellent example to 
 all around him.'" 
 
 THE COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY 
 
 President Millis of Hanover, discussing recently with us the contemporary 
 history of Hanover and the Masonic College at La Grange, Kentucky (1845- 
 1865), said that "the manual labor principle" connected with these colleges 
 for the self-support of students, suggested itself from that idea in the social 
 education system then made famous in Europe by certain great educational 
 reformers; and he said that this "manual labor principle" was only abandoned 
 at Hanover College, at the Masonic University, and elsewhere at the time because 
 the cost of equipment and upkeep was very expensive. Hence these colleges 
 became purely classic institutions. Yet the idea of a technical and vocational 
 training for youth has persisted in all state institutions of learning; and today 
 there is a strong necessity of clarifying the minds of most people on this vital 
 subject. A bit of Hanover history will give us the whole thing in a nutshell: 
 
 "In response to a request made by the Presbytery of Salem, which then 
 embraced a large part of Indiana and Illinois, Rev. John Finley Crowe opened 
 the Hanover Academy, January 1, 1827, in a log cabin, near where the Pres- 
 byterian church of Hanover now stands. On the 30th of December, 1828, 
 the Legislature of Indiana passed an act incorporating Hanover Academy. In 
 1829 this academy was adopted by the Synod of Indiana as a Synodical School. 
 
 "The field of higher education is occupied W two types of institution, the 
 College, and the University with its technical schools. These types differ 
 with reference to objects and methods. The University seeks to make an expert, 
 a specialist, an authority. It proposes to take the indvidual into some depart- 
 
64 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 ment of thought, invention, discovery or practice and make him a master In 
 that province. The keyword in University education is the training of special 
 ability; specialization. The College, on the other hand, seeks above all else 
 to make a man of the individual. It proposes to give him such general training 
 as will send him out into life with developed and well-balanced powers, with 
 right ideals and wholesome enthusiasms. The University is chiefly concerned 
 with what he can do: the College with what he is. The College recognizes the 
 demand for efficiency, but believes that ultimately real efficiency can be secured 
 only upon the basis of the broad general training which the college gives." 
 
 JOHN FINLEY CROWE 
 
 We have mentioned certain great Anti-Slavery men because the Anti- 
 Slavery movement in Kentucky history has been so neglected until recent years. 
 The Filson Club in 1918 published a history of this movement by Prof. Asa 
 Earl Martin of the Pennsylvania State College. Prof. Martin gathered together 
 a wonderful stock of material and covered this entire movement down to 1850. 
 He regarded it as one of the greatest undertakings of his life; and the book 
 is of profound interest. We feel that it is not going too far afield to mention 
 these early day Abolition forces and leaders that surrounded our own home 
 county. Hence we give these sketches of Dr. Crowe, who was a very disting- 
 uished Abolitionist. Prof. Martin says of him and his periodical: 
 
 "The small number of papers which would allow the opponents of slavery 
 to set before the people the arguments against the system was one of the 
 greatest difficulties that the anti-slavery workers had to contend with; since 
 the columns of the newspapers, especially in the States south of the Mason and 
 Dixon Line, were as a rule closed to all anti-slavery discussions. The Kentucky 
 Abolition Society, therefore, determined to establish at Shelbyville a semi- 
 monthly anti-slavery paper under the editorship of Rev. John Finley Crowe. 
 By way of prospectus, proposals enumerating the principles of the society, with 
 extracts from its constitution, were sent to various periodicals for publication. 
 The first number of the paper, which was called the Abolition Intelligencer 
 and Missionary Magazine appeared in May, 1822, as a monthly instead of a 
 semi-monthly, as stated in the proposals. 
 
 "Each number of the Abolition Intelligencer and Missionary Magazine 
 contained sixteen pages, the first eight of which were devoted wholly to a 
 discussion of slavery and the last eight to missions. The historical value of such 
 a paper can hardly be overestimated. It was a repository for all plans for 'he 
 abolition of slavery, for all laws, opinions, arguments, essays, speeches, reviews, 
 statistics, congressional proceedings, notices of books and pamphlets, colonization 
 efforts, political movements — in short, for every thing that related to slavery. 
 
 "There were just two anti-slavery papers published in the United States 
 at that time, one. the Abolition Intelligencer and Missionary Magazine, the 
 oth"r, Lundy's Genius of Universal Emancipation. It is worthy of notice 
 that both of these papers were published west of the Appalachian Mountains. 
 This is true of every anti-slavery paper published before 1826." 
 
THE FIRST GREAT FORERUNNERS 65 
 
 DR. CROWE AND DR. BLACKBURN 
 
 The following sketch of Dr. Crowe is taken from the Presbyterian Ency- 
 clopedia. Dr. Gideon Blackburn of the Goshen church was equally strong 
 against slavery but was an Emancipationist. He became President of Centre 
 College at Danville when Dr. Crowe began his great work at Hanover. 
 
 "Crowe, John Finley, D. D., the second son of Benj. Crowe, a soldier 
 and officer in the Revolutionary War from Virginia, was born June 16th, 1787, 
 in Green county, Tennessee, then a frontier settlement of North Carolina. In 
 1802 his father removed to Bellevue, Mo. He attended Transylvania University, 
 Ky., 1811-12; was a student at Princeton Seminary 1814-15; licensed 1816, 
 and ordained to the ministry in 1817 by the Presbytery of Louisville. He 
 labored as pastor, editor and teacher in Kentucky till 1823, when he removed 
 to Hanover, Indiana, and became the pastor of that church. Was pastor there 
 from 1823 to 1834, and stated supply from 183 8 to 1847. 
 
 "In 1827 he founded Hanover Academy, under the auspices of the Madison 
 Presbytery, which in 183 3 became Hanover College. He continued in connec- 
 tion with this institution as teacher, professor and vice president till his death, 
 January 17, 1860. He was the editor and manager of the "Abolition Intelli- 
 gencer and Missionary Magazine," published at Shelbyville, Kentucky, one of 
 the earliest magazines of the kind published in this country, in 1822-23; and 
 left a MS. History of Hanover College. 
 
 "Dr. Crowe was a faithful, humble and successful preacher and pastor, 
 was devoted to his work, and his labors were frequently blessed with revivals. 
 He was a worthy companion of Johnson, Dickey, Martin and others in the 
 pioneer mission work in Southern Indiana. His great work was the founding 
 and fostering of Hanover College, to which institution he gave all his energies 
 and wisdom for a third of a century. During his last sickness he frequently 
 repeated the words of II Timothy 1-2, 'I know whom I have believed,' etc., 
 and by the faith of the gospel gained a triumph over death. Two of his 
 sons became ministers, and four of his daughters became ministers' wives, one 
 of whom was a missionary to China." 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 |Jaf men M®hn Qf&hb mtb ttft ^h^tltmi^wn 
 
 /^ "1 NDER the date of August 21, 1909, we received the following 
 
 ^» I letter from Mr. John A. H. Owens, of the Charlestown, Ind. r 
 
 Ijl Presbyterian church, inquiring for facts about the early history 
 
 of Parson John Todd, the famous old pioneer preacher in those 
 
 parts whose idendity and story so long baffled us. Mr. Owens said: 
 
 "Our county (Clark) was the second organized in the State (Indiana) : 
 and most of the land included in the present bounds of the county was given 
 to the soldiers of George Rogers Clark. 
 
 "We had in early days many citizens who loved God and their fellow-men, 
 and who never faltered in the work of establishing churches and schools and 
 turning the wilderness into a home for the distressed of all nations. 
 
 "We of the younger generation have taken great pleasure in delving in the 
 time-worn records of the past and getting all the light we could on the 
 lives and works of the heroic men and women of the pioneer days. 
 
 "Among the foremost of our men was Parson Todd, a man who was 
 loved and honored by all. The men and women who knew him are now 
 sleeping in our cemetery and have carried with them the unwritten story of the 
 good parson. 
 
 "He was an educated man who gave his talents toward establishing Chris- 
 tianity and Education on a firm basis in Clark's Grant. We know of him 
 while he was with us, but we would like to have some information as to 
 his birth, ancestry, youth, and life after he left Charlestown. Also of his death 
 and final resting place. 
 
 "We wish to place this information in our records where we can read it, 
 and where our children and children's children may have the brief story of one 
 who did much to make the world brighter and better. 
 
 "The Rev. Excel Fry, promising young minister of the Presbyterian 
 church in this town, has given us information that leads us to hope that we 
 may receive through you much that will be of interest to us." 
 
 It was the occasion of the centennial of the Charlestown church,, end 
 Rev. Mr. Fry had talked to us about tracing the Parson Todd story. We had 
 it from our mother that the old Woolfolk homestead at Goshen, where we 
 were born, was the pioneer home of a family of Kentucky Todds and that 
 they were close relatives of Parson Todd. There was a grave of a certain J. T. 
 in the old burying ground; and our mother remembered long ago in her child- 
 hood how some member of the family was brought back and interred there. 
 
THE FIRST GREAT FORERUNNERS 67 
 
 THE JANE TODD ROMANCE 
 
 Then, too, there was the romance of "Beautiful Jane Todd" and Samuel 
 Snowden; and we might have spoken to Samuel Snowden himself while he 
 was alive about this hidden tragedy of the heart. But who would have dared? 
 We stood in such awe of him; and he perhaps would have told us not to 
 meddle with what did not concern us. So we were not able to gratify young 
 Pastor Fry of the Charlestown church with any definite facts about Parson Todd 
 or his people. 
 
 The years passed on and our county history was written. We finally 
 got the courage to delve into the Jane Todd Samuel Snowden romance through 
 a niece of Mr. Snowden's, our own dear cousin, Mrs. Lavinia Gross, of St. 
 Louis, Mo., whose mother gave her the facts first hand. And our own mother 
 verified the facts from what her elders told her in early childhood about this 
 locally famous and fascinating love story. We even got the loan of a young 
 girl's photograph, or rather daguerreotype, once possessed by Samuel Snowden, 
 which was supposed to be that of "Beautiful Jane Todd." This picture was 
 accidently destroyed in the photograph gallery of the Indiana Reformatory at 
 Jeffersonville, when we were chaplain there, and led us to make a tireless 
 search for any surviving relatives of Jane Todd. We thus discovered that grand 
 old lady, Mrs. Mary Louise Gibson, of Newport, Ky., niece of Jane Todd; 
 and thus we got on the trail of Parson Todd's people at last. 
 
 THE OLDHAM TODDS 
 
 In brief, to quote our chapter on "The Lincoln Todds in Oldham County," 
 published September 7, 1923: "We know that Col. John Todd (who was 
 one of the bravest campaigners with George Rogers Clark) was a nephew 
 and namesake of Rev. John Todd, Sr., of Pennsylvania and Virginia. Our 
 Parson John Todd, Jr., who did so much for education in Clark and Oldham 
 counties more than one hundred years ago, was a son and namesake of this Rev. 
 John Todd, Sr. He was therefore a first cousin of Col. John Todd, General 
 Robert Todd, and General Levi Todd, grandfather of Mary Todd Lincoln, 
 who was granted a tract of land across the river in Clark county for services 
 rendered with his brothers in Clark's campaigns. 
 
 "Now it seems that besides Owen Todd, another brother, who was also a 
 first cousin of our Parson John Todd, there was yet another brother, Samuel 
 Todd, Jr. This Samuel Todd was sheriff of Boutetourt county, Virginia, in 
 1791 and 1792. He was born in Lancaster county, Pa., about the year 
 173 8 and died in Boutetourt county, Va., in the year 1812. He was the father 
 of Judge Samuel Todd of Frankfort, Ky. 
 
 "This Judge Samuel Todd was born in Rockbridge county, Va., in 1777. 
 This Samuel Todd, Sr., and Jr., were the great-grandfather and grandfather of 
 Mrs. Mary Louise Gibson, of Newport, Ky., who has given us all we know 
 of the Todds in Oldham county. Mrs. Gibson is certain that these Todds 
 were all cousins of Mary Todd Lincoln, which is abundantly proved through 
 the fact that Dr. Samuel S. Todd (a cousin of her grandfather and author of a 
 Todd family history) was a grandson of Owen Todd, a great uncle of Mrs. 
 Lincoln. 
 
68 
 
 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 "These facts give to the old Todd- Woolf oik homestead near Goshen a new 
 historic interest that will increase as the years go by. Beautiful Jane Todd's 
 father, Major John Todd, bought the old Todd-Woolfolk home place near 
 Goshen of Ambrose Camp, July 1, 1813. It consisted of 341 acres on Huckle- 
 berry Run. Major John Todd was at this time a trustee of the city of 
 Louisville. Being a son of Samuel Todd, Jr., of Boutetourt county, Va., he was 
 a near cousin of Mrs. Lincoln." 
 
 This man Ambrose Camp, from whom Major John Todd bought the 
 farm, was an early pioneer, who married a sister of Lilberne Magruder, of 
 Goshen, Ky., and then moved down to the Pond Settlement below Louisville. 
 
 CHARLESTOWN, INDIANA, PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 
 PARSON TODD'S PASTORATE 
 
 From our earliest boyhood we remember a tombstone in the old Todd 
 burying ground on the hill of this farm that bore the letters "J. T.." roughly 
 chiseled in outline. It was before any marble stones were in use. It now 
 seems most probable that this J. T. was Major John Todd, owner of the 
 farm, as the burial place was established while he lived there. The farm was sold 
 by him in after years to Francis Snowdcn, uncle of Samuel Snowden and was 
 
THE FIRST GREAT FORERUNNERS 69 
 
 purchased of Francis Snowden by Jefferson Woolfolk in 1835. Our mother is 
 quite sure that Parson John Todd spent a lot of his time at this old home- 
 stead while pastor at Chralestown and Goshen. Her mother, who was a 
 Charlestown girl, spoke constantly of Parson Todd; and the records of the 
 Charlestown church show that before the Goshen church was formally organized 
 by Gideon Blackburn, there were a number of Presbyterians on this side of 
 the river whose names were on the Charlestown roll and were evidently parishion- 
 ners in Parson Todd's flock. 
 
 The references to Mr. Todd in the Charlestown church history are as 
 follows: 
 
 "The first minister who had charge of the church was Rev. John Todd, 
 familiarly known as 'Parson Todd.' Where he came from or whither he went 
 is unknown. He came out of the mists of obscurity, labored for a few years 
 in Charlestown, and then disappears into the shadows again and vanished from 
 sight. Judging from work in Charlestown, however, he did good work 
 wherever he went, for he was a man greatly beloved, not only in the church 
 but in the community, and under his ministry the church grew and developed 
 steadily. He probably began his ministry here in 1815 or 1816 and closed 
 it in September, 1824 Tradition says he was a relative of the celebrated John 
 Todd of Virginia." 
 
 PARSON TODD THE EDUCATOR 
 
 Again we read: "The Rev. John Todd, or 'Parson Todd,' as he was 
 called, lived in what was afterwards known as the Mr. Solon Young home, half 
 a mile south of town, on the Ohio River road. Here for a number of years, 
 he kept a select private school, the pupils meeting in the parlor for recitations. 
 He was said to have been a successful and inspiring teacher. This school was 
 the germ of Barnett Academy. 
 
 "Mr. Todd's study was in the attic of the house, whence the elevation 
 above the earth and proximity to heaven gave that unworldliness and spirituality 
 to the Parson's sermons for which they were noted. This old historic house 
 was destroyed by fire a few years ago." 
 
 TRAGEDY OF PARSON TODD'S MINISTRY 
 
 On page 276 of Davidson's History of the Presbyterian Church in Kentucky, 
 we read that Rev. John Todd came to Kentucky from the Hanover Presbytery 
 of Virginia in 1809, when he became a member of the Transylvania Presbytery. 
 He sided with the Rev. Thomas B. Craighead, who was under censure for 
 doctrinal views at variance with strict Presbyterian standards. Dr. Davidson 
 says that Mr. Todd was persistent in defending and disseminating the teachings 
 of Mr. Craighead, and as a consequence "was tried by the Presbytery of Trans- 
 ylvania August 14, 1812, convicted and solemnly admonished. As he con- 
 tinued to hold and teach his errors notwithstanding, the Presbytery, agreeably 
 to advice of Synod, obtained in the interim, suspended him April 15, 1813. 
 Mr. Todd appealed to the Synod but in vain. In 1817 (October 11) he took 
 a sober second thought recanted and was restored." 
 
70 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 The Rev. Edward L. Warren, D. D., of Louisville, in his Centennial 
 Address of the Presbytery of Louisville, in 1916, makes a very concise and inter- 
 esting reference to Rev. John Todd: 
 
 "Another interesting character who took part with these missionaries (into 
 the Territory and State of Indiana) was Rev. John Todd, who came to 
 Louisville from Old Hanover Presbytery and had been associated in his youth 
 with Rev. James Waddell, David Rice and Archibald Alexander. Falling into 
 the error of Graighead, Mr. Todd was deposed from the ministry by the Pres- 
 bytery of Transylvania, but upon his restoration entered actively upon missionary 
 work under the Presbytery of Louisville in the region of Charlestown, Indiana." 
 
 It would thus seem certain that Mr. Todd came to Louisville Presbytery 
 after his restoration in October, 1817, and probably began his missionary and 
 pastoral labors around Charlestown, and possibly around Goshen, in the winter 
 of 1817-18; or else, if he was not received into the Presbytery of Louisville 
 until the spring meeting of 1818, he may have been that long entering 
 on his authorized home mission ministry in and around Charlestown. Rev. 
 Dr. Warren says that John Todd was "the ablest Greek scholar in our midst," 
 thus commending very highly his work as a teacher. 
 
 Dr. Davidson says that the Rev. Thomas B. Craighead was a man of 
 eloquence and fervor but that his preaching of the New Light doctrines involved 
 him in a very unhappy controversy with the Presbytery and Synod. Like Mr. 
 Todd, he was restored to his ministerial standing in his seventieth year when 
 old and poor. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 2s*tt» ^ntHHintf p£ lift C§1& &^a%\tmk&m\x 
 
 /^ T is fitting to make some record, in these centennial annals of old 
 ^m VJ Presbyterian churches in Southern Indiana and Kentucky, regarding 
 X^ J the gifted and distinguished first Governor of the Hoosier State; 
 the man who fulfilled the sacred compact of Thomas Jefferson to 
 make the Northwest Territory forever free from African slavery; the man who 
 unified and crystalized the Freesoil sentiment of the great Anti-Slavery preachers 
 in the Louisville Presbytery, and who, indeed, anticipated and set the pace for 
 Old Louisville Presbytery in getting rid of the institution across the river. 
 This noted man and Freemason, Jonathan Jennings, lived at Charlestown 
 throughout the pastorate of "Parson Todd" and is believed by the present gen- 
 eration of Presbyterians there to have had a strong hand in the organization 
 of the church at that time. Clerk of Session W. S. Hikes wrote us under 
 date of January 28, 1925, as follows: 
 
 "Dear Brother Rule: 
 
 "I am sending you today the History of the Charlestown Presbyterian 
 Church. I felt that it ought to be made record of by the Presbytery or Synod 
 in order to preserve it more completely and surely than it could be done by 
 out own church, as we have had the misfortune to be burned out once completely; 
 and again our records were charred so we had to rewrite them entirely. 
 
 "I want to call your attention to Rev. F. M. Hurst's suggestion in regard 
 to our first Governor, Jonathan Jennings, that his father, being a Presbyterian 
 minister back in Pennsylvania and having educated his son in a Presbyterian 
 school, would more than likely have influenced him (the son) to be among the 
 promoters and organizers of the Charlestown Presbyterian Church. And while 
 we have no records to show that he did, the fact that his residence here in 
 Charlestown in 1807. and that he married Miss Anna Hay, together with the 
 fact that the Hays were members of our church up to the latter part of the 
 last century, gives us a reasonable right to believe that it was organized earlier 
 than the records actually show, or rather earlier than the minutes of Presby- 
 tery show. 
 
 "The church must have been in existence, and with enough members then 
 for the Presbytery to take notice and accept them, and give them in charge 
 of a minister. You will please return our history when you have copied 
 what you think is important enough to go on record; and if it is not too 
 much trouble. I would like for you to send me a copy of what you have 
 considered worthy of permanent record. Thanking you for your kind interest 
 in this work, I am yours truly, 
 
 W. S. HIKES." 
 
72 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 INVESTIGATION BY PASTOR HURST 
 
 Now the Rev. F. M. Hurst was pastor of Charlestown some years ago 
 when they celebrated their centennial or organization. He prepared a very 
 interesting and able historic paper on the subject in hand, from which we 
 make a substantial quotation: 
 
 "There is no known record of the Charlestown Presbyterian Church that 
 goes back of 1820; and this fixed 1812 as the year in which the congregation 
 was organized, but the day and month are not given. 
 
 "The Minutes of the Transylvania Presbytery have the following entry 
 made April 11, 1812: 'Mr. Vance informed Presbytery that a small congrega- 
 tion exists in Charlestown and its vicinity in the Indiana Territory, which 
 congregation having requested him to make them known to Presbytery and 
 solicit their care and attention, Mr. Todd was appointed to supply said con- 
 gregation as much of his time as he may find convenient, and also that he, 
 with Mr. Lapsley, administer the sacrament at Charlestown as soon as they find 
 it convenient.' 
 
 "Just who Mr. Vance was is problematical, but perhaps he was a Presby- 
 terian minister, as he does not seem to be representing the congregation as an 
 elder. But anyway he knew of the existence of the congregation before 
 April 11, 1812. Just how long before is a question that we can not answer." 
 
 JAMES VANCE 
 
 Now in regard to this Mr. Vance (who accompanied "Parson" John Todd 
 into Indiana Territory as a home missionary while Transylvania Presbytery 
 included practically all the region of the Ohio river valley, as this same section 
 was embraced by Louisville Presbytery, organized in 1816), we have his identity 
 from Rev. Edward L. Warren, D. D., historian of the Presbytery of Louisville. 
 U. S. A. 
 
 "James Vance," says Dr. Warren, "was of the Virginia type and settled 
 on Beargrass Creek, at Middletown, where he opened a school, in which 
 many men afterward prominent in the Church were trained, among whom 
 were Rev. Joshua L. Wilson, D. D., pastor of First Church in Cincinnati, and 
 Rev. J. J. Bullock, D. D., afterwards Superintendent of Public Schools in 
 Kentucky and Chaplain of the United States Senate. 
 
 "In 1799 Mr. Vance was ordained pastor of Middletown and Pennsylvania 
 Run churches, the latter being the oldest church in Louisville Presbytery, being 
 mentioned in the records of Presbytery as early as 1789. The Minutes of 
 the Presbytery of Transylvania make mention of his being appointed to preach 
 to the congregation at Louisville. Mr. Vance was for many years Stated Clerk of 
 the Presbytery of Louisville. He visited the churches in Indiana, especially 
 in the region of Charlestown. where he organized a church called 'Palmyra.' 
 a name in keeping with the classical tastes for antiquity which seemed to 
 have prevailed in this region and as seen in the names of Memphis. Utica and 
 others." 
 
 In the sketches of Joshua L. Wilson, D. D., the distinguished pupil ot 
 Rev. James Vance at Middletown, we find these facts: That young Wilson, 
 went to Middletown to study for the ministry: that he boarded in the family of 
 
THE FIRST GREAT FORERUNNERS 7 3 
 
 Mr. Vance, assisting in the school as an instructor while pursuing his own the- 
 ological studies under Mr. Vance. And with reference to Mr. Vance himself 
 we read: 
 
 "James Vance resided about 18 miles east of Louisville, in Jefferson 
 county, Ky., and had charge of two congregations. In the latter years of his 
 life he was rendered nearly helpless by means of rheumatism. He had a 
 younger brother, William, a young man of much more than ordinary promise, who 
 was licensed to preach in the year 1803, and was to have been settled over the 
 church at Danville, and another in the same neighborhood; but after preaching 
 a single sermon to each, was suddenly called from his earthly labors." 
 
 We have thus established the fact that these two ministers, John Todd 
 and James Vance, who planted Presbyterianism at Charlestown, were educators. 
 The Mr. Lapsley mentioned as companion to Mr. Todd in administering the 
 sacrament at Charlestown appears to have been a Joseph B. Lapsley, who, 
 with Samuel T. Scott, James McGready, William Wylie, Samuel Brown and 
 Thomas Cleland, were to labor for longer or shorter periods in the Territory 
 of Indiana. "This field," says a church historian, "fell properly within the 
 bounds of the Synod of Kentucky, as to the one to which it was most accessible; 
 and by far the largest number of its missionaries were selected from that body. 
 Already congregations had been gathered at several places, but none of them 
 were able to sustain a pastor." 
 
 MORE ABOUT JONATHAN JENNINGS 
 
 And now with reference to Jonathan Jennings and the Charlestown 
 church, Rev. F. M. Hurst says: "In 1806 Jonathan Jennings, then only 25 years 
 old, came from Pennsylvania to Jeffersonville, where he remained but a short 
 time and then moved to Vincennes, and from there to Charlestown in 1807, 
 where he afterwards married Miss Anna Hay, and here he made his home, 
 and within the borders of the town his ashes rest today. 
 
 "Young Jennings was born in New Jersey, and his father was a Presby- 
 terian preacher who almost in the beginning of the boy's life moved with his 
 family to Fayette County, Pennsylvania, and the boy was educated in the 
 Presbyterian school at Cannonsburg, Washington County — a school that afterwards 
 merged into what is today Washington and Jefferson College. 
 
 "The son of a Presbyterian minister, educated in a Presbyterian school, 
 coming out from the most active part of the Presbyterian church, in the fervor 
 and freshness of life, what would have been more natural than that he should 
 be interested in organizing the Church of his father in his new home? And 
 yet there is no record, no tradition, so far as this historian knows connecting him 
 with this church. 
 
 "His father, Rev. Jacob Jennings, practiced medicine until he was about 
 40 years old and entered the ministry about 1784 or 1785; and in 1792 he 
 was called to the pastorate of Dunlaps Creek Presbyterian Church, that still 
 stands as one of the landmarks of early Presbyterianism in Fayette county, Penn- 
 sylvania, as the Charlestown church stands as a landmark in Clark County : 
 Indiana. 
 
 "With such a training, and with such influences back of him, is it unrea- 
 sonable to suppose that among the first things that interested this young man 
 
74 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 in his new home was the church of his father; and would he not be inclined 
 to join his neighbors in an effort to build a church at the very outset, and 
 even though he may not have been a member of the congregation, may we not 
 suppose that he was interested in the organization?" 
 
 THOMAS CLELAND AND ZACHARY TAYLOR 
 
 Now this Presbytery of Transylvania, Kentucky, which sent John Todd 
 and James Vance out as home missionaries the first time they came to Charles- 
 town and vicinity, was organized on the 17th day of October, 1786, at 
 Danville, being a branch of Abingdon Presbytery, Virginia and consisted of 
 five ministers. It grew, of course, and in 1804 ordained Thomas Cleland 
 to the ministry. He was the youth who had landed at Goose Creek, on the 
 River Road above Louisville, with his father's family when Zachary Taylor 
 was a lad. His father went over into Washington county to locate a home 
 for his family, and while he was gone the Taylor family took the Clelands in 
 and treated them with marked kindness. Because of sickness they had stayed 
 in their houseboat at the landing; and then they temporarily occupied a log 
 cabin on the Taylor farm. Young Cleland says he played with "Little Zack," 
 and that Mother Taylor treated his mother like a sister. This boy was the 
 Presbyterian minister sent over into Indiana Territory sixteen years later (the 
 time between 1789 and 1805) to preach at Vincennes before the Governor, 
 who was General Harrison, a slavery man and a strong opponent of Jonathan 
 Jennings in making Indiana Territory a Free State. Young Cleland preached 
 in the council house and was so favorably received that the people implored him 
 to remain, promising to send back to Kentucky for his family. But he prom- 
 ised to come again to see them one year later, which he did, and with even 
 greater difficulty declined the call extended to him. He says that ever since his 
 marriage he had in mind to remove and reside in a Free State and here was 
 his opportunity. But his personal and religious interests back in Kentucky 
 decided him not to stay in Vincennes. His two daughters and a number of 
 grandchildren were life-long members of the Harrods Creek Presbyterian Church 
 on the River road above Louisville. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 
 f^^^^™^ HE old Samuel Snowden Mill stood in the lovely little woodland 
 
 ■ I "^ west of Goshen where the new John Bottorff residence is now locat- 
 
 X.1 y ed. People came for miles on mill-days to get their corn ground 
 
 in our boyhood. The miller was Mr. Samuel Snowden, then an old 
 
 man with a twinkle in his eye and a lively step as he watched the white meal 
 
 pour dov/n into the bin. With a comical twinkle and a kindly beckon he 
 
 would call the boys up to the bin and hold out a hand full of meal for them 
 
 to smell and then suddenly rub it good and proper all over their nose and eyes. 
 
 This practical joke was the keynote to the irrepressive fun of the jolly miller. 
 
 You would scarcely imagine that this man was in youth one of the most 
 gifted poets and romantic lovers in Oldham county history. In another chapter 
 we gave in brief the tragical story of his love for "Beautiful Jane Todd." Miss 
 Todd married William D. Mitchell, for many years county clerk of Oldham 
 county. We understand that he was a very small man but very smart, as the 
 old people of LaGrange express it today. He was as homely as Miss Todd was 
 beautiful. 
 
 There were a number of boys in the family of William D. Mitchell, or 
 Billy Mitchell, as he was called by everybody. One old resident of LaGrange, 
 Mr. Ballard, was with one of the Mitchell boys when they were very small. They 
 were at an old treadmill and the Mitchell boy walked off backward and got 
 caught in the machinery and was mashed to death. Another son, Armsted Mitchell, 
 went to Texas and came to LaGrange many years afterward to pay a debt in- 
 curred in his boyhood, with the interest on same. He was a very honest man. 
 
 Mr. John Ballard, of Shelbyville, was a schoolmate of these Mitchell boys 
 as far back as 1846 or earlier. It was the impression in LaGrange that Mr. and 
 Mrs. Mitchell died there and were buried in an old cemetery north of town now 
 used by the colored church. We were told, in our quest for information, that 
 no stones marked their graves. The memory of this once widely known couple 
 seemed to have vanished in oblivion. Our good friend, Mr. D. H. French, went 
 with us in the spring of 1920 to every old inhabitant in LaGrange trying to 
 get a trace of some living relative of "Beautiful Jane Todd," to trace out the 
 facts of this present chapter. 
 
 We learned that she was related to the Barbours who built the old home 
 at Clifton on the Ohio near Westport. We were told that Mrs. Lou Gibson, of 
 Newport, Ky., was a relative that might give us some information. A picture 
 of Miss Todd, with some poems of love by Samuel Snowden, who adored her, 
 had come into our hands; but by a grievous misfortune the picture was ruined. 
 Mr. French used every means in his power to put us in touch with Mrs. Gibson 
 in hopes that another picture might be found. We are happy to say that Mrs. 
 
FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 MRS. ELINOR SNOWDEN LOUGHRIE 
 
 Mrs. Elinor Snowden Loughrie, sister of Samuel Snowden, lover of 
 "Beautiful Jane Todd." Mrs. Loughrie's husband, Lemuel Loughrie, was 
 a Southern merchant and strong- anti-slavery man'. He lies buried near 
 Governor Jennings in the Charlestown, Indiana, Cemetery. He ranked high 
 among the emancipationists. 
 
 Samuel and Elinor Snowden were children of Joseph Snowden, a lead- 
 ing Baltimore merchant, who married lovely Mary Busey in 1812. This 
 Joseph Snowden was a most gifted poet and humorist. The unpublished 
 manuscript is a treasure yet in the family archives. Francis Snowden, 
 pioneer Elder in Old Goshen Church, was a brother of Joseph Snowden. 
 Francis bad trouble with his father for interfering in the whipping- of a 
 slave, and had to leave home. His brother Joseph, in, Baltimore, fitted him 
 up and sent him West. He married and lived in Charlestown, then Goshen, 
 in pioneer days. When his brother Joseph died, Francis took Joseph's 
 children, Samuel and Elinor, into his own home. They had been highly 
 educated before coming to Kentucky. Elinor came on her first visit when 
 18 years old and met the chivalrous Lemuel Loughrie. He was a native 
 Virginian, a merchant and Knight Templar. Two of his love letters to Elinor 
 are preserved. Travelling on the Mississippi River he wrote back thus about 
 Slavery, in 1837: 
 
 "The Master will soon depart for the Middle States to spend the summer 
 in security and purchase an additional number of slaves to supply the 
 places of ithose that the epidemic diseases of the country carry off. One- 
 third of these he expects to lose the succeeding year. "What a human, 
 enlightened and Christian people we are! After driving- tlhe poor naked 
 Indian from the inheritance of his fathers, and seizing upon his patrimony, 
 we have dragged the ignorant African from beyond the Atlantic, separating 
 him from wife, children and friends; and annually doom housands of their 
 descendants to destruction, soul and body, by forcing them into this poison- 
 ous atmosphere, in order that the white man may wallow in wealth and 
 luxury and indulge in every species of dissipation ami excess. 1 would 
 like to be riclh but 1 cannot accept it from such means." 
 
 Our good friend, Deacon Virgil Snowden, of Goshen Church, grandson 
 of SamucHl Snowden, says that "My Old Kentucky Home" came to Stephen 
 Collins Foster after witnessing from an Ohio River steamboat the sad 
 exodus of these black children of bondage from the Old Kentucky Home. 
 
THE FIRST GREAT FORERUNNERS 77 
 
 Gibson proved to be a niece of Jane Todd and verified the facts of the romance 
 with Samuel Snowden. Our answer to her on receiving the picture of Miss 
 Todd is given below because ft describes this romance so fully. She died and 
 is buried in Texas beside her husband on their plantation: 
 
 My Dear Mrs. Gibson: 
 
 I cannot tell you how glad and thankful I felt when I received the lovely 
 picture of your revered aunt and your most kind and interesting letter. 
 
 For the first time we are now in touch with the Todds who built the old 
 Jefferson Woolfolk home. They lived in a double-story cabin on the hill above 
 the spring where my father's present home stands. Then they built the brick 
 house (about 1810 so tradition has said, but old deeds prove that it was not 
 till 1813 or 1814) where in 183 5 Jefferson Woolfolk came with his family 
 from the old farm on Harrods Creek where he was born. 
 
 Mother, who was Mary Woolfolk, has so often spoken of "Beautiful Jane 
 Todd," whom she saw in her (mother's) girlhood. 
 
 The picture has a touching interest to me. Mr. Samuel Snowden, who came 
 to his Uncle Francis Snowden's home when a youth from Maryland with his sister, 
 met Jane Todd at Goshen and fell deeply in love with her. He was the son 
 of a gifted poet and he himself in youth wrote beautiful poems on his sad and 
 tragic love for Miss Todd. She did not fully reciprocate his love, for she evidently 
 had already met Mr. Billy Mitchell. 
 
 Samuel Snowden was born in 1816 and this love affair was in 183 6 or '3 7 
 when he was 20, or not yet 21. His sister taunted him with not being a man 
 grown, as he claimed, and possibly his youth made against his success in his 
 suit for Jane Todd's affection. Anyhow, he wrote the sad and beautiful poems 
 to her and put them away with her picture his whole life long. The family never 
 fully admitted this romance until sometime ago when Mr. Snowden's daughter 
 gave me copies of the poems, and then a few weeks ago loaned me the picture of 
 Jane Todd, not being sure it was she. But it was undoubtedly, and a lovely one. 
 
 Our institution photographers, (of the Indiana Reformatory) in making 
 a copy, ruined it, and I was distressed beyond measure and have sought diligently 
 for trace of Jane Todd's relations to find another picture to copy and replace 
 the precious one ruined. Yours will do this, and will be copied by the best and 
 safest photographer in Louisville, and no accident whatever will happen to it. 
 It will be returned to you soon. And how happy I am that this beautiful love 
 story is now safe for all the years to come! She was called "Beautiful Jane Todd." 
 
 I will write you again and send the poems as soon as they can be copied. 
 May God bless you for this great kindness to me. Mother is waiting eagerly for 
 me to take the picture out to her at Goshen. 
 
 You can read this all over and give me nny light you have on Jane Todd's 
 story. I have the facts of her happy marriage and home life at LaGrange with 
 Mr. Mitchell, which will be sent you with the poems. 
 
 Gratefully yours, Lucien V. Rule. 
 
 William D. Mitchell was one of the leading Freemasons in the Lodges of 
 Oldham county. He was one of ihc best county clerks in our county history. 
 Mrs. Gibson says he was highly educated, but so was Mr. Snowden. Furthermore, 
 Mr. Mitchell was a widower with children and the world today wonders why 
 so beautiful a girl as Jane Todd would turn down an ardent young lover and 
 
78 
 
 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 poet like Samuel Snowden for a widower. But we are informed that the graces 
 of manner and the elegeances of culture that characterized Mr. Mitchell made him 
 a very formidable rival of the yong poet. We understand that Mr. Snowden 
 pressed his suit so ardently and with such presistance that Miss Todd decided 
 in favor of the most composed and masterful lover, whom she married. Never- 
 theless, the love poems of Samuel Snowden celebrate her beauty and his devotion 
 • n a way eminently worthy to pass on to future years. 
 
 REV. P. S. CLELAND, D. D. 
 
 Pastor of the Kentucky pioneers to Greenwood, Indiana, from ihis 
 father's old congregations. 
 
 Philip Sidney Cleland, so long pastor of the Greemwod, Indiana, Pres- 
 byterian Church, which celebrated its centennial in December, 1925, was the 
 fifth child anxi eldest son of Pioneer Preadher Thomas Cleland. Philip was 
 born November 27, 1811, and passed away just before reaching his 74th 
 birthday. 
 
 "He had witnessed the great revolution in our modes of travel, in the 
 postal system of the 'country, in methods of domestic labor, from the sewing 
 machine to the reaper. He had taken part in the early temperance move- 
 ments in this country, and at the time of his death stood with tlhe friends 
 of prohibition. 
 
 "Thougih born and reared in a Slave State, he became convinced, early 
 in his life, that the system of human slavery was .antagonistic to our civil 
 and social institutions. He was not fanatical, but did not hesitate to express 
 his convictions when occasion seemed to demand it. 
 
 "Having graduated at Centre College in 1S30 under Dr. Gideon Black- 
 burn, at the age of nineteen, his father sent 'him to lAmhersit College for 
 one year. There he met E. P. Humphrey, Henry Ward Reecher and other 
 promising young men; and at Audover Seminary he was taught by Leonard 
 Woods. Moses Stewart, Dr. Thos. Skinner, Ralph Emerson and Edward 
 Roibinson." 
 
 Mr. Clelland accepted a call to the Greenwood, Indiana. Chunch in 1S39. 
 The people were from the section of country and the former conigreg-ations 
 of his father at New Providence and Harrodsburu. Ky. He was married to 
 Miss Maniah Tibcomib, of Newberryport, Mass. She became His companion 
 and helper in those early days in Indiana. This strong-minded woman con- 
 firmed her husband in his anti-slavery views: and for 27 years lie was pastor 
 at Greenwood and clear in ihis devotion to the cause of freedom and prog- 
 ress. We visited the Greenwood Church in October, 1925, and were much 
 impressed with the memory and hold Or. Cleland had on the church and 
 community in Civil War days. He published a notable memorial address 
 on the church history: and two of his Elders were still living. 
 
THE FIRST GREAT FORERUNNERS 79 
 
 LINES TO A LADY 
 
 When from thy cheek is faded 
 The rose that blossoms now, 
 When thy bright eye is shaded, 
 And shadows cloud thy brow; 
 When fortune shall bereave thee, 
 Of all thou call'st thine own, 
 When all the world shall leave thee, 
 Sad, cheerless, and alone, 
 When those who now adore thee, 
 And worship at thy shrine, 
 Shall vanish from before thee, 
 And name thee not divine; 
 When love no longer borrows, 
 Her brightest charms from thee. 
 Oh, turn away from sorrows, 
 And come away to me. 
 Not for thy form I love thee, 
 Though as an angel fair, 
 Not sinless would I prove thee, 
 For hope would perish there, 
 Not for the damask roses, 
 That bloom upon thy cheek, 
 Not for as brief day closes, 
 The charms that there do speak. 
 But for thine eyes' deep splendor 
 That look the sunbeams down, 
 That speak in accents tender, 
 That freeze but with a frown. 
 That speak in accents strongest 
 The noble mind within, 
 Whose love survives the longest, 
 For that thy heart I win. 
 
 SELECTED FOR MISS TODD 
 
 Whilst free from fashion's artful charms, 
 Benevolence, the bosom warms. 
 Persuasive virtue charms the soul, 
 And reason's laws alone control. 
 
 Mild as the beams of radiance shine, 
 May piety thy powers refine. 
 Puie as the mimic pearls that spread 
 Their liquid beauty o'er the mead, 
 And like the rising orb of day, 
 May wisdom guide thy dubious way. 
 
80 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 THE PARTING HOUR 
 
 The hour has come that we must part, 
 A long, a fond, farewell, 
 But still within this lonely heart, 
 Thy memory shall dwell. 
 
 I'll think of thee on winter's night, 
 When spring is on the green, 
 I'll think of thee when summer bright 
 Or autumn tints the scene. 
 
 I'll think of thee when measures flow. 
 And woo the noontide air. 
 I'll think of thee when kneeling low, 
 Before my God in prayer. 
 
 Till all my life has fled, 
 I'll think, I'll think of thee, 
 And when this weary soul is dead, 
 
 Oh! then remember me. 
 
 — S. S. 
 
 ACROSTIC FOR MISS I. J. T. 
 
 In life's young morn may hope be thine, 
 Sweet slumbers soothe thy pillow, 
 Around thee peace and bliss entwine, 
 Beyond life's troubled billow. 
 Each hour to thee her tribute bring, 
 Ladencd with virtue's gem; 
 Like stars, that pure from heaven spring, 
 Adorn night's azure diadem. 
 
 Joyous thy early dreams should be, 
 And thy glad heart grow lighter; 
 Ne'er dimmed by care thy bright blue eye, 
 Each moment should grow brigh&er. 
 
 Till Fate, whose silent, ruthless, fight. 
 O'er all earth's fairest driven; 
 Dear J . . . . shall find thee without blight, 
 Death waft thee home in Heaven. 
 — S. S. 
 
 The letters of Mrs. M. L. Gibson of Newport about the Todds supply us 
 with information concerning the builder of the Old Todd Homestead at Goshen. 
 She wrote us on April 17th, 1920, as follows: 
 
 "I must say I was greatly surprised to find anyone inquiring for my dear 
 aunt (Jane Todd) who passed away about sixty years ago. I am the nearest 
 living relative. She was the only sister of my mother. Eliza Todd Taliaferro. 
 It is a little puzzling to know who this is writing of one so long gone. I am 
 
THE FIRST GREAT FORERUNNERS 81 
 
 eighty-six and not a soul to talk with that knows of the past. I have only a 
 daughter left of my family. By an accident three years ago she broke her hip 
 and is still lame, using a crutch. 
 
 "I remember the Henshaws, and of having visited the old brick house (the 
 Todd Homestead) when Mr. Jefferson Woolfolk lived there. I knew my grand- 
 father had lived there before Mr. Woolfolk. Did my grandfather build the house? 
 Some of my mother's children were born there. If there is any information 1 
 can give you, I will be pleased to do so. Write any questions and I will answer. 
 I am sending a daguerreotype of my aunt, Jane Todd, and her little son. who 
 lived to go into the Confederate Army, but died soon after. She died in Texas 
 
 m .„.jl: 
 
 
 ilk 
 
 WmSmmSSm 
 
 GRAVE OF PARSON JOHN TODD 
 
 Elder Whitenack of the Greenwood, Indiana, Presbyterian Church, at 
 the grave of Parson John Todd, Greenwood Cemetery, October, 1925. After 
 the meeting- ,o£ the Indiana Synod at Kokomo, we came down to Greenwood 
 to locate the long-sought grave of the beloved John Todd. Elder Carson, a 
 cultured veteran of the Cross, sent us to Elder Whitenack, wlho saw the 
 boidies of the pioneers removed from the old burying ground along the 
 Pennsylvania Railroad nearly 40 year ago. Elder Whitenack is a remark- 
 able man of 89 years, erect and active — a hero of Andersonville Prison in 
 Civil War days. He went with ms to the present city cemetery, where we 
 soon stood above the dust of the hallowed dead. A long, encirciling stone 
 memorial, /with the names and dates of each death, marks the spot where 
 these heroes rest. We had Elder Whitenack stand in the picture. Parson 
 John Todd died in Greenwood in 1839. 
 
 As we walked along Elder Whitenack gave us a most graphic account 
 of his Civil War adventures, especially in Andersonville Prison. These ex- 
 periences he has told in printed form in the Indiana Magazine of History. 
 He related 'his visits back to Mercer County, Kentucky, to the olid home and 
 scenes of Thomas Cleland, the pioneer preacher. We made many notes and 
 came away wonderfully impressed with the abiding tradition and ideal 
 of the early settlers and the church they established. We lost our notes, 
 unfortunately: ibut the above facts and the precious scene wihere John Todd 
 rests suffice to consecrate this present memorial record. 
 
 on their plantation. My name was Mary Louisa Taliaferro, married in 1855 
 to J. C. Gibson, of Oldham county, formerly of Virginia. Keep the picture and 
 return it at your pleasure." 
 
 A second letter from Mrs. Gibson gives us fuller information about the 
 Todd family and her beautiful aunt: "You are thanking me while I feel all 
 
82 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 obligation on my part. I think you know more of the Todd family than I do. 
 I know more of all my other family history than I do of the Todds. My mother 
 died when she was thirty-seven and we were very young to know. My aunt Jane 
 visited Frankfort and Newport. Her uncle, Samuel Todd, was on the Court of 
 Appeals in Frankfort for thirty years in succession. She spent her winters there. 
 Her brothers, Andrew and Robert Todd, lived in Newport and she visited them 
 a great deal. The other two brothers, Augustus and James, lived in Illinois or 
 Missouri and died there. 
 
 "Old-time people were very neglectful about records. My grandfather's first 
 wife was Sara Sterrett : I think from about Bowling Green, Va., though I am not 
 sure. In going back to Virginia to settle his estate he met the widow Taliaferro, 
 a sister of General James Taylor. Her brother had induced her to move to New- 
 port, Ky., which she did from Caroline county, Virginia; and Major Todd met 
 her here in Newport and addressed her and they were married and went to Old- 
 ham county. I suppose they went to the old brick house. 
 
 "Her youngest son had been sent from Newport to Clark county to bring 
 some money owing to Mrs. Taliaferro. He went on horseback and when he 
 came very near the house (in Oldham county) out in the woods he met a young 
 lady. He asked for Major Todd. She told him she was a daughter and would 
 show him the way. After this there was a marriage between Eliza Todd and 
 Robert Taliaferro; and these were my parents. Whether Major Todd and the 
 widow Taliaferro had ever met in Virginia, I do not know; but I suppose not. 
 
 "Judge Samuel Todd settled in Carrollton, Ky., then moved to Frankfort. 
 They believed in marrying for he had his second wife, a Catholic. He had a 
 grand house for those times, a brick dwelling and the loveliest flower garden 
 that I ever saw. His grandchildren still live there on the Kentucky River at the 
 Locks. This is about all I know about my mother's family. They were Irish. 
 I have been told by Methodist ministers that my mother was an angel on earth. 
 
 "My aunt Jane Todd lived with my mother at an old brick house above 
 Goshen known at that time as the Lowlace Place. Whether Jordan Groves, 
 Congressman from Louisville, owned it when my father lived there, I will not 
 say; but I could just see the house two years ago when I was going from 
 Skylight to Mr. Ed Mason's. I suppose you know the place. Well, there is where 
 Mr. Samuel Snowden courted my aunt Jane Todd. My father moved from that 
 place to LaGrangc and at that time William D. Mitchell's first wife was yet living. 
 
 "Mr. Mitchell was a learned man, I think he received his education from 
 William and Mary College, Va. My old uncle, James Todd, I think was educated 
 there, as he was left in Virginia to complete his education and that was the 
 oldest college there." 
 
 We had always been under the impression that Mr. Samuel Snowden had 
 his romance with Miss Todd while she was living at the Old Todd Homestead: 
 but Mrs. Gibson corrects us on this. The Todd Homestead passed into the pos- 
 session of Mr. Francis Snowden shortly previous to 1835 when Jefferson Wool- 
 folk purchased it. So we still think that young Samuel Snowden must have 
 seen Jane Todd and must have fallen in love with her before the old Todd place 
 passed from the hands of her father. We know of a certainty he saw her in Old 
 Goshen church and that his sister taunted him with becoming a Presbyterian in 
 order to win the heart of Jane Todd. It was not a very gracious thing for a 
 sister to do, as she was still a Catholic. 
 
THE FIRST GREAT FORERUNNERS 83 
 
 Tradition docs not exaggerate the beauty of Jane Todd. Elinor Snowden 
 naturally resented her brother Samuel's relinquishing the faith of his boyhood 
 in the Catholic church because of what she considered a love affair of green 
 and gawky youth. But the pure and exalted poetry which this young lover 
 wrote proves the depth and power of his affection for Jane Todd. There is 
 yet another poem which we have not published that is based on the English 
 Classics of the eighteenth century and is astonishing in its conception and ex- 
 pression. But Mr. Giltner Snowden has in his possession the manuscript poems 
 of Samuel Snowden's father, and they are the most finished examples imaginable 
 of wit, sentiment and elevated emotion. 
 
 Mrs. Jane Todd Crawford, the brave and heroic woman upon whom Dr. 
 Ephraim McDowell of Danville, Ky., performed the first famous operation in 
 abdominal surgery, was a sister of Major John Todd who built the old Todd 
 Wcolfolk home: and she was of course an aunt of "Beautiful Jane Todd" and 
 seems to have visited the Todds at Goshen in early days. Dr. Schachner of Louis- 
 ville in his brilliant biography of Dr. McDowell, sought diligently to place this 
 Mrs. Crawford in her relationship to the Lincoln Todds: and it was our satis- 
 faction to verify that relationship fully. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 ^mt^0u ^0bh l^jammm ^inl& %xml&xQ 
 
 ^1 N OUR story of the Old Goshen Church, published in 1913, we made 
 y* ^-1 mention of Parson John Todd among the "Pastors of the Past" as 
 
 X^ J the first home missionary to the Old Union Meeting House about 
 the year 1808. This approximation was based on a very tenacious 
 local tradition as remembered by our mother, and has since received very probable 
 confirmation in that choice and scholarly book of church history, "Early Indiana 
 Presbyterians," by the Rev. Hanford A. Edson, published in 1898. Copies of 
 the book are exceedingly rare. We only saw the Hanover College Library copy 
 recently for the first time, and secured it from President Millis to compare and 
 supplement the closing chapters of this present history, especially with reference 
 to the missing dates and episodes in the life of Parson Todd. Dr. Edson has 
 supplied them with a keenness of historic insight and research that is truly 
 wonderful. 
 
 STORY OF JOHN TODD, SENIOR 
 
 Rev. John Todd, Senior, father of our Parson Todd, came from Ulster in 
 Ireland, where his Scotch Presbyterian ancestors had lived since their exile under 
 Charles the First. This Senior John Todd was said to be a weaver by trade. 
 He graduated from Princeton College in the class of 1749, and was taken under 
 trial by the New Brunswick Presbytery in 1750. When Samuel Davies appealed 
 to the Synod of New York to send a home missionary to the unpastored Pres- 
 byterian Dissenters in the remote regions of Virginia, the Synod recommended 
 John Todd to be licensed as the very man of God for that work. 
 
 John Todd agreed to go and the New Brunswick Presbytery licensed and 
 ordained him in 1750 and '51. He procured civil license also in Virginia ana 
 rode the circuit first established by Samuel Davies himself in the Hanover Pres- 
 bytery. Samuel Davies preached the installation sermon and thereafter regarded 
 John Todd as Paul did Timothy, his very son in the gospel. This was in 175 2. 
 and in 1755 the great evangelist Whitcfield visited John Todd's congregation and 
 preached with apostolic power and success. Dr. Edson quotes a remarkable letter 
 from Rev. John Todd to Whiteficld describing the profound influence of the 
 revival upon that community; and we note from the Life of Whitcfield that he 
 was in full sympathy with the Presbyterian Dissenters in their struggle for 
 religious liberty. Samuel Davies carried their case to the British Attorney General 
 on his visit to England in 1754, and obtained a decision that the Toleration Act 
 did extend to the Colonics, Virginia included. Whitcfield said he could not 
 understand why American Dissenters should be denied rights granted to their 
 English brethren. Thus was John Todd schooled under Samuel Davies and 
 George Whiteficld to stand up for human rights when the Great Revolution 
 came on. 
 
THE FIRST GREAT FORERUNNERS 85 
 
 When Samuel Davies finally became President of Princeton College, all his 
 religious and educational work down in Virginia fell to John Todd. They had 
 started a movement of religious instruction and betterment among the Negro 
 slaves, John Todd having at one time as many as one hundred in his classes, thus 
 anticipating the very policy proclaimed and lived up to by the Presbyterian 
 Emancipationists in Virginia and Kentucky for the coming century. John Todd 
 was the pastor of Father David Rice, who had been converted under the preaching 
 of Samuel Davies. Having acquired a most valuable library from Old England 
 for the use of his Academy in Virginia, John Tood foresaw its immense value 
 to the Transylvania Seminary over in Kentucky, where his pupil and disciple, 
 David Rice, was laying the foundation of schools and colleges. Thus John Todd. 
 Senior, and his Virginia Nephew, Colonel John Todd, became the earliest patrons 
 of education in the Kentucky wilderness. John Todd, Senior, wore himself out 
 as a home missionary and teacher in the pioneer period and deserves a rank in 
 history beside the fathers of the famous "Log College" of long ago. Some of 
 the younger generation of preachers in his Presbytery criticised Mr. Todd for not 
 attending its sessions as regularly as others, though he was in feeble health, and 
 they even circulated a report that he had been lax in admitting communicants 
 to the Lord's Table. So Mr. Todd mounted his horse and appeared in Pres- 
 bytery, where he so successfully vindicated himself that these foolish criticisms 
 were heard no more. But on his way home, Saturday, July 27, 1793, he fell 
 from his horse and was found dead in the road. Some imagined that his spirited 
 steed threw him; but the evidence was strong that it was a stroke of apoplexy, 
 for his son John afterward died of the same cause. 
 
 JOHN TODD, JUNIOR 
 
 And now as regards John Todd, Junior, our Parson Todd, Dr. Edson makes 
 most illuminating comments: "It was of such a father that John Todd, the 
 younger, was born, in Louisa County, Virginia, October, 1772. The region 
 itself was in its variety and beauty of scenery well-fitted to quicken the faculties 
 of a boy; and the manse of Providence parish, which was at the same time the 
 seminary, by its daily routine fostering a high intellectual life also gave frequent 
 welcome to guests who would have shone in the most brilliant assembly. 
 
 "Here the pastor's son obtained his first knowledge of books, and here he 
 was molded by the stately manners of the society around him. The preparatory 
 course having been finished at the parsonage and at Washington Academy, he 
 was sent to Dickinson College, Pennsylvania, where he graduated. His theological 
 studies at Princeton were in the days of Dr. John Witherspoon, and when they 
 were completed he returned to Virginia to begin his ministerial career in his 
 native county. 
 
 "Licensed by Hanover Presbytery, September 13, 1800, he 'preached his 
 first sermon where his father preached his last.' For some time he served the 
 churches left vacant by his father. Having previously, in 1795, married, he 
 removed to the West in 1806 (not 1809, the date which Davidson, followed by 
 Foote, gives) and settled in Louisville, Kentucky, where he kept alive the family 
 traditions in establishing a school. He first connected himself, October 10, 1809, 
 with the Presbytery of West Lexington, but was received October 3, 1810. by 
 Transylvania Presbytery. Though occupied with his school, he was accustomed 
 
86 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 to preach at various points in Kentucky, and sometimes spent a Sabbath on the 
 northern side of the Ohio in the territory of Indiana." 
 
 Pursuing this same subject of Mr. Todd's time and itinerary in the regions 
 around Louisville, Dr. Edson says: "During Mr. Todd's residence at Louisville 
 he had occasionally preached, as early as 1808, apparently, at Charlestown, Indi- 
 ana, whither he sometimes took his family in the summer to avoid the heat of a 
 southern city. These excursions were continued until the autumn of 1817, when, 
 in October, the disagreement with Presbytery having been adjusted, he removed to 
 Indiana and took the pastoral charge of Charlestown church. Here he remained, 
 a part of the time also maintaining a school, until September, 1824, when he 
 returned to Kentucky and settled at Paris, there establishing a classical academy. 
 
 "Though his health was now somewhat impaired, he also continued to 
 preach as opportunity was presented, but in 1831 crossed the Ohio again, and 
 took up his residence in the southern part of Marion County, Indiana, whither 
 two daughters, Mrs. Judge James Morrison and Mrs. Thomas J. Todd, had 
 preceded him. The church of South Marion having been organized, he supplied 
 it and the church of Eagle Creek, both now extinct, until his death, which 
 occurred unexpectedly from apoplexy, December 13, 183 9. His remains rest 
 in the cemetery at Greenwood, Indiana." 
 
 DR. EDSON SPEAKS FOR JOHN TODD 
 
 Dr. Edson, historian of our church in Indiana, handles the incident of Rev. 
 John Todd's difficulty with the Transylvania Presbytery in a far more just and 
 illuminating manner than any other writer has ever done. He gives facts that 
 are absolutely essential to a fair estimate of the case. He describes the excitement 
 produced by Craighead's "erratic theology" a century ago in Kentucky; how he 
 disregarded the admonition of the Synod and preached and printed a famous 
 sermon on Regeneration containing points at positive variance with Presbyterian 
 standards. Quite a number of strong-minded individuals were drawn to Craig- 
 head by "the fascinations of his oratory," says Dr. Edson, among them John 
 Todd, whose judgment was prejudiced by personal partiality. Yet John Todd 
 had a confidential correspondence with the Rev. Archibald Alexander, his father's 
 close neighbor and friend in Old Virginia, upon the points of theology in this 
 controversy; and since Mr. Todd was sincerely seeking light, Dr. Edson says, 
 "Such good-tempered discussion, with his own solitary reflection, would probably 
 have led a candid man like Todd gradually back to the accepted theology. But 
 these were times of war. Kentucky Presbyterians had suffered too much annoy- 
 ance from heretics to be in a patient mood. They drew the scimitar at once. 
 Todd, having been accused of teaching Craigheadism, was arraigned by Transyl- 
 vania Presbytery August 14, 1812, and after trial was admonished. This Pres- 
 byterial onset not being calculated to calm one's judgment, it is perhaps not 
 surprising that the accused continued to preach the views which admonition had 
 failed to enlighten. Upon the advice of Synod he was therefore suspended, April 
 15, 1813, but October 13, 1817, the controversy was amicably adjusted." 
 
 Dr. Edson thinks the account of this incident in Davidson's History of the 
 Presbyterian Church in Kentucky is needlessly offensive. He commends the 
 research and discrimination of Davidson, and his very attractive style of narrative; 
 but such painful episodes as this, says Dr. Edson, arc too warmly written for 
 
THE FIRST GREAT FORERUNNERS 87 
 
 true history. The author puts himself too near the fray: "At the distance of 
 forty years his expletives seem quite too fierce. The treatment of Todd is only 
 a single instance illustrating the justice of Dr. Alexander's criticism (Princeton 
 Review, Vol. XIX, p. 308) : 'We think that in some cases there is too much 
 minuteness of detail, as in describing certain irregularities; and in others there 
 is what may be called too rigid a fidelity in recording facts which might have 
 been better left in perpetual oblivion.' 
 
 THE CASE OF REV. JAMES MOORE 
 Dr. Edson then cites the case of the Rev. James Moore, who was the 
 husband of John Todd's sister, who "had experienced what he and his friends 
 considered needless rigor when seeking licensure from Presbytery. Perhaps it will 
 now be generally thought that a larger measure of kindness might have retained 
 that valuable man in the Presbyterian Church. At any rate this household 
 tradition must have affected the mind of Todd and rendered a judicial process 
 the more offensive. 
 
 "That indeed does not seem to be the successful means of curing, though 
 doubtless it is sometimes the necessary instrument for cutting off heretics. But 
 in this same region, where the ability and taste for theological debate yet survive, 
 Todd had afterward the satisfaction of illustrating the advantage of milder 
 methods. A young Kentucky preacher, John A. McClung, who was creating 
 a considerable sensation by his powers of argument and oratory, early in his 
 career was distressed by serious doubts. His biographer says: 
 
 'He promptly stated his condition to Presbytery and asked to be relieved. 
 In the discussion which ensued a motion was made to go to the extent of expul- 
 sion. The Rev. John Todd, a noble and venerable soldier of the cross, rose and 
 said: Brethren, I hope no such action will be taken. Brother McClung is honest; 
 he is a seeker after truth, but under a cloud. Give him time. Relieve him as 
 he asks. Do nothing more. The light will again dawn upon him and he will 
 surely return.' 
 
 "The counsel of Todd was followed, and the light did dawn. A valuable 
 reputation was spared and the usefulness of a minister's life defended." 
 
 JOHN TODD, THE SCHOLAR 
 Dr. Edson says that John Todd enjoyed much better opportunities for 
 literary culture than any of his pioneer contemporaries in the ministry, and that 
 the tradition of rare scholarship attaches to his name. He was a master Greek 
 and Hebrew reader in the original tongues, using the classic versions of the 
 scripture at family worship, which he translated easily into English. The flavor 
 of such religious writers of old time as Richard Baxter adherd to his thought 
 and utterance. As a preacher Dr. Edson says he was decidedly the scholar in 
 argument and scriptural reference. He prepared his sermons carefully and often 
 made notes; but his style of discourse was extemporaneous and the grace and 
 charm of his speech must have been marked and impressive in that generation 
 and time of great pulpit orators. 
 
 A LOST SPIRITUAL PORTRAIT 
 We are so deeply indebted to Dr. Edson for restoring the lost spiritual 
 portrait of this eminent man of God that we cannot forbear completing the 
 
88 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 outlines. He was a man of rather stout build, perhaps five feet eight inches 
 in stature, weighing about one hundred and eighty pounds. His head was bald. 
 Being brought up in the stately simplicity of the Old Virginia manners, he was 
 charming in his courtesy. The Rev. Ninian Dickey says he once saw Mr. Todd 
 at his father's house when he was a boy. He removed his hat outside the door 
 and greeted Father and Mother Dickey with a formal politeness that was yet 
 cordial and winning. This grace and dignity struck the young lad as very 
 unusual, though his mother commended Mr. Todd's manners as a model for her 
 son to follow. 
 
 "But mother," insisted the boy, "they say he takes off his hat to the 
 'niggers'." 
 
 "Perhaps so," replied Mrs. Dickey, "but the Negroes uncover their heads 
 out of respect for Mr. Todd and he will not allow them to outdo him in 
 politeness. I wish my boys were as polite and good as Mr. Todd." 
 
 Dr. Edson gives the finishing touch to his portraiture by describing Mr. 
 Todd's home at Charlestown and his attitude on Negro slavery: "Mr. Todd 
 seems to have been as hospitable as he was urbane. The manse at Charlestown 
 was a well known 'missionary stopping place.' The old logs listened to many 
 an hour's noble conversation, while around the big fire the guests and the host 
 recounted God's past mercies and laid plans for the highway in the wilderness. 
 At that chimney corner Martin, Crowe, Dickey, Reed, Bush, Fowler, Day, 
 Goodale, and indeed all the pioneers of that early day found a welcome. 
 
 "By inheritance from both branches of his family Mr. Todd held a number 
 of slaves, which he brought with him to Kentucky; but as he did not recognize 
 the right of slavery he received these servants as a trust for which he was to be 
 held responsible to God. He taught them to read the scriptures and gave them 
 careful religious instruction. As they arrived at the age of twenty-one thev 
 received their freedom, a condition which at that time was not prohibited by the 
 state law." 
 
 And now as regards the two gifted church historians, Davidson, whose 
 fame rests on his Story of our Church in Kentucky, and Edson, whose fame will 
 endure with his Story of our Church in Indiana, there was a striking parallel. Dr. 
 Davidson was a most scholarly product of the Eastern States who came to Ken- 
 tucky as a pastor in 1832 in the city of Lexington. He became President of 
 Transylvania University for two years and gathered the rich and neglected treas- 
 ures of our church history as perhaps no other man could have done. His history 
 had long been a book that every student of the past revered and perused with 
 relish and confidence. Dr. Edson, likewise the product of Eastern culture, 
 came to Indianapolis as a pastor in 1864 and during the succeeding years sought 
 out and assembled some of the rarest chapters in our church history. He had 
 access to documents no one else had ever examined: and his account is enriched 
 by conversations and correspondence with some eminent men of God who were 
 in close touch with the first generation of Forerunners. Moreover. Dr. Edson 
 was a noble and judicious mind, belonging to a later period than Dr. Davidson: 
 and we cannot too highly value such intensely human and convincing sketches 
 as that of John Todd. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 g\ Y\ E HAVE already mentioned the historic grove where the old "Harrod's 
 / I | Creek Union Meeting House" stood in 1825, when the Goshen 
 ^J^/ Church was organized by the Presbytery of Louisville, under the 
 pastorate of Dr. Gideon Blackburn. This famous Presbytery was 
 formed by the Synod of Kentucky out of the Transylvania Presbytery and held 
 its first meeting at Middletown, April 10, 1816. One of the strong characters 
 of the Presbytery was a Scotch pioneer preacher, Rev. Archibald Cameron. He 
 was about the same age of Gideon Blackburn, born in 1771 or '72, and was 
 brought to America by his parents, who were of the "Clan Cameron" and the 
 "Clan McDonald." A sojourn of some years on the Monongahela River fol- 
 lowed. An elder brother, Angus, went with General George Rogers Clark to 
 Kentucky and returned with glowing accounts of the new country. So the 
 Cameron family moved thither in April, 1781, and settled near Bardstown, in 
 Nelson County. Here young Archibald grew up amid Indian perils and frontier 
 hardships. This brave brother Angus was a fairly good Latin and Greek scholar 
 and, though at times slightly deranged from a contusion or injury to his head, 
 he taught all the younger members of the family. 
 
 Archibald attended "Transylvania Seminary" and completed his education 
 under a Dr. Priestly at Bardstown with other boys who became famous Ken- 
 tuckians. Archibald then went to Danville and studied theology under Father 
 David Rice; and was licensed to preach by Transylvania Presbytery in 1795. 
 He immediately became the pioneer Home Missionary of his Church in the 
 counties of Nelson. Shelby and Jefferson. The flock in the wilderness of Shelby 
 and Nelson called for his pastoral services and he was ordained over them in 
 June, 1796. He was the hero of our faith on the frontier for many years and 
 organized a number of churches afterward embraced in Louisville Presbytery. But 
 his chief claim to historic note is that he was the pastor and spiritual preceptor 
 of John Finley Crowe, the knightly young Abolition school teacher and student 
 for the ministry in Shelby County about the year 1816. Father Cameron was 
 evidently very partial to him; yet we can get no trace at all as to what he 
 thought of young Crowe's anti-slavery convictions. But as Cameron and Crowe 
 were both disciples of David Rice, the first and noblest of all Emancipators in 
 the West, John Finley Crowe takes front rank among "The Forerunners" when he 
 is exiled from Shelby County for his views in 1823. Methodist history tells us 
 that young Crowe was teaching school in an old log cabin out in the woods in 
 1823 when a tall, skeleton-like young preacher of the Wesleyan faith came into 
 the room and talked and prayed with marvelous power over the pupils. This 
 visitor was Benjamin Crouch, who died in 185 9 as Superintendent of Goshen 
 Academy. Anyhow, young Crowe went to Hoosier Frccsoil; and leather Cameron 
 remained the beloved pastor of the Shelbyville Church, which he had gathered. 
 He was a blunt and fiery debater with the Methodists and Baptists. From 1846 
 to 1849 his successor in the Shelbyville pulpit was Rev. James Smith, D. D., 
 who went from Shelbyville to Springfield, Illinois, to become the pastor of 
 Abraham Lincoln. Father Cameron was silent on Slavery. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 Palrtfr Pltla®n f ^k WmtxtntntT ®( Wix&h Maul 
 
 £-m ~"V AVID NELSON'S father was of English and his mother of Scotch 
 ■ 1 descent. He was born in East Tennessee, September 24, 1793. 
 ^^J^^S ^ e was crac Med amid mountain scenery and loved the open wild 
 and wood all his days. He was educated at Washington College, 
 Tennessee, under Dr. Samuel Doak, the preceptor of Gideon Blackburn. He 
 graduated at sixteen and went to Danville, Kentucky, to study medicine under 
 the afterward famous surgeon, Ephraim McDowell. He completed his course 
 in Philadelphia and returned to Kentucky in time to enlist in the War of 1812. 
 His regiment was ordered to the Canadian frontier. The privation and suffering 
 were so terrible that Dr. Nelson barely escaped alive. He made his bed in the 
 snow and subsisted on frozen fat pork and water without bread. On the return 
 march through a wild Indian country he lay down in the snow to die of cold, 
 hunger and fatigue. But his friend and relative, Colonel Allen of Kentucky, 
 missed him and went back to find him. Lifting him upon his own powerful 
 horse, he carried Nelson to safety. This rescue he always regarded as providential. 
 In due season he was called into service again under Generals Jackson and 
 Coffee, this time amid the swamps and fevers of the far South. Again his life 
 was dispaired of and again God raised him up from the very jaws of death to 
 hope and health. Young Nelson had experienced religious sentiment in his boy- 
 hood, but while studying medicine in Danville he fell in with a skeptical and 
 unspiritual group where he cast up his early religious impressions as self-deception. 
 His life in the army confirmed his hostility to religion and the Bible. He was 
 a disciple of Voltaire, Volney and Paine. He came home from the army a lover 
 of cards and liquor and a fast life of fun and dissipation. Jonesboro was a 
 frontier town of Tennessee. 
 
 But Nelson was a most efficient and popular young physician; and he 
 shortly eloped with a beautiful young girl of a leading family. Her parents were 
 heartbroken. She was a wee mite of a maiden and Nelson was a great burly 
 six footer. But love and reconciliation prevailed. His young wife believed in 
 him and he had a bosom friend, Frederick Ross, who says that Nelson one day 
 read a book by Doddridge, the hymn-writer, and went out alone to weep. He 
 became convinced of the insincerity and inconsistency of many skeptical objections 
 to religious faith and his conversion led to the story of his once famous book. 
 "Nelson on Infidelity." He was a wonderful companion; and when he decided 
 to preach the gospel he and his friend Ross studied and were licensed together. 
 Nelson gave up a splendid medical practice for the ministry. He became pastor 
 of the Presbyterian Church at Danville, Kentucky, when Dr. Blackburn was 
 President of Centre College. They both formed the idea of Manual Labor Col- 
 leges in Missouri and Illinois and left Danville to carry out their dreams. Dr. 
 Nelson founded Marion College in Missouri and became the most remarkable 
 
THE FIRST GREAT FORERUNNERS 9! 
 
 evangelist of the State. He conducted great camp-meeting revivals and was pastor 
 and physician and teacher to thousands of the pioneers. 
 
 Before removing West, Dr. Nelson had liberated his slaves. He was con- 
 vinced that slavery was wrong and so reasoned among his friends. He was 
 intensely hostile to pride and selfish luxury and to the cold formality of city 
 churches. He was needlessly careless and indifferent to his own personal apparel 
 and appearance, but it was the simple pioneer in him. He gave away every 
 dollar in hand to human need. He was silent and unsocial when pursuing his 
 religious meditations: and then he would open up conversation or discourse in a 
 voice of irresistible power and persuasion. Robert J. Breckinridge, who felt 
 repulsed by Dr. Nelson's rough, uncouth dress, said that he was nevertheless the 
 most masterly pulpit orator in Europe or America in his time; and Dr. Breckin- 
 ridge had heard them all. He was compact and pointed as a rifle shot; and as 
 his convictions against the sin of slavery increased upon him he began to speak 
 more openly and fearlessly even among the slave holders of his Missouri Circuit 
 of Churches. He became somewhat fanatical on the subject and refused to sit 
 at the same Communion Table with men who owned human beings. He fore- 
 saw that he would have to leave Missouri on this account: and in the spring of 
 183 6 while preaching his farewell sermon at the Greenfield Church an abolition 
 member asked him to read a paper proposing to raise money to redeem slaves 
 at the price desired by their owners, with a view to colonization. A riot ensued, 
 and the abolitionist stabbed a leading citizen in the assault upon himself and Dr. 
 Nelson. The Doctor was rushed from the scene by his personal friends just in 
 time to save his neck from the mob law of enraged slave holders. He was 
 obliged to hide in the underbrush near his own house for several days while 
 his enemies scoured the country looking for him. While lying thus concealed 
 from the mob he conceived the idea of his noted book on Infidelity and wrote 
 it after his escape into Illinois. In spite of the malady of epilepsy which affected 
 his later years, he established a Collegiate Institute near Quincy, Illinois, and 
 continued his work to the end. He was such a noted and unique man of God 
 that Abraham Lincoln must surely have met or heard him on his rounds. He 
 was a close friend of Henry Clay, Andrew Jackson and other public men. He 
 died at Oakland, near Quincy, Illinois. October 17, 1844, at the early age of 
 fifty-one years. A marble monument, erected by friends in New York City, 
 marks his grave above the Mississippi River on a beautiful bluff in Woodland 
 Cemetery. 
 
 Dr. Nelson's elder brother, Samuel K. Nelson (1787 — 1827) was con- 
 verted and changed from the law to the ministry as dramatically as his brother 
 David from medicine to the ministry. David was the greater orator and evan- 
 gelist, but Samuel Nelson was reckoned the chief founder of Centre College, Dan- 
 ville, Kentucky, in 1819, and of the Kentucky Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb 
 also at Danville. His sudden and tragic death came while on a trip to Florida 
 in behalf of the latter institution. He was pastor of the Danville Presbyterian 
 Church at the time (1827), and his brother David succeeded him from 1828 
 to 1830. 
 
 THE CONFLICT WITH FRENCH INFIDELITY 
 
 It would be impossible to realize and understand the great conflict of one 
 hundred years ago between religious faith and French skepticism if we did not 
 
92 
 
 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 attempt to get the viewpoint of the religious people of that time. A great deal 
 has been said about the narrowness and intolerance of religious people toward 
 the liberal ideas of the French Revolution; but what we have in view just now 
 is the account of an honest and sincere gospel minister and historian of the 
 Baptist faith, who pictures the origin and progress of the conflict with a graphic 
 pen. He talked to the surviving pioneers of Dr. Nelson's time, and gives us 
 glimpses that are most intimate and illuminating. This historian is Rev. J. H. 
 Spencer, who gave his life for hi? history and suffered untold privations and 
 hardships in gathering the data he used. 
 
 "France's jealousy of England induced the French people to aid the American 
 Colonists in breaking off the British yoke, and establishing their independence," 
 says Dr. Spencer. "This established a warm friendship between the United 
 States and France. The friendship of so powerful an ally as the latter was of 
 incalculable advantage to the former while the war for independence continued. 
 
 REV. DAVID NELSON 
 
 Rev. David Nelson, M. D., author of a more famous 
 book against Infidelity long ago than Dr. James Smith's 
 noteld "Christian Defence." Dr. Nelson was a hero and 
 martyr of the Abolition Crusade in Missouri and Illinois 
 when Lincoln was yet a young man. 
 
 But when the war was over, France was the very worst of companions for 
 grateful and impressible young America. The Americans were chiefly of English 
 extraction. They spoke the English language, read English books, adopted Eng- 
 lish morals and religion, and were as much like the English as parent # and child. 
 
 "England, whose morals were far from perfect, was nevertheless, the most 
 moral State in Europe. Her men possessed a higher sense of honor and integrity, 
 and her women a purer virtue than those of any other country in the Old World. 
 Her religion, too, defective as it was. conserved a better code of morals than any 
 other State religion in Europe. The American colonists were of the very best 
 of the English people, as to morals and religion . . . But when a quarrel separated 
 them, and engendered an almost universal feeling of hatred between the Americans 
 
THE FIRST GREAT FORERUNNERS 93 
 
 and the British oppressors, France espoused the cause of the oppressed in the 
 hour of their greatest need. The affections of the Americans were transferred 
 from England to France, and the latter became the intimate and trusted friend 
 of America, and henceforth, for many years, exercised a powerful influence over 
 her people. 
 
 'Tom Paine' was personally popular with the American people. He was 
 born and raised in England. His parents were pious Quakers. He came to 
 America just before the beginning of the Revolutionary War, espoused the cause 
 of the Colonies with much zeal, and, early in the year of 1776, published a 
 pamplet under the title of 'Common Sense,' in which he advocated the propriety 
 of the Colonies declaring themselves independent of the mother country. 
 
 "When the Revolution began in France, Mr. Paine hastened thither to aid 
 in the cause of universal liberty. He found the French people in every way dif- 
 ferent from what he had found the Colonists. He found the Americans, in 1775, 
 resisting the encroachments on their rights, and determined to have 'liberty or 
 death.' He hastened to publish a pamphlet, exhorting them to do what he saw 
 they had already determined to do. This pleased them and they honored him 
 as a patriot. 
 
 "When he reached France, near the beginning of her Revolution, he found 
 the strongest passion of the French people to be hatred of revealed religion. He 
 hastened to write a book against the Bible. It was titled, 'The Age of Reason.' 
 and was published in 1794. The book was of no consequence in France, since 
 the French people had the works of their own eminent men on the same subject. 
 
 "But 'The Age of Reason' was just the book for the backwoods of America, 
 and was just from the scource to make it most popular. It was written in the 
 darling French Republic, and by the honored patriot, Paine. It was printed in 
 cheap pamphlet form, and circulated in the Mississippi Valley in immense 
 numbers. It could be seen in the cabin of the farmer, on the bench of the tailor, 
 in the shops of the smith and the carpenter, on the table of the lawyer, and at 
 the desk of the physician. It was not put by the side of the Bible, but it was 
 used instead of the Bible. 
 
 "Bibles and all other religious books were extremely scarce in the West at 
 that period. ... At this period 'infidel principles prevailed to an alarming 
 extent in the Eastern States.' They were fashionable in the gay and literary 
 circles of society; they were prevalent in Yale College and other similar institu- 
 tions: and a very general impression existed that Christianity was supported by 
 human authority, and not by argument. 
 
 "But infidelity prevailed in a cruder form and to a much greater extent in 
 the West. Mr. Peck says, 'Infidelity became prevalent in high places, and was 
 identified with liberal principles in government. It was the general opinion 
 among intelligent Christians, that towards the close of the century, a majority 
 of the population were either avowedly infidels, or skeptically inclined. There 
 were few men of the professions of law or physic, who would avow their 
 belief in the truth of Christianity.' 
 
 "It is scarcely necessary to add what is a universal concomitant, that 
 immorality abounded among the people in proportion to the prevalency of 
 infidelity. Drunkenness, licentiousness, and gambling, prevailed to an alarming 
 extent, and were often made subjects of merriment and shameless boasting, rather 
 than occasions for shame and sorrow." 
 
94 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 Unquestionably, it was this form of skepticism that Abraham Lincoln 
 encountered continually in his earlier years, and that must have made a very 
 deep impression upon him at that period of his life. Hence, it was necessary 
 that he pass through the deeper waters of sorrow and suffering, such as over- 
 whelmed him in the death of Ann Rutledge, in 1835, and of his little son, 
 Eddie, in February, 1850 ere he could lay hold on God with a faith and confi- 
 dence destined to carry him even through the darkest hours of Civil War. In 
 this experience Lincoln was at one with David Nelson, James Smith and other 
 men who at first found satisfaction in the promising philosophy of revolt devoid 
 of the spiritual vision and impulse. No doubt the hard and fanatical religionists 
 of the time were exceedingly repulsive to men like these, and we here encounter 
 & type of mature intellectual, moral, spiritual and social awakening that is astound- 
 ing to the average and formal religionist. It is a phenomenon with which he is 
 entirely unacquainted; and of which he is perhaps even suspicious. Hence it 
 takes the tremendous impress of times like our Civil War, and of the soul agony 
 of the great martyr President himself, laying down his life for Freedom and 
 Union, to convince the conventional and to satisfy the skeptical. 
 
 There be some, perhaps, who will cavil at the apparently out-of-date 
 arguments used by David Nelson and James Smith in their books of long ago 
 in defense of the Christian religion. Men will say that Lincoln was a super- 
 ficial fellow to accept such arguments as conclusive when the age of science and 
 reason was dawning over his head. But it was the experience of the Most High 
 in the soul of man at the crucial moment of destiny, and the hour of direst need 
 and struggle and agony, that convinced Lincoln, and Nelson, and Smith. "The 
 Glory in His Bosom that transfigures you and me" was a fact that no doubter 
 could deny and no skeptic successfully question. It is, therefore, of supreme 
 importance that we get the significance of Dr. James Smith and Dr. Phineas 
 Gurley, Lincoln's pastors in Springfield and Washington City, talking and praying 
 with him until the cloud of despair and suspense lifted into a calm and peace 
 of resignation and hope. It was this precious experience and trust that humble 
 and good men of long ago defended against the paralyzing spell and pall of 
 French atheism. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 ^im.'mtTig mnh Iht (Mfe anb plttn 
 
 ^\*\ R- GIDEON BLACKBURN came to Louisville under peculiarly tragic 
 1 circumstances. An epidemic of malignant fever swept over the city 
 jp^i f J in the summer and fall of 1822. The First Presbyterian Church 
 lost some of its leading members, and the pastor, Rev. Daniel Smith, 
 by the disease; and the church doors were closed for a time. Dr. Blackburn was 
 earnestly invited to visit the congregation, which he did; and after a revival 
 meeting of two weeks with crowds in attendance, was called to the pastorate. 
 He accepted and remained till he became President of Centre College in 1827. 
 
 The Cumberland Presbyterian Church had arisen out of the Great Revival 
 of 1800 when Father David Rice suggested the training of promising young men 
 right on the ground to supply the crying need for preachers and pastors. A con- 
 troversy was precipitated over the educational fitness and the free interpretation 
 of doctrine by these young men: and the Cumberland Church asserted its inde- 
 pendence and founded a Manual Labor College at Princeton, Kentucky, in 1826. 
 Underneath this doctrinal revolt was a democratic tendency which the deep 
 reader of social history cannot ignore. Hanover College, Indiana, was founded 
 a few years later by John Finley Crowe on the same Manual Labor basis. Lane 
 Seminary was projected with a similar ideal in view by those students for the 
 ministry who were opposed to African slavery. "A School of the Prophets" in 
 the forest was their conception. And when Dr. Blackburn left Centre College 
 to found a Manual Labor College at Carlinville, Illinois, he was consciously 
 moved by the same deep instinct of democracy. 
 
 Dr. Blackburn and the Beechers were too sound in the Calvinistic faith to 
 make any theological contention: but the tide toward human liberty, which 
 manifested itself in the New School movement of one hundred years ago, rocked 
 the Presbyterian Church to its very foundations and finally led to the division 
 between the Old School and the New. Rev. Albert Barnes was the storm center 
 of this great struggle in the Eastern States. He was a man of marvelous spiritual 
 perception and patient courage: and he stood out boldly against slavery. Dr. 
 Blackburn, Dr. Crowe, the Beechers and others, led the Anti-Slavery Movement 
 in the West. 
 
 It is a peculiarly significant fact of history that conservative Emancipationists 
 like Robert J. Breckinridge and John C. Young in Kentucky declined all doctrinal 
 controversy with Alexander Campbell, while the brilliant and aggressive Nathan 
 L. Rice, who met Campbell like a David before Goliath, was the readiest and 
 most resourceful defender of slavery in all the Presbyterian Church. Collins' 
 History of Kentucky traces his masterly efforts to throttle and thwart the Aboli- 
 tion teaching and tendency in all the colleges and seminaries of the church: but 
 
96 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 in spite of his best efforts, Lane and McCormick Seminaries became imbued with 
 the sentiment of human freedom: and after the issue of Slavery was settled 
 forever the Old and New School controversy was a dead issue also. 
 
 Nathan L. Rice as pastor in Cincinnati was challenged to a debate on Slavery 
 by Salmon P. Chase and nine other leading citizens, who selected the Rev. Dr. 
 Blanchard to represent them. The debate was held in September, 1846, on 
 the question, "Is Slavery in Itself Sinful; and the Relation between the Master 
 and the Slave a Sinful Relation?" Dr. Blanchard affirmed and Dr. Rice denied. 
 In 1845, when the Old School General Assembly was in session at Cincinnati, 
 Dr. Rice was Chairman of the Committe to which many anti-slavery petitions 
 were referred; and he made a report that terminated the agitation of the question 
 in the Old School Assembly and stamped it as conservative. In 1855, at Nash- 
 ville, Tennessee, he was elected moderator of the Old School Assembly: and when 
 the subject of Slavery was again introduced by some Congregational delegates from 
 New England, Dr. Rice addressed "Ten Letters" to them in pamphlet form, 
 defending Slavery. Whereupon the Assembly elected him visiting delegate to the 
 Consociation of Rhode Island in 185 6 where he defended the position of the 
 Old School Assembly on the subject of Slavery. The Abolition side was repre- 
 sented by other able men. Dr. Rice believed that the Theological Seminary at 
 Hanover and New Albany, Indiana, had fallen under Aboltion influence; and he 
 favored and promoted a Seminary at Cincinnati to counteract the work of the 
 Beechers. He afterward fought the Abolition influence in the founding of 
 McCormick Seminary in Chicago. Thus he passed into history as the most 
 brilliant doctrinal debater and defender of Slavery in the Presbyterian Church. 
 He was a pupil of Dr. Blackburn at Centre College. He was in many ways 
 a self-made man, and he held the foremost pastorates in the gift of the church. 
 There can be no doubt but that his theory of eliminating all social and political 
 questions from discussion in religious bodies would preserve the peace of the 
 church: but it would be the peace of death and the stifling of all such conviction 
 and vision as Father David Rice and his heroic followers shared on the subject 
 of human slavery. These men were not priestly time-servers. They were 
 prophets of God and Forerunners of Freedom whose vision of right human 
 relationship squared well with their mystic and devoted faith. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 
 f^^^** HERE CAN be no question that Dr. N. L. Rice had eminent legal 
 I I "^ authority on his side of this historic controversy. It was the 
 
 V j y positive conviction of Thomas Jefferson that the pastoral office 
 
 mM was purely spiritual and that no discussion or preaching on political 
 
 issues was possible without a breach of contract. The minister was employed 
 by his people to teach them religion, said Jefferson, and in that capacity he was 
 a specialist and exceeded his function and calling when he presumed to lecture 
 the congregation on astronomy, economics, or political science. This was the 
 theory of the Church of England, and yet Jefferson's biographer, Randall, says 
 the clergy of the Establishment in Virginia were without exception on the side 
 of freedom in the Revolutionary struggle. It was Jefferson's conviction that 
 ministers of the gospel outside of the pastoral office were free citizens like ever/ 
 other profession and had the same right and liberty to hold and publish their 
 political opinions: but that in the church no majority had a moral or legal right 
 to impose or proclaim their political or social views over the heads of a minority. 
 This conviction with Jefferson arose out of his fundamental ideas on the separa- 
 tion of church and state and the absolute impossibility of the one encroaching 
 upon the domain of the other without serious danger to personal and social 
 liberty. Evidently Father David Rice was well aware of these principles enunci- 
 ated by Jefferson, who was a strong emancipationist like himself in Old Virginia: 
 for Father Rice published his address against Slavery anonymously: and it was 
 as a member of the first Constitutional Convention of Kentucky that he made 
 his memorable stand against the institution publicly. 
 
 The instinct of the Protestant Church to avoid entangling alliances with 
 social and political issues arrises out of her age-long struggle for spiritual liberty 
 and separation from the state: and the bitter personal and political attack made 
 on Jefferson by the Rev. Dr. John Mitchell Mason, the leading and most eloquent 
 Presbyterian pastor in New York City, in 1800, confirmed the truth of Jef- 
 ferson's original principle; because Dr. Mason was a warm partisan and eulogist 
 of Alexander Hamilton, and his denunciations of Jefferson were entirely out of 
 place and reflect on his otherwise eminent reputation as a minister of Christ. 
 Jefferson's biographer, Randall, says the prejudice of Dr. Mason, and nearly all 
 the New England clergy of that day against Jefferson was because he had accomp- 
 lished the separation of Church and State in Virginia, and it did not come to 
 pass in New England until about 1818. 
 
 But the biographer Randall is entirely just in his discussion of so great a 
 subject as the rightful province of the ministry in social and political issues. He 
 
98 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 says that Jefferson was never understood in New England and never himself 
 understood the New England character. "He was a man of essentially another 
 mental race or type. He was bred where every peculiarity of social and political 
 life was as different as if oceans rolled between the two lands. 
 
 "Least of all, did Mr. Jefferson understand the New England Clergy. He 
 had been bred among the Scotch and English divines of the Anglican Establish- 
 ment of Virginia, before the Revolution. A large proportion of them were born 
 in Great Britain; or were educated by clergymen born there. They were accord- 
 ingly accustomed to the forms of English Society. They lived among a class 
 of wealthy proprietors, to whom the members of all the learned professions looked 
 up rather than looked down. It had never been the custom in the Anglican 
 Church for its clergy to interfere actively in the political and other secular 
 concerns of their neighborhood. They were, as a general thing, cultivated 
 gentlemen, who preached on the Sabbath, and centented themselves the rest of 
 the time in keeping classical schools or in enjoying the quiet of domestic life. 
 They educated the superior young men of their parishes — they united them in 
 marriage — they baptized their children — they read the burial service over their 
 graves. Their lives glided along without a ripple of contention or excitement. 
 They were welcome guests at the board and never chilled its geniality. They 
 looked smilingly on public amusements, if they did not personally join in them. 
 They took no greater freedoms than other gentlemen in inquiring into or com- 
 menting on the private concerns and conduct of their parishoners. Mr. Jefferson 
 avers they were indolent compared with the dissenting clergy. This was partly 
 owing to the different customs of churches, and partly to the fact that possessors 
 are never so active as those who are striving for possession. If they did not 
 meddle habitually in politics, there is nothing to show that they believed or 
 practiced the doctrine of political submission. We have yet to see the first 
 historical proof that the Angican clergy of Virginia did not keep full pace with 
 the sentiment of the country, and with that of their dissenting brethren in the 
 patriotic cause" (of the American Revolution) . 
 
 With clear discernment the biographer Randall characterizes the altogether 
 different type of Puritan ministers of the gospel: "The early New England Clergy 
 were the descendants in blood, or by the traditions of their order, of those zealous 
 sectaries who had been hunted to caverns like beasts, tortured, exiled, and executed 
 in Scotland — and who had prayed, counselled, exhorted to battle, if not literally 
 fought, in the armies of Cromwell in England. They led their religious flocks 
 to the wild New England shore, not as gentle shepherds piping on reeds in 
 Arcadian valleys, but like the armed ones of the Pyrenees, prepared to grapple 
 with the wolf and the robber in defense of their charge. Like all persecuted 
 men, they were intolerant. Like all men who arc compelled to give up country 
 and kindred and face danger and suffering for their religious faith, they were 
 fanatical. Like all leaders of new sects springing up in corrupt and licentious 
 eras, they were rigid and austere in manners, not only denouncing the vices of 
 the times, but those customs and manners with which vice had been particularly 
 associated — as statute books impose penalties on healthful and innocent games 
 because they are connected by custom with forbidden practices. 
 
 "The prominent emigrations to New England were purely religious 
 Exoduses. The exiles left their native land, or that where they temporarily 
 sojourned, and made their settlements in New England, as Churches. They 
 
THE FIRST GREAT FORERUNNERS 99 
 
 formed civil organizations, because they were necessary for the exercise of govern- 
 mental functions, which prevailing ideas among Protestants had kept separate from 
 those exercised by ecclesiastical tribunals. Yet the church principle or influence 
 was completely the dominant one in these societies. It made public opinion. It 
 j£ave or took away personal influence. It, in effect, made the laws and made 
 /he magistrates. With the Puritans, religion was, theoretically, the chief concern 
 of life. Temporary matters were but secondary and incidental. The Bible was 
 the complete rule of civil as well as of religious conduct .... 
 
 "If the .church influence controlled everything, 'the minister' was usually by 
 far the most influential person in the church. If a man of ability, energy and 
 approved piety — and none others could gather flocks to leave the quiet rural 
 homes of England for transatlantic wastes — his influence amounted to a complete 
 control .... The New England Calvinist, towards the close of the Eighteenth 
 Century, had put off the austerity and bigotry of the Puritan. Royal governors 
 had made destructive inroads on the hierophanic authority. Republican com- 
 monwealths had succeeded to royal governors. The civil administration had 
 ceased to be absorbed in and entirely dependent on the church. The authority 
 of the spiritual guide was no longer paramount. Still it was powerful. Still 
 the New England Clergy were able, energetic men, educated well in their profes- 
 sion, and versed in the art of controlling associations of men. The iron New 
 England industry and the compact New England mind, would endure neither 
 drones nor weak expounders of the word. New England utilitarianism would 
 have 'the worth of its money' even from the pulpit. Still the New England 
 clergyman, by tradition and custom, was in all things the moral adviser of the 
 people. 
 
 "How could it be otherwise among such precedents, and with a clergy thus 
 constituted? In performing the daily duties of their charge with patient and 
 unslacking zeal — in watching over and entreating the young — in fearlessly admon- 
 ishing the old — in undauntedly attacking vice in high places — in guarding the 
 rights and administering to the wants of the poor and the fatherless — in pro- 
 tecting the orphans of their people — in braving squalor and pestilence to stand 
 over the bedside of the dying — in advancing within the dangerous verge of the 
 battle, or braving the winter tempest to save the life of the bleeding soldier or 
 the stranded mariner; or to administer the consolations of religion to the perish- 
 ing — in promoting intellectual as well as moral culture — in establishing useful 
 institutions of learning — in founding noble charities — in inculcating a resolute 
 patriotism, and a sound, vigorous moral system — no clergy ever did or ever can 
 excel that of the Puritan Church of New England." 
 
 The bioghapher Randall points out "their disagreeable qualities and their 
 rough side. They were thick, gnarled New England oaks, which had rooted 
 in the crevices of the rocks, and grown up under bleak skies and amidst wintry 
 tempests — not the tall, graceful palms of the tropics. They lacked the finishing 
 touches of that elegant culture which softens while it polishes. They lacked the 
 amenities and delicacies of high social refinement. They retained a good deal of 
 the dogmatism and contentiousness of the Puritan." 
 
 From this strong, aggressive spiritual stock sprang the Beechcrs and other 
 notable Abolitionists. They were not hesitant about declaring what they con- 
 ceived to be the whole counsel of God on the subject of holding human beings 
 in bondage. No fine scruples of pastoral propriety or spiritual prudence with- 
 
100 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 held the truth that was on their tongue; and the coming of Lyman Beecher to 
 Lane Seminary one hundred years ago was a call of God indeed. 
 
 Lyman Beecher was the greatest of all anti-slavery leaders in the Presby- 
 terian Church. His ancestors came from England to New Haven, Connecticut 
 in 163 8. There was a widow Beecher, a nurse and midwife, who lost her 
 husband just before sailing: and they gave her his share of land to come on and 
 serve the community. The first sermon was preached under an oak on her land: 
 and her descendant, David Beecher, a blacksmith whose anvil was on the stump 
 of that old oak tree, was the father of Lyman Beecher and the grandfather of 
 Henry Ward. Lyman Beecher was his mother's only child. She died of tuber- 
 culosis two days after he was born: and he was a seven month's child. He was 
 such a puny babe that the women attending his mother wished he would die 
 also, and only washed and dressed him out of pity. His kindest foster-parent 
 and spiritual preceptor was the nurse girl, Annis. 
 
 Lyman Beecher's father was a strong character, but he used to have periods 
 of the dyspeptic blues about the expense of his son at Yale College. The good 
 stepmother took Lyman's part and told the father to use her share of the inheri- 
 tance to finish that boy's education. But Lyman hustled around and made some 
 money by trading and proved he was no weakling or dependent. It was his 
 Uncle Bob Benton, on whose farm he was raised, after his mother's death, that 
 encouraged and helped him through college. Yale at that time was terribly 
 afflicted with French skepticism, and the student life was full of gaming, drink- 
 ing, and licentiousness. Lyman Beecher says he wonders how he escaped the 
 contamination of it. But Timothy Dwight came soon after and changed the 
 entire atmosphere. Lyman Beecher's early contract with skepticism and dissipation 
 gave him a faculty of dealing with these evils in a most direct and winning way. 
 He was called to his first pastorate at East Hampton, Long Island, by the choice 
 of the young people, and because he seemed capable of encountering a club of 
 skeptics in the community. He did not antagonize them but won them by 
 personal contact and clear gospel preaching. He lost his first child there: and 
 years afterward a skeptic of the community, out of sympathy and love for Lyman 
 Beecher, had the little body exhumed and reburied on his own lot, "because it 
 is so lonely over there all by itself," he said. 
 
 Lyman Beecher became a reformer by force of circumstances. He preached 
 a memorable sermon against duelling after the death of Hamilton at the hands 
 of Burr. This tragedy stirred his soul to action and he moved the church to 
 condemn the terrible custom. He was the leader also in changing the convivial 
 customs of church assemblies in New England long ago: and the mystic spirit 
 of the man devoted itself instinctively to the cause of the slave. The parish 
 where he lived in New England had a dozen slaves in it when he was a boy. 
 But this was a mild servitude. 
 
JONATHAN JENNINGS 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 f% ®ib £tiSltt** Mttitn 
 
 SI T WAS Thursday, August 6, 1891. "The Old Settlers' Day. - ' years 
 f% ^4 ago at Charlestown, Indiana. 
 
 X^_ , ^X The writer was then a youth home from college, eager to 
 
 display his oratorical talent among the Hoosiers. Every college boy 
 in old Kentucky is a budding Henry Clay, ambitious to make his debut on the 
 hustings. 
 
 So it did not take much urging from our fond and kindly mother to per- 
 suade us to attend the Old Settlers' Meetin'. We carefully wrote out and com- 
 mitted to memory our "extempore remarks" for the occasion and down in the 
 corn field, out of hearing, we practiced the fervid patriotic periods to our 
 entire satisfaction. 
 
 We spent the night with our wealthy relatives in the city and took the 
 early morning train for Charlestown. Our good uncle bade us godspeed in the 
 enthusiastic undertaking: 
 
 "Now you must lay the Congressman himself in the shade!" 
 
 So we felt the weight of our own importance as we watched the crowd 
 thronging every station on the road, wondering if they could be aware that a 
 new star would that day be seen on the horizon of the nation! But they jostled 
 us unceremoniously, and we began to wonder what they would think and say 
 if we forgot our "extempore remarks." 
 
 A local chronicler thus describes the great occasion: 
 
 "Early in the morning the influx began. The weather was as perfect as 
 August brings. The roads, fringed with growing corn, broad meadows and shaded 
 woodlands, were crowded with vehicles, raising the dust in an almost solid 
 cloud. But nobody seemed to mind it. Nearly every conveyance bore, besides 
 its human load, the best of eatables the provident housewife had been able to 
 prepare. 
 
 "Everybody halted awhile in the fair summer city of Charlestown and then 
 proceeded to the fair-grounds. Those who came by trains found ample accom- 
 modations in the wagons that ran back and forth. The fair-ground, with its 
 broad fringe of shade, looked like a wagon camp. Hundreds of buggies, carriages 
 and farm wagons halted under the leafy shelter and every available space. 
 
 "Fully six thousand people were on the grounds, and they all enjoyed 
 themselves. Neighbors and friends who had not met for sometime, old time 
 companions and acquaintances, hobnobbed here and there shaking hands and 
 rejoicing to meet once more. 
 
 "In Floral Hall the fiddles twanged and feet moved rapidly in quadrille 
 and waltz. At the refreshment booths melons, candy and lemonade vanished 
 with astonishing rapidity, while at the grand stand the speech- making had 
 begun." 
 
THE OLD SETTLERS' MEETIN' 103 
 
 THE ORATORS OF THE DAY 
 
 We were as eager as Saul of old to be found among the prophets! The 
 master of ceremonies was a tall, gaunt, genial old Christian minister, Father 
 Jackson, who so resembled Uncle Sam that it redoubled ones' patriotism to 
 contemplate him. 
 
 But our name was not down on the program! We were a mere youth 
 at this meeting of the old men! Yet we were determined to obtain an audience and 
 to prove our fitness to shine with county attorneys, preachers and Congressmen! 
 
 Wc had modestly confided to our kindly old aunt, with whom we bad 
 come and whose guest we were, that we earnestly desired to make a few "extem- 
 pore remarks" as a Kentucky visitor. She seconded our endeavor heartily, but 
 "Uncle Sam" was so busy with the big guns that it seemed very doubtful 
 whether we would get a chance to rise in glory to renown! 
 
 Yet we were not to be left out! Slipping around to the rear of the 
 speakers stand, we modestly but firmly pulled one of Uncle Sam's long coat- 
 tails and whispered in his ear that there was a youth from over the Ohio river 
 who wished to say a few words for his native State. Uncle Sam smiled very 
 doubtfully, inquiring who the ambitious youth might be, receiving the response: 
 
 "It is I, good sir." 
 
 So he promised to remember us at the close of the exercises. 
 
 "UNCLE DAN" MAKES A HIT 
 
 "Uncle Dan" was the first speaker introduced by the worthy chairman, 
 and Uncle Dan proceeded in his own homely style: 
 
 "I hain't come here to make no speech today, but jes' to talk to my ole 
 friends off-hand-like, you see! My daddy came to these diggin's in 1812. They 
 wuz redskins, b'ars and sichlike all thru this neck of the woods when they 
 come. They wuzn't no opperchunity fer no eddycashun nowher's hereabouts 
 in them days; but now hit takes a youngster half his lifetime to git thu school 
 hit does. 
 
 "In them there days we brats never got no shoes to wear tel plum nigh on 
 to Chris'mus, an' then we had to make 'em las' tel winter broke. I ricollec's 
 hearin' my daddy say that the daddy and mammy of Gov'nor Wright didn't 
 hev no weddin' outfit to make no fuss over, they didn't. The ole man jes' 
 had one cotton shirt an' a pair o' jeans britches, an' wuz barefooted when 
 he promised to stick by his ole woman thu thick an' thin. 
 
 "The ole woman, she had one cotton dress an' a pair of brogan shoes, 
 she did. But young'ns now hev to be rigged out in they Sunday best, they 
 does. I'se raised a half-dozen brats myself, I hev, an' ever'one of 'em hez 
 to be dressed up in silks and satins 'fore they thinks of goin' to the Ole Settler' 
 Meetin'. 
 
 "Farm stock wuz mighty poor in them days, hit wuz, an' roads! Law see! 
 I never went to Madison thet I didn't get mired on every hill I cum to. Then 
 think of takin' six an' a half cents a bushel fer oats! Yer couldn't git but 
 three-twenty for the hull load, yer couldn't, by jimminy! 
 
 "An' by the time ye got the baby a pair o' shoes, ye didn't hav nothin' 
 let' for a good beer! 
 
104 
 
 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 "Times is gittin' better now, they is, an' they haint no excuse fer a young 
 man not takin' his gal and gittin' along these days. Lemmy tell you young 
 folks to take good keer of the old daddy an' mammy. They keered fer you 
 when you wuz little, they did, an' one o' these days when they close them ole 
 eyes o' ther'ne and fold them knoted ole hands for the las' sleep, you'll wish 
 ye had been kinder thoughtful-like of the ole folks, you will. When Gineral 
 Washington wuz a-goin to Bunker Hill he went six miles out o' his way to 
 see his ole mother, he did, an' he didn't ferget her when he wuz a big man!" 
 
 "UNCLE BILL" WOOD 
 
 "Uncle Bill" Wood, of Utica, Indiana. A prince of pioneers — descended 
 from North Carolina Scotch-Irish of the bravest Covenanter stock. Uncie 
 Bill's ancestors settled at Utica. They fought with George Rogers (Murk's 
 men at the Falls. They were with Jonathan Jennings in his Aroti -Slavery 
 Campaign. Uncle Bill was a riverrman from his youth up. He was a poet, 
 philosopher 'and humorist. He wanted to become a minister in his youth 
 but went to the Civil War and then became a leader of the lime- burners. 
 He was a local Walt Whitman to the last. 
 
 INSPIRATION AND PERSPIRATION 
 
 Uncle Dan mopped his perspiring brow, rubbed his silk hat. and drank 
 oil a couple of glasses of water, then resumed: 
 
 "They's jes' one more thing I'sc goin' tcr say 'fore I sets down, an' thet's 
 this here: We don't want no stylish scamps misrepresentin' us in offis, we 
 don't! When Govncr Jennings wuz a runnin' fer offis he mixed up with 
 folks in his workin' clothes, he did, you bet he did; an' he took holt when- 
 ever they wuz a lick of work to be struck. 
 
 "Seems to me a horny-handed farmer is good enough to go to Ingenop'lis. 
 even ef hit take him a hull month to git the hayseed outtcn his hair. Us 
 
THE OLD SETTLERS' MEETIN' 105 
 
 Hoosiers is proud that the poorest chillun gits to go to school 'longside o' the 
 rich dudes, we does, an' we's agoin' to hump ourselves to keep up weth the 
 band-wagon, we is!" 
 
 Uncle Dan closed by calling attention to the neglected grave of Gov- 
 ernor Jennings in the old town cemetery and paid an honest tribute to the 
 brave young Presbyterian attorney and Freemason who made his fight and 
 staked his future on keeping slavery out of the Indiana constitution in 1816. 
 It is needless to add that he won the fight and that the worthy monument 
 afterward erected over the last resting place was in part due to the homely elo- 
 quence of Uncle Dan that Old Settlers' Day. 
 
 THE HONORABLE SPREADEAGLE 
 
 A patriotic State Senator was next introduced and proceeded to read off 
 his eloquent periods with many graceful gestures. We watched his waving coat- 
 tails in utter despair, feeling sure he would consume every inch of time and 
 leave us no golden moment for renown and high applause! The Senator's 
 apostrophes to the Goddess of Liberty and the Genius of Brotherhood yet 
 ring in our ears; the orator quaffing water and mopping his brow betimes: 
 
 "Should the time ever come when this beacon light shall no more illumine 
 the halls of legislation and shall no more be remembered and held dear in 
 the hearts of those in the high places of the nation, then may we be prepared 
 to forever furl our emblem of freedom and bid the free winds of heaven to no 
 longer play with its silken folds! Let the stars in the deep blue of its expansive 
 firmament expire in despair and go out in eternal oblivion!" 
 
 Then again: "As it is the great and universal law of attraction which holds 
 the planets in their undeviating course through the countless ages and causes 
 the stupendous clock-work of the heavens, whose pendulum strokes are meas- 
 ured by the equinoxes and the solstices, to move as perfect as perpetual, so it is 
 only by the observance of that golden principle by the people and the sections of 
 our nation, and the true affinity which it lends> to instill into the body politic 
 that will secure its perpetuation and fulfull its highest destiny." 
 
 The vast multitude stared in open-mouth amazement until these eloquent 
 flights were concluded. They seemed greatly relieved when the Honorable Senator 
 stood on terra firma once more. 
 
 "Thus closed the morning program," says the chronicle before us; "and the 
 happy time of dinner, family reunions and hospitality arrived. The fair grounds 
 were converted as by magic into a great picnic ground, and everywhere white 
 table cloths dotted the green sward and appetizing viands tempted the hungry 
 Hcosiers. Nearly every impromptu table had a stranger guest and let no one 
 go hungry!" 
 
 We did full justice to the good things our aunt had prepared. We then 
 watched anxiously to see how many orators would crowd us out during the 
 afternoon. We disregarded even the amusements about us, so intent were we 
 upon the purpose of our thought. We wondered if we would equal the Hon- 
 orable State Senator in his patriotic outbursts, and we felt some assurance as we 
 saw the Honorable swallowing great hunks of fried chicken and pie, wiping 
 hie two mustaches the while with great vigor! We were ready and eager if 
 "Uncle Sam" would only give us a chance. 
 
106 
 
 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 "This-er-way, ladies and gen'men! Here's whur ye get yer money back, 
 fer sho! Performance begins now right-er-way, hit do! Nothing will be 
 said or done to mar the feelin's of the most refinest!" 
 
 Thus did the eloquent mulatto show man harangue the rustic at the tent 
 door, and we began to practice in memory the eloquent periods of our "extempore 
 remarks!" Therefore when the Congressman was introduced we had the honor of 
 crossing our awkward legs upon the platform beside him. 
 
 OLD NORTH CAROLINA PRARIE SCHOONER 
 
 Cut furnished by A. F. and Fanny Bower Holloway, Presbyterian Qhurcn, 
 
 New Washington, Ind. 
 
 In the summer of 1818 Andrew Bower, Sr., with his wife and 12 children, 
 left Rowan County, North Carolina, for Indiana. This Prarie Schooner was 
 one of the wagons of the caravan of pioneers. The wlheeJls were solid 
 blocks of wood, with an iron band to make ithe wheels stronger. The 
 wagons were drawn by oxen. The milk cows were herded by the children, 
 who were old enougih to help. The wagon was covered with a home-made 
 canvas of flax tow-linen. The family crossed the Ohio at the Falls. They 
 were offered a square of land in ithe new city of Louisville for a team of 
 horses; but that was not enough money. So they came to Clark County and 
 settled on the land that is stil'l owned by the descendants of Andrew Bower. 
 They originally came from Pennsylvania and were Holland Dutch. Andrew 
 Bower, Senior, was the grandfather of Fanny Bower Holloway. He died in 
 1892. aged 93 years. The old way of spelling the name was Bauer. The 
 Prarie Schooner has belonged to four generations of Pres/byterians. 
 
 CONGRESSMAN AND COLLEGIAN 
 We had modestly but firmly stationed ourselves in full view of "Uncle 
 Sam" to make it impossible to be overlooked, and the old minister with great 
 courtesy and kindness bade us to the seat of notables beside a well known public 
 man! We felt as distinguished as anybody now! The Honorable State Senator 
 dwindled away in significance as the Congressman launched into a simple, 
 direct and popular talk to his constituents, with a few sentiments pertinent to 
 the special occasion. We were not aware that this eloquent lawyer and M. C, 
 had been counsel for the most famous and desperate band of robbers and high- 
 waymen in the history of Indiana during the Civil War period. His name was a 
 household word all over the State. 
 
THE OLD SETTLERS' MEETIN* 107 
 
 "Now, friends, we have with us today a young man from over in our 
 neighbor State, Old Kentucky. He will favor us with a few remarks befitting 
 the celebration." 
 
 It seemed the time of our life. We launched into the subject of our 
 heart with all the warm enthusiasm of a young collegian fresh from the classic 
 halls of "Old Centre." The remembered sentences of our manuscript served 
 merely as suggestions of other things, and we, too, soared with the eagle and 
 paid our tribute to the fathers of the republic! But, best of all, we touched 
 upon local character and incident with an enthusiasm and fire that astonished 
 "Uncle Sam," and held the big audience spellbound! The venerable pioneers, 
 men and women heard their struggles depicted with sympathy; and when w" 
 stepped from the platform the people pressed forward to take us by the hand! 
 We did not care now what "Uncle Sam" thought! 
 
 The Congressman's daughter was cold and reserved and smiled but feebly 
 to our gallant courtesy upon being introduced; but another young lady and her 
 mother from Indianapolis, descendants of the Presbyterian minister who had 
 married our revered grandparents in the little town long ago congratulated us 
 with ardor. 
 
 "You will be aspiring to the National Senate some day!" 
 We moved about as in a day dream ! We visited the cemetery and saw 
 the graves of our ancestors and the neglected spot where Governor Jennings 
 slept, little imagining that we, too, would be summoned to do battle for the 
 new Social Freedom in days to come. 
 
 "Did you lay the Congressman in the shade?" asked our uncle eagerly 
 when he reached the city that evening. We told him what the young lady 
 and her mother had said and our political destiny seemed fixed as the polar star. 
 The cup of pride and satisfaction was full when we noticed our name 
 in the personal items and reports of the city paper as "Honorable" a few days 
 later. We pasted the same in our scrap book as a means of reassurance when 
 the face of fame and fortune was veiled and averted. The fact was we had just 
 lately been sorely defeated in the June oratorical contest at college and were 
 endeavoring to recover our sadly shattered self-esteem in the public eye. Our 
 competitors were very mediocre men in oratorical talent .whereas we really 
 aspired to rank among the speakers and debaters in the classic old insti- 
 tution. 
 
 We did not foresee that a further disillusion of failure and defeat was in 
 store, for us. The panic period of the nineties was nigh at hand and the hard 
 times, of which Uncle Dan told us, would shortly return again. In such a 
 social experience every thinking American was destined to shed his political 
 platitudes and get down to bed-rock economic fact. Our soul was refreshed 
 by that day's contact with the common people, even as our fond tribute to the 
 obscure, gray-haired old heroes and heroines of the life struggle went home to 
 their hearts. There were but few, if any, such festive celebrations at that time 
 in Old Kentucky; and in this typical community meeting of the Middle West 
 we learned to see the rallying point of freedom and democracy in days to come. 
 It was at this holy altar of the people that we first lighted and lifted the Torch 
 of Truth which we. too, were called to carry forward when the venerable fathers 
 and patriots had passed from the scene of their labors! 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 **j§xtt M-am&mx^ anh JUkttttmu Wxtthmm, 
 
 f ^\ OCKED up in the vaults of a bank in Louisville, Kentucky, are the 
 ^^ treasured records of the old Louisville Presbytery, which em- 
 
 ^^Jl , l braced the greater part of Southern Indiana up to the month of 
 October, 1823, when the Synod of Kentucky divided Louisville Pres- 
 bytery and constituted the Presbytery of Salem, which is now known as the Pres- 
 bytery of New Albany. In this territory the great struggle to make the Northwest 
 country free from slavery took place. It was in the towns of Charlestown and 
 Corydon, Indiana, that the battle centered. At Charlestown lived the first Gov- 
 ernor of Indiana, who was a Presbyterian and a Freemason. This man was 
 Jonathan Jennings. He was the close friend of many leading pioneer people in 
 Oldham county. The Presbyterian church at Charlestown and the one at 
 Goshen were pastored by Rev. John Todd, who undoubtedly backed up Jonathan 
 Jennings in his great fight to make Indiana a free State. 
 
 Blazing Star Lodge No. 3 6, at Charlestown, Ind., was organized and 
 chartered in August, 1816, while the State of Indiana was still under the juris- 
 diction of the Grand Lodge of Kentucky. The dispensation for Fortitude Lodge 
 No. 47, at Westport in this county, was not issued until 1817, one year 
 later. Thus Southern Indiana was under Presbyterian and Masonic control for 
 many years at the beginning of the last century. Rob Morris and H. B. Grant 
 in their histories of the Grand Lodge of Kentucky give us invaluable clues to the 
 story of the great Anti-Slavery Struggle which extended from the year 1792 
 in Kentucky to the year 1816 in Indiana. Washington and Jefferson College 
 in Pennsylvania, Old Center College in Kentucky and Hanover College in 
 Indiana, constituted a backbone to the Emancipation Movement and to National 
 Unity during the Civil War. In succeeding chapters we have worked out the 
 setting of this story. We now propose to present another great Lincoln fore- 
 runner with historic details that will be treasured as long as Masonic memories 
 endure. These chapters are absolutely new material that no Kentucky or Indiana 
 historian has ever discovered or used. 
 
 During the Indiana Centennial in 1916 we gave to the press several 
 articles on Governor Jennings which were added to afterward by more careful 
 research. When we stop to think that Clark and Oldham counties were bound 
 together like bosom friends in those days of one hundred years ago by the river 
 itself and the constant stream of people passing up to Indiana Territory from 
 the South, we can easily understand that this great struggle against slavery across 
 the river excited immense interest and discussion in Oldham county as well 
 as in Clark. In our boyhood at the Charlestown Old Settlers' meetings we first 
 became interested in the story of Governor Jennings. Ever since then we 
 have added to our information about this great man and Freemason. So 
 
THE OLD SETTLERS' MEETIN' 109 
 
 we are ready to begin his life story in these chapters as a part of the long- 
 forgotten drama that gave birth to the spirit and purpose of Abraham Lincoln. 
 The map of Masonic territory over which Rob Morris constantly traveled and 
 lectured embraced this same region of Southern Indiana; and his tradition 
 lives in the hearts of the Hoosier Brethren with that of Jonathan Jennings. 
 
 INDIANA 
 Dear Hoosier State, we dedicate 
 
 Thine altars, century-old, 
 To the new time with deeds sublime, 
 
 In song and story told. 
 Twas Jefferson who stamped upon 
 
 Thy fearless soul the thought 
 That man is man o'er race or clan, 
 
 By birthright dearly bought. 
 
 And evermore where heroes bore 
 
 The battle bravely on, 
 Thy sons were there and daughters fair, 
 
 To light the fires of Dawn. 
 George Rogers Clark made history's mark. 
 
 Who won the great Northwest, 
 Brave pioneer with title clear 
 
 To glory's well earned rest. 
 
 Then Jennings rose to face the foes 
 
 Of Human liberty. 
 At Corydon the fight was won, 
 
 That made the Northwest free. 
 And afterward, when to the sword, 
 
 The Southern States appealed, 
 'Twas Morton's stand that saved the land 
 
 Of Lincoln in the field. 
 
 But Riley's song has taught us long 
 
 That of one human clay 
 We all are made, and unafraid 
 
 We face Love's grander day! 
 Let knowledge rule in church and school, 
 
 And Love uphold thy homes; 
 And we shall see thy destiny 
 
 Grander than Greece or Rome's. 
 
 Chief Magistrate of this dear State, 
 
 The century closes well, 
 With one who heeds the people's needs, 
 
 Where'er they work or dwell. 
 Thou art so just that all men trust 
 
 The hand that holds the helm; 
 Thy heart beats warm to brave the storm, 
 
 So what can overwhelm? 
 
10 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 THE JENNINGS FAMILY 
 
 No one has ever taken pains to search out the ancestry of Governor Jonathan 
 Jennings, but he came of glorious New England lineage. His father was 
 Rev. Jacob Jennings, whose people were among the early settlers of Plymouth. 
 The name of Jennings does not appear on the roll of the Mayflower, but they 
 came over not long after. The father of Governor Jennings was born in the 
 county of Somerset, New Jersey, in 1744. He was a student of medicine and 
 practiced his profession in a little village near Elizabethtown, in Jersey State. 
 He was a gifted and highly cultivated man and met with such success that he 
 established himself for a number of years at Readington, Hunterdon county, 
 in the same State. Here his son Jonathan was born in the year 1784. The 
 mother was a most intellectual and congenial companion of her husband, being 
 herself a medical student, graduate and practitioner. It was an unusual thing 
 in that age for a woman to be liberally educated and enter a profession; but 
 students of eugenics will find abundant justification for their theories in the 
 Jennings family. Without exception the sons became remarkable men. We have 
 no record whether the daughters were or not. 
 
 It is a striking fact that for some time previous to the birth of Jonathan 
 Jennings, his father was passing through a great mental and spiritual awakening, 
 consequent upon a long course of study and experience. The same year that 
 Jonathan was born his father decided to enter the gospel ministry. Having 
 made due and dilligent preparation, he was examined and licensed by the 
 Reformed Dutch Church, which is very close akin to the Presbyterian faith. 
 After his admission to the ministry he served for several years in Virginia; 
 so that his son Jonathan in early childhood must have been in close contact 
 with the institution of slavery. There is no record of these first impressions, 
 but the Presbyterian church of Virginia was strongly anti-slavery and the father 
 and mother of Jonathan had decided convictions on the subject. Hence his first 
 great life work was instilled into him from boyhood up. 
 
 About the year 1791 Dr. Jennings removed from Virginia to Western 
 Pennsylvania and the following April was received as a member of the Pres- 
 bytery of Redstone, which has produced some of the most noted men and 
 minister in the Presbyterian annals. He accepted a call to the church at 
 Dunlap's Creek, in Fayette county, Pa., and remained with that congregation 
 in very happy relationship until June, 1811, when the approaching infirmities 
 of age occasioned his voluntary retirement from the active ministry. He died 
 February 17th. 1813. 
 
 THE JENNINGS BROTHERS 
 
 Dunlap's Creek was thus the boyhood home of Jonathan Jennings. He 
 obtained an excellent training in the local common school and under his father 
 and mother at home. He was then sent to what was known as a grammar 
 school at Cannonsburg, eighteen miles southwest of Pittsburg. This was one of 
 the foundation school of Washington and Jefferson College. The original 
 Jefferson College was established there in 1802. and young Jennings was thor- 
 oughly trained in Latin, Greek and higher mathematics. He was thus one of 
 the earliest and most noted graduates of this famous Presbyterian institution. 
 
THE OLD SETTLERS' MEETIN' 1 1 1 
 
 The Jennings brothers were remarkable young men. The decision of Jon- 
 athan to study law was largely due to the influence of his older brother, Obadiah, 
 who was six years his senior. Obadiah was such a promising lad that his par- 
 ents gave him every advantage of education and he was a student at Jefferson 
 Academy before Jonathan. He finished with honor and then studied law in the 
 office of Attorney John Simonson of Washington, Pa. He was admitted to the 
 bar in 1800. He began to practice at Steubenville, Ohio, shortly after, and his 
 maiden effort was a brilliant success. He practiced in Steubenville nearly ten 
 years when he returned to Washington, Pa., but continued his work in the 
 courts of Ohio just the same. It was said of him that, "He had a rare combina- 
 tion of intellectual qualities favorable to success as a lawyer, and in his address to 
 the jury particularly, he evinced a skill and power almost unrivalled. He was 
 also exceedingly popular with his brethren of the profession, and enjoyed 
 in an unusual degree the confidence of the whole community." 
 
 It will thus be readily seen how easy it was for young Jonathan to decide 
 on the study of law. A third brother, Samuel, bore witness to the generous 
 character of his brother Obadiah as a boy. They were a loyal and affectionate 
 group. Obadiah always divided his store of nuts and fruits with the rest and 
 never refused to render a favor when it was in his power. Naturally these boys 
 were devoted to their parents and never took any step in life contrary to the 
 judgment and counsel of the family circle. In this they were typical Presbyterians. 
 They were taught the modesty and simplicity of true culture and Obadiah especial- 
 ly was gifted in humorous anecdote. This made him very companionable and 
 popular in his profession, and Jonathan developed similar characteristics which 
 gave him a wonderful hold on the hearts of the rough pioneers. 
 
 We are now in full possession of the facts concerning the early educational 
 and social influence which formed the future of these Jennings brothers in the 
 little colloge at Cannosburg. About three miles from the town lived a remark- 
 able Presbyterian pastor by the name of John McMillan. He was a graduate 
 of Princton College under President Witherspoon just before the Revolutionary 
 War and settled in Western Pennsylvania when there were no school privileges 
 anywhere around for the talented and ambitious boys. McMillan was an 
 excellent classical scholar and opened a school in a little log cabin in his own 
 dooryard. He was always on the lookout for promising youth with a view to 
 winning them to the Gospel ministry. He would take them under his roof and 
 teach them without charge until they were ready for the academy. The boys 
 usually worked on the McMillan farm to assist in their own support. Finally 
 the applicants became so numerous that Pastor McMillan succeeded in establishing 
 the academy at Cannonsburg where the Jennings brothers were educated. 
 
 It was from this very region in Western Pennsylvania that many of the 
 finest families came into Clark and Oldham counties. They settled around Beth- 
 lehem and Westport on the Ohio River and in the vicinity of Charlestown and 
 Goshen. The numerous clan of Bottorffs and Shraders are of Pennsylvania des- 
 cent. The Caldwells and Rirks and Triggs and Snowdens had branches running 
 back to the Pennsylvania hills and valleys: and the conditions of distress and 
 impoverishment following after Revolutionary days drove many of these sturdy 
 Scotch-Irish and German people down the Ohio to better their lot in life. 
 
112 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 We arc moved to add here that the human contribution of Virginia and 
 the Carolinas was no mean addition to these dependable, fearless pioneer folk. 
 Then, too, in the fraternal helpfulness of Pastor McMillan we see the Christian 
 and Masonic spirit of the frontier beautifully exemplified. It is the despair of 
 all our churches today where they are going to find candidates for the gospel 
 ministry equal to the pupils of the Pennsylvania forest. Out of that matchless 
 atmosphere of devotion to God and humankind Jonathan Jennings sprang. 
 
 A SCHOOL OF THE FRONTIER 
 
 Pastor McMillan first lived in a cabin without roof, chimney or floor. 
 He had no furniture and there was no bread in the settlement. The people lived 
 mainly on pumpkins and potatoes until the crops of grain were more abundant. 
 The Revolution had just closed and the country was bankrupt. All the people 
 had was land and liberty, and yet that was enough to begin on. There was no 
 money but the worthless Continental paper, so the pioneers fell back on natural 
 resources and ingenuity. 
 
 Pastor McMillan saved his grain and refused to sell to those who had money 
 to buy it. Instead he sent them elsewhere and loaned his grain to the poor small 
 farmers around on the promise of returning a like amount at the end of the 
 harvest. None cheated or disappointed him, and in the same way he assisted 
 young men in their struggles to education and useful service in life. He was a 
 rough and plain spoken man. six feet tall, stout and ungainly in form, with 
 coarse features, large nose and homely as one can imagine. His voice was coarse 
 and his manner forbidding, almost offensive, on first acquaintance. But he was 
 a master mind and knew the value of young manhood like the greatest teachers 
 of the world. Let him but hear or see anyone in distress of mind or body, or 
 let him come across a youth with a hunger for books and knowledge, and you 
 never witnessed a more generous soul, to help to the limit of his power. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 S^l "X ASTOR MCMILLAN was one of the discoverers of John Watson, the 
 I 1 remarkable young teacher who trained the Jennings boys in their 
 r* classical studies at Cannonsburg. Thereby hangs a tale of intensest 
 
 interest, for this young man Watson exercised the profoundest in- 
 fluence on the mind and character of his pupils. His own life was like a leaf 
 out: of a storybook. His parents were the "poor but respectable" people so often 
 mentioned in Presbyterian history. They taught him to read but could not 
 afford to send him to school. When he was about seven years old his father 
 one day brought him a copy of Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield. The child be- 
 came so absorbed that he wanted to sit up all night to finish it. After this his 
 hunger for good reading was such that his parents could scarcely supply his 
 demands. When he was nine years old his father was killed by falling from a 
 horse. His mother had either died or was left dependent, for the boy was taken 
 into the home of his father's friend and cared for on the condition of making 
 himself useful. The lady of the new home was a great lover of good fiction but 
 did not believe it suitable for a boy to enjoy. She found young Watson deep 
 in the pages one day and forthwith took the books from him and forbade his 
 reading them any more. The lad wanted to be obedient but he could not see the 
 reason or justice of such selfish prohibition; so he slipped the books away one 
 by one and read them in secret. When the lady discovered this stratagem she lock- 
 ed the books securely in the case. Watson spent whole nights wrestling with his 
 conscience and his hunger for the forbidden books. At last he discovered a dupli- 
 cate key and unlocked the bookcase whenever the lady of the house was absent. 
 In this way, without discovery, he devoured the contents of the little library. 
 He always felt morally humiliated because he was forced to obtain the books 
 in this manner and used to say that it was the only dishonest act of his whole 
 life. But what are we to think of the petty tyranny of a woman who would be 
 guilty of such selfish injustice toward a boy who was hungry for good reading? 
 The husband of the house kept a tavern and store and taught young Watson 
 to write and cipher well so he could assist in the business. He soon began to 
 clerk and serve at the bar; but this did not in the least degrade him. Instead, 
 it gave him a chance to study human nature at close range, and his desire for 
 reading and study was redoubled. He read Addison's Spectator and saw occasional 
 Latin sentences that he could not understand. Somehow he got hold of a copy 
 of Horace and an old Latin dictionary and dug his way into the world of classic 
 letters. 
 
 JUDGE ADDISON, THE POOR BOY'S FRIEND 
 
 Now it happened that Alexander Addison, the Judge of the Court of Com- 
 mon Pleas in the Western District of Pennsylvania, stopped at the tavern on 
 
114 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 has circuit. One night he arrived late and found young Watson waiting on the 
 bar and reading Horace by the fire-light. 
 
 "What is that you are reading, my boy?" He asked kindly. 
 
 "A copy of Horace, sir," answered the youth. 
 
 "Well I am delighted to find you so profitably employed, my lad; but I 
 am sorry that you are not better equipped for study." 
 
 "I am trying to make out the best I can, sir." 
 
 "Yes, but I will bring you the books you need when I come around again," 
 said the judge. 
 
 "I will be thankful, sir," said Watson, "for that is the first word of en- 
 couragement I have had about my studies since father died." 
 
 "Well you may depend on my assistance," answered the judge as he bade 
 the boy good-night. 
 
 Never did a lad wait more eagerly for the weeks to roll round; and on 
 the night the judge was again expected Watson pushed the stable man aside and 
 went out to take the judge's horse himself. His eyes were riveted on the saddle- 
 bags. 
 
 "I have your books, my boy," the judge said heartily, and Watson's heart 
 leaped for joy. He was so dumb with gladness that he answered not a word. 
 A Latin Grammar. Aesop's Fables, a Testament in the original tongue, and a 
 good Latin dictionary. These the judge showed him how to use and promised to 
 supervise his study and bring him other books from time to time. In this way 
 he stimulated the lad to rapid progress and directed his reading into liberal 
 literature. Watson fell in with another youth about his own age who was attend- 
 ing the academy in the little town, and they studied together and received assist- 
 ance from the local teacher. The tavern keeper would not think of giving up 
 his apprentice, so Watson clerked and kept bar and studied until he was nine- 
 teen years old. The judge continued his steadfast friend, and Pastor McMillan, 
 becoming acquainted with young Watson's talent and progress, procured him a 
 place as assistant teacher in the academy at Cannonsburg. Pastor McMillan then 
 insisted on Watson completing his education at Princeton College, and not only 
 found him employment there as an undergraduate tutor but offered to defray 
 any additional expenses. Watson made a splendid record at Princeton and then 
 returned to take charge of the academy at Cannonsburg. He was ordained to the 
 Presbyterian ministry that year and served a church outside of town on Sundays. 
 He was the idol of his pupils and parishioners. 
 
 THE BOY WHO MAKES THE MAN 
 
 Watson was the teacher who so deeply inspired and developed the mind and 
 character of Jonathan Jennings. He was a master of logic, yet simple as a child 
 in thought and language. He trained his boys to be sincere, concise, and right 
 to the point in public speaking; and he drilled them thoroughly in the principles 
 of free government. Indeed, he stimulated the desire of Jonathan Jennings to 
 be a lawyer quite as much as the success of Obadiah. the elder brother. And who 
 can ever measure the influence Judge Addison also exercised on the Jennings 
 boys — the upright jurist, the friend of struggling youth, the man of infinite 
 kindness and wonderful culture. 
 
THE OLD SETTLERS' MEETIN' 115 
 
 With such ideals in boyhood, we are not surprised that Jonathan Jennings 
 became the man his bioghapher describes: "Governor Jennings was a man of 
 polished manners. A lady who knew him well and was often a guest at his 
 house, told the author that she never met a more fascinating man. He was always 
 gentle and kind to those about him. He was not an orator but he could tell 
 what he knew in a pleasing way. He wrote well, as well perhaps as any of his 
 successors in the Governor's office. He was an ambitious man, but his ambition 
 was in the right direction — to serve the people the best he could. He died com- 
 paratively young, but he did as much for the well being of Indiana as any man 
 that ever lived." 
 
 We have no record of the year in which young Jennings finished his stu- 
 dies at Jefferson College, but he had the satisfaction of seeing his favorite teacher, 
 Watson, the first president of the institution when it was chartered by the Legis- 
 lature in 1802. But the memory of his college days was shadowed by the sad 
 and untimely death of President Watson. It seems that when young Watson was 
 studying with his boyhood companion years before, they only allowed themselves 
 a few hours sleep each night and took an ice cold plunge at daylight each morn- 
 ing. This may have invigorated his companion but it permanently impaired young 
 Watson's health and caused his death at the very threshold of a life of splendid 
 promise. Pastor McMillan on the contrary lived into the eighties and left a 
 graphic picture of pioneer times to be remembered by. 
 
 JONATHAN JENNINGS GOES TO INDIANA 
 
 It seems most probable that Jonathan Jennings first began to read law in 
 the office of Attorney John Simonson at Washington, Pa., where his brother 
 Obadiah had studied. We have no information as to what decided him to come 
 to Indiana Territory, except the love of the Western country and the hope of 
 success among the pioneer people. Anyhow, in the year of 1806 he went to 
 Pittsburg and embarked on a flat-boat for Jeffersonville where he intended to 
 locate. The trip down was no doubt slow and perilous enough from Indian 
 attacks even at that time; but young Jennings reached Jeffersonville in safety 
 and tarried a while to note the outlook for himself in his chosen profession. 
 He was only twenty-two years old and the prospect of establishing himself seemed 
 so poor that he decided to go on to Vincennes. He resumed his preparations 
 for the bar and was examined and admitted to practice in April, 1807. 
 
 Jennings supported himself by serving as a copying clerk in the Land Office 
 ?nd also in the Territorial Legislature. But as soon as he was ready fcr business 
 he returned to Clark county. There were several reasons for this. He had been 
 a strong opponent to slavery from his youth up and the proslavery people were 
 in the majority at Vincennes. There was small chance for political preferment 
 a,'. Vincennes though he was exceedingly popular because of his efficiency and 
 admirable social qualities. J. P. Dunn, the Indiana historian, says Jennings had 
 an eye on the rising little village of Charlestown where the anti-slavery people 
 were strong and where there lived a young and beautiful Miss Anna Hay, with 
 whom young Jennings had fallen deeply in love when he first came to Clark 
 county and was looking about for a location. Love for a beautiiful maiden and 
 love for human freedom were very commendable sentiments on which to stake 
 his future. 
 
1 1 6 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 It was now the year of 1809 and Indiana Territory had the right to elect 
 a delegate to Congress. The proclamation for the election had been posted and 
 Jennings was ready to return on horseback to Charlestown. Mr. Dunn says the 
 decision to be a candidate was already made. He was barely of legal age but he 
 was in earnest. He had a talk about it with Nathaniel Ewing, an official in the 
 Land Office and a personal friend, just before starting. Ewing told Jennings 
 to be on the look-out for a good anti-slavery candidate down in Clark, when 
 Jennings asked frankly, "Why wouldn't I do?" This impressed Ewing favorably 
 and Jennings came to Charlestown to see his sweetheart and to enter the race 
 for Congress. He called on the Briggs brothers, anti-slavery leaders, and they 
 readily saw the situation and took favorable action promptly. 
 
 "NO SLAVERY IN INDIANA" 
 
 Not long after his arrival in Charlestown young Jennings was married to 
 Miss Hay, at the Green Tree Tavern, where a wedding ball was given after the 
 ceremony and where doubtless the anti-slavery friends of the young attorney 
 put their heads together. Anyhow, he was soon announced as the choice of the 
 Free Soil Democrats for Congress. "No slavery in Indiana" was the courageous 
 challenge of Jonathan Jennings on entering the race, and he pitched in to over- 
 come the powerful prejudice and patronage of the opposition arrayed against him. 
 
 William Wesley Woolen gives the most realistic picture of the pro-slavery 
 opposition that Jennings immediately encountered: "His opponent wa Thomas 
 Randolph, the Attorney-General of the Territory, and a man of much learning 
 and ability. The contest between Jennings and Randolph was exceedingly ex- 
 citing and bitter. Randolph was Virginia born and believed in the divinity of 
 slavery, while Jennings, a native of a Free State, considered slavery a blight and 
 a curse. The territory was sparsely inhabited, the settlements being on the eastern 
 and southern borders with one at Vincennes on the Wabash. 
 
 "The question at issue was that of slavery. The Governor of the Territory, 
 William Henry Harrison, and the Virginians about him were striving to have 
 the provisions of the Ordinance of 1787 prohibiting slavery in the Northwest 
 Territories, suspended or repealed; and Jennings and the other Free State men 
 were trying to prevent this. The territorial Delegate would have much to do in 
 determining the matter. Hence the two parties battled fiercely for the election of 
 their respective favorite." 
 
 Jonathan Jennings was the very incarnation of the Jeffersonian ideal in 
 such a struggle. Thomas Jefferson often referred to the anti-slavery clause of 
 the Ordinance of 17 87, which was primarily intended to prevent the importation 
 as well as the traffic in slaves. The African slave trade was then still in full 
 force and Jefferson feared that if the Northwest Territories were left open to 
 the institution there would be a shameless influx of captive Negroes fresh from 
 the Dark Continent. The famous anti-slavery clause roused heated discussion 
 from its first inception, and other strong men besides Thomas Jefferson had a 
 hand in drafting it, as the old Congressional Records show; and as Mr. Dunn 
 very clearly demonstrates. But Thomas Jefferson was out-spoken on the subject 
 and young Jonathan Jennings was the type of man that Jefferson looked for 
 to carry on the work of the great struggle. What he had to face was dearly 
 seen from the account of Mr. Woolen. 
 
THE OLD SETTLERS' MEETIN' 1 1 7 
 
 "The intelligent reader need hardly be told that the Territory was then 
 virtually a slave Territory. Negroes were bought and sold in the market at so 
 much a head. The author has been permitted to examine the papers of Mr. 
 Randolph, and among them are two bills of sale for Negroes executed at Vincen- 
 ncs in 1809. There is also among Mr. Randolph's papers a letter from Gen. 
 James Dill, Randolph's father-in-law, written to his wife in Lawrenceburg, say- 
 ing that he had not bought her a Negro servant because they were rather too 
 high; but he hoped to find one soon at a price that he could stand. 
 
 "Public sentiment at Vincennes was then as pro-slavery as it was at Rich- 
 mond. Randolph was its representative and exponent, and it rallied to his sup- 
 port with all the dogmatism that used to characterize its adherents. Jennings 
 was then a young man, a mere youth, but he met the assault of the pro-slavery 
 men with the courage of a hero." 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 % Mitm&zablt %\%it$ t®% €sm%ig>xtm% 
 
 f^ I ENNINGS made a horse-back trip to Lawrenceburg, Ind., and other 
 VJ points to meet and mingle with the pioneers. The Quakers and the 
 
 • 1 Scotch-Irish Presbyterians who had come into Southern Indiana 
 
 ^""^ from the Carolinas and Pennsylvania were uncompromising op- 
 ponents of slavery, and the choice of these people outside of Clark county was 
 a trustworthy former official by the name of Hunt. 
 
 The first mass-meeting was held at an unfinished cabin, where the men 
 sat about on the hewn timber, so that it was afterwards called "The Log Con- 
 vention." They had sent a young man, Holman, down into Clark to find out 
 and report the sentiment of the voters; and while awaiting Holman's return 
 Jennings himself arrived in their midst. His extremely youthful appearance 
 prejudiced the pioneers against him at first, and he felt the cold-shoulder on 
 every hand, especially when Holman came back and whisperingly reported Jen- 
 nings of Clark. 
 
 Everyone walked away from Jennings and he heard that his enemies had 
 been circulating the story, that while in the Land Office he had played into 
 the hands of the speculators against the actual settlers. Jennings easily refuted 
 this attack upon his integrity and turned it against his opponent with such 
 success that the tide of popular favor set steadily in his direction. 
 
 Jennings was the ideal popular leader. He rode up one day to the home of 
 David Reese and was invited to get down and have his horse put up. Randolph, 
 his opponent, had been there the day before, and at a similar invitation had 
 gone into the house and practically ignored the log rollers. Jennings, instead, 
 offered his service at the work and was such a good hand that every fellow 
 was captivated by him. If it was harvest time he led the mowers in the field 
 and took hold at any and every sort of task where he found men busy. He was 
 elected over the combined opposition, and popular tradition still cherishes the 
 memory of its democratic champion. One may think that the pioneers decided 
 for him under the spell of his personality rather than because he was anti-slavery. 
 But that is a great mistake. Those keen back-woods Hoosiers saw well and truly 
 that a man like Randolph, who would allow his horse to be taken and go into 
 the house like company, to await dinner, when he was dependent upon the 
 votes of the very men he ignored, was not a man to represent them in Congress 
 or anywhere else. 
 
 Even after Jennings received his certificate of election from Governor Har- 
 rison and had taken his seat in Congress at Washington, Randolph nude every 
 effort to have him unseated on the charge of fraud at one of the polling places. 
 The House, however, refused to unseat Jennings, and then Randolph began a 
 series of attacks upon the character of Jennings with hand-bills which would 
 
THE OLD SETTLERS' MEETIN' 119 
 
 have provoked a personal encounter from some public men. Jennings bore it 
 with rare equanimity until Waller Taylor a Territorial Judge and a bitter 
 partisan of Randolph, insulted him with the purpose of bringing on a duel. 
 Jennings calmly told Taylor that he had done him no injury and did not 
 desire to raise a row like a ruffian. Taylor denounced Jennings as a pitiful 
 coward and made much ado about nothing: but two years later on, when Taylor 
 himself was a candidate for Congress from Indiana, Jennings had the satisfaction 
 of inflicting defeat upon him as he had upon Randolph. And surely that was 
 answer enough for all his insults and challenges. Jennings was opposed to duell- 
 ing on principle. 
 
 The anti-slavery forces had won out so far under the brilliant leadership 
 of the young champion of freedom; and when the people were called upon to 
 elect delegates to the first Constitutional Convention in May, 1816. Clark 
 county, Indiana, chose Jonathan Jennings and Thomas Carr under the same 
 free state banner. So popular was Jennings that he was immediately elected 
 President of the Convention, which assembled at Corydon, June 10, 1816. It 
 was a body of honest frontier farmers with a general idea of democratic govern- 
 ment. There was a Methodist preacher and a Baptist elder among the delegates. 
 Jennings and Carr were staunch Presbyterians. 
 
 On the 13th of June a petition was presented from Wayne county to cut 
 out slavery. On the 20th of the month the Convention first reached a vote on the 
 subject, and it was duly and truly declared: "There shall be neither slavery or 
 involuntary servitude in this State, otherwise than for the punishment of crimes, 
 whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." And in the Bill of Rights 
 were further provisions enacted to forever exclude slavery from the Common- 
 wealth : 
 
 "That the general, great and essential principles of liberty and free gov- 
 ernment may be recognized and unalterably established, we declare that all men 
 are born equally free and independent, and have certain natural inherent and 
 inalienable rights, among which are, enjoying and defending life, liberty and 
 acquiring, possessing and protecting property and pursuing and obtaining hap- 
 piness and safety." 
 
 In the election for Governor which followed there were but two candidates, 
 namely, Jonathan Jennings on the same platform of human freedom, and Thomas 
 Posey who was then Territorial Governor. Governor Posey was a native of 
 Virginia, a brave veteran of the Revolutionary War and had once been United 
 States Senator from Louisiana. He was the pro-slavery candidate and that organ- 
 ization stood by him firmly. The result was 5,211 votes for Jennings and 
 3,934 for Posey. The majority for Jennings was 1,277, and he assumed office 
 with the conviction that the memorable struggle which he had waged was now 
 happily and triumphantly terminated. 
 
 JONATHAN JENNINGS AND THOMAS CARR 
 
 Jonathan Jennings was a devoted Free Mason in all his struggles for human 
 freedom and one of his most loyal supporters was Thomas Carr, colleague from 
 Clark county. We should remember that religion and fraternity were powerful 
 factors among the pioneers of the Ohio Valley. Fighting every day for their 
 own lives and the lives of their loved ones drew them very close together. God 
 
120 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 was their Father and Defender, and they believed with all their hearts in human 
 brotherhood. I once asked Masonic Brother Samuel Carr of Medora, Jackson 
 county, Indiana, how early in life he learned the lesson of fraternity and he 
 replied: 
 
 "From my youth up. It was coincident with my earliest religious teaching. 
 It was borne in on me in my childhood like the songs of Bobbie Burns, running 
 far back of memory into household tradition and family faith. The good old 
 Methodist presiding elder who visited our home in his rounds was a Free-Mason 
 and used to talk religion and fraternity to my father by the hour. Thus they 
 became one and inseparable in my mind as I listened to his stirring experiences 
 of faith and fellowship." 
 
 This information so interested me that I pressed Brother Carr for further 
 facts, and he continued: "You see my ancestors, the Carrs, were originally 
 Irish Presbyterians. John Carr, the immediate progenitor of my father's family 
 in America, came to this country when he was nineteen years old. His father 
 and mother died on the ship coming over, for the ocean voyage in those days 
 to the emigrant exiles was little better than being aboard a slaver. They were 
 herded together in close, foul, unhealthy quarters like cattle, and no wonder 
 the old people perished coming across. They were buried at sea. The father and 
 mother of Andrew Jackson crossed the Atlantic under the same conditions. 
 
 "John Carr landed with a brother and sister at Annapolis, Maryland. 
 Sometime later we find him settled in Pennsylvania, and from Westmoreland 
 county his son Thomas Carr emigrated with his wife to Mercer county, Ken- 
 tucky, and thence to a tract of land along Silver Creek on Clark's Grant in 
 Clark county, Indiana, in 1806. He paid sixteen hundred dollars for five hundred 
 acres. 
 
 "Thomas Carr was a leader of men in his time. He came to Jackson county, 
 Indiana, and was in the Fort at Medora during the War of 1812. He was a 
 member of the first constitutional convention in 1816 which sat under the 
 famous old elm tree at Corydon. He was a member of the General Assembly 
 and an officer in the Indian Wars. At the battle of Tippecanoe the Indians bit 
 the bullets out of shape before firing them so they would tear the white men's 
 flesh, and our soldiers were fearfully wounded whenever a ball struck them. It 
 is said that the modern Mauser bullet makes a small hole in the body and re- 
 covery is much more likely; but every red man's bullet was deadly. 
 
 "Thomas Carr was like most of the Scotch and Irish Presbyterians who 
 were bitterly opposed to slavery and fought its continuance in the Territory 
 of Indiana with the same determination he showed in the fights against the 
 Indians. He was a strong follower of Governor Jennings in the great struggle 
 to rid the Territory and the new State of the slavery incubus, and they were 
 successful. 
 
 "He was also a great believer in education. I have in my possession a beau- 
 tifully written manuscript copy of the arithmetic used in those days when Thomas 
 Carr himself went to school. He died in 1822. He was a devout Presbyterian 
 although his descendants became Baptists and Methodists, many of them, but 
 their ideal, like his, was human freedom, enlightenment and brotherhood." 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 
 ^babiidf Mtumiu^m 
 
 f\ Y\ E HAVE seen that when the father of the Jennings brothers was about 
 / I 1 forty years of age, he experienced a great spiritual awakening and 
 ^J^y relinquished the practice of medicine for the gospel ministry. Sing- 
 ularly enough, two of his most successful sons had a similar ex- 
 perience. Obadiah left off a brilliant career as a lawyer to become a minister 
 and Samuel gave up the practice of medicine to preach the gospel. The case of 
 Obadiah was the most striking. He felt frequent impulses toward a more con- 
 secrated life, but the success of his profession dulled the call of the soul until 
 one day he heard a sermon by the Reverend James Snodgrass, one of Pastor 
 McMillan's old pupils. It roused him and stirred him deeply. Not long afterward 
 his legal benefactor, Attorney Simonson, died suddenly and young Jennings 
 was much grieved. This was in the fall of 1809 and early in the year 1810. 
 As a result Obadiah Jennings united with the Presbyterian church at Stuben- 
 ville, Ohio. Removing a little later to Washington, Pennsylvania, he settled 
 down where he and his brother Jonathan had studied law. 
 
 Obadiah was elected an elder in the church. He was very faithful in this 
 capacity and was a frequent delegate to the Presbytery, Synod, and to the 
 General Assembly. He had no thought at this time of relinquishing the practice 
 of law, but it so happened that an humble, obscure Christian spent the night 
 at his house and pressed upon him the story of the talents and left him in a very 
 disturbed state of mind about a call to the ministry. He had brilliant prospects 
 before him in law and discussed the subject with his close friends for some 
 time. In this state of unrest he was taken down with a serious and almost fatal 
 spell of sickness, so that a leading physician of Stubenville came to attend him. 
 Obadiah's decision was made during this illness that if his life was spared, he 
 would give himself wholly to the Gospel ministry. He followed out this reso- 
 lution as soon as he recovered, and in 1816 when his brother Jonathan was 
 elected Governor of Indiana, Obadiah was licensed to preach in the Presbytery 
 of Ohio. He was a fluent and pleasing speaker and it was decided evidence of 
 his talent and popularity that the church at Stubenville, Ohio at once made out 
 a call to him to become its pastor. A still more flattering call came from the 
 church at Harrisburg, the Pennsylvania State Capital. Obadiah showed his genuine 
 character and sincerity by accepting the call to Stubenville where he was so de- 
 voted to the people already. He said that the call to Harrisburg was indeed an 
 honor, but he preferred a more modest, and becoming start in the ministry 
 rather than an ambitious and self-seeking career. In this he was a Jennings to 
 the very core. He spent six very happy years at Stubenville and then accepted 
 a call to the church at Washington, Pennsylvania, to succeed Reverend Matthew 
 Brown, D. D., who had been elected President of Jefferson College. 
 
122 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 THOMAS AND ALEXANDER CAMPBELL 
 
 It is an interesting fact that the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of 
 Jefferson College in the year 1809 was the Reverend Samuel Ralston, a lead- 
 ing Presbyterian minister of that section from overseas with the same ancestral 
 name as Hon. Samuel Ralston of Indiana. Anyhow, the family of this kind 
 and hospitable minister entertained some remarkable guests one night in October 
 of that same year. They were none other than the father and family of Alex- 
 ander Campbell, the distinguished founder of the Disciples or Christian denom- 
 ination. The family had just arrived from North Ireland, where they were sturdy, 
 highly cultured and consecrated Scotch-Irish Presbyterians. They had already 
 initiated the religious movement which was destined to make the names of 
 Thomas and Alexander Campbell household words throughout the West and 
 South. Thomas was a man of singularly noble character and lamented the doc- 
 trinal differences that necessitated his separation from the Presbyterian church. 
 
 One year later, in October, 1810, he made an earnest appeal to th>> Synod 
 of Pittsburg to recognize and affiliate with the newly organized "Christian Associa- 
 tion of Washington." Rev. Samuel Ralston was the retiring Moserator and preachea 
 the opening sermon at this meeting, and the Rev. Jacob Jennings, father cl 
 Jonathan and Obadiah, was in attendance. The Synod did not find it possible 
 to accept the proposal of Thomas Campbell on account of the constitutional 
 and doctrinal differences, but Pastor Campbell continued his work as a teacher 
 and minister in conjunction with his son Alexander, and became one of the 
 strongest religious anti-slavery leaders in the West and South. He eveti exceeded 
 Alexander in this great cause. 
 
 Thomas Campbell was a pioneer in the higher education of young women 
 and established a very successful school at Burlington, Kentucky. He became 
 much interested in the ignorant and neglected condition of the negro slaves in 
 the surrounding country; and one Sunday afternoon he noticed their meeting 
 in a woodland nearby where they had no means of enlightenment or spiritual 
 uplift. He immediately went over and called them together in his school room 
 where he read and taught them from the scripture. He then tried their voices in 
 religious songs and was struck with their natural melody. Next day, however, 
 one of his friends called on him to say that such a meeting for the slaves was 
 a violation of the laws in the State unless white witnesses were present and that 
 it would be unwise and unsafe to repeat the experiment. Pastor Campbell was 
 amazed at this announcement and declared that he would immediately remove 
 from a State that forbade teaching Christianity to slaves. The Presbyterian 
 Church of Kentucky, however, had always stood firmly for gradual emanci- 
 pation and for the teaching of the slaves educationally and spiritually, and Mr. 
 Campbell would have won his point with patience and tact. His son, Alexander, 
 was strongly against slavery, but did not oppose it with the same intense con- 
 viction as his father. 
 
 OBADIAH JENNINGS AND ALEXANDER CAMPBELL 
 
 While the Campbells were living in Washington, Pa., Alexander tried his 
 talent as an anonymous satirist of the rather crude social customs and habits 
 of the young people in the little frontier town. The local paper published his 
 
THE OLD SETTLERS' MEETIN' 123 
 
 articles, which created much discussion; and President Brown of the College 
 took the criticism good naturedly, for he was a very tolerant and kindly teacher 
 of youth. A few years later when the religious people of the same community 
 endeavored to enforce rather stringent blue laws on the country round, Alex- 
 ander Campbell came out in positive and successful opposition to the move- 
 ment. It happened that Obadiah Jennings was still an attorney and he was the 
 secretary of the "Law Enforcement Leagues," or "Moral Societies" as they were 
 called. The biographer of Mr. Campbell relates some very interesting and amusing 
 stories of how the citizens outwitted the Puritan party. Mr. Campbell's was 
 indeed a brilliant effort and won him wide recognition. Singularly enough, some 
 years later when Obadiah was pastor at the Presbyterian Church in Nashville, 
 Tennessee, he met Alexander Campbell again in public debate, this time on 
 doctrinal lines. The debate was published and attracted much attention. Obadiah, 
 however, was not nearly the tolerant and masterly disputant his brother Jonathan 
 was. Nevertheless, he was so highly regarded in parlimentary and church law 
 that he was once elected Moderator of the Presbyterian General Assembly, a 
 rare honor in that denomination. 
 
 When Obadiah Jennings was a lawyer he spoke in an off-hand manner 
 with much success; but when he became a minister he wrote out his sermons 
 and lost somewhat of the fluency and natural eloquence which everybody liked. 
 One night during a sacramental meeting he hung his coat near the open fire 
 when he retired. The coat contained the sermon of the morrow and chanced 
 to ignite and consume the precious manuscript. Next morning Obadiah was 
 much embarrassed. He borrowed a coat of the preacher he was assisting and 
 went into the pulpit without notes; but such a splendid message did he deliver 
 off-hand that one good old lady said she prayed the Lord to burn up all his 
 written sermons in the same manner. Mr. Jennings enjoyed the joke hugely, 
 
 While the controversy over the blue laws was under way, a shrewd farmer 
 by the name of Martin sent a load of produce into Pittsburg early one Saturday 
 morning. The teamster could not reach home on Saturday night and put up 
 near Cannonsburg till Sunday morning, when he hitched up and started on his 
 return. The constable tried to arrest him for traveling on the Sabbath, but had 
 no warrant. While the constable went into town for a warrant the teamster 
 swapped off with a friend, who of course was not the driver mentioned in the 
 warrant; and no arrest was possible. The constable made a great commotion 
 about it until a crowd collected. Two bystanders proposed to bet with him. 
 He fell into the trap and was then threatened with prosecution for betting. He 
 was so highly chagrined that he called to the crowd to accept a treat at his ex- 
 pense and let the whole matter drop. It was this rough humor of the frontier 
 character that finally prevailed over the spirit of puritanism and a more general 
 good neighborliness held sway instead. 
 
 THE CLOSING YEARS 
 
 The health of Obadiah began to fail rapidly after he went to Nashville, 
 and he died there after a long illness, on January 12, 1832, at the early age 
 of fifty-four years. His brother Jonathan was at this time living in retirement 
 on his farm near Charlestown, Indiana, after serving continuously in Congress 
 until 1830. William Wesley Woolen is authority for the statement that the 
 
124 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 closing years of Governor Jenning's life were saddened and shadowed by the 
 constant temptation of the social class, incident to the political career of many 
 public men of large social nature and good fellowship, which so eminently 
 characterized Jonathan Jennings. His friends were legion and many of them at 
 home in Charlestown were so devoted to him, says Mr. Woollen, that they felt 
 certain that a retirement from Congress for a season and removal from the scenes 
 and excitements of politics would be highly beneficial to him morally. So they 
 voted against him in the race of 1830, and he was defeated by General John 
 Carr, a gallant soldier of the war of 1812. This defeat, however, instead of 
 serving the purpose intended, broke the spirit of the genial and sensitive Jennings, 
 and it appears from the account of Mr. Woolen that he never recovered his 
 courage and hope and self-mastery. He was always kindly and uncomplaining, 
 but he passed into a decline and died July 26, 1834, in the seclusion of his 
 heme circle and nearest friends. They grieved for him deeply, and the closing 
 scenes as described by Mr. Woolen were very touching. 
 
 "The next day his body was placed in a common farm wagon and taken 
 to Charlestown and buried. The day was intensly hot and but few were at 
 his burial, these few being members of his family and particular friends. He was 
 laid to rest on a hill overlooking the town and his grave was unmarked by head 
 or foot stone. Thus he has remained until the present time; and were it not 
 that a few men and women still live who were present at his burial, no one 
 would certainly know where the remains of the first Governor of Indiana are 
 interred." 
 
 This was years ago. Most nobly has the State of Indiana atoned for this 
 long neglect; and in her glad centennial time no name shines out more mem- 
 orable than that of Jonathan Jennings whose grave will be a Mecca to the lovers 
 of human freedom for generations to come. 
 
 SAMUEL K. JENNINGS 
 
 Samuel Kennedy Jennings was the eldest of the brothers, of which there 
 were five. He was born in Essex county, New Jersey, June 6, 1771, and was 
 educated at Rutgers College. He studied and practiced medicine in Pennsylvania 
 until 1794, when, like his brother Obadiah, he gave up his regular practice and 
 became an itinerant Methodist preacher. He was fully ordained to the ministry 
 in 1814, two years before Obadiah. He moved to Baltimore in 1817 and became 
 one of the prime movers for representation in the conferences of the M. E. 
 denomination. This was a pioneer step and occasioned much discussion and 
 controversy before it was finally settled. But Samuel Jennings was a steadfast 
 believer in democracy in church fellowship and became a distinguished pulpit 
 orator and evangelist. He too, was a highly congenial and appreciative companion 
 of the youngest brother, Jonathan. Samuel died in October, 1854. 
 
 THE MONUMENT TO GOVERNOR JENNINGS 
 
 William Wesley Woolen, who. more than thirty years ago, wrote one of 
 the most appreciative sketches of Jonathan Jennings ever published, paid him 
 this high tribute: "Men who plant civilization in the wilderness, who organize 
 backwoodsmen into communities, and throw around them the protection of 
 
THE OLD SETTLERS' MEETIN' 125 
 
 the law, should not be forgotten. They render mankind a priceless service, and 
 those who come after them and enjoy the fruits of their labor and sacrifices 
 should never tire in honoring their memory. Jonathan Jennings was such a 
 man, and Indiana owes him more than she can compute. He fought slavery to 
 the death when it sought to fasten itself upon her territory. He helped secure 
 for her sons and daughters the best portion of her rich and fertile lands, and 
 yet he sleeps the long sleep without a stone to mark his resting place. Shame 
 on Indiana!" 
 
 This was the earnest thought of others for many years until the tardy 
 tribute of respect due him from the State was fully paid by a beautiful monu- 
 ment in Charlestown cemetery. Years ago, when the writer was a boy and attend- 
 ed the Old Settler's Meeting at Charlestown, he heard a notable speech from 
 a fine Hoosier character in the dialect of early days. This speech had lots of 
 influence in bringing about the erection of the monument. 
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF THE TWO JENNINGS BROTHERS 
 
 In appearance Governor Jennings was an exceedingly handsome man; 
 broadshouldered and heavy set in later years, but possessing wonderful, fine, 
 blue eyes, fair complexion and pleasing features. He was always a student and 
 thinker and surrounded himself with books and friends who were his joy and 
 solace till he breathed his last on earth. He was one public servant of whom 
 it might be truly said, that he never betrayed a trust. He had the New England 
 integrity without austerity or stinginess. He was neither mercenary in money 
 matters nor small-minded in his moral estimates. On the contrary, he was merciful, 
 humorous and humane. He was not pugnacious and contentious like so many 
 men in the religious and political life of the time. On the contrary he was sweet- 
 tempered, good-natured and pre-eminently social and companionable. He was 
 courteous and considerate even toward his enemies. Even when defending him- 
 self against moral or political attack he did not indulge in abuse, misrepresenta- 
 tion or slander. And in an age when so many politicians of national prominence 
 fought duels he refused to be governed by the code or custom. He had no desire 
 to risk his own life in a foolhardy manner nor to shed the blood of his fellow 
 man for naught. One of his political enemies called him a pitiful cowaid, but 
 let history and humanity judge him in that respect. 
 
 Tradition has it that he told a good story always to win the crowd. That 
 was Lincoln-like and characteristically Hoosier. His brother Obadian was like- 
 wise humorous, imaginative and witty in an age when ministerial dignity and 
 solemnity were proverbial. What a pity that these two Jennings brothers, so 
 congenial and like-minded, could not always have been in touch with each other. 
 No mention is made in the biographical account of Obadiah as an attorney, 
 that he was ever tempted to be intemperate by the social indulgence of the time. 
 He left the legal profession because he was mentally and morally weary of con- 
 troversy and desired peace with God and man. His debate with Alexander Camp- 
 bell was spoken of as unexpected on his part and was doubtless partly due to 
 Obadiah Jennings being in ill-health at the time. Otherwise he would certainly 
 have avoided religious controversy, though in that respect he was doubtless will- 
 ing to measure intellects with any disputant so worthy and distinguished as 
 Mr. Campbell. 
 
126 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 Some of the greatest Presbyterian ministers of the age declined doctrinal 
 controversy out of a sense of moral harmony. John C. Young and Robert J. 
 Breckinridge of Kentucky took that position when asked to debate with Mr. 
 Campbell; and a certain minister, who was in Nashville while Obadiah Jen- 
 nings was there as a pastor, makes the statement that Dr. Jennings was uncom- 
 panionable and contentious where he would ordinarily at least have been good 
 natured and genial. Evidently Dr. Jennings was not himself. He was very ill 
 at the time and no doubt the challenges of that aggressive religious age and 
 generation jarred upon his nerves until he seemed to this minister to be out of 
 harmony in the pulpit and public. 
 
 Nevertheless he was held in high esteem by his congregation and was just 
 beginning to be well established in the regard of the community when death 
 ended his career. He was offered a vacation and a trip away for his health; but 
 it was too late. One very sad fact is related, namely, that Dr. Jennings was 
 homesick for the work he left at Washington, Pa., when he accepted the call 
 to Nashville in April, 1828. A goodly revival began in the Washington church 
 as he was preparing to leave for Nashville, and the people grieved to lose him, 
 so that he would not have gone had not his word already been given. Hence 
 it was nearly four years after he went to Nashville before he felt that deep and 
 tender attachment for his new congregation that time and association alone can 
 produce. Naturally, therefore, he was somewhat morbid in his closing years. 
 But his final end was peaceful. Receiving a glass of water from his attendant, 
 he remarked that he would soon drink of the Water of Life in the Better Land. 
 So well was he beloved by all the congregations he had served that memorial 
 services were held in every one of them. He died just about two years before 
 his brother Jonathan, and we may well imagine the grief his death brought 
 the younger brother. 
 
 There is no record or tradition as to the mental or spiritual attitude of 
 Jonathan Jennings himself in prospect of passing away. The solitary burial 
 by his own immediate family and closest friends makes us suppose that he was 
 laid to rest with a few brief Masonic ceremonies. Even this is very uncertain. 
 With neither church nor lodge in charge of the funeral service, we have grave 
 apprehensions that Jonathan Jennings died in seclusion of a broken heart. He 
 certainly was not a skeptic, and neither was he out of touch with his Masonic 
 brethren. Mr. Woollen declares that the defeat inflicted upon him by his personal 
 and political friends did not change him in any respect. Instead, it wounded 
 him more deeply morally, and he retired within himself and his health rapidly 
 declined. 
 
 "This habit," says Mr. Woollen, "the single vice of his life, followed him 
 to the grave." His home near Charlestown was the political Mecca of the young 
 men of Southern Indiana and the custom was for the social glass to go round 
 on occasion. There was a still on the farm, says Mr. Woollen, which was true 
 of the whole pioneer country. Then, too, the wear and tear of political contro- 
 versy had its effect upon the physical health of Governor Jennings, and he 
 evidently yielded to this indulgence as a temporary relief from the strain. Finally 
 it became a habit and a disease and ended his career in its prime. This was one 
 cause of the long neglect and oblivion into which his grave and memory were 
 allowed to fall. But time softens all things and we would today honor him anew 
 
THE OLD SETTLERS* MEETIN' 127 
 
 for the great work he accomplished while in his prime, and shed a tear for the 
 tragedy that eclipsed his usefulness and service so soon. 
 
 In the world of Masonic thought we are taught to be torch-bearers and 
 light-bringers to our age and generation. The torch of truth is committed to 
 our hands in the race of life and we bear it aloft and onward until our strength 
 fails and our pace slackens. We then hand the torch to another, younger possibly, 
 who presses close behind us. So in the winning of the Great Northwest there 
 are brave torch-bearers and light-bringers who carried the glowing beacon far 
 into the future of freedom and left an undying memory after them. Such a 
 man and Mason was Jonathan Jennings and he has entered into his own at last. 
 
LYMAN BEECHER 
 
CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 2pt£ 0th JEh %^uh^x flkJtM:p JJWBttg 
 
 f I ^V ERHAPS the most precious records in the history of the Presbyterian 
 
 1 Church in Southern Indiana are the last Reminiscences of the Rev. 
 
 r* Ninian C. Dickey, son of Father John M. Dickey, founder of the 
 
 Church in Indiana. These Reminiscences were written on his dying 
 
 bed for the pages of the Indiana Synod Magazine edited thirty years ago by his 
 
 son Rev. Sol C. Dickey, founder of the Winona Assembly. Especially precious 
 
 to us is the account of the Old Mt. Tabor Camp Meeting of long ago, near 
 
 New Albany. This Church was our second pastorate in Indiana. 
 
 We reprint these Recollections here for lasting preservation, giving full credit 
 to the original sources. 
 
 In the early days of the Presbyterian Church in the West, camp-meetings 
 were common. Preachers were few, and during the warm weather of summer 
 or fall they arranged for a half dozen or more of them, to hold protracted meet- 
 ings in groves. People came to these meetings from twenty-five to one hundred 
 miles distant. To entertain the multitudes was a heavy burden gladly borne by 
 those residing near to the places of meeting. In time it was found easier to 
 make preparations beforehand and encamp upon the grounds, and feed and lodge 
 friends and strangers, and so be able also to enjoy the meetings. On my father's 
 farm, near the best spring water, board tents or rough cottages were built on 
 three sides of a large square of gently sloping ground, well shaded with trees. 
 On the lower part of this square of ground a rough pulpit was boarded up 
 capable of holding a dozen or more ministers. Up against the front of the pulpit 
 an elevated singers' seat was erected for ten or twelve of the best singers to lead 
 the music. A large shed that would shelter several hundred persons was built, 
 so as to cover this seat and a space fronting it. The whole of the square of 
 ground, inclosed by the tents on three sides, was filled with seats for the multitude. 
 
 Grounds similarly arranged were prepared at Mt. Tabor, near New Albany. 
 Beside the board cottages, cloth tents were also used, and many came in their 
 covered wagons, in which they moved from older States, bringing provisions 
 and cooking utensils — the women and little children sleeping in the covered 
 wagons and the men and older boys on the ground. Besides those entertained on 
 the grounds, almost every house for miles around was thrown open to friends 
 and strangers. 
 
 Once a year, in my boyhood days, I attended meetings at each of these 
 grounds. Not only were great preparations made for the physical man, but, if 
 possible, greater care for the spiritual. For months before the meetings, special 
 prayer meetings were held, and the preaching was so directed as to prepare the 
 minds and hearts of the people for a profitable time, when souls should be edified 
 and saved. 
 
130 
 
 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 Religion was the great theme of conversation among Christians. I was often 
 particularly struck with the assurance of faith with which many of God's people 
 had ridden thirty miles on horseback accompanying my father. Rev. John M. 
 Dickey, to attend the camp-meeting services. The ministers present, as I recall 
 them, were Revs. P. S. Clelland, Benj. M. Nyce, McPherson, Jas. H. Johnson, 
 Henry Little, J. M. Dickey and Rev. Samuel K. Reed, the latter pastor of the 
 Second Presbyterian Church, New Albany, and manager of the camp-meeting. 
 
 But it was of one day at the Mt. Tabor camp-ground of which I set out 
 to write. It was in August, 1841. Twenty-five or thirty, mostly young people, 
 accompanying my father, Rev. John M. Dickey, to attend the camp-meeting 
 services. 
 
 On that Wednesday afternoon all were busy moving into their tents and 
 arranging for the coming days. That evening service was full of earnestness 
 and prayer. The next day Dr. Lyman Beecher, president of Lane Seminary, then 
 at his zenith, came on the grounds. Each day began with what was called family 
 prayers at sunrise. Then breakfast was followed by a time of secret prayer in 
 the woods. 
 
 Mt. Tabor Church at old Mt. Tabor Oamp M-eetinj 
 near New Albany, Indiana. 
 
 Ground, 
 
 At 9:30 public worship began, and two sermons were delivered, the people 
 standing and singing a hymn at the close of the first discourse, the second sermon 
 often followed by an earnest application of the discourses by a third preacher. 
 After dinner people collected about the stand or in groups in the tents and sang 
 and prayed and talked for a time. Then a sermon and exhortation followed, 
 by two other ministers. 
 
 Some time before sundown, after an early supper, was set apart for secret 
 devotions. This was followed by a young men's prayer meeting in the school 
 house near by, ordinarily used for public worship also. The great meeting was 
 at night, when the best preachers were usually assigned the pulpit, and those 
 interested and seeking Christ were called forward to what was designated the 
 inquiry or anxious seat. At 9 o'clock sharp, lights were extinguished and silence 
 and opportunity for sleep secured. This latter rule was unpopular with those 
 who wished to talk and sing, but was strictly enforced, so that all were rested 
 and ready for the next day's work. Thus the meetings were conducted up to 
 Tuesday before closing on Wednesday morning, growing all this while in interest. 
 All the preachers, as was the custom, in turn had led the services, except that 
 
THE OLD MT. TABOR CAMP MEETING 
 
 131 
 
 by common consent. Dr. Beecher, who was in his element, preached and exhorted 
 oftener than the others. Monday or Tuesday he addressed young men, setting 
 forth the need of preachers in this fast-filling West, and telling disciplined minds 
 how, by coming to Lane Seminary, they might soon be sent forth as preachers. 
 They wanted no uneducated or unconsecrated minds to preach, but many, he said, 
 who had not had opportunity for a collegiate education, by other means might 
 be qualified by a special course of study for preachers. This special course they 
 proposed to give. The earnest appeal of the doctor led several to give them- 
 selves to the ministry, some of whom took full collegiate and theological courses, 
 among the latter being Rev. C. C. Hart and the writer. 
 
 At the hour for evening secret devotion, Tuesday, I walked out with a 
 young man into the woods assigned. These woods extended down a ravine to 
 Silver Creek, about a mile distant from the camp-ground. Nearly this whole 
 distance had to be traversed by us before we found a place where we could be 
 alone. Behind every tree and log and brush-heap some one was kneeling, and the 
 voice of low earnest prayer was heard on every hand. 
 
 Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, who came to Vernon early 
 in thie Civil War and made a great plea for Lincoln and 
 the Union in the old Court House. The whole town 
 emit work to hear him. He was the guest at dinner of 
 Hon. Lucien Bingam at the present Eberhart home out 
 on the hill 
 
 When we got back to the ground the young men's meeting had begun 
 in the school-room. The songs and prayers and testimonies and exhortations 
 were deeply emotional, though very quiet. So great was the interest in this last 
 young peoples meeting for the year on that ground, that it was continued until 
 the second and last bell was ringing for the evening's public worship. The emo- 
 tions seemed too deep for utterance, and sighs were here and there heard as we 
 pressed our way down the aisles, each one trying to get as near the pulpit as 
 possible. Back seats were taken only when those further forward were filled — a 
 characteristic, is it not, of every earnest Christian audience that may choose their 
 seats? 
 
132 
 
 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 The preliminary services, reading and singing and prayer, were with unction. 
 Rev. Dr. Henry Little was the preacher for the evening, and his sermon was 
 fully up to the occasion. He rose and with unction announced his text, "The 
 harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." As he stood and 
 silently viewed the large audience for apparently a minute, the appropriateness 
 of the text for the last evening in the meeting and the text itself, seemed to add, 
 if possible, to the solemnity, and deep-drawn breaths and sighs were heard 
 throughout the waiting throng. Mr. Little usually preached in conversational 
 style, but this evening the attentive audience and deep feeling and the Holy 
 Spirit power seemed to inspire him, and he declaimed with a power unusual 
 even to him. It was terrible, as he showed by the Scriptures and individual ex- 
 amples of those who had lost their souls that men could sin away their day of 
 grace. This last evening of a wonderful meeting of power and grace might end the 
 harvest, and God might say of you as of Ephraim of old, "He is joined to 
 his idol, let him alone." But how soul encouragingly did he depict the love 
 of God in Jesus Christ, and show that the harvest for his audience was not yet 
 past but was now. "Now come to Christ and be saved." 
 
 
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 Jennings County Court House, Vernon, Indiana, where 
 Henry Ward Beecher made his great plea for Lincoln and 
 Union during- the Civil War. Lincoln told Beecher he could 
 do far more for the Union with his mouth than with a 
 musket. Beecher went from Vernon to England afterward 
 to plead the Union cause. 
 
 Dr. Beecher followed this sermon with one of his most searching and power- 
 ful arguments and exhortations. It was at this time, if I recollect aright, that 
 he went all through heaven with a moralist. But search when or where or how 
 they would, as they looked into heaven by the glass of revelation, everything 
 repelled the moralist. Christ was all in all. Even creation was not celebrated in 
 heaven like Christ and his work. As he depicted the disappointment and disgust 
 of the sinner in heaven, who could not endure Christ here, you could fairly 
 see them as they rushed to get away from the holy place. And if heaven were 
 
THE OLD MT. TABOR CAMP MEETING 133 
 
 so intolerable for the sinner, what must hell be, from all the figures and descrip- 
 tions God gave to describe that place. Then came the earnest presentation of 
 the living Christ and salvation, peace and joy and eternal bliss through Him. 
 
 When the doctor ceased his address, Mr. Sneed, who had arisen and stood 
 at his side on one end of the pulpit, at once cried out: "Let five of these first 
 seats be vacated by Christians and all others who are not ready to come to 
 Christ," and leaping over the breast-work of the pulpit to the singer's seat and 
 then to the ground, he bid all who would be saved come to the vacated seats, 
 thus showing their purpose to seek and accept Christ. The audience rose to their 
 feet and began to sing and inquirers came rushing to the seats and soon filled 
 them, when two more were vacated and filled. When persons having ceased to 
 come, Mr. Sneed stood upon a seat and counted, and then came to where Dr. 
 Beecher stood, only a few feet from me and said: "Doctor, there are 199." "We 
 must have that other man," replied the doctor, and he mounted a bench, and 
 lifting up his right hand, cried in a mighty voice that rang through all thes 
 woods: "Here are 199 for the kingdom. Where is that other hundredth sheep? 
 In God's name I call for that sheep!" In another short, sharp, loving call, he 
 besought men not to let the harvest pass unimproved, when thirty more came. 
 
 The next morning I heard John Loughmiller, an elder of the Second Church, 
 New Albany, and no man knew the audience better than he, say: "There was 
 not an impenitent sinner left on the ground unreached." 
 
 I see from Dr. Fisher's article in reference to Dr. Little in the Church at 
 Home and abroad, January, 1895, and also from Rev. C. C. Hart's notice in 
 the February number of that periodical, that they put the number of persons 
 first coming forward on that eventful evening at ninety-nine instead of 199, 
 and that Dr. Beecher did the counting. Of course, after the lapse of fifty-four 
 years, I may be mistaken, but I was a wide-awake boy of eighteen years. I 
 occupied one of the vacated seats and then stood in the crowd immediately in 
 front of the pulpit, often elbow to elbow with the preachers moving in that 
 throng, and I think I am correct in my report. In either case God was glorified 
 and men were saved. 
 
 Lessons from this history press upon my mind. But my article is already 
 too long for the editors and perhaps for readers too, but let me say, first, great 
 things from God must be sought by earnest prayers, and planned and worked for; 
 second, we do not, perhaps, really forget anything. Each day transactions are 
 imprinted on the leaf of the mind, and though that leaf may be turned over, as 
 it were, the indelible imprint is there and only needs to be called up. 
 
 Things written in this and other articles have not been thought of for 
 years; but asked to write reminiscenses they have come up with the vividness 
 as of yesterday. How important that our thoughts and actions be right, that our 
 remembrances be pleasant and happifying. How essential to our peace and 
 blessedness that all bad emotions and deeds be covered with Christ's canceling blood. 
 
 We would not go back to the camp-meeting days of the thirties and forties. 
 As ministers and churches increased they were not needed and lost their power, 
 and our fathers abandoned them. One such day as that spoken of at Mt. Tabor 
 was one of a life-time. Now, in single churches, we see fifty and one hundred at 
 once. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 0'lm jM> TMxkt^ 
 
 The following letter is a character sketch of John M. Dickey, by his grand- 
 son, Elder W. A. Britan: 
 
 August 7, 1914 
 Rev. Lucien V. Rule, Goshen, Ky. 
 Dear Sir and Brother: 
 
 Your letter came to hand several days since, but I have been so busy thresh- 
 ing and the work attending it that I have not had the time to give your letter 
 the attention it should have. I do not think I can give you much more infor- 
 mation than you have. The sketch of "Father Dickey" in the Old Clark County 
 history was written by my mother, Jane Dickey Britan; and I wrote sketches of 
 the history of Pisgah and the New Washington Churches for the late history of 
 Clark County by Capt. Baird, to which I would refer you. I have sent your 
 letter to my sister, A. L. Britan, Sellersburg, Indiana, who is a better family 
 historian than I am; and she may be able to give you some additional infor- 
 mation. The full history of Pisgah Church, written by Father Dickey, is in the 
 care of Mr. G. P. Swan, Clerk of the Session of the New Washington Pres- 
 byterian Church. This is an interesting document and should be placed in the 
 historical archives of the church or state. 
 
 The original Pisgah church building was a log structure on the hills near 
 the mouth of Camp Creek, but the church growing, it was moved nearer the 
 source of this creek, and a commodious brick structure built. Father Dickey in 
 some way received 160 acres of land adjoining the church site on which he had 
 erected a comfortable log house, which is still in use and in a good state of 
 preservation. There was also a loom house in which the good wife wove the 
 wool, flax, etc., raised on the farm and in the neighborhood, into clothing and 
 for household use. He took much interest in agriculture and horticulture, and 
 the first agricultural papers I ever read were some old ones that he had care- 
 fully preserved. Besides ministering well to his own congregation, he made long 
 missiontary tours on horseback, composing his sermons often as he rode, and 
 moderating Presbyteries or Synods, dressed in blue jeans' trousers of his wife's 
 cut and make. In these travels he also tried to teach and add to his agricultural 
 and horticulural experiments, as he tried to have all kinds of fruits, grains and 
 stock on his farm. At one time while staying over night in his travels, he told 
 them of a breed of sheep that he had, that had wool twelve inches long. After 
 he had gone to bed he overheard the family talking about him. Said he seemed 
 to be a mighty nice kind of a man, but they would have thought more of him 
 if that "wool had not been so long." 
 
 He must have gotten most of his living from his farm, as he had several 
 sons to help him attend it, as his carefully-kept account of what he received 
 from his congregation during his ministry only averaged $80 a year. 
 
THE OLD MT. TABOR CAMP MEETING 
 
 135 
 
 He was a great believer in and worker for education. There was a log 
 school house put up within ten rods of the church, and one of his sons, after- 
 ward the Rev. N. S. Dickey, father of Rev. Sol. C. Dickey, taught there. 
 Besides the education of his own family, he had a deep interest in the higher 
 education of the community. 
 
 Grave of Rev. John M. Dickey, "Father of the Pres- 
 byterian Church in Indiana," and great Abolitionist. A 
 native of South Carolina, educated in Kentucky and fore- 
 most hero among- the "Forerunners of Lincoln" in Southern 
 Indiana. The grave is near New Washington in Clark 
 County and was taken by Rev. F. W. Grossman, D. D. in 
 1914. 
 
 Dr. Grossman copied the inscriptions on the tombs of John M. Dickey 
 and Mrs. Dickey: 
 
 "Rev. John M. Dickey, died November 21. 1849, aged 59 years, 11 months 
 and 5 days. A Pioneer Preacher of the Presbyterian Church in Indiana. 
 'He was a good man. full of the Holy Ghost and of faith, and much people 
 was added to our Lord.' " Size of tombstone about 16x35 inches. 
 
 "Margaret O. S., wife of Rev. J. M. Dickey, died October 24, 1847, aged 
 49 years, 6 months and 18 days. She was a faithful wife and mother, and 
 a sincere Christian." Size of tombstone about 15y 2 x31 inches. 
 
 Otiisco, Indiana, 5 -IS-' 14 
 
 Found the tombstone you mention 2% miles from New Washington in 
 private cemetery. My daughter took photo of it. All the stones face the 
 east except Mr. Dickey's. His wife's grave is alongside of his, but it fa.ces 
 the east. My daughter took snap shot and time exposure ibecause the stone 
 is under large cedar trees. 
 
 I found a lot of interesting material about Dickey. His church is torn 
 down and turned into part of residence nearby. I met his grandson. W. A. 
 Britan, who has the historical watch of Dickey's in 'his possession. He lives 
 at Bethlehem. 
 
 There was in his congregation a rich Englishman, Mr. Thomas Stevens, 
 who owned fine farms in "Bethlehem Bottom." He induced him to build a 
 brick seminary or academy, or perhaps more properly, a boarding school was 
 established, to which teachers from Massachusetts were brought, and he left his 
 farm to live in the seminary and board the teachers and pupils. My mother was 
 educated here and also at Hanover. This, then, was the way in which he was 
 helpful in establishing schools and the college. 
 
13 6 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 This Seminary Building in Bethlehem Bottom gave name to the farm, which 
 was long known by the name of the "Seminary Farm:" and, remodeled as it 
 is now, it forms the fine residence on this farm, and is my home, and I am 
 writing this sketch seated in one of the old school rooms. 
 
 After the unfortunate division of the church on the slavery question, Father 
 Dickey transferred his allegiances from Hanover to Wabash College at Crawfords- 
 ville, giving to this institution $100 and receiving a scholarship for all his 
 children and grandchildren who might wish to attend there. Two of his children, 
 Rev. N S. Dickey and Wm. M. Dickey, graduated from there, and Rev. Sol. C. 
 Dickey and Prof. Dan Hains of Crawfordsville, are grandchildren who have been 
 connected with this institution. 
 
 In the division of the church much hard feeling was generated. I notice 
 in the church record that the clerk of his session instead of speaking of him as 
 the Rev. John M. Dickey, as he had always done, calls him "Mr. Dickey." 
 They also called him "The Old Abolitionist," and said he ought to have his 
 nose wrung. It was said that for a long time he was the only voter of that 
 ticket (Abolition) in the county, but he said his views would some day be 
 popular. 
 
 In regard to his picture, it was one of the regrets of his life that he was 
 not able to leave one. 
 
 At the time of his death daguerreotyping had just come into use and he 
 was very anxious to make use of it, but he was not able to make the trip to 
 Madison, to have his picture made. President Fisher of Hanover College had in 
 his collection what was said to be an oil painting of Father Dickey made by an 
 admiring artist in the Northern part of the State. He sent it down for my 
 mother and family to see. If this was a genuine portrait it was made without 
 the knowledge of the subject, and when he was quite a young man, as my 
 mother said it did not look anything like him as she remembered him. 
 
 I saw also a made picture of him in a sketch of the Dickey family published 
 in the Herald and Presbyter a number of years since, in which were pictured 
 four generations of a branch of the Dickey family; Father Dickey, Rev. Ninian 
 S. Dickey, Rev. Sol. C. Dickey and his son. Uncle Ninian had this picture 
 made from a modified picture of himself dressed in the coat, stock, and straight 
 square clerical cut of the hair of the times. This, my mother said, looked a 
 good deal like him. I do not know whether this picture could be obtained 
 now or not. Cousin Sol. Dickey might know something about it. 
 
 I do not know just when Father Dickey crossed the Ohio River, but it was 
 probably about 1816, as he was married in this State in 1818. 
 
 I should have been glad to have seen you when you were so near here, and 
 gone over some of these historic grounds with you, Dr. Howk took from me 
 as relics to New Albany Presbytery a brick from the old Pisgah Church and 
 a watch which I had often heard my mother speak of her father losing in a 
 pasture near his house while feeding his hogs, and I used to think I would like 
 to find it; so, sure enough, when plowing that field, which had long been used 
 as a permanent pasture, we plowed it up. It was an old English Bull's Eye, 
 double silver case, chain and verge movement, and you would be surprised to 
 see the excellent condition of the movement after being lost and buried for more 
 than 75 years. 
 
 I do not know whether what I have written will be of any help to you, 
 but will be glad to see you if you can visit me. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 W. A. BRITAN. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 %hhxt^m at tUt ^ttutxal 
 mi Jiktmtxtnk piinmm jl\ ^ithtn 
 
 f-m ^V ESPITE the skill of the physicians, the faithful ministrations of tender 
 1 hands, the earnest prayers of loving hearts, death has been permitted 
 ^0^^J to triumph; and from this household, and from this commonwealth, 
 with whose higher interests he has been so long identified, this 
 faithful consecrated minister of Jesus Christ has been called to his everlasting 
 reward. 
 
 We had hoped that he would be spared to us for some time yet to give to 
 the cause of the Redeemer, through his pen as well as through his spoken word, 
 the benefit of his thorough Bible scholarship and his long years of ripened 
 experience. But God's ways are not our ways. One day we shall see that they 
 are immeasurably better than any we have planned. So now we will seek to gain 
 more of that spirit of large confident faith that says: "Father, thy will be done, 
 for thy will is our well-being." As a solid foundation for such faith we have 
 given us in the Scriptures I have read two great truths; they are truths that were 
 wrought in the very life of this minister of Christ, whose departure we mourn. 
 The first of these is the truth of the universality of God's providence. 
 
 One of the last counsels Mr. Dickey gave in writing to his children had 
 in it these words: "Don't * * * distrust providence." We will not do so. We 
 will remember that "the Lord reigneth" over all the events of the world — over 
 death as well as over birth and life. 
 
 Death is no accident. The workings of disease, unexpected as they may be 
 to us, are not outside the Divine plans. So, today, in our sorrows we will 
 strengthen our hearts with the great truth, "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath 
 taken away." And the other blessed foundation for our faith in the midst of 
 this bereavement is that set forth in the triumphant words of the apostle, "Our 
 Savior, Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death and brought life and immorality 
 to light." 
 
 Disguise it as we may, death is the king of terrors. The nameless dread 
 of it burdens many a man's spirit. 
 
 How pitiful are some of the attempts which men make to meet it in the 
 strength of their own philosophy or will-power. "Thanks be unto God who 
 giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." He did that in a wonder- 
 ful way for this servant of His. He abolished for this man not the experience 
 of death, but all fear of it. He faced it with a quietness and peace that those 
 who looked upon can never forget. 
 
 It is not for me today to attempt in any adequate way the story of his 
 life. It will be done, I trust, by competent hands and left as a legacy, not merely 
 to the immediate relatives, but to the Synods of Indiana and Illinois, and to 
 
138 
 
 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 the Presbyterian Church in America, for this is more than a family bereavement. 
 Wc are richer in this and other commonwealths of our nation, because of his 
 consecrated life and long and faithful labors. 
 
 Rev. Ninian S. Dickey was of Scotch-Irish descent. He came from a long 
 line of Presbyterian ancestors. His great grandfather came to America in 1737, 
 and settled in North Carolina. His grandfather, David Dickey, was a man of 
 unusual intelligence and marked piety. His father, Rev. Dr. John M. Dickey, was 
 one of the pioneers of Indiana Presbyterianism. He was the fourth Presbyterian 
 minister to enter the Territory of Indiana. It was then an almost unbroken 
 wilderness, with only half a score of small settlements, and the log-cabins of 
 the pioneers scattered here and there. Dr. Gillett, in his "History," speaks of 
 Di. John M. Dickey as "The Father of the Presbyterian Church in Indiana." 
 He was the first minister to be installed over a Presbyterian church in the Ter- 
 ritory. He crossed the Ohio from Kentucky in 1814, and settled in what is now 
 Clark County, about half-way between Madison and New Albany. He was 
 
 REV. NINIAN S. DICKEY 
 
 Son of Rev. John M. Dickey and father of Rev. Sol C. 
 Dickey, the founder of Winona Assembly, Indiana. 
 
 pastor of the New Washington Church for more than a third of a century. 
 
 There in that log-cabin in the wilderness — that parsonage sanctified by 
 the lives of the pioneer minister and his godly wife — Ninian S. Dickey was 
 born November 22, 1822. His early years were spent on the small farm owned 
 by his parents. He received the beginning of his education from his father and 
 mother and in the school of the district maintained during some months of 
 each year. 
 
 One who knew him well says, "He was always a Christian. I have often 
 heard him say that he never knew the time when he became a Christian, that he 
 always prayed and always felt that he was a child of the King." From childhood 
 to old age he led a singularly clean, pure life — never making use of tobacco 
 
THE OLD MT. TABOR CAMP MEETING 139 
 
 or intoxicants. His father before him was a man of strict temperance practices, 
 in a day when such practices were rare even among professing Christians. That 
 father preached the first temperance sermon ever delivered in Indiana. 
 
 In 1843, Mr. Dickey, then in his twenty-first year, started to college. In 
 early youth he had decided to enter the ministry, if only he could receive the 
 education. But the means of the education required were not provided and ready 
 at hand as they are now. His father's home was one of poverty. The family 
 was large, the salary was meagre. A life-long friend present here today declares 
 that that pastor's family would have starved had it not been for what they raised 
 on the little farm. The father and the son labored like the great apo°de, working 
 with their own hands that they might proclaim the Gospel to men. 
 
 When young Dickey set out on the long journey to Wabash College at 
 Crawfordsville, he had as his possessions five dollars in money and the horse 
 upon which he rode. Yet from that time on he was self-supporting. He remem- 
 bered the deprivation of his home and determined not to draw on the slender 
 resources of his parents. He was fortunate in securing a home with Col. Wilson, 
 of Crawfordsville, with whom he lived for five years until his graduation, pay- 
 ing for his board by extra work for the household. 
 
 Graduating in the class of 1848, in the autumn of the same year he entered 
 Lane Seminary at Cincinnati. There, as at college, he provided for his own 
 maintenance. The most of the three years of seminary life were spent in the 
 home of Dr. Calvin E. and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Young Mr. Dickey's education 
 had been all anti-slavery — in spirit — and he was a sympathetic listener to tile 
 many tales of sorrow of the experiences of the slaves, told to and by the mem- 
 bers of the Stowe household. 
 
 In after years, when it was safe so to do, he loved to speak of how he 
 helped some of the fugitives from bondage through the underground railroad 
 on their way to freedom. 
 
 His first pastorate was in the Pisgah Church of New Washington, Ind., 
 the church to which his father had ministered so long. There he labored for 
 ihrce years, and then in Columbus, Indiana, for some eighteen years, laying deep 
 and wide, not only in that city, but here and there throughout the whole Presby- 
 tery, the foundations of fruitful and enduring church organizations. Then he 
 went to Illinois, where for twelve years he ministered, following with two years' 
 work in Kansas. Returning to this, his own State, at Danville, at Indianapolis 
 and at Brookstown, he kept on in his work for seven years more, when disease 
 crippled him. So for forty and two years he was untiring as a laborer in Christ's 
 vineyard, preaching more than seven thousand sermons, uniting in marriage some 
 nine hundred couples, officiating at the funeral of fifteen hundred persons. 
 
 He helped to organize a number of churches, and built seven church edifices. 
 He has been exceptionally successful in leading young men into the ministry. 
 He was a valuable contributor to the religious press, and even during the last 
 two years, since he has been an invalid, has written and published a number 
 of articles on the history of Presbyterianism in Indiana. 
 
 There comes to me this day — as a passage that strikes the key-note of 
 this hour and the life which we honor — the words of the scripture: "He was 
 a good man, full of the Holy Ghost and of faith." More than forty-five years 
 ago those words were used in the church in New Washington, Ind., as the text 
 for the service commemorative of the life and labors of Rev. Dr. John M. Dickey. 
 
140 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOEN 
 
 Like father, like son. It is a good thing to be a great man; it is a great thing 
 to be a good man. Rev. Ninian S. Dickey was "a good man and full of the 
 Holy Ghost." Thoughtful, scholarly, gentle in spirit, exceptionally earnest in his 
 desire to win souls from sin to Christ. 
 
 When Dr. Lyman Beecher was in his last illness, some one asked him what 
 was the greatest of all things. He answered, "It is not theology, it is not con- 
 troversy; it is saving souls." For these many years Mr. Dickey made that truth 
 the dominant desire and purpose of his life. He glorified his Redeemer not 
 only in his life but in the "hour and article" of death. He went into the 
 "valley and the shadow" with a serenity and confidence of faith that gave 
 us a new vision of the riches of truth in the assurance, "Precious in the sight 
 of the Lord is the death of His saints," and inspired us to pray, "Let me die 
 the death of the righteous." 
 
 Out in the hospital, on the morning when the operation was to take place, 
 he wrote a letter to his children and grandchildren, which was afterwards found 
 in his Bible. It breathes so clearly the spirit of this man of God, that I will 
 take the liberty of reading parts of it: 
 
 Indianapolis Hospital, March 11, 1895 
 My Dear Children: As the hour draws near for the amputation of my 
 limb I find myself calm and trustful. * * * You were all often, almost constant- 
 ly, in my thoughts last night as I lay awake most of its hours with knee-pain. 
 * * * I have had every attention I could ask, and I know I have the very best 
 children. * * * Don't be discouraged nor distrust providence. See Psalm ciii: 
 17-18. * * * The Lord bless you and yours. 
 
 Lovingly yours. N. S. Dickey. 
 
 The words of the Psalm to which he referred are these: "The mercy of 
 the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear Him and His 
 righteousness unto children's children. To such as keep His covenant and to 
 those that remember His commandments to do them." 
 
 REV. N. S. DICKEY 
 
 The following Editorial in the Indiana Synod Magazine 3 years ago, by 
 Rev. Sol C. Dickey on the death of his father is a most touching and beautiful 
 tribute and we give it here for the inspiration of others as it has so long been 
 to us. 
 
 Our last issue contained an account of the amputation of the leg of our 
 father, Rev. N. S. Dickey. The operation was most successfully performed on 
 March 11th, at the City Hospital. The patient rallied wonderfully, considering 
 his age, and for ten days the physicians pronounced his entire recovery assured. 
 His limb had healed perfectly and we were told we could bring him home in 
 less than a week. He was able to sleep and declared himself as more comfortable 
 than he had been for months. On Friday morning. March 2 2. he awoke after 
 a good night's sleep. But in a short time complained of nausea, and at seven 
 o'clock surprised all by having a severe hemorrhage of the lungs. The hospital 
 physicans pronounced it one of the most severe hemorrhages they had witnessed. 
 This was followed by three others, and at half-past five o'clock of the same 
 day he breathed his last. He was conscious within twenty minutes of his death, 
 
THE OLD MT. TABOR CAMP MEETING 141 
 
 recognizing all who stood about him, and maintained the same sublime faith 
 and patience which had characterized him in all his long illness. 
 
 The disease, tuberculosis, which had so long manifested itself in the knee, 
 had gone to the lungs and silently accomplished its fatal work. 
 
 There are many incidents connected with his sickness and death too sacred 
 for the public ear. His faith and composure during all trials was heroic and 
 caused all who beheld him to marvel. We shall miss him as only God knows, 
 his prayers, his fatherly counsel, his words of encouragement in dark hours, 
 h : s intense interest in the advancement of the church, especially in Indiana, were 
 helpful beyond expression. 
 
 To the many friends who ministered to us, we, as children return our 
 heartfelt thanks. Especially touching have been the letters from his different fields 
 of labor. We insert only two of these letters, one from his class-mate, Professor 
 John Campbell, LL. D., and one from Mrs. M. F. Hinman, a life-long friend; 
 also, the resolutions of the Logansport Presbytery. 
 
 Dear Mr. Dickey: 
 
 Please accept my sympathy for you and your family in the loss you have 
 sustained in the death of your loved father. This bereavement comes home to 
 me, especially as he is the first of the class of 1848 who has been taken, which 
 can rarely be said of a class forty-seven years after graduation. But your father 
 was more to me than an ordinary college classmate. We were in Morrison's Semi- 
 nary at Salem before we entered college, so when I came to college, a homesick 
 boy, his face brought the first sunshine, for I was not altogether among strangers. 
 I was glad to acknowledge him as the best scholar in our class, and felt proud 
 to be second to him in mathematics. His pure and unselfish life has been a 
 benediction to all with whom he came in contact, and you have a rich inher- 
 itance of remembrance of his great success in the work to which his life was 
 consecrated. His patient endurance of physical suffering was wonderful, and the 
 serene fortitude with which he met the final struggle was heroic. The unseen 
 hand bore him up safely and gave him the victory. Sincerely yours, 
 
 Crawfordsville, Ind. J. L. Campbell. 
 
 Editor of Indiana Synod: 
 
 In your March number I find "Some Reflections" from the pen of Rev. 
 N. S. Dickey in connection with the Presbyterian Church in Columbus, Ind. 
 
 It was as pastor of this people that he spent the strength of his early man- 
 hood. For nearly eighteen years he went in and out doing the work of the 
 Master faithfully and well. The war of the rebellion came on with all its de- 
 moralizing effects. Religion — politics — currency, everything was trying in the 
 extreme. Yet our brave leader worked on sometimes almost without support. 
 The death of the two elders he spoke of was a sad blow to him and the church. 
 
 His father, Rev. John M. Dickey, of the old Salem Presbytery, and a 
 missionary of the Board of Domestic Missions, preached the first Presbyterian 
 sermon ever delivered in this place in 1822, though the church was not organized 
 until 1824. The first church edifice erected by Presbyterians was in 1846, and 
 it was over this church Rev. N. S. Dickey came to preside in 1852. He had 
 married Miss Mary, second daughter of Dr. Solomon Davis, in Charlestown, and 
 while here "five olive branches sprang up around their table." One drooped 
 and died, and two more came to them after their removal from here. 
 
142 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 Their sainted mother left them about two years before their father of blessed 
 memory was called. Rev. N. S. Dickey died March 22. surrounded by his children. 
 It was a peaceful and glorious departure from loved ones here to those to whom 
 he was reaching out both hands when his freed spirit took its flight. 
 
 He was a man of logical mind, eminently conscientious and of untiring 
 energy. None knew him but had perfect confidence in him as a kind, sympa- 
 thetic friend and adviser in all their troubles. But his great and good work has 
 been well done; it is finished personally, but will go on in the hands of his 
 son, Rev. Solomon Dickey, who with his brothers and sisters have the loving 
 sympathy of his father's old Columbus friends. 
 
 M. F. Hinman. 
 
 At a stated meeting of the Logansport Presbytery, held in the First Church, 
 Michigan City, Ind., April 10, 1895, the following resolutions were unanimously 
 adopted: 
 
 "Whereas, The Presbytery has heard with profound regret and sorrow of 
 the recent death of our co-Presbyter and brother, Rev. Ninian S. Dickey; therefore, 
 
 "Resolved, That we recall with a sense of gratitude his long office in the 
 ministry of the Gospel, most of which was spent in our State, and the best 
 part of it within the bounds of our Presbytery. 
 
 "Resolved, That the memory of his earnest labors, sweet spirit and con- 
 secrated life will ever be an example and inspiration to us in our own work. 
 
 "Resolved, That we hereby tender to his children our sincere sympathy and 
 prayer for the comfort of the Holy Spirit in their great bereavement. 
 
 "Resolved, That these resolutions be spread upon the minutes of the Presby- 
 tery and published in THE INDIANA SYNOD, and copy of the same be sent 
 to the family of our deceased brother." W. O. Lattimore, 
 
 Stated Clerk. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX 
 
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 f* A NOTHER great debt that we all owe to Rev. Sol C. Dickey while 
 \ J \ he was editor of the Indiana Synod Magazine was the preservation 
 
 £ \ of the most inspiring and precious Recollections of Rev. Henry 
 Little, Father of Home Missions in Indiana by Rev. J. F. Tuttle, 
 D. D. and Rev. Ninian C. Dickey, D. D., who both knew Father Little so long 
 and well. We again take the liberty of reproducing these sacred memorials for 
 time to come. 
 
 Dr. Little was the son of Jessie Little, and Martha Gerrish, his wife, and 
 was born at Boscawen, New Hampshire, March 23, 1800. He died at Madison. 
 Indiana, February 25, 1882. His ancestors were godly people. His mother was 
 one "who knew who were serious or accessible on the subject of religion and 
 did what she could for them, while she brought up five sons and four daughters 
 and had the care of a farmer's household and a dairy;" and all these nine children 
 were born again in their tender years, seven of the nine before they were four- 
 teen years of age. 
 
 In such a family, and in the midst of such influences, Henry Little was born 
 and nurtured and born again when he was six years old and from the first was a 
 decided Christian. He was a zealous student in school; yet he engaged in farm 
 work with great relish. Three winters he taught school, in the last of which 
 he was engaged in a precious revival. When he was twenty he began to prepare 
 for Dartmouth College, where he graduated with honor in 1826, having among 
 his classmates such distinguished men as Prof. Milo P. Jewett, Edmund O. Hovey 
 and Caleb Mills, for many years honored professors in Wabash College; President 
 Larabee, of Middleberry, Vt., Dr. D. Howe Allen of Lane Seminary and, more 
 famous still, Salmon P. Chase, Chief Justice of the United States. 
 
 After he graduated he was elected tutor in the college, but declined the 
 appointment and entered Andover Seminary the same year, and graduated at the 
 end of the full course in 1829, and was ordained September 24, 1829, with 
 fifteen other young men. Four of these were to go abroad as foreign missionaries, 
 nine as home missionaries for the West, and three to become agents of benevolent 
 institutions. The ordination took place on Park Street, Boston, by the Presby- 
 tery of Newburyport. The Rev. John McDowell, D. D. of Elizabethtown, N. J., 
 preached the sermon, and Rev. Gardiner Spring, D. D., gave the right hand of 
 fellowship. 
 
 For a year and a half he !abored with Dr. Elias Cornelius in the "American 
 Education Society." This led him into the West. 
 
 In June, 1831, he accepted a call from the Presbyterian Church of Oxford, 
 Ohio, and proved that he was eminently fitted for the pastorial office. In two 
 years he received 297 members into the church, chiefly on profession. 
 
144 
 
 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 President Bishop, of the Miami University, refused to believe the repre- 
 sentations made by the several benevolent societies who asked Dr. Little to be- 
 come their special agent, that he had special talents for that work rather than 
 for the pastoral, and he pointed to the truly remarkable record of his two years' 
 pastoral work at Oxford. His talents as a preacher and organizer had become 
 fully recognized at home and abroad; and the Oxford pastor was in turn solicited 
 by four of the great missionary societies to enter their service. After a careful 
 examination of the whole subject he resigned his pastoral charge at Oxford, 
 and became the Western agent of the American Home Missionary Society, with 
 headquarters at Cincinnati. 
 
 REV. HENRY LITTLE. D. D. 
 Father of Presbyterian Home Missions in Indiana. 
 
 He once said to a friend that the hardest trial of his life was to leave the 
 farm, and next to that was to leave Oxford, and to finish what is to be said 
 as to his different labors, he turned aside three times from his home missionary 
 work, for a season, once to raise $50,000 for the Lane Seminary, and later to 
 raise $10,000 for the Western Female Seminary, at Oxford. In October, 183 8, 
 he removed to Madison, Ind., and for a year and a half was pastor of the Second 
 Presbyterian Church, receiving some sixty into the church. As if to show how 
 profound his interest in the work of Home Missions, it is said he spent twenty 
 Sabbaths in work for that society during his short pastorate at Madison. The 
 most important and continuous work of his life was in connection with the 
 general agency of Home Missions, from 183 3 to 1861. in connection with the 
 American Home Missionary Society: from that time until 1869. with the Presby- 
 terian Committee of Home Missions, N. S., and from that until his death, with 
 the Board of Home Missions. Not counting the brief interruptions already referred 
 to. his connections with the Home Missions continued nearly forty-nine years. 
 If we regard his work with Dr. Cornelius, a considerable part of which was in 
 the West, as part of his missionary work, as it really was, he was identified 
 with Home Missions in the valley of the Mississippi more than fifty years. His 
 
THE OLD MT. TABOR CAMP MEETING 145 
 
 term of service was not only long, but it was during a very important period. 
 When it began, Ohio, as a State, was not thirty years old, Indiana fourteen years, 
 and Illinois four. St. Louis had less than 6,000 people, Chicago not fifty voters, 
 and Cincinnati, then the greatest city of the West, less than 25,000 people. 
 Population was flowing rapidly westward, into these wilderness commonwealths. 
 There was an amazing physical development. It is hard for one who looks at 
 these States today to realize what they were when Dr. Little came West as a home 
 missionary. Even Ohio was "in the stump," and a considerable part of her people 
 dwelt in cabins. Northwestern Ohio was still a wilderness. The lower half ot 
 Indiana was but sparsely settled, and the upper half was a wilderness with only 
 a few thousand people. It was a new country, but the far-sighted politicians 
 even then predicted the greatness of the new States. 
 
 Dr. Little began his home missionary work in 1833. He resided at Cincin- 
 nati until 1838, when he removed to Madison, Indiana, which was his home 
 until his death. His duty was two-fold, to raise money and to organize the home 
 missionary work. Forty-three years were chiefly devoted to Indiana. I have no 
 means of knowing how much money he raised for his work. It was considerable. 
 His most important work was the looking after the feeble churches of Indiana, 
 and organizing new churches; in this he has had few equals, and no superior. 
 His qualifications for this pioneer work were peculiar. Physically he was a strong 
 man, rarely sick, and a great worker. He once said that there had been but few 
 days since his boyhood that he was not able to work. In a modest way he has 
 even boasted that he took no vacations. When others were resting in midsummer, 
 he was harvesting as a strong gospel reaper in destitute fields. Some of his most 
 productive work was done in the hot weather, when people would gather in the 
 woods to hear the Word. 
 
 He was a fluent and effective speaker, whom "the common people heard 
 gladly." As a speaker he seemed proof against fatigue. To preach three times a 
 day weeks together, hold inquiry meetings, and converse with any he met. seemed 
 to invigorate him. He rarely declaimed. When he did, it was good to hear his 
 glowing appeals. His preaching was conversational, and it was inspiring in its 
 matter and earnestness. His range of sermons was not as large as if he had been 
 a long settled pastor, but many of his discourses were very effective. He was 
 greatly in love with his work as a preacher of the gospel, and never so happy 
 as in a revival. There is a beautiful incident among his dying experiences, which 
 shows this: One at his side suggested one day the thought, that the nearer we 
 are brought to Jesus, the clearer we see our own deficiences. Dr. Little replied. 
 "When I was converted, and as a little boy began to lead souls to Christ — and 
 a good many of them — people praised me, and I have always been so happy 
 in it, that within these last two days I have doubted if I was ever born again, 
 and had not done it at all for the praise of men!" It was very touching with 
 his difficult speech, and his good fight fought. And adds his son. "I think it has 
 been his single struggle, lest being so happy in turning souls to Christ, he may 
 have done it only for the praise of men!" 
 
 I have often heard him preach. He never appeared at greater advantage than 
 in a revival. There he was at home. His desire to save sinners seemed like a fire 
 in his bones, a holy passion. As I have heard him, it has ceased to be a wonder 
 that he has been honored of God in an extraordinary number of conversions 
 
146 
 
 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 and revivals. He has often aided in revival services in the older churches, but 
 his glory is in having been the revivalist of Home Mission fields, the waste and 
 neglected regions. How widely, especially in Indiana, he has itinerated as a 
 preacher of the gospel! How many new churches he has aided in forming! How 
 many distracted churches he has healed ! How many weak churches he has helped 
 to become self-sustaining! What a preacher, what a soul-harvester, what a leader 
 he has been ! 
 
 In conversation he was full of facts on all topics, and ready to talk about 
 the best stocks of sheep and cattle, and also to delight you with information 
 about the cedar of Lebanon, or the hyssop that springs out of the wall. He 
 
 Father Gale of New Albany. Pioneer Presbyterian 
 Sunday School organizer, who was a worthy contemporary 
 of Rev. Henry Little on the Home Mission Fields of 
 Southern Indiana. 
 
 knew men of note in church and state, and abounded in pleasing anecdotes, but 
 never in "foolish talking or jesting." He was a charming companion. It was 
 no wonder that children and young people were glad in his company. Indeed, in 
 his ordinary life the Christian religion was very attractive. One who was intimately 
 acquainted with his habits said that "for thirty-five years, chiefly in his Home Mis- 
 sion work, he had preached on an average about once a day — nearly thirteen thou- 
 sand times! helping pastors and missionaries in their protracted revival meetings, and 
 sometimes spending a week to wake up a congregation and secure a minister." 
 One of his noblest speeches was in the Synod of Indiana. North. It was called 
 out by the theory of some, that the diminishing number of ministerial candidates 
 is caused by the hardships of ministers in the field. He spoke of the ministry 
 
THE OLD MT. TABOR CAMP MEETING 14 7 
 
 and its trials, and also of its joys. He spoke of his own work in a tone of grand 
 exultation. It seemed as if his imagination had recalled the joy he had experienced, 
 as "a preacher of the Word," since the time when, the winter before he left 
 the farm, he had seen his school district swept with revival influences. He seemed 
 to recall the revival of his senior year in college, when Chief Justice Chase, and 
 Dr. Allen, of Lane, were converted, and the glorious revival of his Oxford past- 
 orate, Then the painful and weary journeys, the countless meetings he had at- 
 tended in the woods, barns, school-houses, and churches, all seemed rather sug- 
 gested than spoken. These years had been full of hard toil and also rich fruit. 
 Besides this, his home had been full of joy. All his children were Christians, and 
 his four sons were ministers of the gospel in actual work. As this aged and 
 honored servant of God spoke, he stood erect as if in conscious strength, and 
 his face glowed, and his voice rang out clear as a young man's as he exclaimed, 
 "Let no man waste any sympathy on me, an unworthy preacher, but a very 
 happy one in his work, and in the sons whom Christ has counted worthy also 
 to be ministers of the Word!" 
 
 For several months previous to his death Dr. Little suffered from a cancer 
 in the face. Two vain attempts were made to remove it. The Synods of Indiana 
 both passed resolutions of sympathy, and asked that he be continued in his posi- 
 tion under the Board of Home Missions, emeritus. On the evening of September 
 19th, 1881, his golden wedding was celebrated by a service in the Second Presby- 
 terian Church of Madison. It was followed by a banquet prepared by the ladies 
 of the church. The venerable couple was the center of attraction. It was an af- 
 fecting sight, not be forgotten. The next day the Presbytery of New Albany 
 held a special service and not only said beautiful words to "our Patriarch," but 
 placed in his hands $1,600 in gold, sent from friends in all parts of the mission- 
 ary field in which he had wrought. 
 
 The last sickness of Dr. Little was a trying one, but it displayed his faith 
 in Christ and hope of heaven in a very striking manner. With speech impared, 
 and his "countenance marred" by the disease, laid aside from the work he loved, 
 and with time to think over the past, and to review the evidences of his hope, 
 he had "a death-bed experience" that was almost without a cloud, and a hope 
 of eternal life that was full of joy and confidence. His son, the Rev. Joseph 
 Little, of Adrian, wrote these words, which may fitly close this article: "As I 
 think back, father's chief characteristic was cheery faith; after that, relish for 
 work, charitableness, patience, and the unvarying 'hope of glory.' No one has 
 heard him groan through all this pain. He said of the 8th of Romans. 17th and 
 18th verses, 'If I walk in the Spirit, I am a son of God — don't you see? and 
 1 don't put much stress on suffering with Him here, for the sufferings of this 
 present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory. But I shall know 
 enough soon to enjoy what He does, and to own it too — don't you see?' So 
 he 'roamed toward heaven,' praising God for everything all the way." 
 
CHAPTER XXX 
 
 tit %\m?xt%%h IB^ntrxr 'LtWit 
 
 ^| 1^ HEN QUITE a boy, sometime in the thirties, I first met Mr. Little. 
 
 / I I think it was at a meeting of the Presbytery held at the old Pisgah 
 
 t 17 (now New Washington) Church, of which my father was pastor. 
 
 His social, pleasant manner, and earnest, eloquent sermons and 
 
 addresses, gave him a warm place in the affections of the people, and he was at 
 
 once a favorite. "Not a bit stuck up." "He is not like many Yankees; you 
 
 are acquainted with him at once, and oh, how interesting his talks are!" "I 
 
 don't care how often it comes his time to preach, I could listen to him all day," 
 
 are samples of the expressions concerning him by people who saw and heard him 
 
 for the first time. 
 
 Meetings of Presbyteries and Synods in those early days were feasts of fat 
 things to the people. They came from far and near; the world did not drive them 
 as it does now, at railroad speed, and ministers and people did not think of leav- 
 ing until the close of the session which usually lasted about a week. Besides the 
 ordinary business, two and sometimes three sermons per day were delivered, and 
 seasons of great spiritual comfort and blessing were enjoyed. Ministers were ex- 
 pected to deliver their best sermons, and each in turn was given an opportunity. 
 Preparations for entertaining all who came were made before hand, and great 
 opportunities for social and religious influence were afforded to preachers as well 
 as laymen. 
 
 Throughout his long and useful life Mr. Little's company was sought and 
 enjoyed. "He is never in the way, and how comforting and instructive his talks." 
 His fame as a preacher spread through all the country and many rode long 
 distances to hear him. His style of preaching was conversational and Biblical. 
 One lady who had heard much of his ability as a preacher expressed a strong 
 desire to hear him. After an opportunity to listen to several of his sermons, she 
 said in reference to him: "He doesn't preach at all; he only talks. But he is 
 the best talker I ever heard. How instructive, how interesting; I never tire 
 hearing him." 
 
 He was in the same class in college with Chief Justice Chase, and, as I have 
 heard some of their classmates say, "outranked that noted statesman and judge 
 in scholarship." He was at home wherever he was called to act. even if to 
 examine candidates for the ministry in Hebrew or Greek or Latin, in theology, 
 ecclesiastical history, or church polity. He never made long speeches in the Pres- 
 bytery or the Synod, but was so clear and pointed that usually little was left 
 to be said, and he usually carried his cause. 
 
 Presbyterian ministers did much to secure the establishment of our system 
 of free schools in Indiana, and Mr. Little was not a whit behind any of them 
 in his efforts and influence. Wherever he went somehow the way opened for 
 
THE OLD MT. TABOR CAMP MEETING 149 
 
 one of his telling speeches in favor of universal education. For a special sermon 
 on almost any subject he was ready. He seemed rather to seek to have others 
 deliver these special sermons and addresses, to call them out and help them to 
 attain a standing, but whenever a duty was assigned him he never sought to 
 be excused or failed. 
 
 Called once, with others, to address a large company at an agricultural 
 fair, he so eclipsed other speakers for his knowledge and common sense that 
 the farmers at once accorded to him the first place as interesting and useful. 
 
 Mr. Little was a money gatherer, considering the times in which he lived, 
 a wonderful collector. Others have noticed his gathering of thousands for literary 
 and theological institutions. In all this work of money- gathering he never forgot 
 his life work. I have often heard him from the pulpit present benevolent causes, 
 but never except as adjuncts of the Gospel. 
 
 When I was a student at Lane Seminary he came, as was the custom with 
 agents in those days, to present the cause of Home Missions and take the collec- 
 tions from the seminary church. Just before the time for service he came to my 
 room and asked for a concordance and a scrap of paper, saying, "I made a new 
 sermon as I came up on the boat last night, and I want to mark a few texts 
 to use and a head or two." He looked up his scriptures and wrote, talking all 
 the while in an animated way on entirely different subjects. I remember thinking, 
 "If you set all those texts down correctly, I will give you credit for ability to 
 talk incessantly and earnestly on one subject and write correctly on another." 
 As he delivered his sermon I watched to see how this would be. I had often heard 
 him preach, but never saw him at a loss for a word. And but for my marking 
 the writing as I did, perhaps should not have noticed any hesitation at this time; 
 but when he came to turn to two or three of the noted passages they were not 
 what he supposed. Hesitating but for a moment, he gave the sense of the scrip- 
 tures he wanted and went on. 
 
 He preached a capital sermon, which so aroused Dr. Beecher that he arose 
 in his pew and stood, manifesting the deepest interest, and as soon as Dr. Little 
 ended his sermon, broke out in one of his impassioned eloquent exhortations. 
 Dr. Allen, who was in charge of that collection, called to me to gather the money 
 in the choir galley. This I did, and at the close of the service carried it to the 
 table where it was counted, and the announcement made that it was the largest 
 sum that congregation had ever given. 
 
 "I am glad of that," said Dr. Little, "for I felt that I had not preached as 
 well as I ought." "Don't feel that way; you preached Paul, and he can beat 
 any of us," said Dr. Beecher. 
 
 Mr. Little would take anything valuable offered him for his cause. He once 
 presented the cause of Home Missions to my father's congregation. Monday morn- 
 ing a doctor said to him: "Brother Little, I did not have much money to give 
 you yesterday, but if you can use her I will give you a good cow and send a boy 
 to help drive her to your city." "Thank you; I'll take her," and in a few hours 
 she had been driven eighteen miles and was safely housed in his stable, and 
 the Home Mission cause the price of her benefitted. 
 
 Dr. Stowe, of Lane Seminary, said to him: "Brother Little, if you know 
 a good minister to whom to give my horse, you may take him along." "I know 
 the very man," and he gave the horse to Rev. Thomas S. Milligan, who rode 
 
150 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 him largely for years over Indiana, where he preached, and wisely laid foundations 
 and fortified Home Mission churches. 
 
 For a time Mr. Little's field included Ohio and Kentucky, and perhaps 
 other States. Rev. Win, Dickey, a cousin of my father, was pastor of one of the 
 large churches in Ohio. He had always been a friend of the American Home Mis- 
 sionary Society, and after the division of the church in 183 7-' 3 8, though he 
 remained in his Presbytery with the Old School, he invited the agents of the 
 American Home Mission Society and of the American Board of Commissioners 
 for Foreign Missions to take collection from his people. Mr. Little had often 
 been with the people as a minister of the Gospel and agent for the benevolent 
 work. Mr. Dickey's church also gave to the Assembly Boards of the Old School. 
 
 One year Rev. Dr. Scovel, once President of Hanover College, as agent 
 of the Board of Home Missions (Old School) and Mr. Little as agent of the 
 Home Missions (New School), met at Mr. Dickey's church. Dr. Scovel was 
 first present on the ground, and on Saturday, when Mr. Little walked into Mr. 
 Dickey's house the pastor gave him cordial greeting, but said: "First come 
 first served.' Dr. Scovel is ahead of you and you will have to take the after- 
 noon. This is the best we can do, as you are both here for a like purpose." 
 "Very well," said Mr. Little, nothing ruffled. (Who ever saw him show- 
 ing a bad temper?) "But your horse, I will have him cared for," said Mr. 
 Dickey. "I have no horse, I walked from , where the stage stopped," re- 
 plied Mr. Little. "You have saddlebags and I supposed you had a horse," said 
 Mr. Dickey. "Oh, I have come for a horse. You know your people are accus- 
 tomed to give me one." "I fear you will be disappointed this time. I know of 
 no prospect for a horse this year." 
 
 Sabbath morning Dr. Scovel. noted as a successful solicitor for benevolent 
 causes, forcibly presented his cause in a good, long discourse, and received $75, 
 in those days counted a good contribution. 
 
 In the afternoon Mr. Little preached one of his clear, earnest Gospel sermons, 
 and in a few minutes, at the close, presented the cause of Home Missions for 
 the Society he represented, when the contributions were counted, the sum was 
 the same of the morning contribution, $75. 
 
 Mr. Dickey told some of his people the story of the saddle-bags, and of 
 Mr. Little saying he had come for a horse. They consulted together and bought 
 a young horse from one of the members, who threw in his full share of the 
 price and gave him to Mr. Little. After the sermon and collection, Mr. Little 
 went home with one of the well-to-do families in the country, that he might 
 in the morning see a man who always gave to the cause, but was not present 
 in the afternoon. 
 
 The sermon had made a deep impression, and as he rode in the carriage 
 with those who were to entertain him, the gentleman addressed his wife, saying, 
 ' What do you say to us giving John to the home missionary cause?" John 
 was the best horse he had, then with another drawing the carriage, a favorite 
 with his wife. To his surprise she at once assented, and in the morning John 
 was ready for some home missionary to ride. 
 
 Bright and early Mr. Little was at the house of the one absent from church 
 the day before. The man was looking after his sheep in the pasture near the 
 house. He could give a good reason for his absence from the house of God. They 
 
THE OLD MT. TABOR CAMP MEETING 151 
 
 began to talk of sheep, and the farmer soon found that the preacher, who had 
 been trained in early life on a farm, knew more about sheep and the good points 
 about a horse. They went to the pasture. There they found fifteen or twenty 
 horses. "Now I want you to pick out the best horse in that lot." After a few 
 minutes' close examination, he pointed out the one he considered and was pro- 
 ceeding to give reasons for his choice when the man stopped him, saying: "You 
 pre a good judge; he is the best of the lot. I can't preach the Gospel, but if 
 you can make that horse help to do it, take him along." So Mr. Little went 
 home with $75 in his pocket and three horses for home missionaries. 
 
 This story I often heard in the home of my father, who was a close friend 
 of his cousin, and I suppose learned the facts from his relative. I never heard 
 of Mr. Little speaking of it; he was never a man to blaze abroad his own acts. 
 He was a great and good man. but modest with all and unassuming. 
 
 In my early ministry he preached often for me in protracted meetings, for 
 weeks at a time, and solved for me and others knotty points in theology as 
 no other man ever did. The lessons I got from him in practical church matters 
 have been of priceless value. Especially did I prize his instructions to inquirers 
 anxious to be saved. In one of the last series of meetings in which I had his help 
 for ten or twelve days when many turned unto the Lord, I said to him : 
 "Brother Little, I want to thank you for the many kind acts you have done, 
 and especially for your teaching me how to work. I owe much to Drs. Lyman 
 Beecher, Calvin E. Stowe and D. Howe Allen, my teachers in the theological 
 seminary, but I feel that in real work for my Christ and trust in Him, I have 
 learned more from you than from them all." 
 
 Speaking thus from the impulse of the moment, having just closed a meet- 
 ing where hearts were melted and souls found the new life, and knowing his 
 characteristic modesty, I feared he might think me a flatterer and be mortified, 
 but I was glad to find he believed me sincere and received my words as a mark 
 of regard. 
 
 Some would not class Dr. Little with the great preachers of the land, but 
 if success in turning men to God, and in building up the church is a mark of 
 greatness, he had few equals in his day. 
 
JOHN VAWTER 
 
CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 ^lagiani ^ft^^htm &t ©ife ^irmitt '^mwm 
 
 f^ F national history is often local history enacted and written large, 
 fm V-l then state history is often family history truly or worthily lived 
 ^^ J and written. 
 
 Especially is this true of a great and classic book of local 
 history in Southern Indiana, "The History of the Vawter Family," by Mrs. 
 Grace Vawter Bicknell, a highly cultured and distinguished descendant of the 
 Vawter family, and the wife of the famous first Secretary of the Board of State 
 Charities of Indiana and National Director of the American Red Cross for many 
 years. The book is dedicated to the memory of Mrs. Bicknell's father, Archilles 
 Vawter, whose wisdom and gentleness were ever a source of comfort and strength 
 to the devoted daughter. This good man had some old faded and tattered family 
 records in his possession, which he had received from his father. In looking over 
 these the idea came to the daughter to amplify and preserve them in a way be- 
 fitting the subject. So she spent five years in correspondence with the various 
 branches of the Vawter family, visited the venerable and still surviving members 
 of the Vawter connection and searched national and state archives for reliable 
 data until she had assembled material sufficient for a volume of over 400 pages. 
 The book was published in 1905, just twenty-two years ago, and the edition was 
 speedily exhausted, for there is not a single copy to be had at any price today, 
 and there are only two copies in Jennings county Indiana, the ancient seat and 
 settlement of the Vawters after their migration from Virginia and Kentucky 
 a century ago. This lack of copies is a calamity pure and simple, for in the 
 pages of this book is the very earliest history of Madison, Old Vernon, and 
 all the classic Hoosier School Master region round about. We had to wait near- 
 ly a year before we were privileged to see the book ourselves — one of the two 
 copies in Jennings county, possessed by Mrs. Kate Storey Dixon, wife of Hon. 
 Lincoln Dixon, of North Vernon. Families like the Dixons are the very Flower 
 and Fruit of the Family Tree at its best, according to the latest scientific volume 
 of Albert Edward Wiggam, noted social writer of Vernon, Indiana, and New 
 York City. 
 
 THE VAWTER PIONEERS 
 
 Mrs. Bicknell discusses the evolution of the family name of Vawter from 
 French sources, Vautier and Valletort, by way of England in the time of Henry 
 the First. The name is changed about 1100 and finally was simplified to 
 Vaulter and Vawter about 1685. when three brothers, John. Bartholomew 
 and Angus came from Plymouth, as is supposed, to Virginia. Mrs. Bicknell 
 gives the names of the known descendants of this first John Vawter, who was 
 
154 
 
 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 the progenitor of the Indiana Vawters. The family story is of equal interest 
 and importance in Oldham and Trimble counties, Kentucky, because the early 
 Baptist ministers of this family planted homes and churches along the Ohio 
 Valley above us and were identified with the earliest tides of emigration that 
 flowed around Harrodsburg, Lexington, Frankfort, and down here in our own 
 ancient settlement of Brownsboro. There are scores and hundreds of this same 
 family name and descent scattered all over Kentucky and surrounding states, 
 not to mention the far West, which fact proves their progressive spirit and enter- 
 prise. Smith William Storey, son of Thomas J. and Jane Vawter Storey, of 
 Vernon, Indiana, father of Mrs. Lincoln Dixon, "while a mere youth, made 
 the overland trip to the Pacific, driving an ox wagon, and for several years 
 
 OLD VERNON BAPTIST CHURCH 
 Founded by John Vawter in 1S16. 
 
 endured the hardships and dangers of a frontiersman and miner in California 
 and Oregon. Returning to Vernon, he engaged in the drug business, in which 
 he continued until his death. Smith William Storey was an elder in the Vernon 
 Presbyterian Church: was superintendent of the Sunday School for twenty-five 
 vears; was an organizer and promoter of the first bank in Vernon: was a 
 director and from 1895 until his death was President of the First National Bank." 
 
 REVEREND JESSE VAWTER 
 
 It was desired to work the Vawter family story into a Centennial Pageant 
 of Old Vernon Town. Jesse Vawter, the progenitor of the family in Kentucky 
 and Southern Indiana, was born in Virginia. December 1, 1755, christened 
 in the Episcopal Church as an infant and brought up a mechanic. He learned 
 coopering, wood carpentering and joining and was also a millwright. He attend- 
 
PAGEANT EPISODES OF OLD VERNON TOWN 
 
 155 
 
 ed school in childhood and spent ten years in farming. He served a while in the 
 Revolutionary struggle and passed back and forth as a pioneer in Southwestern 
 Virginia and Kentucky. He is pictured as a quiet, thrifty, brown-eyed, peace- 
 loving man. His own granddaughter says he was of a gentle nature, that every- 
 body loved him, that the children ran to meet and kiss him when he came up 
 from Madison to Vernon to visit the family. He had lost an eye, and the children 
 would slip up on his blind side and kiss him, and he would jump up as though 
 surprised, for he had great patience and good humor with children. He was a 
 pioneer Baptist preacher, rode horseback everywhere, and was the great peace- 
 maker of his denomination. Perhaps the most significant impersonation of him 
 in a pageant would be as a pioneer man of God. His wife, Elizabeth, would 
 make an amusing contrast, for she was an outstanding character, who overawed 
 the grandchildren. She was a brisk and precise housekeeper, chasing flies out 
 
 Rev. Beverly Vawter, (1789-1872) cousin of John Vawter 
 and founder of the Vernon Christian Church. A strong 
 and original character and contemporary pastor with John 
 Finley Crowe. 
 
 of her house and down to the Ohio River. She scrubbed even the stumps in 
 her dooryard, people said. She was an intrepid companion of her husband across 
 the mountains to Kentucky, and was the mother of this unusual family. The 
 one typical scene in their migration would be a campfire in the woods and the 
 fireside at home in the cabin. Fire was a typical, characteristic word to them. 
 Jesse Vawter was converted sometime after he heard a sermon on the text from 
 Isaiah, "Who among us shall dwell with devouring fire; who among us shall 
 dwell with everlasting burnings?" He sought peace a good while before he 
 found it, but the Pillar of Cloud by day and the Pillar of Fire by night guided 
 him and his family in their pioneer pilgrimages as surely as they did Israel of 
 old. Fire was not only symbolic of punishment but of purification; and the 
 most impressive scene on their migration from Virginia to Kentucky is thus de- 
 scribed by Jesse Vawter's son John, who was a lad of eight years when they 
 crossed the mountains in 1790: 
 
156 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 "We waited at Bean's Station for additional immigrants to meet and in- 
 crease the safety of the company in their march through the wilderness. They 
 did not come. While at the station we were greatly alarmed one night by some 
 cow-drivers throwing a bundle of cane on the fire. It made a great noise while 
 burning. We decided to move on, though few in number. I remember that a 
 raven for several days advanced ahead of us, alighting on the trees and keeping 
 up a continual squawking. * * * I remember well seeing bones of individuals 
 who had been killed by the Indians and their bodies buried so close to the 
 surface that the wolves had dragged them out of the Indian blinds, behind 
 which they concealed themselves. These were made of bushes stuck in the ground. 
 At the time we saw them the bushes were dry." 
 
 JOHN VAWTER OF VERNON 
 
 Coming now to the life story of John Vawter, we could picture him in the 
 primitive backwoods school, with the run and frolic of locking out the teacher 
 and also getting a whipping, undeserved, for being accused of cutting off the 
 tails of the teacher's pigs. He determined to whip the teacher in revenge when 
 grown up; but John gave up the idea as he got older. He was also a primitive 
 mill-boy, like Henry Clay, and had more than one severe fall from a horse 
 enroute over the rocky roads. Jesse Vawter and six or eight other Kentuckians 
 from Franklin and Scott Counties migrated to Port William, or Carrolton, on 
 the Ohio, and in a pirogue floated down to the site of Madison, opposite Mil- 
 ton, at the very beginning of the last century. The pirogue carried their pro- 
 vision and the horses swam the river at the side. They camped in the woods 
 at the upper end of Madison, and by day divided into companies and explored 
 up and down and around Hanover, Clifty Falls and other points so familiar 
 now to the tourist of our time. 
 
 PAGEANT SCENES OF INDIAN DAYS 
 
 In the First Day Scene of the settlement of Old Vernon, we would picture 
 John Vawter there in 1813, with rifle on shoulder, strikingly like Daniel 
 Boone as an explorer. He stands in contemplation of the beautiful woods and 
 hills and winding Muscatatuck River. Sensitive to Nature's loveliness, he deter- 
 mined to make this his future home. 
 
 The First Night Scene would be a background of green boughs. John 
 Vawter is by a campfire on an island, heavily wooded with great timber, just 
 south of Vernon. He went to the island at night as a precaution against Indians 
 and wolves. He is toasting his bacon by the campfire. The savory odor draws 
 wolves from the forest. He eats supper with rifle at his feet, looking around 
 cautiously the while. Perhaps he has more fear of wolves than of Indians 
 because the wolves were at hand howling hungrily. So he kindles a circle of 
 flame around him and lies down to rest. This seems to have been while building 
 the solitary cabin on the site of Vernon before his family came. 
 
 The Second Day Scene of the Vernon settlement pictures John Vawter 
 with surveying instruments leaving home for his work as U. S. Surveyor in 
 the woods. He perhaps had companions staying with him in the cabin who 
 assisted in the surveying. "He planted the town in 1815 and moved there 
 
PAGEANT EPISODES OF OLD VERNON TOWN 
 
 157 
 
 the same year," says the historian. "At this time there was but one white family 
 in Jennings county. In this wilderness Col. Vawter left his young wife and 
 little children while he went upon his surveying tours, giving them strict in- 
 structions that no Indians be allowed to enter the house or get any liquor. 
 
 "One day. soon after Col. Vawter left home, two Indians came to the 
 door, and, pushing in without leave, demanded firewater. Mrs. Vawter told 
 them she had none for them, and to appease their anger brought out some 
 ribbon. They were delighted with the gift of a yard or two apiece of orange 
 colored ribbon. Smith Vawter, the small son of Col. Vawter, was sitting in 
 the chimney corner watching the savages with absorbing interest, when one of 
 them suddenly sprang to his feet, with a blood-curdling war-whoop and swing- 
 ing his tomahawk high in the air, stood with it poised over the boy's head for 
 what seemed an age to the boy, who thought his time had come, but who looked 
 the savage calmly in the eye. The Indian dropped the tomahawk and sat 
 down, saying that he was a brave boy and would make a heap good Indian. 
 
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 OLD VERNON CHRISTIAN CHURCH 
 Founded by Rev. Beverley Vawter. 
 
 The Indians then ransacked the cabin for liquor and, finding a treasured bottle 
 of peach brandy, each took a drink, and generously leaving the bottle, departed." 
 The Third Day Scene would represent the Indian Chief who controlled 
 the entire region around Madison and Vernon. Says the historian: "This country 
 belonged to old Captain White Eyes and his breed. White Eyes pretended to 
 be a big chief and friendly to the whites, but there was no dependence in him. 
 He was a bold-looking jockey, rather sassy, about thirty years old and not short 
 of six feet in height. He wore the Indian garb — breech clout, leggings and 
 moccasins, with a blanket thrown over his shoulders. His leggings were of dark 
 blue or black woolen cloth; they knew what was good and wouldn't buy it 
 if it wasn't. His hair was long and black and had buzzard's quills stuck around 
 in it. He always carried a gun and a tomahawk. His tomahawk was made with 
 a pipe in the pole. He was the biggest Indian in his tribe, the Pottawattomies. 
 The tribe came from out on the Wabash. There were well on to a hundred 
 with White Eyes." 
 
15; 
 
 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 Indian habits are thus described: The camp was on a little knoll. All about 
 it the bark was pulled off the trees and set on end for shelter. Trees were 
 peeled as high as they could reach for a good bit around, as they had about 
 fifteen wigwams. Indians wouldn't go into a house and sit down in a chair 
 to eat from a table — they would get down on their knees around the table 
 and take things off the plates with their hands. They mostly ate meat." The 
 red men are then pictured as eating off one end of a meat chunk with the dogs 
 gnawing at the other. Indians thought highly of their dogs. It is a peculiar 
 fact that John Vawter had a positive antipathy towards dogs and tobacco, 
 which may have originated in the repulsive sights and incidents he witnessed 
 among the red men. An amusing word about this is given by the Vawter 
 historian: 
 
 "Col. Vawter was very particular about his person. He had a clean shave 
 every morning and bathed his feet every night before going to bed. Chief among 
 
 Old Vernon Methodist Church, organized in 1S17 at the 
 Prather Home on the Hinchman Farm of later years. 
 Camp meeting's were held there. The Prathers came from 
 Cbarlestown. The earliest pastors on record were Henry 
 Buell (1827), J. T. Johnson (1828), John Kearns (1S29). 
 Isaac Elshury (1831), Joshua Law (1833), T. Gunn (1834), 
 W. W. Hibben (1832). Geo. K. Hester (1836, Miles Huf- 
 faker (1837), Coustaub B. Jones (1838). This church has 
 many noble traditions of outstanding- families in Vernon 
 history. 
 
 the peculiarities of Col. Vawter was an intense antipathy to dogs and to 
 tobacco. If a friend called at his home, who had unfortunately allowed his dog 
 to follow him, he was left standing at the door with outstretched hand while 
 his host gave chase to the dog and securely fastened it without the gate. He 
 sometimes descended from the lofty pulpit of the old Baptist church, in the 
 midst of his sermon, in pursuit of an unlucky canine that had chanced to wander 
 in. He would chase it around and out of the door, then would mount the steps 
 and go on preaching as if that were part of the program. 
 
 "At the Baptist Association once in Vernon Col. Vawter, who was very 
 hospitable, said: 'Now I have a new house out here, and I want you all to come 
 to my house for dinner. I will entertain you every one and you are welcome: 
 but I don't want any one to bring dogs or to spit on my clean floors.' 
 
CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 3ttfei*ttt Wtrsm ®( \%\% Sitt&mm l%$ CSHt** 
 
 f^^^* HERE was a James Burns who married a Mariah Vawter. He was 
 ■ ■•% born in Virginia and came to Kentucky in a wagon with the 
 %.! J pioneers in 1794. He removed to Ohio some years later and was 
 "* in Fort Washington on the site of Cincinnati when only a few 
 
 scattering houses stood in the vicinity. He was in the Ohio militia enrolled to fight 
 off the red men, and he took part in the attempt to intercept Aaron Burr on 
 his way to New Orleans. James Burns came to Madison, Indiana, in 1814 from 
 Cincinnati with two other men and their families on a roofed-over flat-boat 
 one hundred feet long. It took three days to make the trip. Madison was as 
 primitive then as Cincinnati. Burns said as they went up town from the flat- 
 boat they found everybody sitting around watching for Indians. The terror of 
 the recent Pigeon Roost Massacre over in Scott County, Indiana, above where 
 Underwood now stands, was still upon the pioneers like a spell. Burns and his 
 companions took their guns and set out to explore the country to the north 
 of Madison some miles. There was a block house on Clifty Creek and one on 
 Harbert's Creek, near the present little village of Wirt. The people at the Har- 
 bert Creek blockhouse took them for Indians and closed the gates on them. 
 It took a lot of helloing to convince the fort folks that they were friendly, as 
 they were eyed suspiciously even when they entered. William Harbert, the 
 first white settler in this region, had come with his family in 1811, before 
 the War of 1812 began; and even as late as 1814, when this man Burns moved 
 out to Wirt with his family, the whole community was in a panic of fear from 
 the red men. Says he: 
 
 "We all lived in the block-house and were in continual fear of the Indians. 
 Every night we kept guard, and Judge Dunn of Hanover passed once or twice 
 each week with his rangers. The Indians came in sight frequently, threatening 
 us. Several persons that had wandered off in the woods hunting disappeared 
 and were never afterwards heard of, no doubt having been murdered or carried 
 away by the Indians. The block-house stood about fifteen rods east of my late 
 residence at Wirt. * * * * The block-house was a square inclosure about one- 
 half an acre. In each of the four corners were log houses built unusually strong. 
 The upper part hung over on the outside to prevent the Indians climbing up 
 on the roof, and all the sides were pierced with port holes. There were other 
 houses close up to the picket walls, which served to strengthen the pickets. 
 The picket was a fence of high, heavy posts driven in the ground and sharpened 
 on the ends. There was a gate on the north side of the fort and one on the 
 east. Inside the fort was a hollow square, all the houses being close up to the 
 walls." 
 
160 
 
 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 The block-house was built for the safety of the families who settled in 
 the vicinity of Wirt, so that they could come together for united defense in 
 case of Indian attack. A fine spring of water was close at hand. Buckskin breeches 
 and hunting shirts were the garb of the men. There was abundance of game and 
 the entire country was being disputed between the whites and Indians. This 
 was the region ruled over by Old White Eyes and his red men followers. They 
 possessed ponies to transport their stuff. Old White Eyes was well mounted. 
 The squaws carried the corn in a bucket swung over their backs, with the ends 
 supported against their foreheads. The red men traded when there was not open 
 war with the whites: and they brought jugs for liquor. They usually got well 
 filled before they left the white settlements. Old White Eyes was never without 
 
 John Lattimore, Born March 1, 1778, Died September 11, 1859. The first 
 pioneer of Old Graham Presbyterian Church, Jennings County, Indiana. 
 Settled upon the opposite bank of Graham Creek in 1811. One of the first 
 settlers and elders in the old church there, where he lived and died. He and 
 his family came from the Carolinas when the Indians were still hostile about 
 Madison. Friendly red men gave him warning- one time to remove his 
 family to the block house in Madison and escape massacre. His wife. 
 Isabella, was born July 27, 1782, and died February 16, 182,1. These pioneers 
 came from Virginia, the CaroUinas, Tennessee and Kentucky, where they 
 had been God-fearing people. Old Graham Church was first a log house. 
 John Lattimore and family, Walter Carson and family, James Mitchell and 
 wife and. Thomas Graham and family settled nearest to the church. These 
 families, with seventeen persons, make up the first membership. 
 
 some thirty or forty or a hundred warriors as a rule: but as the deadly hatred 
 engendered by the Pigeon Roost Massacre cooled off a little he felt safe in 
 roving about with a much smaller number. It seems that this massacre practi- 
 cally terminated the open conflict with the whites, though the hostile feeling 
 lasted a long while. Here is what one old settler says about it, giving at the 
 same time a graphic picture of the Big Chief in question: 
 
 "After the Pigeon Roost Massacre we had no further trouble with hostile 
 Indians. The friendly ones, however, were continually prowling around doing 
 all the mischief in their power. The Indians frequently cut across our land 
 when out hunting. One day a party of eight or ten came along, and all were 
 
PAGEANT EPISODES OF OLD VERNON TOWN 
 
 161 
 
 drunk but one. Old White Eyes was with them. They had not gone far before 
 I heard a crash, and looking around I saw that one Indian had fallen off his 
 horse and was sprawling on the ground with his five or six guns about him. 
 The sober one spent some time trying to get him mounted, but before his task 
 was accomplished quite a crowd of spectators had assembled, who enjoyed the 
 fun very much. 
 
 "Shortly after this Old White Eyes entered a house and found a woman 
 making soap. By threatening her he compelled her to drink a half pint of strong 
 lye and then left. Her husband returned in a few moments and gave her an 
 emetic which relieved her sufferings. Then the husband gathered together two 
 or three men and went in search of the Indian, intending to kill him, but failed 
 
 Old Graham Presbyterian Church, mother church of all others of this 
 faith in Jennings; County, Indiana. The pastors were: Nathan B. Derrow, 
 organizer, August 10, 1817. Then came Rev. John Parsons, 1832, assisted by 
 Rev. Mr. Gray, John F. Crowe and Dr. Blythe, 1833-34. Rev. G. B. Bishop 
 and Rev. Wm. Bell, 1835. Rev. Daniel Lattimore, son of John Lattimore, 
 called in 1836, assisted by others, as he was pastor of the Vernon Church. 
 Rev. Mr. Dunning-, the cultured and scholarly teacher of Vernion Academy, 
 came in 1848. Rev. J. M. Stone in 1854. Rev. John B. Sage in 1855. Pastor 
 Lattimore continued the active pastor, with these others assisting-, for about 
 twenty years. The present buil'ding was completed and paid for from 1852 
 to 1857 under Pastor Lattimore. Rev. J. L. MoKeehan and C. K. Thompson 
 1868. Jas. McjRea and J. C. Burt served between 1868-1881. In 1881 the 
 Rev. Walter O. Lattimore, son of Daniel Laftimore, conducted the greatest 
 revival in the history of the church. Even the mud and rain had no effect 
 on the people; and the church was fully restored. In 100 years 26 ministers 
 served 500 members and 12 ministers went out from the church. Rev. Daniel 
 Simpson, the present pastor, is a namesake of Daniel Lattimore, and one 
 of 4 ministers descended from old pioneer John Lattimore. The Centennial 
 Anniversary, August 10, 1917, was a great reunion and time of rejoicing, 
 with a sermon by Rev. Henry H. Rogers and a sketch of the church by 
 Wialter M. Carson. 
 
 to find him. Shortly afterwards, White Eyes turned up in Scott county, to the 
 terror of all the inhabitants. Old Doctor Hicks, thinking to rid them of him, 
 gave him poison in whiskey, but gave him too much; and, instead of having 
 the desired effect, it acted as an emetic. White Eyes did not appreciate such 
 hospitality and left for 'parts unknown.'" 
 
 From other pioneer recollections in the Vawter Family History we gather 
 tradition of the gradual disappearance of the red men from the region between 
 Vernon and iVadison. Thomas Roseberry, of Graham Township, said: "When 
 
162 
 
 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 the Pigeon Roost Massacre occurred the settlers were terror-stricken and went 
 to the block-house on the farm of George Campbell. During these alarming 
 times the farmers guarded the women with guns in hand while the cows were 
 being milked. Guns were also carried on plows while plowing the ground. Old 
 White Eyes visited our folks sometimes, after the massacre, and pretended to be 
 friendly. He always had an aversion to white babies, and he said that all those 
 whose heads were not shaped to suit him ought to be tomahawked." 
 
 A certain Col. Hiram Prather, who lived in Jennings county, Indiana, 
 gives us unusual light on the camping-place and final migration of the red men 
 from that vicinity: "The Indians were encamped on the South Ford of the 
 Muscatatuck Creek, their camp extending several miles up the creek. They were 
 under the control of Captain White Eyes and Big John. Bill Killbuck seemed 
 
 Rev. Daniel Lattimore, born in North Carolina, February 21, 1804, died 
 as pastor of Old Vernon and Graham Churches, March 7, 1857. His wife, 
 Martha Lattimore, was born in 1803 and died in 1877. He was a giant In 
 stature and had a spllendid mind; but the chances for education were few. 
 He was one of the first five pupils under Rev. John Finley Crowe at Han- 
 over when the college was founded. He was living on the farm, married 
 and the father of two children when his conversion and call to the ministry 
 changed his whole life. He paid for his living and education by his manual 
 labor. He entered "the school of the prophets" at Hanover, which afterward 
 grew into MoCormick Theological Seminary at Chicago. He became a splen- 
 did preacher and most loveable pastor and remained true to his home 
 churches and people until his untimely death at Vernon in 1857. 
 
 to be their chief. He was half white, could read and write, and was the son 
 of Old Killbuck, who was killed by Captain Collins near the Pigeon Roost 
 Settlement the evening before the Massacre. These Indians were Delawarcs and 
 Potawattomies. In the spring of 1817 they left their camp and by hundreds 
 passed our cabin going west. They used to trade with our folks, selling bjskcts. 
 dressed skins, bead work, etc." 
 
 Now this account of the red men in the vicinity of Old Vernon and Madi- 
 son is anything but idyllic. It is not only colored by the inevitable race antipathy 
 of the time, but the Indian people are pictured as cunning, drunken and degen- 
 
PAGEANT EPISODES OF OLD VERNON TOWN 
 
 163 
 
 crate wretches who should have been exterminated without mercy or remorse. 
 But today, one hundred years after the passions and prejudices and untruth of 
 the fierce grapple between the whites for possession and the red men against 
 being dispossessed of their ancestral hold on the soil of the Ohio Valley, we may 
 republish here a story that was told of the Pigeon Roost Massacre which throws 
 an entirely different light upon the entire period and episode of history. We 
 append this story entire from another volume of home history: 
 
 "And now again we come to the story of the Pigeon Roost Massacre, 
 which occurred September 3, 1812, twenty-three miles north of Jeffersonville, 
 near the present site of Underwood and Vienna, and spread such terror through- 
 out all Southern Indiana and Kentucky. History has long agitated the question 
 who was responsible for this massacre. We gave the authentic story in the open- 
 ing chapter of our history some years ago; but recent research has unearthed an 
 invaluable version which a writer in the Indianapolis News gathered from local 
 tradition a few years ago, and which we give here, with full credit to the author: 
 
 THE LATTTMORE HOME, VERNON. 
 Old Presbyterian Manse, opposite church. 
 
 "Soon after the Battle of Tippecanoe, November 11, 1811, there drifted 
 into Union Township, in the northwest part of Clark county, a band of fifty 
 Indians with their squaws and children, headed by a chief, according to the 
 word handed down by descendants of Clark county pioneers. He was tall, well- 
 built, strong, and in the prime of manhood. His face was of the classical Roman 
 type. He was a man of dignity, taciturnity, and sternness. He had only one wife. 
 to whom he was devoted, and besides her he had a beautiful daughter and two 
 stalwart sons. It was whispered among the Indians that he had been at the battle 
 of Fallen Timber, where the Indians were defeated by Mad Anthony Wayne, 
 and that he had joined Tecumseh and the Prophet and fought at Tippecanoe. 
 The Indians of his band — Delawares — assert that he had been a chief, wise in 
 council, great in war, splendid in oratory, and second only to Tecumseh. How- 
 ever, he never spoke of himself to a white man. Indeed, he seldom spoke to 
 the whites. 
 
 "In Union Township he and his followers squatted on a farm owned by 
 the father of George Townsend, grandfather of Mrs. H. Freeman, of Indian- 
 
164 
 
 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 apolis. He was known as Chief Killbuck. He was a great hunter and trapper, 
 and was often seen chasing game, but the whites were not familiar with him, 
 for they feared him, although he had given them no cause for apprehension. 
 It is told that he was strictly honorable in all his dealings and insisted on the 
 same course from his men; and he was careful to give no offense. It is quite 
 certain that no neighbor suffered at his hands. 
 
 Rev. Walter O. Lattimore, Evangelist, son of Rev. Daniel Lattimore, 
 lived in the Manse at Vernon. Educated there and volunteered with his 
 brothers in 1861, becoming First Lieutenant in the Union Army. At the 
 timo under 18 years of age and never had been away from home influences. 
 Had never tasted liquor or played cards. His regiment w<as officered by 
 young men old in dissipation. He gave way to temptation very soon and 
 laughed at the cautions of wiser men. He became the slave of evil habits 
 and when he resigned from the Army in 1S70 he made a desperate effort 
 to straighten up. He had a terrible struggle for six years. He seems to 
 have married and reared children, for his people tell how his wife left him 
 till he could do better; and one night his little girl, who remained with 
 him, was his only solace. He had secreted poison or a pistol to end his 
 misery that night, but his little girl calling for her mother softened him. 
 so that he regained self-control and postponed the dreadful deed of self- 
 destruction. In the fall of 1876 he had gone on his way to the Northwest 
 to escape from home and loved ones with the promise to be a better man. 
 But in Chicago he gave up to the wildest debauchery and dissipation. He 
 destroyed all evidence of identity; but by chance dropped into the tabernacle 
 of Whittle and Bliss. He was stupified with liquor and hated the sight 
 of human beings. Ira D. Sankey was singing the stanza: 
 
 "Sowing the seed of a ling-ering pain; 
 Sowing the seed of a maddened brain; 
 Sowing the seed of a tarnished name; 
 Sowing the seed of Eternal Shame; 
 Oh, what shall the harvest be?" 
 
 The soul;- brought Old Vernon and all the tender home ties back to 
 memory; and he rushed out of the Tabernacle like a hunted animal. For two 
 weeks he fought against his convictions, but finally, on his knees he gave up 
 to God. His conversion and call to the ministry constitute a wonderful story 
 of saving grace. 
 
PAGEANT EPISODES OF OLD VERNON TOWN 165 
 
 "Trouble, however, was inevitable. The buffalo had disappeared; the deer 
 and other game became scarce; the little patches of corn could not, in the nature 
 of things, keep the Indian band alive. In addition, the Delawares must have 
 felt the soreness of defeat and the whites' injustice, which had deprived them 
 of their land and possessions. In the trading of pelts for meal and other neces- 
 sities, they were often cheated. 
 
 "During the winter after their coming, an incident occurred which nearly 
 fanned the smouldering ill-feeling among the bucks into a flame. One day a 
 young man, a runner, dissappeared, and the Indians accused the whites of kill- 
 ing the boy. The whites, in a fear and trembling, wished to prove their innocence, 
 and took the trail with the Indians. The trail disappeared at a sycamore tree 
 on the bank of Wolfe Creek, where the town of Henryville now stands. Again, 
 an attempt was made to find some trace. Finally, one of the settlers who halted 
 at the tree, heard a feeble scratching in the tree. He obtained a hatchet and found 
 the tree hollow. The Indian, starved and exhausted, had climbed the tree after 
 a coon and had fallen in. 
 
 "Almost immediately after this incident, which frightened the settlers, a 
 tragedy followed, five miles east of Killbuck Camp, but evidently neither he 
 nor his men were responsible for it. At the headwaters of Silver Creek, near 
 Henryville, an old man, Huffman, was standing in the door of his log house 
 one Sunday evening, when there was suddenly a crack of a rifle and he fell 
 dead. His wife and daughter, trying to escape by the back door, were also killed. 
 A young son was carried away captive. Another son hid in a hollow log and 
 escaped. The case of the captured boy attracted national attention; and twelve 
 years later, Jonathan Jennings, then Congressman, obtained $500 for his ran- 
 som, and the young man, by that time twenty-one years old, was brought back 
 from Canada, where he had been sold to French traders. 
 
 "For a time he lived with Colonel Jesse B. Durham, at Vallonia, Jackson 
 county, but he preferred the wild life and soon disappeared. Inquiry for him 
 and descendents was made through local papers twenty years ago but with- 
 out result. Killbuck and his people were at once suspected of these murders, but 
 were evidently not guilty. They were more probably committed by a roving 
 band from the North. But though Killbuck held his followers under strict hand, 
 the tension was near the breaking-point: and if local tradition is right, it cul- 
 minated in the Pigeon Roost Massacre, in which twenty-four persons, (three 
 men, five women and sixteen children) lost their lives near Vienna, Scott county. 
 
 "Locally, the story was that Killbuck had bargained with William Collins 
 for a peck of corn meal, but when he came to his wigwam and emptied the 
 sack, he found it was half full of bran. Then he flew into a rage, denounced 
 the whites as the robbers of the Indians' lands, requiring the red men to eat bran. 
 
 "Thirty of his bucks are said to have disappeared from the camp on the 
 evening before the massacre, and they, it is believed, committed the slaughter in 
 revenge for the insult to their chief. William Collins and Captain John Nor- 
 ris, however, defended themselves successfully in one of the houses of the set- 
 tlement and escaped, when darkness came, to the home of Zebulon Collins. 
 This version is vigorously denied by the descendants of Collins, who blame the 
 Delawares from White River for the massacre. It is related that men under 
 Captain Parker pursued the ravagers, but old settlers do not credit this, asserting 
 
166 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 that everybody was too badly frightened to go far from home, and that most 
 of the people had taken refuge in the stockades and forts that dotted the country. 
 
 "The massacre of the garrisons and the people of Fort Dearborn (Chicago) 
 occurred August 7, and the attack on Fort Harrison (Terre Haute) occurred 
 almost at the same hour as the Pigeon Roost outrage. Fort Wayne was besieged 
 about the same time. 
 
 "Of course in these latter affairs Killbuck's band could have had no hand 
 if indeed they were principals, or had part in, the murder of Pigeon Roost. 
 The settlers were too much afraid of him. Six months after the massacre he 
 and his band disappeared." 
 
 The History of Clark county, Indiana, published some forty odd years 
 ago, gives us older traditions of the Pigeon Roost Massacre which illumine the 
 hidden and mysterious motives of it and give the local tragedy its proper place 
 in the general story of the War of 1812. Says this older tradition: 
 
 "For sometime previous to the year 1811 the Indians of the Northwest 
 had manifested no little unfriendliness toward the whites of the Frontier. This 
 enmity was encouraged and aggravated by the British, in prospect of the war 
 that soon after broke out between this country and England. Tecumseh, the 
 leader among the dissatisfied Indians of Canada and the Northwest, visited the 
 tribes of the South and Southwest for the purpose of stirring them up against 
 the whites, and of securing their co-operation in striking a terrible blow upon 
 the frontier settlements. Governor Harrison, being informed of the schemes of 
 this cunning Indian warrior, and knowing his influence with the various tribes, 
 proceeded up the Wabash with an armed force for the purpose of enforcing 
 the treaty of Greenville, or of making some new treaty by which the frontiers 
 should be protected from Indian depredations. He was successful in driving them 
 from their towns and in destroying their property. But when the war with 
 England began in 1812, they renewed their hostilities. Being supplied by the 
 Britishers with arms and ammunition, they were enabled to wage a much more 
 destructive warfare upon the whites than they had done before." 
 
 In looking up these traditions we have come upon the fact that "vast 
 numbers of the citizens" of Clark county crossed the river into Oldham and 
 Jefferson counties for safety from the red men. Those who came to Oldham 
 county seem to have taken refuge at the Magruder-Belknap home, which was 
 the chief fortress in this section. In a previous narrative we gave another story 
 of the Pigeon Roost Massacre, long ago current across the river, which differs 
 widely in several particulars from some we have already closely studied and pub- 
 lished. But in the main these several accounts reveal the fundamental race hos- 
 tilities that were fanned into flame by the British in the War of 1812. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 >ife ZbtabtntQ &nh piiglt ji^Wol in ^txm&n 
 
 ^S^^^* HE story of the Old Vernon Academy is a most typical and impres- 
 ■ I *^ sive chapter in the great struggle against ignorance and barbarism 
 Vl/ waged in every frontier community of Southern Indiana long years ago. 
 
 mM The Rev. Nathan B. Dcrrow, a New England Home Missionary, who 
 
 founded the Old Graham Presbyterian Church in Jennings County in 1817, was per- 
 haps more deeply conscious of the need of schools and teacheis among the car.y pioneers 
 than was any otheif evangel of the gospel in all the Hoosier Backwoods. We 
 first find mention on record of Mr. Derrow's name as a pioneer pastor at Homer, 
 New York. He remained there several years, where his labors were blessed with 
 successive revivals, as the historian tells us. Then "the impulse of the wave of 
 emigration bore him on to Western Ohio and Indiana." He organized several 
 new churches in Ohio. Then the record says: 
 
 "In 1816, Charles Robinson, sent out by one of the New York Missionary 
 Societies to labor in Missouri, passed through this region. He found in the Ter- 
 ritories of Indiana and Illinois but one settled pastor and five or six missionaries. 
 In June of the same year Rev. Nathan B. Derrow, for seven years an efficient 
 missionary of the Connecticut Society in the Western Reserve, of Ohio, left 
 that field to accept a missionary appointment to Indiana and Illinois. He passed 
 through Ohio by circuitous route to Jeffersonville, Indiana. Here he spent a 
 few weeks, thence proceeding north to Fort Harrison, then down the Wabash 
 on his tour of exploration. 
 
 BACKWOODS IGNORANCE LONG AGO 
 
 "He found the field at once destitute and inviting. Although the country 
 was yet but thinly settled, additions to the population were continual and 
 great. Illiterate and enthusiastic preachers were numerous. He was deeply affected 
 and distressed by the extreme ignorance which prevailed, especially among the 
 first settlers and their children. In every direction, he said, many whole families 
 were to be found without a book of any sort. The population was extremely 
 heterogeneous. Many belonged to the hunting class. In a large number of instances, 
 extreme indigence was connected with extreme ignorance. When tracts were pre- 
 sented by the missionary he was asked to read them by those who declared they 
 could not read themselves. The state of general intelligence was humiliatingly 
 low. The people were just in a condition to become the prey of the false teachers. 
 
 "Mr. Derrow commenced his labors with energy, and was instrumental 
 in organizing four Bible Societies — three in Indiana and one in Illinois. As 
 immigration increased the more unsettled and nomadic classes moved to more 
 distant regions. Orderly government began to be established and reorganized. The 
 Legislature enacted laws frowning upon vice and immorality." 
 
168 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 OLD GRAHAM CHURCH 
 
 Mention is then made of Mr. Derrow organizing a church in Jennings 
 county, Indiana, evidently the one at Graham, and also one in Jackson county. 
 This latter must have been a very early group of Presbyterians who afterward 
 disbanded, as no trace of them was to be found in local tradition long after- 
 ward. Mr. Derrow was encouraged with the results of his labors. He was received 
 with marked kindness by the pioneer people, and while he records no great 
 revivals, nevertheless individual conversions were numerous and genuine under 
 his ministry; and in 1816 he planted the Presbyterian church at Rising Sun, 
 and in 1817 the one at Graham, with seventeen members. Judge Dunn, the 
 Presbyterian pioneer from Danville, Kentucky, was then living at Hanover, and 
 Mr. Derrow had preached in his neighborhood. He made the circuit of Jennings 
 county and found those sturdy Carolinians and New Englanders and perhaps 
 Pennsylvania Dutch settled here and there. The Presbyterians being at that time 
 more numerous around Graham than at Vernon, the Mother Church of Jennings 
 county was at Graham. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Rev. William Robinson, mentioned at the outset, had been 
 located at Madison two or three years, where he taught school and in the sum- 
 mer of 1815, organized a Presbyterian church with about fifteen or twenty 
 members. We thus see the Pastor-Teacher as a herald of light and civilization 
 wherever he came. Miss Annie F. Carney, Mr. E. E. Alcott, and County Sup- 
 erintendent Shepherd Whitcomb, of Jennings county, have searched out and 
 presented the facts of the Old Vernon Academy in a most striking narrative. 
 The impress of Miss Carney's cultured mind, as a long resident teacher at Vernon, 
 is very discernible in this account, published in the Annual Report of the State 
 Superintendent of Public Instruction for 1917: 
 
 ROCKY SOIL AND RUGGED MEN 
 
 "The fact that from sterile soil and rocky hills and mountains, come the 
 leaders in the world's history finds illustration in Jennings county. The rich 
 
 central counties look rather disdainfully on our yellow clay and stony hillsides. 
 yet an investigation will generally develop the fact that Jennings county, and 
 especially Vernon, through the early schools has produced the men who have fur- 
 nished their towns and cities with some of their most public spirited and pro- 
 gressive business and professional leaders, who perhaps more than balance the 
 scales against hogs and corn. 
 
 "Vernon, the picturesque peninsula city, was settled by cultured Southern 
 and Eastern pioneers. John Vawter, the founder, laid out the town, and later 
 in August 1817, the first town lots were sold. At this time certain lots were 
 donated by Vawter and McClure for churches, schools, and a public play-ground 
 known as 'The Commons' was deeded forever to the children of Vernon. 'The 
 
 Commons' bounded on the east and north by the fair Muscatatuck and beautiful 
 hills, is an ideal play-ground. Near the Commons John Vawter built in 1817 
 
 a cabin for a school house, and the Rev. Joel Butler, an aged Baptist preacher 
 of New York State, taught the first school. 
 
 "Mr. Butler's son, Chauncy Butler, and family had come to this new 
 territory in 1816, and the father had come to visit, and occupied the time teach- 
 ing the few pioneer children. Ovid Butler, the founder of Butler College, was 
 a son of Chauncey Butler. 
 
PAGEANT EPISODES OF OLD VERNON TOWN 
 
 169 
 
 "Soon afterward Mrs. Lard came from the East to the little cabin school 
 house to teach the school. Mrs. Lard had united with a Baptist church in her 
 native state, Vermont, when a young girl, and the Rev. Joel Butler had baptized 
 her. Mrs. Lard lived in the cabin school house, 'kept a boarder' and taught 
 school. Mrs. Lard's plan of teaching was individual, each pupil standing at her 
 knee to receive instruction and to recite. Many interesting things have been writ- 
 ten of this school, and of the characteristics of this teacher." 
 
 EARLY BAPTIST TEACHERS 
 
 We thus see that the credit of establishing the first "grammar school" in 
 Vernon belongs to John Vawter and the early Baptist teachers just mentioned. 
 The next step connects the opening of the "Jennings County Seminary" with 
 Presbyterian traditions out of which Hanover College was formed. The 
 year 1822 finds this Seminary mentioned in the county records; and Andrew 
 Porter, Clerk of Session in the newly organized Presbyterian church, May 11th, 
 
 Vernon's Earliest Academy Building-, according- to tradition. 
 
 1825, is named as an accomplished "Preceptor" in the town, though not as 
 a teacher in the Seminary. His penmanship was much admired; and he was 
 evidently a man versed in the graces and refinements of life. The Rev. Daniel 
 Lattimore, pastor of the Presbyterian church in Vernon after the Rev. John 
 Finley Crowe, is also named as the first teacher in Vernon to give private lessons 
 in Latin to the youth of the town. There is no exact date given when the Sem- 
 inary building was completed, "but it was in the early thirties." Hence the 
 traditional influence of Dr. Crowe and Hanover College undoubtedly merits 
 special mention here. From 1825 to 183 7 Rev. Dr. Crowe seems to have been 
 the regular pastor of the church, as the name of Rev. Mr. Lattimore does not 
 appear on sessional records until March 11th, 1837. Hence the school historians 
 who describe Mr. Lattimore as pasctor from 1825 to 1837, and as giving his 
 private lessons in Latin during that time, are in error. Did Dr. Crowe, who 
 was himself the pastor during that precise period, and a most accomplhiscd 
 
170 
 
 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 scholar and teacher, give such lessons while in Vernon? Or did Mr. Lattimore 
 teach a Latin class at Vernon during Dr. Crowe's pastorate there, and then con- 
 tinue such instruction when he became Dr. Crowe's successor? We do not know 
 with any certainty; but Presbyterian influence in establishing the classical basis 
 of the Vernon Academy was evidenced by the fact that the old brick parsonage 
 occupied by Mr. Lattimore during his residence as a pastor and teacher stands 
 right across from the Presbyterian church, and the Academy itself was just 
 across the street from the parsonage, being the brick house now occupied by 
 County Superintendent Shepherd Whitcomb. 
 
 At all events, the "grade schools" of Vernon were the little brick cottage 
 up against the railroad bank, occupied now by Mrs. Balser, and another brick 
 cottage two doors beyond the home of Rev. Daniel Simpson and his sister, Mrs. 
 Carson. The first brick-built Academy served until a later, more commodious 
 structure was put up in 1859. That first Academy was mainly a subscription 
 school, and the charge was from one to two dollars for a term of thirteen weeks. 
 
 
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 "The Old Academy" of 1859 and after. So beloved by 
 the pupils who were educated there. It was long- a High 
 School also. 
 
 One of the earliest teachers was a certain Prof. Hamant, "a small, slender 
 man with a cat-like tread that enabled him to steal upon his plotters of mischief 
 unawares till the resounding whack of his ferule was heard." 
 
 The next teacher was a woman who would have pleased Edward Eggleston 
 himself, a Mrs. Stevens, sent out to enlighten the destitute West by a benevolent 
 New England Society. "She was cultured, dignified, and of a lovely character." 
 
 HANOVER SENDS TEACHERS TO VERNON 
 
 In 1842 Hanover College directly supplied the head of the Vernon Academy. 
 A young Mr. Beck was sent, uho introduced algebra for the first lime. In 184 3 
 young William Butler of Hanover College taught the classical branches in the 
 
PAGEANT EPISODES OF OLD VERNON TOWN 171 
 
 Vernon Academy and afterward became a distinguished educator. He was mur- 
 dered in Louisville while head of the High School there, by Matt Ward, whose 
 brother had been punished by Prof. Butler. 
 
 In 1845 the Rev. A. J. Dunning, cultured Presbyterian pastor of Old 
 Graham Church, headed the Vernon Academy. We are informed by the school 
 historians that he was "The Teacher who left an impress upon his pupils which 
 was transmitted unto the third and fourth generation." He was a most gifted 
 scholar in the ancient and modern languages, was right at the top in mathematics, 
 and "education took on a new meaning." He made reading a fine art; he per- 
 mitted a girl to enter the Latin class with the boys; and during his several years 
 at Vernon he brought the Academy to a new standard of excellence. The exhibi- 
 tions given at the close of his school terms were events in Vernon. These exercises 
 were usually held in the Presbyterian church. The program of 1849 is pre- 
 served in which forty persons took part. Mr. Dunning had night classes in 
 chemistry, and his wife taught French and botany. Their influence was per- 
 manent and far-reaching. They organized the first Historical Society in Vernon, 
 the meetings of which were held at their home. The Academy graduates became 
 known as the Dunning Boys and Girls and among the pupils who attained to suc- 
 cess and celebrity were: 
 
 "David Vawter, Banker; Rev. James Read; Hon. Jeptha D. New, member 
 of Congress; Drs. John Tipton Shields and James Sevier Shields; Dr. P. W. 
 Payne; Hon. John C. New; Rev. Dr. W. T. Stott. former President of Franklin 
 College; Rev. Orlando Clark; Hon. Ovid Butler; Hon. Horatio Newcomb of the 
 Grant Administration; Gen. Robert S. Foster and brothers, Wallace, William, 
 Edward and Chapin; Susan Dunning, known as 'Shirley Dare' newspaper woman; 
 Mrs. Mary Peabody Leavitt, poet, lecturer and W. C. T. U. worker." 
 
 The foundations of a new Academy building were laid several years before 
 the Civil War, with much pomp and ceremony, the pupils depositing a copy 
 of the literary society constitution and other articles as mementoes of the occasion. 
 When the New Academy was opened in 1859 Prof. O. Phelps was the Superin- 
 tendent. He was a man who inspired the best in his pupils. Associated with 
 him was a Mrs. Collins, a former Vernon girl, who had graduated from Albion 
 College, Michigan and began her work in Vernon in 1855, continuing for 
 fifteen years. She was a woman of rare personal charm, possessing high intel- 
 lectual and musical attainments. Her pupils, scattered all over the United States 
 and foreign countries, honor her and attribute their success in life to her skilled 
 teaching.' 
 
 WILLIAM H. VENABLE, POET-TEACHER 
 
 The next teacher was a man of rare poetical genius and a mind of very 
 high order — Prof. W. H. Venable, of Cincinnati, Ohio. "He brought much 
 culture and refinement to the pupils and town. He was a writer of verse, 
 historian, author and lecturer. He believed in weekly reports and each week 
 those who had been perfect in their work were reported to the public through the 
 weekly newspaper. Each time the statement is made, 'Our standard is high.' 
 Mr. Venable resigned to become Superintendent of the Chichering Schools at 
 Cincinnati." 
 
172 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 During Prof. Venable's incumbency the literary exercises and training of 
 the youth in self-expression by recitation, dramatic exercises, debating and gen- 
 eral reading, brought the Academy to a memorable level of culture. There were 
 two school papers gotten out; and Friday afternoon was a delightful occasion 
 for the literary entertainment. Prof. Venable's poems often came to him in the 
 school room or after the day's work was done. He wrote also of Nature in the 
 Ohio Valley and was an artist of unerring instinct in the use of words and 
 phrases, as well as a soul of music and rapture close to Nature's heart in the 
 joy of seasons and the exquisite, haunting beauty of his lines. "June on the 
 Miami" was loaned us to read by Miss Cora Carney; and we do not v/onder 
 that such a Poet-Teacher influenced so profoundly the youth of Vernon years 
 ago. 
 
 The names of A. M. Weston, pupil of Horace Mann and a graduate of 
 Antioch College, and of W. H. McCoy, a graduate of Franklin College follow 
 immediately after the Civil War. Perhaps Miss Annie F. Carney left as lasting 
 an impress on young lives as any woman teacher in the Old Academy, for she 
 taught twenty-seven years and she herself incarnated the culture and refinement 
 and nobility of character set before the pupils by precept and example from day 
 to day through all the years. 
 
 ALBERT EDWARD WIGGAM 
 
 Of all the names representing the culture of the Vernon High School per- 
 haps none has attained the reputation in the world of science and human service 
 possessed by Albert Edward Wiggam. Mr. Gudgell, of North Vernon, his old 
 school mate down at Deputy, Indiana, was telling us one winter evening by the 
 fireside of his boyhood days with "Ed" Wiggam, as all his old friends and 
 school fellows love to call him. 
 
 Mr. Wiggam's father was a strong local character at Deputy, worth a good 
 sum of money in those days. He went to Cincinnati on the stock trains to 
 dispose of his stock and traded successfully. He was a man who set a religious 
 value on the church and a cultural value on the school of the town. He and a 
 Mr. Deputy, for whom the town was named, established the Camp Meeting down 
 there forty or fifty years ago. The grounds were down the hill from the rail- 
 road in a beech grove still standing. It was a wonderful center for people from 
 Cincinnati, Louisville, Madison and Seymour, and all the country round. They 
 first went for three weeks then for ten days. The farmers tried to get the work 
 up so they could attend the meetings. You could hear the singing on a still 
 summer night for two miles or more down the creek. 
 
 Bishop Vincent came there and was a great drawing card: and then Dr. 
 Willcts. of Louisville, with his famous lecture "Sunshine." which was really 
 Chautauqua work. It was different from anything of the sort heard up to 
 that time. Thousands attended each year and only recently was the place dis- 
 posed of. This form of religious assemblage and service stimulated the entire 
 community mentally, morally and spiritually; and the modern Chatauqua followed 
 inevitably. 
 
 But Mr. Gudgell insists that the most impressive thing to him was the 
 rise of gifted youth out of the schools. Mr. Wiggam gave no special sign of 
 
PAGEANT EPISODES OF OLD VERNON TOWN 173 
 
 genius but got ready for Hanover College like other boys. He rode back and 
 forth on his wheel and then entered on a struggle for life and health that brought 
 out the astonishing mentality and heroism of this greatest master of the social 
 sciences in all the Middle West. Mr. C. C. Jordan, of Old Vernon Pres- 
 byterian church, insists that he first introduced "Ed" Wiggam to the cultured and 
 charming young teacher who became Mrs. Wiggam and who merits as much 
 appreciation and praise as he in the success that has come with the years. Any- 
 how, Vernon loves them quite as much as they love Vernon. 
 
 The mother of the Wiggam boys died in their early years and the next 
 Mother Wiggam was the widow of Mr. Deputy, for whom the town of Deputy 
 was named. When she moved to Vernon after the death of Father Wiggam 
 at Deputy, it was to get back to her own people and to put her young people 
 in the Vernon High School. Vernon thus became the permanent Wiggam home. 
 Mr. Wiggam said she was one of the greatest mothers of Southern Indiana. She 
 was a true and loving mother to the sons and daughters and they loved her 
 with a devotion that was beautiful. Mr. "Ed" Wiggam now spends his summers 
 and his intervening "creative periods" of writing at the old home in Vernon. 
 
 Summer Home of Albert Edward "Wiggam, the noted 
 writer on Social Science, at "Vernon, Indiana, where he 
 attended High School and which is the dearest of all 
 earthly towns to him still. 
 
 Mr. Gudgell added a lot of color and humor to the background of his 
 story about the rise of education and culture by describing Old Uncle Dan 
 Blotcher, the great pioneer figure who used to attend the Old Settler's Meetin's 
 at Chariestown and Paris Crossing. These were great one day gatherings where 
 thousands of people assembled by trainloads from all the surrounding country. 
 There were genuine old pioneers present, old fiddlers and old grandmothers with 
 their spinning wheels and other curios of the log cabin period. Mr. Gudgell 
 said he was naturally more interested in the side shows and the magic men on 
 the side, who performed for profit. Uncle Dan came of an old Kentucky 
 family and was not learned in books nor correct in his English; but he was a 
 born leader of men. He used to ride into Deputy on a beautiful horse. The 
 town extended all along the railroad and he would ride the entire length of the 
 street at a sweeping gallop, hat in hand, to attract the admiring gaze of every- 
 
174 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 body. Then every town character would come to the place where he hitched 
 his horse and listen for the morning or afternoon to Uncle Dan's inimitable 
 yarns. He was always ready for a little impromptu talk at a Sunday School 
 rally, an Old Settlers' Meetin', a funeral, or a school commencement. He 
 represented his people in the Indiana Legislature and danced in his sock feet at 
 the Governor's Ball. The point of our entire thought is just what Mr. Wiggam 
 has always insisted upon, namely, that the sum of all culture lies in a deep and 
 genuine appreciation and interpretation of strong, original character and people 
 right here at home in Hoosier-Land. 
 
 He said there were many standards of success in the world; but that the 
 most successful person he had ever known or seen was a big, fleshy, flat- f looted, 
 motherly old soul down on one of the razor-back farms such as we have so 
 abundantly in Old Jennings county. When you went to her house you were 
 never aware of want nor harsh necessity. She set a bountiful meal before you 
 and her hospitality and benevolence of spirit were abounding. That good woman 
 was the mother of ten or twelve children, six of whom became ministers and 
 college presidents. She was a genius of resourcefulness in making ends meet 
 and getting her boys by in the battle for an education. Just such mothers of old 
 days sent their sons and daughters to academies like that at Vernon and to 
 Hanover College. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 %ht H0& anh %kt Mhlih 
 
 ONE DAY about the year 1850, Professor Josiah Bliss, superintendent 
 of the Louisville Collegiate Institute, felt compelled to punish one 
 of his pupils for telling a falsehood. The boy was William Ward, 
 and he belonged to one of the oldest and proudest families in the 
 city. The next morning, while Professor Bliss was conducting the recitation of 
 his first class of boys, the door opened and in walked Robert, William and 
 Victor Ward, accompanied by an elder brother, whom the superintendent did not 
 at first recognize. 
 
 "Is this Mr. Bliss?" asked the young man in a positive tone as he 
 approached the teacher's desk. 
 
 "I am he, sir," answered the professor, looking him squarely in the eye. 
 
 "Then I would like to speak with you at the door, sir," said the young 
 man in an equally positive tone. 
 
 Mr. Bliss started with him toward the door; but the eager eyes of the 
 younger boys made the professor certain that the larger young man was a brother 
 of William Ward. So he halted at the threshold and demanded to know what 
 was wanted of him. 
 
 "Come out here, sir, and I will show you!" answered the elder Ward, now 
 in a very threatening tone of voice. 
 
 "Is your name Ward?" asked Mr. Bliss. 
 
 "It is, sir, and I want to know why you whipped my brother William 
 yesterday?" 
 
 "If you will come inside, I will settle that matter with you," answered 
 Bliss calmly. 
 
 "You cursed rascal and coward! Why don't you come out here like a 
 man?" hissed Ward with murder in his eye. 
 
 Bliss was sure he was armed and so gave the door a vigorous push, catching 
 Ward's foot, who tried to hold the door open. But Bliss got the door shut, 
 and then Ward gave several vigorous kicks against it, and burst out with a 
 volley of profane imprecations against Bliss. Finally, he went away in company 
 with another young man waiting for him at the gate outside. 
 
 So it came to pass that in May or June, 185 3, for some grievous breach 
 of discipline in the Boys' High School of Louisville, conducted by Professor 
 William H. G. Butler, Professor Sturgus, incensed beyond endurance by the 
 young ruffian, took him by the collar of the coat, shook him up and boxed 
 his jaws soundly. Thus Mrs. Ward, mother of the young ruffian, requested 
 the two teachers to call and see her about it. William, of course, had made a 
 moving appeal to parental sympathy, with a graphic description of the punish- 
 ment inflicted. 
 
176 
 
 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 "What do you mean by treating a Ward in such a manner?" demanded 
 the angry mother. "I send my children to Mr. Butler because I know him to 
 be a gentleman, and if they need correction, I expect him to do it, for he will 
 punish in a gentlemanly way. But as for you, sir, - - -," she exploded. 
 
 Professor Sturgus waited till the first outburst of wrath was over, and then 
 gave a correct account of the affair with William. Mrs. Ward thereupon became 
 calm, seemed entirely satisfied, and answered: 
 
 Prof. Wm. H. G. Butler and wife. Younger brother 
 of Noble Butler. Shot down in his High School at Louis- 
 ville in 1853 by Matt W'ard, a young- aristocrat whose 
 juvenile brother had been punished for an offense. Matt 
 Ward was defended by the leading attorneys of his time, 
 and cleared on the presumption that no gentleman could 
 be punished for murder in the Old South. Prof. Butler 
 was only 28 at his death — a master linguist of Ancient and 
 Modern languages and a most noible man. 
 
 "I am sorry for the violent language I used and regret very much that our 
 acquaintance has begun in so unpleasant a manner. I hope you will not fail 
 to let me know if my boys misbehave, and I will correct them." 
 
 She at first threatened to withdraw her sons from school, but the two 
 teachers assured her so readily that it would be a great relief to them, as it 
 would probably save their centain expulsion later on. anyway, that Mrs. Ward 
 demurred at her own proposition. When she became more reasonable they 
 declared further as teachers, that they would appreciate any co-operation with 
 the parents in maintaining discipline. 
 
 "But you know, Mrs. Ward." said Professor Sturgus. "that there arc 
 offenses that cannot always be dealt with in this go-between way, but must be 
 punished on the spot for the sake of discipline." 
 
PAGEANT EPISODES OF OLD VERNON TOWN 177 
 
 The mother made no objection to this, and, indeed, the two teachers regarded 
 her acquiescence as full authority to Mr. Butler, at least, to see that her sons 
 submitted to the rules of the High School and were to be disciplined or punished 
 if he felt they must have it. 
 
 But just at this point her son, Matt F. Ward, came into the house and was 
 introduced to Professor Sturgus by Mr. Butler. The young man fired up at 
 once and said: "It is a good thing I saw you, sir; because when I first heard 
 how you humiliated my brother William, I intended to call and give you a 
 thashing myself. It was only the fact that you are an older man than I took 
 you to be that saved you from what you deserved at my hands, sir." 
 
 This rough and unceremonious interruption to the diplomacies, so well 
 under way, put the teachers once more on their guard. Ward was called out 
 before Professor Sturgus had a chance to reply to the offensive salutation; and 
 when the two teachers reached the sidewalk, they at once agreed to be threatened 
 and troubled no longer but to dismiss the young ruffians at the first occasion 
 of further misconduct. 
 
 In the fall of the year when chestnuts were ripe, William and Victor Ward 
 brought them to school regularly to eat during school hours. They would 
 even be caught eating during recitation. One day Professor Butler noticed this 
 and accused the Ward boys, but they denied the charge. When school was 
 dismissed that afternoon he called several boys and proved the guilt of the 
 Wards in their own presence. 
 
 'I will excuse you this time, boys," he said, "but the next time you repeat it 
 I will certainly punish you." 
 
 On the morning of the second of November William Ward came to school 
 with his pockets full of chestnuts, as usual. During recitation he passed them 
 around among several boys. He then borrowed a knife from Henry Johnson 
 and punctured the nuts, which he passed to Algeron Fisher. Fisher examined 
 them to see if they were good, as he suspected a trick. But he ate them and 
 threw the hulls on the floor. About ten minutes afterward Professor Butler 
 noticed the hulls and said: 
 
 "Fisher, have you been eating chestnuts in school?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." answered Fisher with downcast eyes. 
 
 "Did you bring them to class with you?" 
 
 "No, sir," positively. 
 
 "Did somebody give them to you in class?" 
 
 "Yes, sir," reluctantly. 
 
 "Who gave them to you, Fisher?" 
 
 "I don't like to tell on the boys. Professor." 
 
 "But you know the rules of the school, Fisher, and I must have order. 
 Therefore you will have to tell who gave you the chestnuts." 
 
 Another boy was sent for the strap, which was the usual method of pun- 
 ishment in those days. Fisher weakened and said with hesitation: 
 
 "William Ward gave me the chestnuts, Professor." 
 
 "Well, Fisher, I must punish you for eating them, as you remember well 
 enough what I told you." 
 
 "Yes, sir; I do." 
 
178 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 Professor Butler then gave Fisher several sharp, but not severe, licks on 
 the legs with the strap. Fisher felt somewhat resentful at this and said with 
 some feeling: 
 
 "Professor, you think I am the only fellow who ate the nuts. Just look 
 under Johnson's desk, and William Ward's." 
 
 "Have you been eating chestnuts, too, Johnson?" asked Professor Butler. 
 
 "Yes, sir," answered Johnson. 
 
 "Did William Ward give them to you?" 
 
 "Yes, sir; he did." 
 
 "Is that so, William?" 
 
 "I gave them the nuts before class commenced," answered Ward. 
 
 "No, sir, he did not, Professor," cried Johnson and Fisher together. "He 
 gave them to us in the class." 
 
 "I didn't, any such a thing!" answered Ward angrily. 
 
 But the testimony of the boys was against Ward, and Professor Butler 
 took hold of him saying: 
 
 "William. I have to punish you for telling me a lie." 
 
 Half a dozen licks on the legs with the strap, and those not at all severe, 
 was the extent of his punishment. But he took up his hat afterward and left 
 the school room shaking his head and saying: 
 
 "That was a cursed mean trick." 
 
 Johnson was excused from punishment because he was a new student and 
 had not heard the rules about eating chestnuts in school. But William Ward 
 headed straight for home. 
 
CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 (J, lit Till a r ut - "lin v\t lieir iBt^th^ 
 
 Xj Y\ ILLIAM WARD stayed at home the day after his punishment for the 
 
 / I I chestnut episode. It happened that Mr. and Mrs. Ward, the father 
 
 ^J^J and mother, with their son Robert were in Cincinnati and returned 
 
 by boat to Louisville early the following morning. The mother 
 
 saw at once that William was out of school and noticed his offended expression 
 
 of countenance. 
 
 "What is the matter, Willie; why are you not at school?" 
 
 "Matt will tell you," answered the boy. 
 
 "Yes," said Matt, "I was just going around to ask Mr. Butler what he 
 means by this treatment of William. He whipped him yesterday and called him 
 a liar." 
 
 "What?" exclaimed Mrs. Ward. "William Butler whipped Willie Ward and 
 called him a liar?" 
 
 "Yes," continued Matt, "William bought some chestnuts and had some 
 of them in his pockets at school and took out his handkerchief and some of 
 them came out. The boys asked for them and he gave some away. They ate 
 the nuts and threw the hulls on the floor under the desks. Butler asked who 
 did that. One boy refused to tell. Butler sent for his strap and asked each 
 one in turn. They accused William and then there was a dispute whether he 
 gave the nuts before or after the class was called to order. Butler then hauled 
 William out in the floor, saying he would whip him for giving chestnuts to the 
 boys and then lying about it." 
 
 "It wasn't the whipping, mother." put in William at last. "It was because 
 he called me a liar." 
 
 Mr. Ward, the father, was in his room shaving, and came in during this 
 conversation. Inquring what was the matter, he was informed what had 
 happened and immediately sent a servant to tell Professor Butler to send the books 
 of the Ward boys home and to tell the other son. Victor, to come home also. 
 
 "Maybe I had better go myself," said Mr. Ward at first. 
 
 "No," answered Matt, "I will go and will demand an apology of Butler 
 in the presence of the school for the insult he has offered William. Butler is 
 a gentleman and will see the justice of this." 
 " V'ery well," agreed Mr. Ward. 
 
 As a matter of fact, however, Matt Ward was looking for trouble and his 
 mother was very anxious. 
 
 "See here, Matt," she said, "you are in very poor health and cannot stand 
 excitement. You have had one difficulty with Professor Sturgus and you had 
 better take some one with you." 
 
180 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 Just then young Robert Ward, who had been out in the conservatory 
 since they came from the boat, entered the room. 
 
 "Calm yourself, Matt," the mother was saying. Then she added: "Here is 
 Bob, let him go with you." 
 
 Matt answered that he was calm and told Bob with some impatience to 
 hurry with his hat. 
 
 "Remember that Sturgus is your enemy. Be careful!" said Mrs. Ward 
 again. Matt, Bob and William went out of the house together. When they 
 reached the yard gate Matt told Bob where they were going and what for. 
 
 "Butler is a much stouter man than you, Matt," said William, "and Sturgus 
 has a big stick." 
 
 "I don't think I'll have any difficulty," answered Matt. "Butler is a gentle- 
 man." Then he added directly — "Don't you boys interfere unless Butler and 
 Sturgus both attack me at once." 
 
 The three then went down Third Street. Matt stopped in the store of a 
 gunsmith by the name of Gilmore. He examined a weapon and asked the price. 
 He then added that if Gilmore would load it he would take it. Gilmore loaded 
 the pistol and handed it to him. There were a pair of the pistols, mates, and 
 Matt, after a moment's hesitation, decided to take them both, and had them 
 loaded. They were self-action weapons, loaded with powder and ball with the 
 cap on and would send a ball through an inch board two feet away. Ward took 
 the pair and went out. 
 
 A pupil by the name of Knight had heard William and Victor Ward 
 making threats after the punishment the day before, and when he saw the three 
 Ward brothers enter the gate about ten o'clock that morning he expected trouble. 
 He was in Professor Sturgus' room but he got up and went to the door opening 
 into the larger room. The other boys followed and the whole school seemed 
 aware of danger. Professor Sturgus, however, called to them to come back to 
 their seats. 
 
 The Wards had just entered through the passageway and were in the main 
 school room. Professor Butler was coming from his own room. They asked 
 for him and waited till he came to the door. He spoke pleasantly. 
 
 "I have a little matter to settle with you. Mr. Butler." said Matt Ward 
 with an effort to appear calm. "I want to have a little talk with you." 
 "Come into my private room here," answered Butler. 
 "No." said Matt, "here is the place." Butler nodded his head. 
 "I want to know your ideas of justice," continued Matt. "Who is the 
 most to blame, the contemptible little puppy who begged chestnuts and then 
 lied about it, or the boy who let him have them?" 
 
 "Come into my room and I will explain the whole affair." insisted Butler. 
 But Ward replied, "No. sir. here is the place to answer my question." 
 
 Butler still declined to have a controversy in the presence of the school. 
 "Then why did you call my brother William a liar'" asked Ward angrily. 
 "I will not answer your questions here without a chance to explain. I tell 
 you," replied Butler. 
 
 "Then you arc a cursed liar and a cursed scoundrel yourself!" cried Ward 
 in a rage, with a motion as if to strike Butler, who moved back a few steps. 
 Recovering himself he moved toward Ward with his right arm raised as if to 
 strike in resentment of the insult. Ward then drew his right hand from his 
 
PAGEANT EPISODES OF OLD VERNON TOWN 
 
 181 
 
 pocket, presented a pistol at Butler's left breast and fired. Butler dropped to 
 the floor immediately with this exclamation: 
 
 "Oh, my wife and child! My God, I'm dead!" 
 
 Ward then drew another pistol, and young Bob drew a knife. Professor 
 Sturgus rushed up and Bob Ward said, 
 
 "Come on, I'm ready!" 
 
 Sturgus retreated to his room but directly returned and again Bob advanced 
 toward him with his knife. Sturgus ran back into his room and climbed out 
 of the window to give the alarm. The Ward brothers then left the school 
 house and passed rapidly out of the front gate. 
 
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 Noble Butler of Louisville, Hanover College graduate. 
 Author >oif the Butler Grammar and Readers. An English 
 critic said that the best English in America was spoken 
 in Louiisviille because of Prof. Butler's work. Prof. But'Jer 
 grew up in tlhe vicinity of the Hoosier School Master. He 
 afterward taught Mary Anderson her first lessons in 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 The pistol seemed to stick in the wound in Professor Butler's breast and 
 he knocked it aside when he struggled to his feet. He stepped into Professor 
 Sturgus's room, and finding nobody there, left the school building and endeavored 
 to walk away in search of medical relief. Some of the boys went with him 
 and supported him as best they could. He only went a square and then asked 
 to lie down. They then carried him to the residence of Mrs. Martha Harney 
 on Chestnut between First and Second Streets. 
 
 Mrs. Harney was downtown at the time and saw Professor Sturgus on 
 Third street very much agitated and learned what was the matter. She hastened 
 home and found Mr. Butler lying on a rug in the parlor. The house was full 
 of people. Dr. Thompson had been called and reached the house at 10:20 o'clock. 
 The boys were holding Mr. Butler up. 
 
 "Let him lie down, boys," said the doctor. 
 
 "Doctor don't you think I'm a dead man?" gasped Mr. Butler in agony. 
 
182 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 The doctor removed his coat, tore open his shirt and examined the wound 
 in the breast. The surface around was burnt. 
 
 "What was your position when you were shot, Mr. Butler?" he asked. 
 
 Professor gave some words of explanation and then the doctor probed the 
 wound. The patient was very anxious and insisted that there was no hope for 
 him. The doctor tried to cheer him up, but Mr. Butler gave directions about 
 his wife and child. Dr. Yandell also arrived and assisted, and the dying man 
 told the same story of the trouble. Mrs. Harney talked to him a few minutes 
 later on and his wife and child came into the room. It was very touching to 
 witness the scene between them. He gradually sank until after midnight when 
 he passed away. 
 
 Matt Ward and his brother Robert were arrested and locked in jail to await 
 trial for murder in the first degree. Counsel for the defense made a motion 
 before Judge Bullock for a change of venue on account of the reported excite- 
 ment and prejudice against the prisoners in Louisville and the judge decided for 
 the defense. The Wards were accordingly removed to Elizabethtown. Hardin 
 County, to stand trial on the third Monday in April, 1854. This stirring trial 
 attracted such crowds and aroused such intense interest throughout the country 
 that it soon became famous. Some of the most noted legal talent in the South 
 and Middlewest appeared on both sides and the principles discussed had an 
 immense influence on the course of events that followed after. Thus in one 
 incident of a school room the whole tragedy of history was enacted to that 
 generation. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI 
 
 9 ^B ^ ^ 
 
 f^^T^™^ HE following account of the verdict in the noted Ward-Butler tragedy 
 | I *^ and how it was received in Louisville, taken from the old record 
 
 V I J of the trial, brings back the awful event most vividly: 
 
 ^^ The Ward case was committed to the Jury about 5 o'clock 
 
 p. m. on Wednesday, and on Thursday morning about 9 o'clock, they returned 
 a verdict of not guilty, as charged in the indictment. 
 
 The news of this verdict was received in the city of Louisville, as it has 
 since been throughout the State of Kentucky, and over the entire Union, with 
 the greatest indignation. In Louisville, especially, where it was published on the 
 morning of Friday, April 28, 1854, the excitement immediately produced was 
 intense. But little business was done on that day or the next. All men seemed 
 to think that an idelible stain had been fixed upon the fair fame of the State, 
 by the mockery of a trial that had been had, and the iniquitous verdict that 
 had been rendered, and the oldest, most substantial, and most respected citizens, 
 demanded a public meeting, that the City of Louisville might cleanse itself of 
 the disgrace that would otherwise rest upon it. In the newspapers of Saturday 
 morning appeared the following: 
 
 NOTICE — A meeting of the citizens of Louisville, favorable to the erection 
 of a monument to the memory of the late lamented PROFESSOR BUTLER, is re- 
 quested at the court house, on Saturday evening, April 29, at early gas light. 
 
 Pursuant to this call, the largest and most respectable assemblage that has 
 ever convened in the city, gathered within and around the court house at an 
 early hour in the evening. The number present has been variously estimated 
 at from eight to twelve thousand. The west room in the second story of the 
 building was filled at a very early hour. Several old, universally known, and 
 generally esteemed citizens had been requested to act as officers, but the press 
 was so great that the principal of them could not effect an entrance to join 
 those who were earlier in their attendance. Some delay in effecting the organiza- 
 tion was thus induced, and during its continuance, Sherrod Williams, on request, 
 addressed the meeting. Mr. Williams fully recognized the justice of the indignant 
 feeling that had moved, as it were, a whole community, and expressed his own 
 deep sympathy with it, but depreciated violence against person or property, and 
 besought people to content themselves with a warm and decided expression of 
 their sentiments with reference to the crime that had been committed, and the 
 mockery of a trial that had been had of its guilty perpetrator. Mr. Williams was 
 listened to with the most respectful attention; but the crowd outside, which was 
 continually augmented by fresh arrivals, became impatient to know what was 
 going on within. It was therefore agreed to go below; but when most of those 
 who were upstairs had got down, anything like a satisfactory organization there 
 
184 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 was found to be impossible. It was therefore proclaimed that the regular meeting 
 would organize above, and that after resolutions should be reported and passed, 
 they would be sent down for ratification. 
 
 So soon as the resolutions were passed, the committee retired with them 
 to the crowd below, where they were read by Sherrod Williams, and carried with 
 equal unanimity. After the committee left the meeting above, resolutions were 
 moved and carried, requesting the two Wards to leave the city, inviting Nat Wolfe 
 to resign his seat in the State Senate and follow them, and requesting John J. 
 Crittenden to resign his place in the Senate of the United States to which he was 
 elected by the Legislature of Kentucky last winter. 
 
 By a portion of the immense crowd outside, another meeting was organized, 
 by which another series of resolutions was passed, equally condemnatory in their 
 tone with those passed by the regular meeting in the Court House, as to the trial 
 and the verdict, and much more sweeping in their references to individuals who 
 had rendered themselves obnoxious in different ways, by their connection with 
 the trial, several of whom were singled out by name, for public censure. 
 
 By a large number of persons in the Court House yard, after the regular 
 meeting in the west room had adjourned, effigies were hung up and burned, of 
 Matt F. Ward, Barlow, (the false witness), the members of the Hardin county 
 jury, and a number of other persons, who, by their acts, had subjected them- 
 selves to the deep displeasure of the people of Louisville. 
 
 Earlier in the evening a crowd of men and boys gathered in front and at 
 one side of the private residence of Robert J. Ward, doing considerable damage 
 to the conservatory with stones, and with the same missiles breaking some of 
 the front windows. While this was going on, effigies of Matt and young Robert 
 Ward, were strung up in front of the door. These were afterwards set afire, 
 when some person unknown caught one of them up and threw it against the 
 front door, which was thus set on fire. The alarm was at once given: several 
 engines were soon upon the spot, and after encountering a somewhat decided but 
 by no means stubborn opposition from the men and boys near the house, the 
 flames were extinguished. 
 
 As the closing sheets of this report go to press, a week has passed since 
 these occurrences took place. No one pretends to defend or excuse the lawless 
 depredations committed upon the private residence of Robert J. Ward: every 
 good man condemns them as wrong, uncalled for, and reprehensible: but the 
 heart of the whole city beats with one pulse and nobly responds to the manly, 
 decided and conservative tone of the series of resolutions embodied in this closing 
 narrative, as passed by the meeting of citizens held in the court house. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVII 
 
 Jt Wlmizt %®\ M&hc ;HHU| %*nh& 
 
 ^9^^** HE following appeal to the State of Indiana to build a Noble 
 ■ 1"^ Memorial Community House at Old Vernon Town leaves on eternal 
 %. I J record the dream of our soul for the rising generations. 
 
 •f In April, 1918, before George A. H. Shideler came to the 
 
 Indiana reformatory at Jeffersonville as superintendent, there was a great English 
 school head who lost his oldest son of wounds after the battle of the Lys. 
 This father had grieved and distressed himself over the loss of other pupils and 
 colleagues, but this last blow struck home because his oldest son was in training 
 as his successor. The Sunday following was White Sunday — White Sunday, he 
 called it, "white, pure, untainted — day of consolation — day of inspiration — per- 
 haps the most joyous of all the year." So he spoke to his pupils from the 
 text: "I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you." 
 
 So there grew up in the mind of this great school man the idea of a build- 
 ing that should symbolize and embody the whole aim and purpose of his school 
 and the community to be of which it was the germ and beginning. There was 
 no other school just like his in all England. It was a school for boys and 
 youth conducted on lines that revealed to each one a vision of himself and his 
 work in the world and stimulated the entire student body to co-operate, rather 
 than compete with each other, in the acquisition of knowledge and the growth 
 of character. 
 
 The Memorial chapel was intended to be a house of vision and service, 
 not only to commemorate the sacrifice of those who had fallen in the world 
 war, but where the pupils could go apart for meditation and resolve as to their 
 own future place in society. It so happens that a wealthy friend of this great 
 schoolmaster had also lost a son at Ypres and in their mutual agony and grief 
 projected this unique and beautiful building to symbolize for all time to come 
 the sacrifice and service of all heroic youth. 
 
 FOR RANK AND FILE 
 
 Something like a year before Mr. Shideler's death this great schoolmaster 
 d : ed suddenly while delivering an address at University College, London. It was 
 said of him that he worked for the rank and file as against the star system 
 of school work where a few boys carry off all the honors and leave behind 
 them a mass of neglected shirkers and discouraged competitors. 
 
 That was precisely Mr. Shideler's conception of reformatory work with 
 fallen youth. He stood for the rank and file "who had thrown a shoe in the 
 race of life, " as he put it, and his sole aim and purpose was to give them an 
 equal chance to "come back" with the rest. Being himself a graduate of the 
 
186 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 "school of hard knocks," as he liked to say, he understood the discouraged and 
 defeated youth as few men did. Many times he would shake a lad at the night 
 interviews who had lost his confidence and then send the chaplain after the 
 fellow the next day to get a grip on himself. 
 
 It was his custom once each month to have a talk with the new arrivals 
 in his office. Big and little, black and white, home and foreign, high or low, 
 rich or poor, wise or ignorant, they all got to see "the big fellow out front," 
 as he called himself. The substance of those talks was necessarily the same most 
 of the time, but Mr. Shideler was original and direct and ready on these occasions. 
 He reminded us of the great English schoolmaster talking to his pupils. 
 
 When Mr. Shideler became too heavily taxed to continue the monthly 
 talks to the new arrivals, he passed the work over to us and to his bandmaster, 
 Prof. Henry Dreyer, who had learned to meet the reformatory freshmen much 
 as the superintendent himself did. The meeting took place in the chapel before 
 the morning service or immediately after and it was a vital thing to have access 
 to the lads before they became prison hardened. Mr. Shideler was practical in 
 his conception of religious work and service among prisoners. He stood for 
 the essentials of the faith and the meat and marrow of the gospel made simple 
 and appealing to "the fellow far out at sea." as he put it. 
 
 GEORGE SHIDELER'S DREAM 
 
 He was tremendously strong for the Salvation Army message and organ- 
 ization and the Brighter Day League training classes at Jeffersonville became 
 known in Army circles all over the world. During our last five years at Jeffer- 
 sonville we worshipped in a big restored cell house upper floor, which was a 
 combined chapel hall and picture show. So it became Mr. Shideler's dream that 
 when we removed to Pendleton he could build a house of vision and service, 
 surmounted by a tower containing the sweet-toned church bell of his old home 
 town, that used to call him to church and Sunday School when he was a boy. 
 He talked about this building a great deal, much as did the English schoolmaster. 
 Mr. Shideler's tragic death ended the dream, for the while at least. His suc- 
 cessors have been loyal to his vision and devoted to his ideal, but we all missed 
 and mourned him as tongue never could tell. 
 
 We were compelled to separate ourselves from Mr. Shideler in the fall of 
 1923, when the reformatory was moved to Pendleton because we were making 
 a home for our parents near Louisville and we returned to our former work 
 with the Presbyterian church of southern Indiana in the field of home missions 
 and social service. The churches at North Vernon and Old Vernon were com- 
 bined and a typical rural church added on Sunday afternoon. Now there was 
 a greater work of social prevention that Mr. Shideler was forever insisting must 
 be done by the home and church, the school and community, to save the youth 
 of the state and nation. He had normal, promising sons of his own. whose 
 education and upbringing and companionship meant everything to him. He was 
 a great enthusiast over the games they loved and the college fraternities they 
 belonged to. He constantly told the boys within the walls to "play the game 
 of life on the square" and they trusted "the big fellow out front" as a "fifty- 
 fifty" man. 
 
PAGEANT EPISODES OF OLD VERNON TOWN 
 
 187 
 
 Hence, on resuming our social prevention work, especially at the lovely 
 and classical little town of Vernon, we conceived the passionate hope of building 
 a community house of vision and service where our boys and girls, so typical 
 and prophetic of the coming century, may play the games and present the 
 pageants that will teach and transform them into heroic men and women. We 
 have desired with all the intensity of prayer to build this community house as 
 a memorial to Mr. Shideler, and to do there the sort of work that should be 
 done in every town and hamlet all over Indiana. This community house would 
 stand on the hilltop of lovely little Vernon town, between the Presbyterian 
 church and the high school, on the state highway to Madison, where thousands of 
 tourists pass each year to visit the scenes and haunts of Edward Eggleston's 
 stories. 
 
 GEORGE A. H. SHIDELER 
 Holding- his famous interviews with prisoners. 
 
 This is the centennial year of the Presbyterian church in Vernon and this 
 great denomination wishes to commemorate its heroic history in southern Indiana 
 with a home-coming in August that will draw hundreds and thousands from all 
 over the country. The old church was founded in May, 1825, by the Rev. 
 John Finley Crowe, who afterward helped to establish Hanover College down on 
 the Ohio River. Colleges like Hanover and schools like the one at Vernon were 
 the most powerful counteracting agencies of the border barbarism and the back- 
 woods lawlessness depicted by Mr. Eggleston in "The Hoosier Schoolmaster." 
 He saw all this with his own eyes in Decatur and Ripley counties far back in 
 the fifties. Yet he believed profoundly in the elemental manliness and the 
 inborn nobility of such characters as Bud Means, who stepped from the kingdom 
 of Muscle to the kingdom of Mind when he struck hands with his teacher, 
 Ralph Hartsook and organized "The Church of the Best Licks." 
 
188 FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 "Jesus Christ was a sort of a Flat Cricker Himself, wasn't He?" said 
 Bud to Ralph and the Hoosier schoolmaster answered that our Lord did come 
 out of "No-Good Nazareth." Now it was in precisely that fashion that "the 
 meek and lowly Nazarene," as Mr. Shideler loved to call him. gripped the 
 hearts of our boys in "The City of Dead Souls" at Jeffersonville. So we always 
 called our chapel meeting house down there "The Church of the Best Licks." 
 
 George Carey Eggleston confesses that even his brother Edward shrank from 
 being confounded with his own "Hoosier Schoolmaster'" for in commissioning 
 his brother George to write his biography after he was gone, Edward asked George 
 to correct the prevailing impression that he was born and grew up amid the 
 ignorance, poverty and rudeness of the Hoosier backwoods. And now that the 
 scenes and haunts of the Hoosier schoolmaster country around Madison are 
 drawing so many thousands of tourists each year, it is a matter of no small 
 interest and importance to point out these counteracting spiritual and social 
 influences that slowly transformed the brutal barbarism of those times into the 
 homely and the human. George Carey Eggleston insists that their home in boy- 
 hood was such an influence and Dr. J. N. Hurty says his father was a fighter 
 for free schools in southern Indiana, when education was condemned by the whole 
 tribe of frontier ruffianism. 
 
 A NEW GENERATION 
 
 Ten years previous to our chaplaincy at Jeffersonville. we covered Clark 
 and Jackson counties as a rural and small-town pastor and had abundant oppor- 
 tunity to study the surviving story and tradition of the Reno brothers ana 
 other Jesse James types of long ago. We had in our possession the only known 
 copy of John Reno's autobiography and in the very same social environment 
 that encouraged and developed the Renos before, during and after the civil war, 
 there sprang up a new generation that made our Boy and Girl Scout work 
 memorable from ten to fifteen years ago. Each community was to us a social 
 laboratory and out of these experiences and types we produced a pageant of the 
 American Red Cross in song and story. To this has been added more memor- 
 able work covering the reformatory heroes and heroines of Indiana history from 
 Jonathan Jennings to George A. H. Shideler. 
 
 In our new community house at Vernon we propose to perpetually teach 
 and train each growing generation of boys and girls in the social graces and the 
 civic virtues by means of this same pageant impersonation and community 
 drama. We even dream of making Vernon something of a miniature town like 
 Oberammergau, where the "Passion Play" is given. The village church has 
 served thus far as our only training school. There is no auditorium or hall at 
 the high school. The townspeople, the Presbyterian Church and the returning 
 Vernon homecomers are going to do all in their power for the new community 
 house, which we hope to start in May and dedicate in August or September. 
 We are asking each and every friend and admirer of Mr. Shideler to help make 
 this a worthy memorial. The First National Bank of Vernon will receive and 
 credit every donation and if the enterprise is not sufficiently supported to 
 put it over, every dollar will be returned. 
 
REV. THORNTON WHALING, D.D. LL. D. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVIII 
 
 By Thornton Whaling, D. D., LL. D. 
 
 ^mb^ HE WRITER is a scion of the Old South since he was born in Vir- 
 g I «^ ginia in 185 8 and educated at a Southern college and university 
 
 m^ I 1 where the historic ideals and traditions which dominated the "Mother 
 
 ^Ji °f States and Presidents" were supreme and regnant. In addition to 
 
 this environment his heredity is rooted in an ancestry which for more than two 
 centuries have lived in and served the "Old Dominion" in many different capaci- 
 ties both official and otherwise. In attempting some interpretation of the ante 
 bellum South he is using his own vernacular as "one to the manner born." 
 
 There has been widespread misunderstanding of the spirit and temper which 
 controlled the life and thought of the State where, in 1607, were first planted 
 the seeds of Western Civilization, culture, and religion. It has been regarded as 
 the seat of a narrow and prejudiced aristocracy which reigned from the throne 
 of absolutism over all the activities of its citizens and subjects, relegating "poor 
 whites" and Negroes alike not only to a position of inferiority, but condemning 
 them to the realm of abject subjection, in which everything was forgotten save 
 the service which they could render to this tyrannical and self-absorbed aris- 
 tocracy. 
 
 It is strange to think thus of the State which produced Washington. Jeffer- 
 son, Marshall, Madison and Monroe. In a sense every one of these men were 
 wise and instructed democrats, who had in view the interests of the entire popu- 
 lation and citizenship of State and country. The words of the Declaration of 
 Independence, written by a Virginian, were true to the convictions of his native 
 State, "all men are born free and equal." The white population of the State 
 was composed of elect immigrants of the best stocks. English and Scotch, with 
 a generous ^intermixture of French Hugenots. Germans from the Palatinate. Dutch 
 and Scotch-Irish, and there was no room for a real aristocracy. The presence 
 of slavery somewhat confuses the situation; but there were four views of the 
 South itself as to the institution. First: some of the most thoughtful regarded 
 it as immoral in its very essence; second, others were convinced it was an economic 
 evil which hindered industrial development; third, others thought it a providen- 
 tial movement for the Christianizing of a race whose final results would justifv 
 it; fourth, abolitionists, by peaceful rather than military methods, spoke out their 
 convictions with perfect freedom and tolerance. The institution, while capable of 
 abuse, was of the mildest type perhaps ever developed in the history of the world. 
 I remember the resentment of my own Old Black Mammy. Aunt Becky, at the 
 interference of the North and her indignant questions as Yankee troops marched 
 and remarched through the village in the Valley of Virginia. "What bizness dese 
 hcah folks got comin' down heah boddcrin' wid us as to what we chooses to do 
 wid one anuther? Dey better go back whar dey cum fum ore we'll kill sum 
 
THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 
 
 191 
 
 more uv 'em." When told she was free by my mother, her reply was: "What's 
 free anyhow? I'se jus' as free as I chooses ter be; and I'se gwine ter stay right 
 heah jus' like I'se alius done; dat's what." 
 
 Stonewall Jackson and General Lee were finest representatives of the true 
 Old South. The great Stonewall was a deacon in the Presbyterian Church in 
 Lexington, Va., of which I was pastor for ten years- He taught a Negro Sunday 
 School in the lecture room of the classic church in this cultured town; and some 
 of the choicest people of town and church helped him. Prof. Nelson, for fifty 
 years professor in Washington and Lee University, was one of his assistants. He 
 tells me on one occasion Stonewall was reviewing the lesson in which the Biblical 
 
 REV. SAMUEL DAVIES, D. P. 
 
 President of Princeton College 
 
 It was this great Presbyterian preacher o£ Colonial days in Old Virginia 
 who pointed out George Washington as the hope of his country after Brad - 
 dock's defeat in 1755. It was Washington's unexpected victory in the Battle 
 of Princeton, January 1, 1777, that gave new courage to the disheartened 
 American army. It was also at Princeton that General Washington reverently 
 participated in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper with the Presbyterian 
 congregation. And at the Princeton College Commencement of 1783, when 
 the Congress and General Washington were present, upon the platform, Ashbel 
 Green, classi valedictorian, paid a glowing and eloquent tribute to the Father 
 of his Country, which greatly embarrassed but deeply gratified Washington.; 
 Next day he met young Green in the corridor and expressed hearty wishes 
 for his future. Though a devout Episcopalian, Washington felt the warmest 
 attachment to the Presbyterian people for their loyalty in the greats Revolu- 
 tionary struggle. 
 
 Samuel Davies was the pastor of Patrick Henry in youth and was his 
 model of eloquence and democracy as well as of godly character. He was 
 also the first Presbyterian minister to teach the slaves religious truth, wont 
 for their conversion, and receive them into full Christian', fellowship. He rep- 
 resents the first great Revolution that brought us the freedom of the middle 
 classes of America and Europe. 
 
 passage occurs that "His fan is in His Hand, and with it He shall thoroughly 
 purge His threshing floor;" and the questioner asked, "Who has the fan?" The 
 answer came "The Lord." "What does He do with it?" was the next ques- 
 tion, but no answer came. The question was asked again and again. At last 
 Old Uncle Jerry volunteered, "I knows;" and he was invited to tell. "Fan His- 
 self wid it, suh." Stonewall replied, "Tut, tut, you know better than that." 
 
192 
 
 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 Prof. Nelson addded, "tut, tut" is the nearest to profanity Stonewall ever came. 
 Mrs. Jackson, in her charming book on her husband, tells us that her husband 
 always had the servants and slaves at family worship, and himself carefully taught 
 them the Catechism and the truths of the Christian religion. General Jackson's 
 practical interest in the Negro is an exposition of the South; and no one under- 
 stands the "brother in black" so well and loves him so truly as do the real sons 
 of both the Old or the New South. If I were a Negro I would rather live 
 in Richmond, Columbia or Louisville than in New York. Philadelphia or Chicago. 
 
 REV. JOHN WITHERSPOON, D. D. 
 As President of Princeton College during- the Revolution, and as a mem- 
 ber of the Continental Congress and signer of the Declaration of Indepen- 
 dence, John Witherspoon was very close to George Washington in the great 
 struggle, Then as a member of the first American General Assembly, in 
 1789, when Washington had assumed the Presidency of the New Republic. 
 Dr. Witherspoon preached 1 the opening sermon and was a member of a com- 
 mittee to address a letter of congratulation and patriotic loyalty to 
 the Father of our Country. Washington replied with deepest reciprocation; 
 and in after years proved his further appreciation of the Presbyterian people 
 by contributing liberally to their educational institutions, notably the acad- 
 emies which later grew into Washington and Lee University and Centre Col- 
 lege. These facts are not given in a sectarian, spirit but to prove Washing- 
 ton's loyalty to religion and education. He was to Liberty and Union then 
 what Lincoln was in our second great Revolution — the war that ended 
 slavery. 
 
 The American and French Revolutions won the freedom of the middle 
 classes in Europe and America. In the armies that followed Washington 
 to battle were men who felt the call of universal liberty to all mankind. 
 Some of these noble dreamers were humble Baptist, Methodist and Presby- 
 terian believers\ who afterward included in their dream of freedom the dis- 
 inherited and disfranchised white working people and the Negro slave. Thus 
 they became Forerunners of/ the Civil War which liberated the working classes 
 of the new world. 
 
 Gen. Lee, the flawless gentleman and Virginian, represents his State and sec- 
 tion. The struggle through which he passed before deciding where his allegiance 
 was first due showed his profound love for his Country and the Union, although 
 duty, which he said is "the sublimcst word in the language," led him to side 
 with his native State. The folly of a war forced on by extremists and stubborn 
 reactionaries, chiefly in the North, pained him to the depths of his soul. It is 
 well known that he was more than willing for an abolition of slavery pursued 
 
THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 193 
 
 by peaceful methods, as was George Washington and other leaders, who saw 
 injury as the certain result of transferring slavery from the North, where it 
 evidently did not pay in dollars and cents, to the South where for a time it 
 seemed economically productive. Gen. Lee. apostle of the Old, is the virtual 
 founder of the New South. I quote Prof. Edwin Mimms in his remarkable book, 
 "The Advancing South." page 4, referring to Lee: "As he was the consummate 
 flower of the ante bellum civilization, and the great commander who fought a 
 losing battle with the courage and skill shown by others in victory, so he became 
 the leader of the liberal forces that were to make a new order. There is not a 
 progressive movement in the South today that cannot find inspiration in his 
 letters and conversations; and even the very slogans for the battle are his when 
 he said. 'Abandon all these local animosities and make your sons Americans.' He 
 became what Gamiel Bradford has called him, 'Lee the American,' who did more 
 for the Union during those five years after the war than any other man of his 
 time. When he said that 'the thorough education of all classes of people is the 
 most efficacious means for promoting the prosperity of the South,' he placed 
 himself at the head of all educational campaigns which have been held since then. 
 When he said that the great aim of every Southerner should be to unite 'in the 
 allayment of passion, the dissipation of prejudice, and the restoration of reason,' 
 he rebuked every man who at that time and later made his appeal to passion 
 and prejudice." 
 
 It may seem to some a strange claim to affirm, as I now do, that Abraham 
 Lincoln is also a true representative of the Old South which has blossomed out 
 into the New. Born in Hodgenville, Ky.. but of Scotch-Irish Presbyterian stock 
 which settled in Augusta County in the Valley of Virginia in the eighteenth 
 century, he had the ideals which flamed in the heart of Washington. Jefferson, 
 Lee and Woodrow Wilson. If he could have had his way, there would have 
 been no war; and if he had been spared the Martyr's death, the Era of Recon- 
 struction, which destroyed national unity in the seventies, would never have 
 cursed our country. I was pastor of his cousin in Lexington, Va. ( and found 
 him in many respects a reproduction of his famous presidential relative, though 
 the Virginia Lincoln had been a brave and persistent Confederate soldier. I once 
 asked him what he thought of his cousin Abraham. "A very decent man, though 
 on the wrong side in this recent controversy." I asked him if, as a soldier in 
 battle loading his gun and shooting at the foe, he had seen his cousin directly 
 in front of him, what would he have done. His reply: "I would not have 
 turned my gun to the right; I would not have turned my gun to the left; I 
 would have shot directly in front of me and let Providence take care of the 
 results!" A true Lincolnian answer. The tragedy of the fratricidal war was that 
 men like Lee and Lincoln were not allowed really to come to conference that 
 the issues might have been settled without Appomatox. Bull Run, Chancellors- 
 ville or Manassas. 
 
 The Old South is in the New. Loyalty to the nation is a distinctive mark 
 of the New. I love to say in the North that during the World War one section 
 furnished no pacifists, evaders, or deserters, and that is the thirteen States that 
 once constituted the Confederacy. Always religious and Christian, many of the 
 industrial and economic problems which now demand solution will find it not 
 in Communism. Socialism or Bolshevism, but in the actual application of the 
 Ethics of Jesus to the commercial and political issues of this new day. Already 
 
194 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 men like Tompkins of Charlotte, N. C, and Crawford of Birmingham are 
 blazing the way. Dr. W. W. Alexander, Southern to the core, is showing 
 Massachusetts and New York how to settle, on the rational and truly Christ- 
 like basis, inter-racial relations. And then the great international problem "will 
 not down." This United States cannot divorce itself from the life of the world 
 and live an isolated and selfish life. A Southerner pointed out the solution to 
 the world itself, which has been virtually accepted by the whole round globe 
 save the country which he served as President and Commander-in-Chief of its 
 Armies. But one day this leader will be sustained by the right verdict of his 
 nation, as today he is sustained by the New South, of which he was so admirable 
 a representative and product. If the South were heeded, the League of Nations 
 would embrace as one of its most ardent constituents, the Republic of the West. 
 Another Southerner, if he were with us, would give his commanding influence 
 to the same wise remedy for World Wars; and Woodrow Wilson would have 
 the backing of Abraham Lincoln. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIX 
 
 fj T MAY come as a surprise to many readers of history that there was 
 fm ^J a powerful and determined Emancipation or Abolition Movement 
 X^ J in the first Constitutional Convention when Kentucky became a 
 Sovereign State — the first free-born Commonwealth of the Federal 
 Union. The story and tragedy of this heroic struggle to prevent the incorpora- 
 tion of chattel slavery in the basic law of this New Land beyond the Alleghanies 
 has never been fully or fairly told. It is generally supposed that the native 
 State of Abraham Lincoln was pro-slavery from the first, and that the few pro- 
 testing voices in the Convention which framed her first constitution were imprac- 
 tical idealists who were soon silenced by the wisdom and common-sense of the 
 large majority. What is our astonishment, therefore, when we uncover the facts 
 and see that the defeat of the Emancipation or Abolition forces was one of the 
 gravest tragedies in American history. Who can ever begin to measure the con- 
 sequences that would have followed had Kentucky truly been a Free State? It 
 was no more necessary that she be a Slave State than Ohio, or Indiana, or Illinois. 
 And it was just as clear to the fearless and earnest men who protested slavery 
 in that early constitutional convention what would come to pass in after gener- 
 ations as it was to their descendants on the eve of the Civil War. 
 
 TESTIMONY OF JOHN MASON BROWN 
 
 It was John Mason Brown, the just and noble-minded Kentucky attorney and 
 historian, who first unearthed and set forth the facts of this determined and 
 bitter struggle between the Preachers and the Politicians. Mr. Brown has no 
 hesitancy whatever in his statements or conclusions. Says he in a famous Filson 
 Club document: "The ablest among the preachers who opposed the incorporation 
 of slavery into the polity of Kentucky was David Rice, the father of Presbyte- 
 rianism in the West. He had come from Virginia in 1783; had established in 
 his house in Lincoln County, in 1784, the first grammar school in the West; 
 and the influence of his piety and talents was very great. 
 
 "In the political crisis of 1792, when the Constitution of the State was to 
 be formed, he put in print the doctrine he had long preached, and the sentiments 
 of a life-time, issuing a pamphlet entitled Slavery Inconsistent with Justice and 
 Good Policy.' A single extract will illustrate the deep feeling that generally 
 prevailed: 
 
 'The slavery of the Negroes began in iniquity; a curse has attended it; 
 and a curse will follow it. National vices will be punished with national calam- 
 ities. Let us avoid these vices, that we may avoid the punishment which they 
 deserve, and endeavor so to act to secure the approbation and smiles of heaven. 
 
 ' 'Holding men in slavery is the national vice of Virginia; and while a part 
 of that State we were partakers of the guilt. As a separate State we are just 
 now come to the birth; and it depends upon our free choice whether we shall 
 
196 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 be born in this sin or innocent of it. \Vc now have it in our power to adopt 
 it as our national crime, or to bear a national testimony against it. I hope the 
 latter will be our choice: that we shall wash our hands of this guilt and not 
 leave it in the power of a future Legislature evermore to stain our reputation or 
 our conscience with it.' 
 
 THE MAN WHO MADE KENTUCKY A SLAVE STATE 
 Solemn and momentous words. And John Mason Brown goes to the root of 
 the tragedy when he says: "It is not difficult now to discern the power that 
 overcame the strong public feeling, especially among the religious denominations, 
 adverse to a continuance of slavery. A new and strong and trained man made 
 his first appearance in Kentucky politics as a member of that body. George- 
 Nicholas had but recently come from Virginia, but the fame of his abilities and 
 the record of his public services had preceded him. He had sustained debate 
 against no less opponents than Patrick Henry and George Mason, in the Vir- 
 ginia Convention, and deservedly shared with Madison the credit of carrying the 
 vote that ratified the Federal Constitution. 
 
 "He took charge, as if by common consent, of the serious work of the Con- 
 vention. The State Constitution of 1792 may be fairly regarded as his produc- 
 tion. He was the principal debater on the floor and the principal draftsman in 
 the Committee. 
 
 "His ablest opponent was the Rev. David Rice, his colleague from Mercer 
 County. Rice, however, resigned on the 11th of April (179 2) and his succes- 
 sor, Harry Innes, came into the Convention too late to participate influentially 
 in the debates. When the vote came to be taken on the perfected draft of the 
 Constitution, the question of slavery or no-slavery in the new State was put to 
 the direct issue." 
 
 THE PREACHERS AND THE POLITICIANS 
 The article by George Nicholas contemplated a mild, humane system of 
 slavery as free from the traffic as possible, but to be perpetual and never set a 
 slave free without the consent of the owner. On the 18th of April. 1792. the 
 Nicholas article or amendment was voted upon. There were 6 votes of minis- 
 ters — 3 Baptist, 2 Presbyterian and 1 Methodist — all against it: for as Mr. 
 Brown points out, religious opinion was unanimous for Abolition. And, as he 
 further says, the ability wealth, and political experience of George Nicholas, the 
 politician, defeated them. And Mr. Brown adds with solemn emphasis: "It 
 required a Civil War to correct the error made in 1792. The humble preacher 
 delegates were wiser than their ablest opponents. It is to be noticed as an evi- 
 dence of their disinterestedness that the preacher members of the Convention, 
 without exception, voted for a constitutional provision disqualifying all min- 
 isters of religious societies from service in the Legislature." 
 
 And he pays this tribute: "It is to the honor of the Baptist preachers of the 
 new country that they faced the problem with a courage that did honor to their 
 intellect, their religious sincerity, and their sense of public duty. They were not 
 then, as a rule, cultured or rich. Their horizon of speculation was narrow: but 
 their mode of thought was the essence of honest logic applied to the rigid Calvin- 
 istic doctrines they so devoutly embraced." 
 
THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 197 
 
 AND A FRIEND OF THOMAS JEFFERSON! 
 
 It does not lessen our sorrow and disappointment today to known that this 
 man Nicholas, who engrafted chattel bondage upon the body of the Newborn 
 Commonwealth, was one of a group of eminent and gifted brothers who were 
 bosom friends and political supporters of Thomas Jefferson. George Nicholas 
 made a resolute stand for religious liberty in Old Virginia, and he was a prime 
 mover of the famous "Kentucky Resolutions" that turned the tide of constitu- 
 tional liberty and state sovereignty in America. We can only reflect that he, 
 like the vast majority of his privileged class in Virginia and the Old South, 
 could see no wrong, as Father David Rice and his colleagues did, in the enslave- 
 ment of the Negro. It is one of the sad silences of history, too, that Thomas 
 Jefferson — who was so alert and vigilant to defend the freedom and rights of 
 his own race in the South by those famous resolutions referred to — did not 
 catch the significance and give expression to some deciding sentiment favoring 
 Emancipation or Abolition in the Constitution of the first New Commonwealth 
 of the Federal Union. 
 
 ANOTHER FORERUNNER RAISED UP 
 
 No doubt Father Rice and his colleagues were far in advance of the times. 
 No doubt they were Utopian dreamers from a practical, political point of view. 
 But, having lost the battle for freedom so bravely fought another scene is enacted, 
 and another character emerges — a man of more determined mind and makeup on 
 this issue of slavery than Father Rice had ever been. Sometime in the autumn 
 of 1817 there arrived in the town of Paris, Bourbon County. Kentucky, a young 
 Presbyterian preacher with his wife and child in a buggy or carriage that had 
 seen rough roads in its journey from East Tennessee. The young man called 
 upon the Rev. John Lyle, the local minister of his denomination to inquire about 
 prospects for a settlement as stated supply or pastor. Mr. Lyle examined him 
 to his own satisfaction in theology and remarked that there was a two-church 
 field at Concord and Carlisle not far away. The new preacher, who was the 
 Rev. John Rankin, confided the fact very frankly that he was an Abolitionist 
 and was on his journey to the Free State of Ohio. But Mr. Lyle was so im- 
 pressed that he promised speedy and satisfactory accommodations. His father, 
 too, was an opponent of slaverv in the Old Dominion; and the Concord Church 
 was a congregation of about 200 members with only one slave-holder, and he 
 was endeavoring to make up his mind to emancipate his slaves. 
 
 A CHURCH OF BLUEGRASS ABOLITIONISTS 
 
 So it came to pass that the young Tennesseean deemed himself providentially 
 directed to this new field, especially to the Concord Church. There he found 
 an Elder Samuel Donnell, who was a native of Augusta County, Virginia, born 
 November 23, 1760. This Mr. Donnell had come to Kentucky unawakcned, 
 like George Nicholas, to the evils of slavery until he heard Father Rice preach. 
 He was so convinced that in 1792, when the election for delegates to the Con- 
 stitutional Convention was at hand, he worked with a Mr. Henry and other 
 thoughtful men getting up associations throughout the country to arouse the 
 people against slavery, to pass resolutions, and to support men pledged to make 
 
198 
 
 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 Kentucky a Free State. So that in Bourbon County the Emancipation or Aboli- 
 tion ticket was elected. Father Rice's measure against slavery lost in the Con- 
 vention by only 4 votes. Again in 1796, when the Constitution was revised, 
 Elder Donnell and his associates redoubled their efforts for freedom; and again 
 lost in the Convention by only a few votes. 
 
 It stirred the soul of the new preacher to hear these things. When he left 
 home his father had followed him on horseback a good way, begging him not 
 
 Rev. and Mrs. John Rankin, "Freedom's "Hero and Hero- 
 ine." John Rankin shares with Benjamin, Lundy the fame 
 of being- the "Father of Abolition in America." 
 
 to go; and young Rankin's heart had been heavy. But now he knew it was 
 the guidance of God; and he remained with the Concord Church a little over 
 four years. He found an Abolition Society amongst the members. It was for 
 Immediate Abolition of Slavery, too; and yet. said Mr. Rankin afterward, some 
 opponents of freedom spoke contemptuously of Abolition as "modern." Samuel 
 Donnell, William Henry, James and William Thompson. John C. McCoy, and 
 other godly laymen and upright citizens, were Immediate Abolitionists. They 
 held meetings, discussing openly the cruelty and evil of slavery. They published 
 
THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 199 
 
 and circulated tracts defending the rights of slaves as human beings. These men 
 were very fine characters, said Mr. Rankin, and they were active in this work 
 for the enslaved Negroes. In such company the young Tennessee preacher found 
 himself. Many of these earnest-minded men and women of God even then advo- 
 cated the disfellowship of slave-holders: and the one lone slave-holder in Con- 
 cord Church was only allowed to remain by promising to amend his way. 
 
 JOHN RANKIN MEASURES UP 
 
 This new "Eorerunner of Lincoln" was not a radical in theology, as many 
 of his opponents imagined. He was a conservative, a dyed-in-the-wool Calvin- 
 istic Presbyterian. He studied the Bible to refute the arguments of slave-holding 
 preachers and people. No man ever gave more earnest and intelligent heed to the 
 Word of God in order to defend human rights. This study gave to his tongue 
 and pen a pith and point like a two-edged sword. He was a man of medium 
 height, looked you squarely in the eye; and some people thought he was harsh 
 and unpleasant because he was so determined in moral purpose. But no man 
 was more sensitive to human suffering the world over, nor gentler among his 
 loved ones at home. 
 
 Mr. Rankin organized "The Free Presbyterian Church" when the Old School 
 Assembly took no stand on slavery and when even the New School Assembly 
 began to hedge, as he thought. The members of his Presbytery in Ohio simply 
 withdrew, when a crisis came, and formed the new organization. When the 
 issue of slavery was settled the "Free Presbyterian Church" was absorbed back 
 into the Mother Body. In open letters of keen and powerful reasoning he 
 addressed the Trustees of Hanover College and Lane Seminary when free dis- 
 cussion among students was suppressed 100 years ago. It was Mr. Rankin's 
 custom to preach a gospel sermon in the morning of Sunday as he traveled, and 
 announce an Abolition address at night. His home at Ripley, Ohio, was the 
 Mecca to Abolition students going down the river to Lane Seminary. He divided 
 honors with Benjamin Lundy as being "The Father of Abolition in the Ohio 
 Valley." 
 
 HEROIC RECORDS RESTORED 
 
 It is amazing how little even highly cultured reading people know today of 
 the powerful and persistent Abolition men and movement of those early years 
 right here in our own home State. Our own researches to unearth the facts 
 have extended over a long period. For years we had sought for information 
 about this great preacher, John Rankin. At last we were rewarded. At the 
 Synod of Indiana, in the fall of 1926, at Vincennes, we were told that the lead- 
 ing members of the Old Concord Abolition Church near Carlisle Kentucky, 
 crossed over into Decatur County, Indiana, and settled at a village which was 
 called Kingston — and which gave the name to the new church they founded there. 
 
 On Friday, May 20, 1927, an ever memorable and beautiful day, we jour- 
 neyed to Greensburg, Decatur County, Indiana, at the special invitation of Miss 
 Mary Rankin, the grand-daughter and biographer of Rev. John Rankin, to sec 
 the manuscript material which he left regarding the forgotten heroic struggle 
 against slavery in our own State 100 years ago. Miss Rankin is a graduate of 
 
200 
 
 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 Oberlin College and a finished critic and writer of history. Her father was the 
 son and namesake of Rev. John Rankin; and in a family group picture of this 
 famous Abolition family, he wore the uniform of a Federal soldier. His widow, 
 the mother of Miss Mary Rankin, is a remarkable woman, alert, and full of 
 vision and love for humanity. She joined with her daughter in giving us every 
 fact and assistance necessary to restore the story of Rev. John Rankin to our 
 own times and the future. 
 
 Eliza House where Harriet Beecher Stowe imet the 
 Negress '"Eliza" in "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Home of Rev 
 John Rankin, Ripley, Ohio. 
 
 REV. JOHN RANKIN AND REV. JOHN RULE 
 
 We were very much impressed also to learn that our own father, Rev. John 
 Rule, was pastor of the same church at Carlisle that Rev. John Rankin had 
 served 50 years before. And when our father went with the Southern side in 
 the division of the Synod of Kentucky in 1867-8, old Elder Waugh of the 
 Carlisle Church who was an Anti-slavery and Union man, locked the doors on 
 a sacramental meeting already announced. His brother, a milder man in judg- 
 ment and attitude, persuaded him to let the doors be opened. Nevertheless this 
 church went ultimately with the Southern Assembly. But the manuscript his- 
 tory of the Abolition Church at Concord is a priceless document. The Kingston 
 Church, in Decatur County, Indiana, which the followers of John Rankin 
 founded, stands in a quaint Arcadian landscape of indescribable beauty and fertil- 
 ity. But the old families and names that gave it glory are nearly all gone now. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 February 4. 1793 — March 18. 1886 
 By His Grand-daughter, MARY RANKIN (May — 1927) 
 
 (jA ' HE ANCESTORS of John Rankin were Scotch-Presbyterians from the 
 | I ■% north of Ireland. Thomas Rankin, his grandfather, was brought 
 
 Vl/ to Pennsylvania when three years old. He and three of his six sons 
 
 ■* served in the Revolutionary War, and then, having sold his farm for 
 
 worthless Continental money, he was forced to seek a homestead in Tennessee. 
 His grandson describes him as an elder in the church and an honored example to 
 his family and neighbors. Robert Rankin, his son, a blacksmith, also moved to 
 Jefferson County, Tennessee, with his wife, Jane Steele, also of Scotch-Irish par- 
 entage. There the son John was born February 4, 1793. 
 
 He says of his parents: "They were members of the Presbyterian Church 
 and well indoctrinated." Their children were baptized in infancy and taught the 
 Shorter Catechism. Four sons became ministers. "My father was remarkable for 
 the purity of his morals.- My mother was a woman of strong mental capacity 
 and one who read much in the Bible and religious books. The influence of a 
 mother is more impressing than that of a father. I often found her on her 
 knees in secret prayer and when father was absent she prayed with the family." 
 
 The majority of the settlers were rough, ignorant people who opposed schools, 
 churches and an educated ministry. So the Rankin family of ten boys and one 
 girl were taught at home; and as the well-read family library consisted of "The 
 Bible, some of the writings of the ablest Scotch divines and some historical 
 works." they fared better than many others of the day. An occasional three 
 months' term of school was held at a crude school house two and a half miles 
 distant. The school house was "built of round logs. One end of it was built 
 like the corner of a fence, in which there was a rough stone wall against which 
 the fire was built of such logs as could be rolled or carried in. The floor was 
 native earth. A wide space between two logs formed the place for light. There 
 was no loft, clapboards weighted down with heavy poles formed the roof. Our 
 books were Dillsworth's Spelling book, the New and Old Testaments, (the New 
 first then the Old). After that any history might be read. Our Arithmetic 
 was in the Master's head and sometimes there was none there." 
 
 As he grew to manhood, he says, "I wrote articles on various subjects and 
 cultivated my oratorical capacity by speaking in the fields and woods where no 
 one could hear me. I read much in the Bible and books on Theology. The 
 Bible was my school book; hence I acquired a taste for reading its attractive 
 style and stupendous miracles." 
 
202 
 
 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 He did his share of the work on the farm and also learned to make harnesses, 
 shoes and many other things needed about the farm or house. He says: "I would 
 rather make a neat bed in the garden or a neat pair of shoes than to play. With 
 me it was generally all work and no play." 
 
 SAMUEL DOAK, D. D. 
 
 Founder and First President of Washing-ton College, East 
 Tennessee, first college West of the Alleghanies. 
 
 "The first regular church in this cradle-spot of Tennessee was a Pres- 
 byterian log meeting-house built near Jonesboro in 1777 and christened 
 Salem Church. Its pastor was a pioneer preacher, who worked with fiery 
 and successful energy to spread learning and religion among the early settlers 
 of the Southwest. His name was Samuel Doak. He came from New Jersy 
 and had been educated at Princeton 
 
 "The hardy people among whom he took up his abode were able to appre- 
 ciate his learning and religioni as much as they admired his adventures and 
 indomitable temper; and the stern, hard. God-fearing man became a most 
 powerful influence for good throughout the whole formative period of the 
 Southwest. 
 
 "Not only did he found a church, but near it he built a log high school, 
 which soion became Washington College, the first institution of its kind west 
 of the A{lleghanies." — Theodore Roosevelt in "The Winning of the West." 
 {Vol. Ill, page 99.) 
 
THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 
 
 203 
 
 HIS RELIGIOUS AWAKENING 
 
 At the age of seven he was profoundly moved by the excitement of a religious 
 revival that swept the country; and he "did earnestly desire to experience the 
 realities of religion and did practice secret prayer." But he made no profession 
 because children of that age were not encouraged to do so. The natural reaction 
 followed and is described as coldness, doubt, despair and anguish of spirit. His 
 child mind wrestled with the ninth chapter of Romans and the doctrines of 
 election and foreordination, and when other young people were chatting merrily 
 on the way home from church, he would ride "solemn and silent as the grave 
 under a sense of the awful truths." But again: "At times I had joyful hope 
 and when I was but a boy I united with the church, but my doubts would, 
 at times, return." 
 
 From his earliest recollection he had hoped to be a minister and he continued 
 his studies through all this period of spiritual struggle, held back only by a sense 
 of his unworthiness. When he was about twenty he had the opportunity to 
 study Latin for three months under Rev. David Weir, and to do so he rode horse- 
 back fourteen miles a day. 
 
 BIRTHPLACE OF REV. JOHN RANKIN 
 Jefferson County, Tennessee 
 
 EDUCATED UNDER DR. DOAK 
 
 He continued his studies at home till his father was able to send him to 
 Washington College, some sixty miles east of his home, where he studied under 
 Dr. Samuel Doak, the founder of this first institution of classical learning west 
 of the Alleghanies. Dr. Doak's plan was to let the young men of his school 
 advance as rapidly as possible without regard to classes, so that the young John 
 Rankin finished his course in two and a half years. During this time his health 
 was impaired and extreme nervousness brought on a feeling of "diffidence," as he 
 describes it, that was not overcome for several years. Six months before he grad- 
 uated from college he was taken under the care of Abingdon Presbytery and after 
 a year of reading prescribed by Dr. Doak he was licensed to preach. 
 
 HIS MARRIAGE 
 
 A few weeks before his graduation he married Jean Lowry, grand-daughter 
 of Dr. Doak. By her trade as tailoress she supported him through the remainder 
 
204 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 of his college year and his supplementary study for the ministry. There were 
 many times after that when her skill supported the large family (thirteen chil- 
 dren) when the salary came in slowly or not at all. He writes of her later: 
 "In all our pilgrimage she has never placed an obstacle in my way of preaching 
 the gospel. But few women have filled as well the place of a minister's wife. 
 She contributed greatly to my success in the sacred office." 
 
 SOJOURN IN KENTUCKY 
 
 Mr. Rankin began to supply pulpits in the churches of East Tennessee, but 
 as there was no opening for him there, and as he hated slavery, he determined to 
 go north and seek a home and a church in free territory. With his wife and son, 
 2 horse and carriage and a hundred dollars in silver, he set out in the Fall of 1817. 
 Stopping at Paris, Kentucky, to call on the Rev. John Lyle, he was examined 
 by that gentleman concerning his beliefs, and being found free from taint of 
 "Hopkinsonianism," he was urged to stop and preach to the Concord Church near 
 Carlisle. He agreed to stay for the winter and then became their pastor and 
 remained for four years. 
 
 Two sermons a week soon exhausted his supply of memorized sermons and 
 in a panic he complained to his wife that he lacked "capacity" to preach and 
 would have to give it up. She believed in him and encouraged him to persevere. 
 It was then that he adopted a plan which he always followed. "I selected a 
 sufficient number of texts to give me enough to speak, for I never had a talent 
 for speaking on nothing as some seem to have. I then placed in memory the 
 order to be pursued, the doctrines to be discussed and the texts to sustain them. 
 I never opened my Bible to read a proof text. I took no notes into the pulpit 
 and read only the text. When I began to preach in this way the people began 
 to speak of my improvement in preaching." He wrote no sermons but often 
 "discussed the doctrines of the gospels" with his pen in order to faciliate expres- 
 sion. He felt the necessity of study the more keenly because the Concord congre- 
 gation were a superior class of people, and because they had been seriously dis- 
 turbed by the preaching of a former pastor. Barton Stone, leader of the "New 
 Light" faith as it was then called. He had to defend the doctrines of the Divinity 
 of Christ, the Atonement, and the influence of the Holy Spirit, and the custom 
 of infant baptism. 
 
 He was gradually freeing himself of the self-consciousness that had developed 
 during his college days, and by this close study of text and doctrine he became 
 so familiar with both as to be at ease on any occasion. He tells this story of 
 a later time: "I was once appointed by Presbytery to preach on a particular 
 subject and I forgot that I had been so appointed until the hour came. I selected 
 a suitable text and discoursed on the subject to the satisfaction of Presbytery and 
 no one knew I had made no preparation." 
 
 The story has been told by another of a wager on the question of his ability 
 to preach without previous notice. He was found and brought before the crowd 
 and then told that they wanted him to preach. He mounted a stump and an- 
 nounced his text — "Therefore came I unto you without gainsaying, as soon as 
 I was sent for. I ask, therefore, for what intent ye have sent for me," and 
 plunged immediately into his discourse. 
 
 APOSTLE OF ABOLITION 
 
 With no books but the Bible he was compelled to study it closely, not only 
 to bet able to refute the New Light doctrines, but to fight against slavery, and 
 Bible truths were always his chief weapon against the evil. The Concord con- 
 gregation were strongly anti-slavery and many were members of a society auxiliary 
 to the Kentucky Abolition Society. Mr. Rankin preached and lectured through- 
 out the State without opposition. 
 
THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 205 
 
 But though the Presbyterian Church and its ministry were then predomi- 
 nantly anti-slavery, slavery was increasing its hold in the State and that reason, 
 coupled with hard times, bank failures, and the migration of Concord families 
 to Indiana, determined Mr. Rankin to continue the journey begun four years 
 before. He was called to the churches of Ripley and Straight Creek in Brown 
 County, Ohio, and took up his work there in November, 1822. 
 
 For forty-four years Mr. Rankin lived and preached in Ripley, building up 
 the congregation and church, planting other churches throughout the country, 
 preaching Presbyterian doctrine, temperance and anti-slavery. He held week day 
 Bible Classes when there were no Sunday Schools and organized Sunday Schools 
 as soon as the movement came west. At his suggestion, men of his church 
 induced men of the Methodist Church to unite with them in what he believed 
 to be the first temperance society west of the Alleghanies. Unfortunately he 
 gives no dates. The influence of this society was strong enough to drive the 
 saloons out of the town several times. He also prepared seven young men for 
 the ministry, and for a few years was president of a little college that died 
 an early death from lack of funds. 
 
 HIS FAMOUS "LETTERS ON SLAVERY" 
 
 Mr. Rankin's account of his first book is significant: "My brother Thomas 
 settled in the Middle Brook, Augusta County, Virginia, as a merchant, and after 
 living there some years he wrote me that he had bought a slave. I replied to 
 him in a series of letters published in a paper then printed in Ripley, called the 
 "Castigator." I sent him the paper; for then it cost twenty-five cents to send 
 a letter by mail. At that time (1823) Ohio was an anti-slavery State; conse- 
 quently the series of letters was well received. In those letters I urged the wrong 
 of slavery to a great extent. The arguments were all my own, for I had no 
 books on the sublet to guide me. I let to the editor of the "Castigator," one- 
 third of my house at $50 a year to pay for printing a thousand copies of the 
 letters in book form. I was too poor to get them all bound at once. I got a 
 few bound at a time, until I circulated in Ohio and Kentucky six hundred. A 
 bookseller at Maysville, Ky., supplied his store with them and the sale of them 
 gave no offence then. Since that time it would have endangered a man's life to 
 sell one of them in that State. I was too poor to publish another edition and 
 supposed it would never appear again; but by some means Mr. Garrison obtained 
 a copy which excited him to run his anti-slavery course. He acknowledged him- 
 self to be my disciple. I am responsible for his Abolitionism but not for his 
 divinity. He published the entire series in the "Liberator." At the origin of 
 the American Anti-Slavery Society it was extensively published in New England, 
 and the society made it a text book for their lectures. It was also published in 
 England. The facts of cruelty stated in it were almost incredible yet they were 
 true. ... It has done its work and has passed away." 
 
 OTHER NOTABLE ARTICLES 
 
 Because the American Book and Tract Society would not publish anti-slavery 
 tracts, Mr. Rankin suggested the organization of a new one. The organization 
 of the American Reform Tract and Book Society took place in the Vine Street 
 
206 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 Congregational Church of Cincinnati. Its chief supporters were Congregational- 
 ists, Presbyterians and Friends. As its first secretary, it fell to Mr. Rankin to 
 collect funds for its endowment and his travels took him as far away as Bangor, 
 Maine. The name later (185 2) became the "Western Tract and Book Society." 
 Mr. Rakin also wrote a number of tracts which were published by the society, 
 among them: "The Bible Contains no Sanction for Slavery," "By the Son of 
 a Blacksmith." "On the Duty of Voting for Good Men," and one on temper- 
 ance, offering reasons why intoxicating drinks should be prohibited by law. One 
 was written for the North, showing why the North should agree to liberate the 
 slaves by purchase, and one was for the Southern people, showing why thev 
 should agree to free the slaves on those terms. Mr. Rankin says: "The late 
 war has shown that the reasons given in those two tracts were well founded, 
 for it would have saved millions of lives and thousands of millions of money." 
 
 HELPS MRS. STOWE WITH "UNCLE TOMS CABIN" 
 
 "The Lord gave me a sympathetic heart so that I. could not help sympathiz- 
 ing with innocent sufferers. Hence, early in life I set myself against slave- 
 holding. Some of the keenest sensations of mental anguish I ever felt were 
 occasioned by contemplating the cruelties inflicted upon slaves." Among the 
 stories he told of "runaway slaves" is the one around which Mrs. Stowe built 
 her character of Eliza in "Uncle Tom's Cabin." "A Kentucky slave mother 
 having been harshly treated by her mistress, took her child in her arms and in 
 the night started for Canada. She came to the house of an old Scotchman who 
 lived on the Ohio River. She asked him what was best for her to do. My 
 house being on the top of a hill, he pointed to it and said. 'A good man lives 
 in that house. Go to it and you will be safe.' The river was frozen over and 
 a thaw had come: so the water was running over the ice, which was just ready 
 to break up. She waded across and went to my house, went into the kitchen, 
 made a fire and dried herself; then she waked two of my boys and they con- 
 veyed her to another depot the same night." 
 
 Mr. Rankin used this and similar stories to illustrate points in the tracts 
 he was publishing: and this story fell into the hands of Mrs. Stowe. who then 
 lived in Cincinnati. A correspondence followed and Mrs. Stowe was invited to 
 visit in Mr. Rankin's home and interview fugitives as they came through. She 
 availed herself of this invitation and spent some time there. Though neither 
 Mrs. Stowe nor Mr. Rankin mentions this incident, Mr. Rankin's children all 
 remembered it and pointed out the window, the west one. upstairs, where she 
 sat writing. The village of Ripley has many added legendary details not con- 
 firmed by the memories of Mr. Rankin's family. 
 
 Mr. Rankin says: "There was a band of benevolent young men who at- 
 tended to all such cases and were ever ready to spend a night in behalf of fugitive 
 slaves." And Ripley was the scene of so many such acts that it was often threat- 
 ened with burning. Among these "benevolent young men" were Mr. Rankin's 
 nine sons as they grew old enough to be of service. The daughters, too. were 
 often called upon to aid by carrying colored children through the streets on their 
 horses, and by lending their clothing and horses to disguise refugee women who 
 were being escorted through the town in daylight. Sunbonnets were as useful 
 to conceal dark faces as to protect the beauty of the fair. No fugitive in the 
 hands of this band of men was ever captured. 
 
THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 
 
 207 
 
 SUFFERING FOR FREEDOM 
 
 Mr. Rankin, in his travels through Ohio and Indiana in the cause of anti- 
 slavery, suffered many indignities, finding the doors of churches, homes and 
 public halls closed to him; and on the other hand, finding welcome and gener- 
 osity from those whose hearts had been touched by his cause. Mobs were not 
 infrequent experiences, and plots against his life were frustrated. But he was 
 never kept from an appointment; and only once did an audience "walk out on 
 him" when a mob attacked the building where he was speaking. "His body 
 was never bruised by a stone, nor his raiment stained by an offensive missle," 
 though stones and eggs and even firebrands hit him without doing any harm. 
 
 REV. GEORGE W. GALE, D. D. (1789-1S62) 
 
 Great but Gentle Abolition Educator and New School Leader. Originator 
 and founder of the "Oneida Manual Labor Institute," Whitesboro, N. Y., more 
 than 100 years ago. Mr. Gale was in poor health himself at the time (1826) 
 and took a farm to help promising- young men secure an education by work- 
 ing for it. His personality and go<od management made such a success of 
 the experiment that the idea spread rapidly far and wide. It was the root 
 idea of vocational training and the sciencesi One of his pupils, Theodore Weld 
 who conducted the Dairy Department, was converted under Rev. Charles G. 
 Finney, and entered Lane Seminary under Dr. Lyman Beecher. Young Weld 
 traveled throughout the country, especially the South, popularizing the Man- 
 ual Labor School idea. He also lectured on Slavery and Abolition and became 
 one of the most brilliant and powerful orators and workers in the cause of 
 freedom. He headed the Student Abolition Movement of Lane Seminary 100 
 years ago in demanding freiedom of opinion and discussion in the student 
 body. There was a revolt of the students at Lane and Hanover. Rev. 
 John Rankin addressed keen and searching open letters to the trustees of 
 these, institutions in protest of suppressing free opinion and expression. 
 
 Rev. George W. Gale was the pastor who led Charles G. Finney, the 
 Great Evangelist and Abolitionist, to Christ. 
 
 Dr. Gale also founded Knox College, Illinois, his living monument. 
 
 He writes: "The Lord preserved me from all harm." Nor was his house ever 
 searched, though the attempt was made more than once. At one time the slave- 
 hunters were held at bay by Mrs. Rankin with an ax in her hands, Mr. Rankin 
 and the older boys being .away from home at the time. Refugees were never 
 kept in the house or about the farm more than an hour or so, beause of the 
 
208 
 
 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 MONUMENT TO RDV. AND MR 
 
 Ripley, Ohio 
 
 I ( ) 1 1 X RANK! X 
 
THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 209 
 
 danger to the poor fugitives themselves; so there was nothing to conceal from 
 any one with a warrant to search the house. But no warrant was presented and 
 the sanctity of the home was kept inviolate. 
 
 Many legends have already grown up in Ripley concerning the house that 
 looks down from its hill-top. The "secret closets" are ordinarily storage places 
 under the eaves, and in one of them Mr. Rankin tried to keep bees, which ac- 
 counts for the small window at the west end of the house. The legend of "the 
 light in the window at night" probably arose around the candle by which Mr. 
 Rankin read and wrote. The "Underground Railroad" would not have been 
 underground had its first station been so conspiciously designated. Indeed, there 
 was no need of a light, for the runaway had been following the North Star, 
 and that Star of Hope stood above the little house, etched black against the sky- 
 line high above the river. 
 
 LAST DAYS AND DEATH 
 
 After leaving Ripley, he was for many years in Kansas, always active and 
 busy supplying needy churches, with little compensation till his ninetieth year, 
 when an accident and an illness of three years ended a long, eventful life, March 
 18, 1886. From the church in Ripley, relays of colored men carried his casket 
 the long mile to the cemetery. There it lies beside that of his wife, beneath a 
 simple granite monument bearing a bronze bust, the only inscription these words: 
 
 John Rankin — 1793-1886 
 
 Jean Lowry, his wife — 1795-1878 
 
 Freedom's Heroes. 
 
 SOURCES 
 
 Manuscript, copy of Life of John Rankin, written by Himself in his Eighti- 
 eth Year, (a manuscript in Western Reserve Historical Museum, Cleveland. Ohio) . 
 
 The Soldier, The Battle and The Victory, by the Author of the Life and 
 Writings of Samuel Crothers, etc. 
 
 Pamphlet, Dedication of Bronze Bust and Granite Monument. 
 
CHAPTER XLI 
 
 
 ^| I I HEN Dr. Lyman Beecher gave himself to the gospel ministry he 
 / I relinquished all idea of accumulating property and determined to 
 
 ^^^^ trust God to maintain him and his family, whatever of good or ill 
 might befall them. He confidently anticipated educating his children 
 and dedicated his sons to the same ministry as himself, if God should so call 
 them. His first salary at East Hampton. Long Island, was $300 and firewood, 
 with an increase of $100 after five years. When his family increased he received 
 a call to Litchfield, Connecticut, at a salary of $800 with the promise of fuel 
 He was very much attached to the Litchfield pastorate, but each year his thrifty 
 wife told him that his salary did not meet expenses; and in due course of time 
 he found himself $600 behind. They talked the matter over and he said to 
 her that he had not expected to move again for many years, if ever; and he 
 added that the condition of the church was not such as to justify his asking an 
 increase of salary at that time. Mother Beecher told him she was willing to 
 make any sacrifice herself, but first suggested his teaching school to supplement 
 his salary. The good pastor replied that he could not do justice to his flock if 
 he entered the school room. Mother Beecher then agreed to spend a little finan- 
 cial reserve she had enlarging the manse and taking in roomers and boarders. This 
 experiment proved disastrous to her health and inheritance and ultimately brought 
 on a decline from which she died. It seems, however, that the Litchfield con- 
 gregation did come to his relief when they were informed of his embarrassing 
 circumstances, for these facts are set forth in his request for dismission laid before 
 them. It was a very tender and candid communication, after a fifteen year rela- 
 tionship with them. He said that some ministers might have farmed and loaned 
 money and not become a care upon their flock, but that he was absolutely devoted 
 to the cause of the Kingdom of God among them and had no regrets about it. 
 He added that he was willing for his sons to become farmers or mechanics, if 
 they so wished, but that they gave every evidence of following in the footsteps 
 of their father as servants of the Lord Jesus. 
 
 For these reasons Dr. Beecher regarded a confidential inquiry from a com- 
 mittee of the Hanover Church in Boston as a providential door of relief and 
 entrance into larger service opened unto him. He so informed the committee 
 and the Litchfield congregation and accepted the call to the Boston church. He 
 began his work at the Hanover Church under most promising auspices. It was 
 just one hundred years ago, in the year 1826. He was the one outstanding 
 evangelical preacher in Boston. He was a man of great personal magnetism and 
 far-reaching spiritual vision. The Hanover Church consisted of just thirty-seven 
 members when he arrived. There were some excellent young men in the con- 
 gregation and from Sunday to Sunday the auditors increased. In those davs 
 the pews were sold or rented for church support and the spaces were speedily 
 
THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 211 
 
 occupied. A flood of young people from the middle classes showed up in the 
 audience, and Dr. Beecher's young men were "quick as a cat" to assist him in 
 discovering, locating, and calling upon any spiritual inquirers. The doctrines of 
 grace that he preached had not been heard in Boston for many years, and the 
 effect was marked from the outset. Following up the individuals awakened, 
 conversions resulted. He established the Inquiry Meeting, so favored with spirit- 
 ual results in former generations. He told the people that a revival was coming 
 and that they must prepare for it. Such an experience was strange to the 
 Boston ministry of that day. Revivals were regarded as mad fanaticism, and out- 
 siders began to watch this new Presbyterian preacher and to say all manner of 
 things about his novel and unusual method and manner. He made no attack 
 upon the Unitarians. He simply pointed out the deadness of religion in the 
 town and how God was again drawing nigh to bless his people. As the inquir- 
 ers multiplied his own young men met him at the door with staring eyes and 
 told him that it was a mistake; that these anxious souls did not understand 
 what they were doing. But Dr. Beecher answered that it was the finger of God. 
 He was compelled to divide the inquirers into groups and classes and go from 
 one to another, with his helpers, as rapidly but as thoroughly as possible. He 
 saw infidels and skeptics waiting to talk to him and while avoiding argument 
 invited them to the manse. He rose to the demands of the crisis and when 
 seventy souls were received into the communion of the Hanover Church the 
 opposition broke all bounds. He was assailed in the papers and denounced 
 on the street corner. Wives and daughters were forbidden to attend his services. 
 "The whole weight of political, literary, and social influence was turned against 
 us, and the lash of ridicule laid on without stint." 
 
 Dr. Beecher revised and delivered his famous six sermons on Intemperance. 
 His young men enthusiastically demanded that they be published. The sermons 
 ran through several editions, and the Tract Society bought the copyright and 
 sold them by the hundred. They stirred up the liquor element and had a far- 
 reaching influence for good. Yet in all these spiritual and social unheavals Dr. 
 Beecher was not vindictive or personal. He made no reply to opposition or 
 crit'eism. He told his people that either the town of Boston would yield to 
 the revival or bitterly oppose it. They did the latter as he confidently antici- 
 pated; but he triumphed with the truth, and the eyes of the whole nation were 
 centered on him. 
 
 RISE OF CHARLES G. FINNEY 
 
 "God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform." It was at this 
 very time that the remarkable religious awakening in New York State associated 
 with the name and work of Charles G. Finney began to attract wide attention. 
 This unusual man was a native of Litchfield county, Connecticut, where he was 
 born August 29, 1792. He was just two years old when his father emigrated 
 to Oneida county. New York. It was a wilderness. There were no religious 
 privileges to be had. No religious books to speak of were obtainable. The 
 New Englanders established schools, but the preachers and the preaching excited 
 the ridicule of young Finney and his companions. An ignorant and fanatical 
 type of exhorter was the only gospel messenger to be found in the settlements. 
 The Finneys removed further west and were at greater disadvantage spiritually 
 than ever. At the age of twenty young Finney was completing the foundations 
 
212 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 of his education and preparation as a teacher in New England. He desired to 
 go to Yale College, but he fell in with a young man who persuaded him to 
 prepare privately and to go with him as a teacher to the South. His parents, 
 however, dissuaded him from this movement; and in the year 1818 he began 
 the study of law at the town of Adams, Jefferson county, New York. 
 
 Mr. Finney says he was a stranger to the influence of prayer and that the 
 preaching he heard in New England was of such a dry, didactic character that it 
 made no favorable impression upon him. The pastor would have an innumer- 
 able set of proof texts to read during the sermon and held the Bible in both 
 hands, releasing his fingers one at a time as he droned and mumbled the monot- 
 onous repetition of points supposed to be elucidated. Is it any wonder that the 
 young man had no favorable conception of a spiritual life, much less any idea 
 of himself becoming a minister of the gospel? He little knew at the time that 
 God was thus familiarizing him with the dead condition of Zion in order to 
 raise him up as a prophet of the Most High. He began to read the Bible when 
 he saw references to the Laws of Moses in the statute books. This induced 
 him to purchase the first Bible he ever owned and he read other portions of it 
 with much profit He began to talk with the local Presbyterian pastor, who 
 was himself a dry-as-dust type of preacher, and Finney said many unmerciful 
 things to him. The man of God seemed to have no experimental realization of 
 the doctrines he was preaching. But young Finney soon discovered that he 
 himself was far out at sea; and a great anxiety possessed him to know more 
 of the vital truth of religion. He was especially impressed with the perfunc- 
 tory type of prayers offered up and saw that the people who made them did 
 not expect an answer. He attended their prayer services and told them plainly 
 that he did not wish them to pray for him as they had no power with God. 
 Yet all the time he was feeling his way along like a man in utter darkness 
 seeking the light. 
 
 It was in the month of October, 1821, that Mr. Finney came to a crisis in 
 his search after God. He experienced all the symptoms and pains and despairs 
 of a soul shaken with the terrors of the law and redeemed by a grace so amazing 
 that when he returned from the woods to his law office after much wrestling 
 and prayer, he had a vision of the Lord Jesus that lifted him into the seventh 
 heaven of ecstacy and peace. He relinquished all attention to his work as an 
 attorney and told his associates that he was called now to be an ambassador of 
 the Most High. That strange magnetism for which he became so famous pos- 
 sessed him from the very first evening service he addressed in the village after his 
 conversion. He had been choir leader in the Presbyterian church and the revival 
 broke out from that very hour. He admits in his autobiography that he was 
 enthused to such an extent that he had to guard against a nervous break-down 
 and insanity; but this was the powerful emotional crisis he had passed through. 
 In the spring of 1822 he put himself under the care of the local Presbytery. 
 He declined to go to Princeton Seminary because of the controversy then begin- 
 ning to rage between the old legalistic and the new school views of evangelical 
 truth. He had talked these matters over very fully with his pastor, the Rev. 
 Mr. Gale, and though the Presbytery offered to defray the expense of his the- 
 ological course at Princeton, Mr. Finney chose to prepare for licensure under 
 his pastor and in the two years intervening threshed out with Mr. Gale tbj 
 whole range of doctrinal points between the Old School and the New. He was 
 
THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 2H 
 
 positively a New School man, and the Presbytery, in the spring of 1824, very 
 wisely and generously passed by these differences of opinion and licensed him on 
 the evidence of his faith and work as a clearly called man of God. The Pres- 
 bytery of Oneida certainly signalized the occasion and the act, for they testified 
 that the evangelistic movement in which young Finney was so conspicuous and 
 powerful was pentecostal in depth and genuineness. 
 
 This Rev. George W. Gale, under whose ministry Mr. Finney was converted 
 and trained up into his great life work as an evangelist, was a decidedly his- 
 torical character. He had come to the pastorate at Adams, N. Y., in 1819, and 
 remanied there until 1826. He was the founder of the noted Oneida Manual 
 Labor Institute, at Whitesboro, N. Y., which had such an immense influence 
 throughout the Western States about that time. It was the idea of the old 
 "school of the prophets" long ago; and we shall presently see that it had a 
 fundamental relation to the founding of Lane Seminary, Oberlin College, Berea 
 College, and to the gathering anti-slavery sentiment and movement associated 
 with the New School element in the Presbyterian Church. The biographer of 
 Mr. Finney refers to the hesitancy of Rev. Mr. Gale to openly and positively 
 side with young Finney in points of theology; but it is sufficient for us to 
 know that Mr. Gale became more and more imbued with the New School inter- 
 pretation, and that he stamped upon young Finney's mind and soul the spiritual 
 conceptions of human labor and liberty that subsequently enabled Mr. Finney to 
 build better than he knew at Oberlin. Dr. Gale, like John Finley Crowe, and 
 Gideon Blackburn, was also an educational pioneer of the New West, as he 
 founded Knox College, at Galesburg, 111., in 1835. 
 
 We have mentioned the rise of Charles G. Finney as a contemporary of 
 Lyman Beecher at Boston because the New School Revival Movement springing 
 up in New York State at this time drew the attention of the New England 
 ministry and occasioned a great deal of severe censure in the religious press because 
 of its intensity and terrific emotional manifestations. No doubt there was suffi- 
 cient justification for this objection, and the Rev. Mr. Nettleton, of New Eng- 
 land, a bosom friend of Lyman Beecher and himself an evangelist of long stand- 
 ing and success, led a movement to counteract and discourage what we would 
 today term "primitive traits in religious revivals." Dr. Nettleton and Dr. Beecher 
 were, of course, much more thoroughly trained in general culture and theology 
 than Mr. Finney, and the Presbyterian Church unquestionably discountenanced 
 emotional excess in the conversion of souls. This Dr. Nettleton was a very 
 gentle and persuasive evangelist, whereas Charles G. Finney was as bold and open 
 as a lion. Anyhow, some of Lyman Beecher's confidential correspondence on this 
 controversy got into print and made Finney feel that Nettleton and Beecher were 
 enemies of the work of grace; and at a conference called on the subject they got 
 no closer together, though Beecher was courteous to Finney later on when he 
 came to Boston. These facts are of interest because when Lyman Beecher came 
 West a few years later to head Lane Seminary, and Charles G. Finney came West 
 also to build up Oberlin College, the very same difference of spirit and method 
 in the temperaments of the two men of God manifested itself in the anti-slavery 
 movement. Dr. Beecher was wise and strong with a reserve that was character- 
 istically Presbyterian, while Finney was the same positive, heroic, flame-like 
 evangel of human liberty that he had been back in the frontier towns of New 
 York State. 
 
214 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 THEODORE WELD— THE YOUNG ABOLITIONIST 
 
 The most gifted and powerful Anti-Slavery leader among the early students 
 at Lane Seminary and Oberlin College was Theodore Weld. He seems to have 
 been a promising pupil at Phillips Academy, in New England, the son of a 
 Presbyterian or Congregational clergyman. He was very fond of the boys in 
 the class ahead of him and endeavored to overtake them by hard study, so he 
 could join them. He was only a youth of seventeen and this overtax of the eyes 
 nearly precipitated blindness. He was dependent on his own exertions, and leav- 
 ing school he set out on a lecturing tour through Connecticut, New York, Mary- 
 land, Virginia and North Carolina. Even at that time he was a pleasing and 
 fluent public speaker. Said he, "On this tour I saw slavery at home and became 
 a radical Abolitionist." 
 
 Young Weld's eyes were still much affected on his return North and he went 
 to Hamilton College, near Utica, N. Y., where he had an uncle and where a 
 student friend, Kirkland by name, insisted that he could help Weld to save his 
 eyes and make progress in his studies. He shared his room with Weld part of 
 the time. Weld's uncle died in the spring of 1826 and he went to Utica to 
 visit his aunt. He was evidently a devout young man because he led family 
 worship at his aunt's. But report of the revival meeting and methods of Charles 
 G. Finney at that time in Utica had created a most unfavorable impression among 
 the faculty and students of Hamilton College. Weld had the same conception 
 of Finney that Rev. Mr. Nettleton and other New England clergy entertained. 
 Weld understood that the terrorism of the evangelist had unnerved his young 
 cousin at Utica, and he expressed himself in strong terms against the meetings 
 and the minister. He had a great influence among the students and turned them 
 against Mr. Finney also. But young Weld's aunt lived next door to where 
 Mr. Finney was staying, and as she was a strong partisan of the evangelist she 
 used strategy to get her nephew to attend a day service when he did not antici- 
 pate hearing Mr. Finney. The evangelist was secretly posted as to the presence 
 of the hostile young man and took as his text, "One sinner destroyeth much 
 good." He fastened his terrific eyes upon young Weld, who tried to leave the 
 church, but was dissuaded by his aunt. It is the testimony of both Finney and 
 Weld that the sermon Was personal and scathing. 
 
 Next day Weld was in a store passing the time when one of the firm informed 
 Mr. Finney. He came over and encountered Weld. Some exchange of words 
 passed between them when Weld, exasperatd already and under deep conviction, 
 scored the evangelist roundly in the presence of the crowd that quickly gathered. 
 Mr. Finney says their meeting was not premeditated on his part and puts the 
 responsibility for the disputation entirely upon Weld, though confessing that he 
 had described him severely in the sermon of the previous day. The argument 
 went on for some time until Weld lost his temper completely and left the store 
 with a cutting remark addressed to Mr. Finney who returned to his own house. 
 This was the way the revival worked in those days. Excitement, discussion, 
 argument, rebellion, abuse, were expected. And in the case of young Weld he 
 soon repented of his encounter with Mr. Finney and appeared at the door of the 
 residence. When the evangelist came down stairs and saw the young man he 
 expressed displeasure and surprise as though Weld had followed him to renew 
 the quarrel. But that was Finney's way of "breaking a man up" spiritually, 
 for he soon saw that Weld was deeply repentant, threw his arms about him, 
 
THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 215 
 
 drew him into the parlor, and down upon their knees in prayer and tears, Weld 
 was wonderfully converted. 
 
 From that hour, throughout the entire summer, Mr. Finney had no stronger 
 or more eloquent assistant. That winter Weld took an invalid brother on a 
 trip to Labrador. On his return he spent several weeks in Boston, where he 
 met Dr. Lyman Beecher and came under his inspiring influence. Thence he went 
 to the Oneida Manual Labor Institute, near Utica, N. Y.. presided over by Rev. 
 Mr. Gale, Mr. Finney's former pastor. Weld acted as solicitor of funds for the 
 endowment of the institution about half time and the remainder was the monitor 
 of the dairy class, looking after about thirty cows and the delivery of the milk 
 in wagons by daybreak each morning. A dairy barn was needed and Weld 
 induced a farmer of the neighborhood who had but little faith in the work of 
 the students to donate the timber, which Weld saw prepared and built up into 
 a model structure with student labor. 
 
 It was in his conversations with Charles Beecher that Weld gave account of 
 these experiences before entering Lane Seminary as a student for the ministry. 
 His distinction as an Abolitionist consists in his clear economic and moral con- 
 ception of Labor as a fundamental of human society. "In July, 1831," he says, 
 a National Manual Labor Society was formed, and I became general agent, and 
 traveled and lectured, visiting most of the Manual Labor institutions in Ohio, 
 Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama. I also lectured 
 from time to time on Temperance, and conversed freely, whenever I had a chance, 
 with young men on the subject of slavery. The Liberator had just been estab- 
 lished then, and had not become known, and there was entire freedom to con- 
 verse on the subject everywhere, provided we kept out of hearing of the slaves. 
 
 "At Huntsville, Alabama, I became acquainted with Dr. Allen, the leading 
 Presbyterian minister of the State, a slave-holder, and with his son, who had 
 recently graduated. J. G. Birney was one of his elders, and it was owing to my 
 discussion with Dr. Allen that he was led to think on the subject and became an 
 Abolitionist. During this tour I found several young men who resolved to 
 come to Lane — among others the son of Dr. Allen." 
 
 It was on his way South that Weld gave ten lectures in Cincinnati on the 
 subject of Temperance, and several on the Manual Labor Society. He drew such 
 crowds that larger churches were required to hold them. In the autumn on his 
 return from the South he lectured at the Seminary on the Manual Labor theme. 
 Mr. Lane, for whom the institution was named, heard him, as well as other lead- 
 ing men. A closer examination of this record kept by the Beechers proves to 
 be an account of young Weld taken down in writing by Charles Beecher shortly 
 after hearing it from Weld's own lips. It gives a vivid insight of the strong 
 Anti-Slavery sentiment present in the first body of students, of whom Weld 
 was easily the most gifted and eloquent. Referring to his return from the South 
 and his efforts in the Manual Labor Movement, Weld says: 
 
 "I went on to New York and made my report in January, 183 3, and, 
 while in New York, had several conversations with the Tappans and others inter- 
 ested in Anti-Slavery. I made a statement of the results of my observation. 
 I remember telling them I knew of a number who were coming from the 
 Southern States to Lane, besides many of the Oneida Institute boys; for we had 
 heard of your father's appointment (Dr. Lyman Beecher), and had spoken some 
 of going to Lane. At that time I was planning to establish a great Manual 
 
216 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 Labor Intsitution somewhere, and liberal offers had been made by gentlemen ar 
 Rochester. I had been on the ground, and spent some days looking at sites 
 
 in the vicinity But when I went through the West and South. 
 
 and saw the situation of Lane Seminary, I was satisfied that was the place for us. 
 I developed, in conversation with the Tappans, my views on slavery, and my 
 intention to improve the excellent opportunity lo introduce Anti-Slavery senti- 
 ments, and have the whole subject thoroughly discussed. 
 
 "After a brief visit to my father, who then resided near Oneida, sometime 
 in May, 1834, H. B. Stanton, Samuel Wells, Ezra A. Poole, and I bought a 
 boat for six dollars, and went down French Creek and the Alleghany River to 
 Pittsburg. We had good times discussing Anti-Slavery, and stopping occasionally 
 to get supplies, hold prayer-meetings, or find a place to sleep. If we could not, 
 we got along in our boat. At Pittsburg we took deck passage to Cincinnati. 
 You know deck passengers pay nothing, find themselves, sleep on the deck, and 
 help 'wood.' I believe there were some other of the Oneida boys that hired on 
 board of flat-boats, and earned some money to begin their studies." 
 
 Shortly after Weld entered Lane Seminary he became the hero of the 
 terrible cholera scourge, of which he left a thrilling account. He proceeded in 
 his purpose to upbuild Lane as a great Manual Labor Institution, whose students 
 could be one by one personally imbued with Anti-Slavery sentiment and given 
 such a vision of human freedom that victory would duly be assured. He and the 
 young men with him were greatly admired and beloved by Dr. Beecher, who was 
 himself a reasonable Abolitionist; but he advised judicious procedure in their 
 uplift work among the Negro population of Cincinnati. Dr. Beecher did not 
 disapprove the Anti-Slavery organization and discussion among the students; 
 but when he and Prof. Stowe went East in the summer of 1834 the trustees 
 of Lane became alarmed at the meetings and discussions of the students and 
 prohibited them. As a result Theodore Weld and his associates withdrew 
 and went to Oberlin. 
 
CHAPTER XLII 
 
 ^§itnx^ W^mxh %tt€^tx mi ^aimttttfthtix®, 
 
 ^\ m \ USSELL H. CONWELL heard Henry Ward Beecher in the Plymouth 
 I \^J Church pulpit when he was a boy, and he never forgot the time 
 
 I \ and occasion. He even saw Beecher auction off the slave girl from 
 
 ^ the South to set her free. The Plymouth Church in those days was 
 one of the most powerful spiritual centers in the world; and Henry Ward Beecher 
 was more talked of than his now famous spiritual successor, S. Parkes Cadman. 
 Dr. Conwell in later years got to know Beecher personally and often reported his 
 sermons. Dr. Conwell says Beecher often reverted in memory and sentiment to 
 the early simplicity and struggle of his first pastorate at the little Presbyterian 
 Church in Lawrenceburg, Indiana. He told young Conwell that they were the 
 happiest days of his whole ministry: 
 
 "In that little church where there were no lamps, and he had to borrow 
 them himself, and prepare the church for the first service. He told how he swept 
 the church, lighted the fire in the stove, and how it smoked. Then how he 
 sawed the wood to heat the church, and how he went into carpenter work to 
 earn money to pay his own salary; yet he said that was the happiest time of his 
 life. Mrs. Beecher told me afterwards that Mr. Beecher often talked about those 
 days and said that bye and bye he would retire and they would again go back to 
 the simple life they had enjoyed so much." 
 
 VALUE OF THE VILLAGE CHURCH 
 
 This idea of Beecher was not a mere sentimental reminiscence. It was a 
 fundamental democratic instinct to get down close to common humanity as Jesus 
 did. We find Beecher saying to the young divinity students at Yale in his 
 "Lectures on Preaching:" "When a young man is just going out, and is 
 beginning to preach, and men find great hopes in him, one of the worst things 
 that can befall him is to think himself an uncommon man, a man of prospects; 
 and to have it whispered here and there, 'O, he will shake the world yet.' These 
 things are very mischievous to a young man. * * * When you enter upon 
 the work of the ministry it is very desirable that you should take a small sphere, 
 even if you afterward are called to a larger one. You should begin at the bot- 
 tom." 
 
 Beecher added that, "If I were Pope in America, besides a hundred other 
 things that would be done, I would send every young man that was anxious to 
 preach into the extreme West, and I would make him think that he was never 
 coming back again. He should work there for ten years; then I think he might 
 begin to be ready for a larger place, or an older church." 
 
 A very clear and convincing reason was given for thus beginning in a small 
 parish- "One especial advantage of a small parish is that you are obliged to do 
 
218 
 
 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 HENRY WARD BEECHER 
 
THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 
 
 219 
 
 your work by knowing every person in the community, studying every one of 
 them, and knowing how to impress and manage them by your personal influ- 
 ence and the power of the gospel." Beecher then gave the young men a graphic 
 description of his experience as a young pastor at Lawrenceburg, Indiana: 
 
 "It was my lot at first to be placed in a village with a mere handful of 
 inhabitants in one of the Western States. I conceive it to be one of the kind- 
 nesses of Providence that I was sent to so small a place. I had but one male 
 member in the church, and I wished him out all the time I was there. * * * 
 I went to a small town in Indiana, the last one in the State towards Cincinnati, 
 
 First Presbyterian Church and Manse at the present time 
 
 on the Ohio River. It had perhaps five or six hundred inhabitants. It had in 
 it a Methodist, a Baptist and this Presbyterian Church to which I went. The 
 church would hold, perhaps, from 250 to ^00 people. It had no lamps and 
 no hymn books. It had 19 female members; and the whole congregation could 
 hardly raise from $200 to $250 as salary. I took that field and went to work 
 in it. 
 
220 
 
 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 
THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 
 
 221 
 
 NEW LAMPS AND HYMN BOOKS 
 
 "Among the earliest things I did was to beg money from Cincinnati to buy 
 side lamps to hang up in the church, so that we could have night service. After 
 being there a month or two I went to Cincinnati again, and collected money 
 enough to buy hymn books. I distributed them in the seats. Before this the 
 
 REV. FOREST C. TAYLOR 
 
 Pastor First Presbyterian Church. Lawreneeburg-, who 
 has done so much to restore and preserve the Beecher tra- 
 dition and history in our own day. 
 
 hymns had been lined out. I recollect one of the first strokes of management 
 I ever attempted in that parish was in regard to those hymn books. Instead of 
 asking the people if they were willing to have them, I just put the books into 
 the pews; for there are ten men who will fight a change about which they are 
 consulted, to one that will fight it when it has taken place. I simply made 
 the change for them. There was a little looking up and looking around, but 
 nothing was said. So after that we sang out of the books. 
 
 "Then there was nobody in the church to light the lamps, and they could 
 not afford to get a sexton. Such a thing was unknown in the primitive simplic- 
 
222 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 ity of that Hoosier time. Well, I unanimously elected myself to be the sexton. 
 I swept out the church, trimmed the lamps and lighted them. I was literally 
 the light of that church. I didn't stop to groan about it, or moan about it. 
 but I did it. At first the men folks thereabout seemed to think it was chaff 
 to catch them with, or something of that kind; but I went steadily on doing 
 the work. After a month or so two young men, who were clerks in a store 
 there, suggested to me that they would help me. I didn't think I wanted any 
 help; it was only what one man could do.' Then they suggested three or 
 four of us taking one month each, and in that way they were worked in. It 
 was the best thing that ever happened to them. Having something to do was 
 a means of grace to them." 
 
 HIS FIRST REVIVAL 
 
 It was a fundamental dictum of Beecher's that, "If you are going to be a 
 minister, keep very close to plain folks: don't get above the common people." 
 After preaching two and a half years at Lawrenceburg the call came to Indian- 
 apolis. He was very much discontented and quite discouraged because there was 
 such a poor response to his sacramental services. He expected better results. 
 He prayed .and toiled over his sermons until at length he discovered the secret 
 expressed by the old darkey preacher who said, "You fust splanify, den you 
 argufy, an' den you puts on de rousins." Seventeen men were brought to God 
 by that sermon. But Beecher confessed to the divinity students that he never 
 caught the spirit and power of revival evangelism until after a great experience 
 over at Terre Haute. He returned to Indianapolis and announced a series of night 
 services in his own church. One night it stormed, and other nights but little 
 interset was manifest until an humble servant girl with the smell of the kitchen 
 and of cooking in her clothes, remained as an inquirer. He went back with a 
 sinking heart and a disappointment of pride to that single soul; but in talking 
 to her he was himself reawakened, and then the revival began in earnest. 
 
 The whole aim of Beecher was to get at the hearts of men and women. He 
 told the story of a man in Lawrenceburg who lived across the street from the 
 Beechers and had conceived a violent prejudice against the young preacher. The 
 bitter things he allowed himself to utter only hardened him the more against 
 Beecher. But the young pastor ventured into the man's store time after time 
 until this prejudice was conquered; and when the Beechers left to go to Indian- 
 apolis two years afterward this man took them into his own house for a week, 
 and after that he could never mention the young preacher's name without crying. 
 Beecher said that in those days he traveled the woods and hills and prairies with 
 the Book of Acts and the Epistles of Paul in his hand and he went from camp- 
 meeting to camp-meeting and from one log hut to another with the gospel of 
 salvation and consolation. 
 
 FIRST SERMON ON SLAVERY 
 
 It was at Indianapolis that he first addressed himself seriously to the subject 
 of slavery. At the time nobody dared speak out in the pulpit upon the subject. 
 One of his elders told him that if an Abolitionist came to town he would head 
 a mob to put him down. That roused Beecher. He determined that such a 
 social issue ought to be preached upon; but he went about it judiciously, using 
 
THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 22) 
 
 illustrations with good sense but undoubted point and in due season he was 
 enabled to launch forth courageously as upon any other great theme of human 
 well-being or betterment. He used to say that he never heard such heartfelt 
 prayers as the Negro believers made in Indianapolis. He insisted that the gift 
 of prayer was from God like the gift of song or poetry; and he got very, very 
 close to vital truth as he studied the religious instincts and the social conditions 
 of the race in bondage. Beechcr said he noticed his father becoming cautious 
 and politic as the years of old age crept upon him. So the son took counsel of 
 his own soul and made up his mind to be unfettered on the underlying evil of 
 free America. It was this resolution, made when he went to Plymouth Church 
 from Indianapolis, that soon made him the mightiest man of God for human 
 freedom in the English speaking world. He had the platform of Plymouth 
 Church so built that he was within touch of his auditors clear around the great 
 assembly hall; and he opened his heart and soul to them like a book. 
 
 In September, 1921, the Rev. Forest C. Taylor, pastor of the Lawrenceburg, 
 Indiana, Presbyterian Church, conducted a notable memorial of Beecher days in 
 Lawrenceburg by publishing, with the assistance of "The Beecher Club" of his 
 church, a special edition of the "Lawrenceburg Press." This edition contained 
 sketches and illustrations of great historic value. Mr. Taylor has very kindly 
 put a copy of this paper in our hands. From it we learn that the Lawrence- 
 burg church was organized Sunday morning, September 27. 1829, by Rev. 
 Sylvester Scovel. The Presbytery of Oxford received the new body of believers 
 under its care October 2, 1829. The old brick building in which Henry Ward 
 Beecher began his ministry is thought to have been built in the year 1831. Rev. 
 Alexander McFarlane and Rev. Charles Sturdevant were Beecher's pastoral pre- 
 decessors. He came to Lawrenceburg in May, 1837. Mr. Taylor, the present 
 pastor, has been very diligent in keeping alive the Beecher tradition, and the 
 "Beecher Club" of men has been a forceful and forward looking social group. 
 The pastor's wife has been equally diligent in her work with the women's organ- 
 izations; and the ministery and service of these two will long be remembered in 
 Lawrenceburg. 
 
 The outstanding contribution to the anniversary edition of the "Press" is 
 an article on Henry Ward Beecher by Lydia A. Sembach. It is a vivid and 
 characterizing sketch and preserves for posterity whatever Beecher traditions 
 exist in Lawrenceburg. She tells the story of his pastorate as follows: "After 
 graduating from Lane Seminary in 1837, young Beecher at the age of 24 ac- 
 cepted the pastorate of an Independent Presbyterian Church at Lawrenceburg, 
 Indiana. This church stood where the local Presbyterian Church now stands. 
 A picture of the old church may be seen hanging on the walls of the present 
 building. Here Beecher with his devoted wife labored for two and a quarter years 
 and here it was that he made his mark." 
 
CHAPTER XLIII 
 
 w\t ?B«4«-piifi0tt Waitit nw mib #4001 
 
 mmh pi#m 
 
 m\ N THE fall of 1889, shortly after the writer's entrance as a freshman 
 fy ^1 at Centre College, Danville, Kentucky, we met a young man in a 
 X^ J class or two ahead of us. He was a youth above the middle height, 
 graceful and dignified in figure, with dark red hair and keen dark 
 eyes. His expression was serious to the point of sadness or melancholy, a rather 
 brooding meditativeness and cloistered seclusion at his studies. His name was 
 Wilson, and we recognized him at once as the son of the Rev. Samuel R. Wilson, 
 D. D., formerly of Louisville, who was the John C. Calhoun of the Southern 
 Presbyterian Church in the great issues of Civil War times and after. As our 
 father was a warm admirer of Dr. Wilson and had shared a friendship of many 
 years in the same Presbytery of Louisville, and, indeed, had participated in the 
 sensational events of the ex-communication of this Presbytery in the division fol- 
 lowing the mandate of the General Assembly, U. S. A., and had followed Dr. 
 Wilson's party into the organization of the Synod of Kentucky, U. S. — it was 
 natural that an immediate friendship upon our part with young Wilson should 
 ensue. Our own personal sympathies were entirely with what we then called 
 the Northern Assembly and National Unity; but, of course, we had heard our 
 father relate the circumstances of the division of the church, and to us it seemed 
 a very painful necessity. 
 
 YOUTH AND THE AFTERMATH OF WAR 
 
 These matters were a subject of frequent conversation with us as we strolled 
 of evenings together and talked of our own dreams of the future. Young Wilson 
 had been a student for the Presbyterian ministry, but at this time was about de- 
 termined to study Law. Our own preference was then law or journalism, though 
 the gospel ministry was the one great undecided issue in our heart. Political 
 distinction was the ambition inculcated in every aspiring youth in those days 
 when the sentiments and ideals of the Old South yet dominated the ministry 
 law, and journalism. At the close of our freshman year an event occurred that 
 gave the unexpected impetus to our thought. 
 
 STUDYING THE GREAT STRUGGLE 
 
 We were put with young Wilson, and another theological student of unusual 
 ability to debate with a rival literary society team upon the question: "Resolved 
 that the Indian has suffered more at the hands of the white man than has the 
 Negro." We were averse to the negative. It was more poetic and popular to 
 espouse the cause of the Red Man. The Negro was repulsive to the instincts 
 
THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 
 
 225 
 
 and prejudices of speakers, judges and audience. But a very clever manipulation 
 of sides, and selection of judges by our chief antagonist, left us no alternative 
 but the negative. So we went to the library and dug in for material. It was 
 forth-coming. Musty old volumes, unopened for years, revealed the horrors of 
 the African Slave Trade and the crying injustice of chattel bondage the world 
 over. Our human sympathies slowly kindled with horror and indignation at 
 these outrages upon an ignorant, alien, and defenseless race of human beings. 
 Wilson had no particular enthusiasm in the debate, and the leadership fell to us. 
 We felt handicapped and chagrined at the patent prejudice of the audience and 
 judges, but we told the story of black bondage in a way that struck home. We 
 lost the debate but gained an awakened social conscience far beyond our years. 
 
 REV. JOSHUA L. WILSON, D. D. 
 
 SAMUEL R. WILSON 
 
 We were well aware at the very threshold of life that this question of human 
 labor was the root issue of the whole Civil War tragedy. Young Wilson inher- 
 ited the gifts of his brilliant and fearless father, Rev. Samuel R. Wilson, author 
 of the famous "Declaration and Testimony." He was a native of Cincinnati, 
 
226 
 
 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 REV. THOMAS CLELAND, D. D. 
 
 Early school-mate and intimate friend of Rev. Joshua L. "Wilson, D. D. 
 First Presbyterian minister on the soil of Indiana Territory, Preached, as the 
 guest of General and Mrs. Wm. Henry Harrison, in the council chamber at 
 Vincennes, in the spring- of 1805. From this service and a second visit one year 
 later the Vincennes Church originated. Dr. Cleland was a strong- New School 
 man and led that side in the Synod of Kentucky. From him were descended 
 3 1 ministers of the gospel in 100 years. 
 
 Rev. E. P. Whallon, D. D., of Cincinnati, who was pastor of the Vincennes 
 Church for about 10 years, says that Dr. Cleland baptized John Scott Harri- 
 son, infant child of -General and Mrs. Harrison. Later at the Cleves Church. 
 North Bend, Ohio, above Lawreneeburg, lnd., Gen. Harrison was Bible Class 
 teacher and church trustee. "John Scott grew up to be an elder, Sabbath 
 School) Superintendent, Congressman, and eight of his grandchildren were 
 baptized in that Cleves Church, one of them being Benjamin Harrison* who. 
 from Indiana, went to the Presidency of the United States." 
 
 Dr. Whallon told us also, at the Hanover College Centennial, that his 
 father suggested to the parents of Oliver P. Morton, the great Civil War 
 Governor oT Indiana, that they send their son to Miami University. Oxford. 
 Ohio. Here he was under the Anti-Slavery tradition of President Robert IT. 
 Bishop, who was the friend and biographer of Father David Rice the great 
 Kentucky Emancipation preacher. 
 
 Dr. Whallon said also thai his grandfather left Virginia for Indiana to 
 get away from slavery, and that his mother cradled and nursed him in the 
 Sentiment of Abolition 
 
THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 
 
 22 
 
 Ohio, born June 4. 1818. He was a graduate of Hanover College, Indiana, in 
 the class of 1836. and was educated for the ministry at Princeton Seminary 
 He was licensed by the Presbytery of New Brunswick, where our father was 
 born, and was ordained by the Presbytery of Cincinnati m 1842. His Southern 
 ancestry and descent inclined his sympathies entirely with the Old South. It 
 would astonish you to see how many Wilsons there have been in the Presby- 
 terian ministry. And Dr. Samuel R. Wilson was second to none of them in 
 logic and eloquence. He would easily have adorned the Senate of the United 
 States. We have always thought this fact had much to do with his son, Jud^e 
 Samuel M. Wilson, our college-mate, giving up the ministry and studying law 
 He has put in our hands the story of his father's life and ministry; and we have 
 prepared with judicious care the untold story of Judge Wilson's no less ab^e and 
 distinguished grandfather in one of the most famous controversies of the old 
 anti-slavery struggle. 
 
 LYMAN BEECHER MEETS HIS ANTAGONIST 
 The story of the Beechers in the Middlewest during the great anti-slavery 
 struggle of one hundred years ago has never been fully or fairly told Yet the 
 twenty years that Dr. Lyman Beecher spent at Lane Seminary in Cincinnati were 
 the most momentous spiritual years that preceded the Civil War. In those years 
 he crowned a life-time of service in behalf of human faith and freedom In 
 
 dtTnclT a7T n H T S hiS b u n "' ant S ° n ' H ™ ry W " d BeKh "' "°- «° °**»* 
 d.st neon and leadersh.p ,n the same great movement to liberalize religion and 
 
 rha bitte " 7 tUdC 1" Ameri "- ThC h ' dde " Md '<>»*-"*>«««. "story of 
 ha b.tter and determined conflict is slowly com.ng to light in the Oh.o Valley 
 
 Lode M hlSt ° nan UnCarths k - And in "»< dramatic story no 
 
 Re h fT ,T 3nd thri "' ng tha " the b >" h ro ^> between Dr Lyman 
 
 r nctn^t f „ L " y W " SOn PaSt ° r ° f thC F - P -^'»- Church 
 
 n " H n M n yCarMhc m3n * h ° ^ares the h.storic distinct.on of hav.ng 
 
 "e^gT" ** ^ '" '" ^ "* N " ^ "»- * « 
 
 JOSHUA LACY WILSON 
 
 who D d r ieH Wi 'r n Z 3S ' " atlVe ° f Vlrgima ' His fath " ™ a -"ured Physician 
 who d.ed when h,s son was a wee lad of four years. The widowed mother had 
 only a worn B.ble. a copy of Watts Hymns, and a Westminster Shorter Cateh.sm 
 W.th these she gave her chtldren the rudiments of an education. Not .ong Tr 
 
 oln T m °o ' f' a b' S f t " tHC m ° ther ma " iCd a8ain ' H " — d husband w 
 
 John Temp ,» father of Rev. Terah Templin. the firs, Presbyterian preacher in 
 
 the wdds of Kentucky. It was in the vear 1779 that the stepfather venture 
 
 cross .he mounta.ns into Kentucky. In ,781 little Joshua went with his mother 
 
 o the new country, be.ng at the time but seven years of age . They had to dwe.l 
 
 or so t „ picketed fort on SaIt Rivcr cMed .; dw ; 
 
 not for his father s people. 
 
 STORY OF 'OLD SILVER FIST" 
 
 of rL! hl D b ° y r ° ShUa /^ e ° f UnUSUjl *™«Y- His mother was a sister 
 of the Rev. Drury Lacy of Virginia, a most remarkable man of God. She was 
 
228 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 a devout Baptist when her first husband married her; but she soon after con- 
 nected herself with the Presbyterian Church. Her brother was left with this 
 sister by a father who was a planter in good circumstances, but who was a hos- 
 pitable, careless, easy-going gentleman of the old school and let his fortune slip 
 between his fingers. Young Drury was about ten years old when his father 
 died. His schooling had been fairly good under an Episcopal clergyman; but a 
 great misfortune had overtaken the boy between his tenth and fifteenth years. 
 At a muster drill of the county militia some heedless man had loaded his gun 
 to a dangerous extent and was too cowardly to fire it off himself. Handing it 
 to the boy bystander without a word of warning, young Lacy took it and fired 
 it without hesitation. The explosion mangled his left hand and tore it off at 
 the wrist. The boy's life was saved and his family had a silver cup made to 
 go over the wrist, to which cup was fitted a silver fork and spoon, screwed in 
 very ingeniously. In succeeding years when he became an instructor of youth 
 at Hampden Sidney College and proved very popular, the boys nick-named him 
 "Old Silver Fist." In the Presbyterian Church he was known as "Lacy with 
 the silver hand and the silver tongue." 
 
 YOUNG WILSON AWAKENS 
 
 It was for this great preacher and teacher, the favorite brother of his mother, 
 that Joshua Wilson bore the middle name of Lacy. This great uncle wrote a 
 most beautiful hand, which made him famous as a keeper of records in Old 
 Hanover Presbytery, Virginia, most of his life. He was Moderator of the 
 General Assembly in 1809. This man was one of the great orators of his day 
 in the pulpit. He but rarely wrote out a sermon. He read the chapter and the 
 hymn and spoke in his discourse with matchless eloquence. He had an imposing 
 presence and is said to have been unrivaled in a sacramental service or at a 
 wedding ceremony. He was a great scholar and linguist and president of Hamp- 
 den Sidney College. With such an example, is it any wonder that young Joshua 
 Wilson — who up to the time he was 22 years of age, after removing to Ken- 
 tucky, was employed in cutting down trees, grubbing underbrush, raising crops, 
 and hunting game for the family table — should dream of an education? 
 
 He did a lot of thinking while at his toil; and was not only converted but 
 determined to study for the ministry. He attended Pisgah Academy, the Pres- 
 byterian "Log College" in Woodford County, Kentucky. Here he was a class- 
 mate of Rev. Thomas Cleland, who describes him as a tall, full-grown youth 
 with a mind of promise and a will to learn. Dr. Cleland mentions in the same 
 connection a peculiar Scotch-Irish impulsiveness or heat of temperament that made 
 this young man Wilson a very strong and determined opponent in private dis- 
 cussion or public debate. Dr. Cleland says he was very impctous. though he 
 afterward softened down and even mollified the feelings of an antagonist by 
 deference and apology. It should be mentioned also in this same connection that 
 the young man one day in cold weather nearly lost his life and health by plung- 
 ing into the water to save a friend's life from drowning. The exposure weak- 
 ened an otherwise vigorous constitution so that his later years were full of pain 
 and suffering. He impaired his health further, his grandson says, by rising to 
 study before day. Yet it was this very determination and diligence that soon 
 made him a master scholar and theologian. 
 
THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 
 
 229 
 
 HOW LYMAN BEECHER CAME TO LANE SEMINARY 
 
 Dr. Beecher had attracted the attention of the Board of Trustees of Lane 
 in the fall of 1830. Lane was chartered in 1829, but the endowment was small 
 and the agents sent out to collect funds returned empty-handed. Dr. Wilson was 
 President of the Board and said he had but little confidence in help from East- 
 ern men and money. He wanted to find professors and funds in the West. 
 
 Rev. F. Y. Vail, an Eastern man himself and a member of the Board, said 
 he could not agree with Dr. Wilson on this point, and the Board put it up to 
 Mr. Vail to go East after an endowment and Dr. Beecher. Dr. Wilson said 
 "Amen." He was sucessful in securing Dr. Beecher and $20,000 from the Tap- 
 pan philanthrophy — the benevolent Abolitionist Brothers, whose hearts yearned 
 
 First Presbyterian Church, Vincennes, Indiana, where the Centennial Ses- 
 sion of the Synod of Indiana was so hospitably entertained in October, 1926, 
 by the Rev. J. W. Boyer, pastor. 
 
 to see the social conscience of young divinity students at Lane Seminary made 
 alive to the evils of African Slavery. Deep down, this was the objection that 
 Dr. Wilson scarcely dreamed of encountering when he sanctioned the coming of 
 Lyman Beecher to Lane. But the cause of his coming was greater than that. 
 When Rev. Mr. Vail reached Boston Dr. Beecher had been talking and speaking 
 
230 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 of helping the New West in raising up men of God on the home ground to 
 preach the gospel in the regions around. And one day when Dr. Bcccher was 
 coming down to take a North River boat in Boston, he encountered a crowd 
 of people gathered around a skeptic fellow who was arguing against religion 
 and had about bested his antagonist, who was no match for him. Dr. Beecher 
 stepped up and accosted the skeptic in an offhand way that soon disarmed and 
 discomfited him. This story got back to Arthur Tappan the philanthrophist. 
 and when Mr. Vail approached Mr. Tappan about Dr. Beecher and the endow- 
 ment, he was enthusiastic for both. Dr. Beecher met Mr. Vail approaching 
 him on the streets of Boston and knew in a flash what was wanted. Dr. Skin- 
 ner wrote to Dr. Beecher at this crisis, saying: "You will act against the con- 
 viction of all the friends of anti-sectarian theology and religion in this and (as 
 far as I know) every other part of the land, if you decline this call to the west." 
 
 DR. WILSON GOES WITH THE OLD SCHOOL 
 
 Dr. Beecher wrote to the Lane Board of Trustees in March, 1832: "If I 
 come, I cannot come to change or to conceal my theological opinions, or to teach 
 and preach them without a cordial co-operation." In May. 1832, we read in 
 at letter of Catherine Beecher to her sister Harriet from Cincinnati: "I see no 
 difficulties or objections. Everything is ready, and everybody gives a welcome 
 except Dr. Wilson's folks, and they are finding that it is wisest and best to be 
 still, and we hope that before a great while they will be friendly. Father is de- 
 termined to get acquainted with Dr. Wilson, and to be friendly with him, and 
 I think he will succeed." 
 
 Dr. Bcccher regarded Dr. Wilson as a possible New School man. When Mr. 
 Vail got back to Cincinnati with the news of Dr. Beecher's appointment. Dr. 
 Wilson was out in a big camp-meeting, where Mr. Vail found him. "Glory to 
 God in the highest," cried Dr. Wilson, clapping his hands at the word. But 
 Dr. Wilson had regarded the Seminary as a local matter until he was made aware 
 that the Old and New School controversy was involved in it. The General 
 Assembly was to favor a location at Pittsburgh or Cincinnati, and they voted 
 for Pittsburgh: and this had disheartened the friends of the Lane location so 
 that they looked to New England for help instead of to Princeton and the Middle 
 States. But when it came out that Dr. Beecher was a New School man. over- 
 tures were made to Dr. Wilson, with intimations of disaster if New England 
 theology was taught and preached in the West. Dr. Wilson was naturally partial 
 and sympathetic to the Old School side, and had changed his mind as to Dr. 
 Bcccher before the latter arrived in Cincinnati. Dr. Beecher expected a call from 
 the Second Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati, but two of the ciders wrote to 
 him that they were disheartened about his theology and had determined, in all 
 good conscience before God. to "enter our deliberate and prayerful dissent to vour 
 ministry among us." They added that if he came, there would be a considerable 
 secession from the church. Dr. Wilson was in full sympathy with this letter 
 and had thought it would influence Dr. Beecher to withdraw his consent to come 
 to Lane. Dr. Beecher sent the letter to the full session of the Second Church, 
 and they replied that it was but the expression of a minority and for him to 
 come ahead. This only intensified the rising opposition, for Dr. Wilson there- 
 upon published articles in the New York religious press warning the Church 
 
THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 231 
 
 in general against Dr. Beecher as a teacher of theology to the young men of the 
 West. Dr. Beecher replied, publishing the facts of Dr. Wilson's original friendly 
 attitude toward him. And when Dr. Beecher arrived in Cincinnati and pre- 
 sented his credentials to the Presbytery, Dr. Wilson arose and opposed his enroll- 
 ment, saying he had no confidence in Dr. Beecher's doctrines. 
 
 THE BATTLE ROYAL BEGINS 
 
 Dr. Beecher arose to say that he was sure Dr. Wilson was laboring under 
 some great mistake: that he had not changed one iota in his theology since he 
 talked with Dr. Wilson three years previous and they seemed to be in one spirit 
 of accord: and a recess was asked by Dr. Beecher that they might have a free 
 conversation together in the vestry. Presbytery adjourned and Dr. Beecher 
 addressed the brethren informally in the vestry. Dr. Wilson was agitated and 
 nervous. Someone suggested prayer. Dr. Wilson waved his hand at Dr. Beecher 
 and said, "You pray.'' Dr. Beecher's prayer reassured the group, when some 
 thoughtless minister exclaimed that there had never come to Cincinnati a man of 
 big religious calibre but that he excited Dr. Wilson's jealousy, and he drove him 
 away. Dr. Beecher and the rest were filled with utter dismay. Dr. Beecher 
 had felt certain of conciliating and winning Dr. Wilson till that untoward inci- 
 dent. He added this comment years afterward: "Then the fat was in the fire. 
 I was sure I should win him. I never was more chagrined. We went up, and 
 it was pitched battle after that." 
 
 JUDGE WILSON'S STRONG DEFENSE 
 
 Judge Samuel M. Wilson corrects this misconception of Dr. Wilson's motives 
 in a most convincing and forcible statement to us: "Whatever else may be 
 thought or said of Dr. Wilson, this aspersion is wholly unjust. He was valiant 
 for the truth, as he understood and believed it: but in championing his faith 
 he was one of the most selfless and disinterested advocates that ever lived. Con- 
 siderations of a personal or material nature weighed not one iota with him. Dr. 
 Beecher himself somewhere testifies to the entire good nature, courtesy and fair- 
 ness of Dr. Wilson's indictment of him. 
 
 "Of course, all students of history must know that the so-called 'heresy- 
 hunter,' or champion of orthodoxy, was never popular. It was by no means a 
 pleasant or a popular thing to do. Much that Dr. Wilson felt compelled by his 
 sense of duty and loyalty to the faith of Presbyterians to do was distasteful and 
 unpopular, and it required more than ordinary moral courage to carry him 
 through the unpalatable prosecution. 
 
 "However, he was neither a bigot nor a fanatic nor a fatalist (unless the 
 doctrine of Predestination must be identified with Fatalism) : any more than 
 his distinguished adversary was a shining avatar of a new revelation. In intellec- 
 tual power and forensic skill, no less than in mastery of the essentials of the 
 Christian faith, as embodied in the doctrinal statements of the Presbyterian 
 Church, it must be admitted that Dr. Wilson was not one whit behind his cul- 
 tured antagonist fresh from the high-toned atmosphere of 'progressive' New Eng- 
 land." 
 
23 2 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 Judge Wilson, furthermore, takes very decided issue with the theory that the 
 Beecher- Wilson Battle was over the question of Slavery. He states his objection 
 to this theory in such clear and forcible language that we most gladly quote him 
 in full and let the reader determine for himself, from the facts and evidence, how 
 much or how little Slavery had to do at bottom with the sundering of the Pres- 
 byterian Church a century ago when Lyman Beecher and Albert Barnes were 
 put on trial before the General Assembly. 
 
 "As well as I can make out," says Judge Wilson, "you take the position 
 that it was all a reflection of the nation-wide controversy over Slavery. This, 
 I think, is an error. The question of Slavery was almost inextricably mixed 
 and mingled with virtually every other political, economic and religious question 
 of the first half of the nineteenth century; but that, in my opinion, was decidedly 
 of minor importance in the wide divergence of doctrinal teaching, which reached 
 its culmination in the trials of Drs. Barnes and Beecher. 
 
 "Saying it with all possible respect both to yourself and to others whose 
 pronouncements you seem to accept on this subject, it appears to me that the 
 Slavery — Anti-Slavery explanation of the radical developments in theological 
 dogma and doctrine is wholly inadequate, even bordering upon the superficial. 
 Certainly it was not the Slavery question that actuated Joshua L. Wilson to 
 pursue the course he did, in the case of Dr. Beecher. 
 
 "My grandfather was not a slave-holder; neither he nor my father ever 
 owned a slave; neither ever favored disunion on this or any other ground. To 
 take this view of the matter is to 'stick in the bark,' as members of the legal 
 profession sometimes are heard to say. My father and grandfather both being 
 of Southern blood were not unnaturally sympathetic with the South, but neither 
 favored Secession and Slavery. Their church relations were not a little compli- 
 cated by the fact that, while being wholly Southern in their blood and antece- 
 dents, they lived in a Border State, and on the North side of the Ohio River. 
 The problem of the Border States has never yet, in my opinion, been satisfact- 
 orily expounded by any historian, either secular or religious, although approaches 
 have been made to it, and it is today receiving more and more concentrated 
 study." 
 
 Judge Wilson quotes from a book by Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, "Men of 
 Our Own Times," in which she says of her father's trial: "Dr. Beecher was 
 now the central point of a great theological battle. It was a sort of spiritual 
 Armageddon, being the confluence of the forces of the Scotch-Irish Presbyterian 
 Calvinistic fatalism, meeting in battle with the advancing rationalism of New 
 England New School Theology. On the one side was hard literal interpretation 
 of Bible declarations and the Presbyterian standards, asserting man's utter and 
 absolute natural and moral inability to obey God's commands, and, on the other 
 hand, the doctrine of man's free agency, and bringing to the rendering of the 
 declarations of the Scriptures and of the Standards, the lights of modern modes 
 of interpretation." 
 
 This is the strongest possible statement of the divergent views of theology 
 involved in this heated and historic controversy; yet the fact is made very dear 
 by Judge Wilson himself that the views and defense of Mr. Barnes and Dr. 
 Beecher were identical; and the Beecher prosecution "was voluntarily dropped by 
 Dr. Wilson at the urgent solicitation of his friends and co-religionists, for the 
 
THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 233 
 
 reason and upon the ground that the identical questions he had litigated in the 
 Beecher trial were involved in the case of Mr. Barnes." He quotes a letter from 
 his grandfather at the Pittsburgh Assembly of 1836: "I perceive clearly that the 
 systems of Mr. Barnes and Dr. Beecher are the same — their modes of defense 
 the same, their explanations, proofs and illustrations the same; and I am per- 
 fectly satisfied that there is no essential difference between them and Dr. Taylor; 
 and if they were as honest as Finney and Levitt they would leave the Presby- 
 terian Church." 
 
 No doubt the New School men did seem, to the Old School men, to be 
 pulling down the temple of faith. We find in an Old School book on the 
 subject in our father's library the prediction that "the generations that rise and 
 become educated in the opinions of Duffield, Beman, Barnes and Finney .... 
 will find their way to a distance from the gospel far more dreary and hopeless 
 than they." And again, "Drs. Cox, Beman. Beecher, Duffield, and Mr. Barnes, 
 have denied the great doctrines of the gospel as understood and explained by 
 Presbyterians." 
 
 Yet when we saw upon our father's library shelves the very "Barnes' Notes" 
 that had caused all this controversy, accepted for two generations as sound Pres- 
 byterian interpretation, we felt certain that underneath this great religious dis- 
 cussion and upheaval that divided our beloved Church one hundred years ago 
 there must be some social, human issue at stake: and it seemed to us none other 
 than the issue of Slavery, because no sooner had that issue been settled forever 
 by the shedding of blood in the Civil War than overtures for reunion were made 
 and the mutual accommodation of the Old and New School Assemblies was 
 happily brought about upon the very scenes of the lamented division. 
 
CHAPTER XLIV 
 
 %%mibt &l®tn ®( ikt (§lh anb J^itm §§t%w\ 
 
 g\ T IS imperative that we restore to our own generation a full-length 
 fm VJ spiritual portrait of this Rev. Joshua Lacy Wilson, who rose up in 
 X^ J such persistent and powerful opposition to so famous and mighty 
 a man of God as Dr. Lyman Beecher. Dr. Beecher had the advant- 
 age in early education, but this man Wilson's efforts to repair the handicap of 
 his own youthful lack of classical schooling evince the Wilson intelligence and 
 determination. He had but one year at Pisgah Academy. Then he attended 
 school under a Rev. William Mahon, pastor of the New Providence Church, 
 organized by Father David Rice, the great Emancipation preacher. A year and 
 a half here terminated his opportunity for the time, and he then taught school 
 himself at the little town of Frankfort. He heard of a classical academy near 
 Louisville, taught by Rev. James Vance. This was at Middletown. and here he 
 was engaged as a tutor and pursued his theological studies under Rev. Mr. Vance. 
 He went to Tennessee for a season, where he was licensed in 1802; and was 
 afterward ordained at the Union Meeting House, Mercer County, Kentucky, with 
 his old schoolmate, Thomas Cleland. Like young Cleland, he met the girl of 
 his heart during his school year at Pisgah Academy, in Woodford County; and 
 after accepting a call to preach at Bardstown and Big Spring churches, his young 
 wife was baptized at a sacramental meeting conducted in the woods by the old 
 pioneer preacher. Archibald Cameron, of Shelbyvillc. The young preachers. 
 Wilson and Cleland, were near each other from 1804 to 1808. when the call 
 came from the First Church in Cincinnati to young Wilson. 
 
 DR. WILSON CALLED TO CINCINNATI 
 
 The Cincinnati congregation to which Rev. Mr. Wilson went in 1808 is said 
 to have been the first Protestant Church north of the Ohio River. It was organ- 
 ized by Rev. David Rice, October 16. 1790, under a commission from the Tran- 
 sylvania Presbytery — which embraced the entire Western country at that day. 
 Father Rice had a young theological student, James Kemper, in reserve for this 
 little flock in the wilderness. He spent six weeks with them and then went 
 home to complete his studies. Returning in the spring, he began his work. 
 A small, rough slab building was erected, resting on blocks of wood for a foun- 
 dation; and every man who came to service brought his rifle to fight Indians. 
 This young pastor Kemper rode through the forest fearlessly, and his trial sermon 
 was from the text. '"Endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.'' It is 
 an interesting fact that when the appeal of the Cumberland Presbytery, which 
 had licensed emergency men to preach the gospel in the Kentucky wilderness 
 
THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 
 
 235 
 
 after the great revival of 1 800 and had received the censure of the Synod, came 
 before the General Assembly in May, 1807, this man Kemper, a delegate with 
 Dr. Cameron from Kentucky, took the part of the Cumberland Presbytery. 
 Rev. Mr. Wilson and Rev. Mr. Cleland had sat on the Committee of Synod 
 that censured the Cumberland Presbytery. This was Dr. Wilson's first case of 
 prosecution. It was a sensational experience out in a community of Cumberland 
 people whose partisans were so inflamed with excitement that personal violence 
 to the committee was possible. But it was a tremendous demonstration of 
 spiritual and moral control that these men of the wilderness submitted in an 
 orderly manner to every ecclesiastical rule and requirement; and the General 
 Assembly gave them a just and impartial hearing. It is interesting, too, when 
 we reflect that the purpose of the committee of Synod was "to protect the min- 
 istry from unlearned and ignorant men." That was a severe but courageous 
 exaction. And it was from such stirring scenes and experiences that Joshua L. 
 Wilson came to his new field of labor in 1808. 
 
 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, 
 Cincinnati, Ohio, first House of Worship, erected 1792 
 
 THE OLD FIRST CHURCH 
 
 The Cincinnati church wanted a man of God to abide with them, and they 
 found such a man in Dr. Wilson. A new house of worship was erected under 
 his ministry, known as "The Two-Horned Church" because of two big towers. 
 In one was the bell, to which the boys climbed by a winding stair. The five 
 aisles were covered with red carpet. A great gallery ran around three sides of 
 the house. Here the Sunday School met at 9 o'clock each Sabbath. Four giant 
 wood stoves heated the building on the main floor, but the church was still 
 so cold that the pastor would wear his great cloak in the tower-like pulpit when 
 he preached. This pulpit was as lofty as the gallery and was reached by two 
 pairs of winding stairway. The session room was underneath, where on Satur- 
 days Dr. Wilson met the children to catechize them. He had been hurt by the 
 overturning of a stagecoach attending Synod at Chillicothe, and ever afterward 
 held his head a little to one side. He was said to resemble General Andrew 
 
236 
 
 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 Jackson in personal appearance and grave dignity. His voice is described as 
 musical, not very loud, but well modulated. He used short notes in preaching. 
 He believed with all his soul in the terrors of the law and could make unrepent- 
 ant sinners tremble with the thunders of Sinai. But his deeper appeals were of 
 saving grace, and his voice trembled with emotion, and his eyes filled with tears; 
 yet he was always master of himself. At his Saturday meetings with the chil- 
 dren he opened with a hymn, leading it himself, then offered a brief prayer, 
 and was a very kindly and patient instructor of the young. He had them read 
 scripture in rotation, and his lessons in religious truth made a lasting impression. 
 There was no organ in those days, and the choir sat in the gallery opposite the 
 pulpit. During revival meetings the preacher exhorted from the floor in front 
 of the pulpit, or mounted a pew near the middle of the house. Dr. Wilson at 
 first opposed the "anxious seat" and the "mourner's bench," but later adopted 
 them, greatly to the success of his meetings. But undue excitement was never 
 encouraged. Dr. Wilson was greatly beloved by his people. A brother minister 
 who visited him in the later years of his pastorate said: "He was very feeble, 
 and very tender and spiritual. He seemed to have the humility and simplicity 
 of a child." 
 
 REV. JAMES KEMPER 
 
 Pastor First Presbyterian Church, Cincinnati. Ohio. 179it- 
 1796; pastor Presbyterian Church, Pleasant Ridge. Ohio. 
 1796-1807. 
 
 MUTTERINGS OF THE COMING STORM 
 
 There was a great revival in Cincinnati in the year 1828. when large numbers 
 were added to Dr. Wilson's church. This spiritual atmosphere continued for the 
 space of two years. It was characterized as a glorious work: and. beyond all 
 doubt, Dr. Wilson earnestly desired to keep out of his congregation the disturb- 
 ances in the political movements of the time; and it was with evident pain that 
 the church historian confessed: "This revival was soon followed bv ten and 
 
THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 237 
 
 more years of alienation and strife, without revivals and without other evidences 
 of spiritual growth. The Old and New School controversy began in 1829, and 
 lasted even beyond the disruption of 183 8. It came from the East, and was 
 as violent here as there. The first bone of contention was the American Home 
 Missionary Society in New York, which bid fair to supplant the Assembly's 
 Board in Philadelphia. Other roots of bitterness soon sprang up, chiefly Aboli- 
 tionism and New England theology, with charges and counter-charges abounding 
 in evil surmises and exaggerations, until Ephriam and Judah both seemed to 
 become Ishmaelities." 
 
 DR. WILSON'S SON HIS ARMOR-BEARER 
 It was in the year 1840 that Dr. Wilson desired the presence of his son, 
 Rev. Samuel R. Wilson, as co-pastor. The church chronicle describes him as 
 "twenty-two years old, 'a youth and ruddy.' Indeed, some objected to his be- 
 coming co-pastor on account of his youth, but it was suggested to them that 
 he would improve in that respect every day. There is something of tender 
 interest in the fact that he entered the ministry so young. * * * He pos- 
 sessed many advantages of person. His mind was bright and active, and he had 
 been well trained in Hanover College and Princeton Theological Seminary. His 
 affections were strong. His conscience was inflexible. His judgment was un- 
 usually sound, and his will was determined. He was good as a preacher, and 
 became unexcelled as an ecclesiastic and as a debater. 
 
 "His voice was flexible and musical. He early became an attractive preacher 
 to those who loved gospel truth. Young people were naturally drawn to hear 
 him. In his younger ministry his style was rather flowery and poetical. His 
 sermons were well prepared and delivered. His delight was always to preach the 
 gospel, and his appeals to the impentient were often very powerful. His face 
 would kindle, his eyes would be filled with tears, his voice would tremble, when 
 he would depict the sorrows of Christ in Gethsemane and on the cross, and he 
 would invite sinners to come to him. He was perhaps somewhat cold in manner 
 in personal intercourse, but his reserve would yield to the genial influence of 
 more intimate acquaintance." 
 
 THE OLD SCHOOL ADDS A CHAMPION 
 The Old School Assembly met in Dr. Wilson's church in 1845 when Dr. 
 N. L. Rice secured his famous deliverance on Slavery, shutting out all petitions 
 and discussions of the subject to the disturbance of the peace of that body for 
 time to come. Yet the founder of the old First Church was Father Rice, the 
 Kentucky Emancipator, and on April 5, 1831, a group of twenty strong-minded 
 members of Dr. Wilson's church petitioned Cincinnati Presbytery to organize 
 them into the Sixth Presbyterian Church. "The cause which originated this 
 church movement," says the church chronicle, "was pulpit defense of 'American 
 Slavery,' drawn from the Bible, and denunciation of those who agitated the sub- 
 ject of Emancipation." This group later became the famous "Vine Street Con- 
 gregational Church." Dr. Wilson's church was also the mother of the "Central 
 Church," organized in April, 1844, primarily to bring Dr. N. L. Rice to Cin- 
 cinnati as pastor and strengthen the Old School side. He was a phenomenal suc- 
 cess. Nor did he keep quiet in defense of Slavery. 
 
238 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 THE WILSON-BEECHER BATTLE RENEWED 
 
 He is indeed a superficial reader of church history who cannot discern under- 
 neath this grapple of religious giants in the Old and New School struggle "a 
 house divided" and "the irrepressible conflict" of which Lincoln so often spoke 
 in the Douglas debates. The clash was unavoidable and inevitable. 
 
 At a meeting of the Presbytery of Cincinnati during the winter of 1832-33 
 Dr. Joshua L. Wilson, the Moderator, had a resolution introduced authorizing 
 the appointment of a committee to investigate the rumors of Dr. Lyman 
 Beecher's unsoundness in the faith. This was on a Friday evening when Dr. 
 Wilson had a prayer-meeting service to conduct. Dr. Beecher's friends rose to 
 the occasion, and when he appeared in his own defense and made a talk of one 
 hour, he could sincerely say: 
 
 "I was able to keep down all improper feeling; treated him politely and 
 kindly; gave him credit for honesty; but every concession contrasted with his 
 treatment of me like coals of juniper. In closing, I expostulated with Dr. Wilson 
 affectionately; stated the rising prospects of a revival in the churches, and con- 
 jured him to desist till I had furnished some better evidence of heresy than rumor, 
 or afforded him conclusive evidence of my orthodoxy, which I had not a single 
 doubt I should ere long be able to do." 
 
 The sentiment of the Presbytery was so strongly in Dr. Beecher's favor that 
 Dr. Wilson appealed to Synod. This body convened in Cincinnati and was 
 hearing the appeal against Dr. Beecher while his congregation was welcoming him 
 to the Second Church. A messenger came post haste for Dr. Beecher. He arrived 
 at Synod while Dr. Wilson was speaking. Dr. Beecher replied in a frank, off- 
 hand manner and so impressed Synod that the decision in his favor was very 
 decisive. Dr. Wilson then appealed to the General Assembly. 
 
 The next clash came before Cincinnati Presbytery where one of Dr. Beecher's 
 sons was to be examined. Dr. Wilson headed the Old School opposition to sus- 
 taining the young man's examination. Dr. Beecher's daughter Harriet thus de- 
 scribes Dr. Wilson: "Do you see in the front pew a tall, grave-looking man, 
 of strong and rather harsh features, very pale, with a severe seriousness of face, 
 and with great formality and precision in every turn and motion? Well, if you 
 see him, that man is Dr. Wilson. His great ivory-headed cane leans on the side 
 of the pew beside him, and in his hand he holds the Confession of Faith. The 
 candidate sits on the pulpit stairs, so that he may face the Presbytery, and the 
 examination committee are called on: 'Dr. Wilson in Philosophy.' 
 
 GEORGE BEECHER ENCOUNTERS TROUBLE 
 
 No snags were encountered in this subject; but in Theology a friendly soul, 
 the Reverend Mr. Gallagher, a "tall son of Anak, the great Goliath, whose awful 
 brows and camp-meeting hymns" were so over-awing, examines George Beecher 
 "in the broad and obvious truths of Christianity" and then sits down. The 
 Moderator then gives the members of Presbytery liberty to question the candidate. 
 They did so from all quarters, in quick succession, with every imaginable shade of 
 doctrine. No witness on the stand ever underwent a more continuous cross- 
 examination. It lasted for two hours and a half and was then temporarily sus- 
 pended to try him out on other subjects. George gave answer judiciously and 
 
THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 
 
 239 
 
 JOHN FINLEY CROWE 
 In, response to careful inquiry as to whether Dr. Crowe became more 
 conservative in his Abolition views and activities; and also as to the for- 
 bidding- of free discussion and organization among the student: body on, these 
 volcanic social issues, President Millis replied: 
 
 Rev. L. V. Rule, Goshen, Kentucky 
 Dear Mr. Rule: 
 
 May 11, 1927 
 
 I don't think that Dr. Crowe ever ceased his abolitionist and, prohibition- 
 ist preaching and teaching. It is entirely unlike him to do so. It was the 
 prevailing opinion one hundred years; ago that controversial questions of all 
 kinds should be excluded from college campuses. We have entirely reversed 
 that opinion in recent years. The open forums are found everywhere today. 
 My understanding is that the reason which actuated the old-time faculty was 
 the feeling that education was a matter of book learning, which in the nature 
 of things should be directed very definitely toward the past, and not a matter 
 of research or consideration of current issues. The Pageant wilj show what 
 Mrs. Millis and I think is an interesting evolution in educfational philosophy. 
 Hanover begani with a strictly classical education, which after the Civil War 
 was modified (enough to admit the natural sciences and then again some 
 twenty years agio modified to make place for the social sciences and the 
 consideration of current problems. 
 
 Dr. Crowe never compromised with his opinions nor was he influenced 
 in the least so far as I can see by opposition from other sources. He does 
 say in one of his speeches in Presbytery that his consent to open the school 
 at Hanover must be on the expressed condition that he be free to teach and 
 preach against slavery and intemperance. Very truly yours, 
 
 W. A. MILLIS. 
 
 Our church history shows that the, hostility to Dr. Beecher was in part 
 prejudice against New England. 
 
 When Dr. Crowe, on his Eastern tour for funds for Hanover College, 
 appealed to the Missionary Society in Boston, he was closely questioned about 
 the Beecher-Wilflon controversy, and asked how he stood in the matter. He 
 answered tactfully but honestly that he preferred Princeton to Lane; and 
 the society declined to give him funds. 
 
 There was, therefore, a peculiar and fine conservatism about Dr. Crowe. 
 He remained with the Old School side when John M. Dickey and other 
 Abolition intimates went with the New School side. But so did Rev. James 
 Blythe and Rev. Wm. W. Martin, who, like Dr. Crowe, were Abolitionists, but 
 conservative in theology as well as temperament. They were Southern and 
 Kentuokian in that respect. Dr. Blythe, while) President of Hanover College 
 (1832-1S36) was a powerful Old School leader. 
 
240 
 
 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 sincerely; and next day the Presbytery was open for an expression of opinion 
 upon the examination that far. This matter consumed the entire day, and at the 
 evening session the discussion was resumed. Dr. Beecher and Dr. Wilson were 
 left to the last, being the oldest members of Presbytery. Dr. Beecher's remarks 
 were, of course, in favor of his son with some comment about being fair and 
 giving freedom to the soul of a young man to exercise his faith without fear, "to 
 stand on God's earth, and breathe his air, and preach his Gospel as we believe it." 
 Dr. Beecher sat down, and Dr. Wilson arose and in a speech of half an hour 
 said he did not believe the candidate was a Christian. He said that the candidate 
 gave no evidence of experimental Christianity, and that both the young man 
 and all those who held similar sentiment "would never see the gates of eternal 
 bliss." It was midnight before the final vote had been taken, but George 
 Beecher was sustained in his examination by a majority of 23. 
 
 REV. SAMUEL R. WILSON, D. D. 
 
 Son of Rev. Joshua L. Wilson. D. D., and even more 
 famous than his father in the controversies of Civil War 
 times in the Presbyterian Church. 
 
 ALBERT BARNES WRITES TO LYMAN BEECHER 
 A letter from Rev. Albert Barnes of Philadelphia, to Dr. Beecher dated 
 March 20, 1835, indicated that the Old School men were determined to depose 
 him from the ministry on the ground that his Commentary on Romans was 
 at variance with Presbyterian Standards. Mr. Barnes had been a convert from 
 skepticism to a very beautiful and satisfying faith. He was a younger man than 
 Charles G. Finney, and like Finney, gave up the prospect of law to become a 
 minister of the gospel. He was educated at Princeton Seminary and accepted a 
 pastorate at Morristown, N. J. He began writing his famous "Commentaries" 
 or "Notes" during this pastoral charge. He then accepted a call to the First 
 Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia. His ministry was abundantly blessed of 
 God. He was a wise, far-seeing soul, and when under fire from the Old School 
 side deported himself with the same forbearance and patience that characterized 
 Dr. Lyman Beecher. Our church historian observes concerning him: 
 
THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 241 
 
 "The years of controversy in the Presbyterian Church, which culminated in 
 its division in 1837, and in which some of Mr. Barnes' doctrinal views were 
 assailed, were painful years to him. But through them all he bore himself with 
 a firmness that never passed by its excess into obstinacy, with a gentleness that 
 never degenerated into weakness, and with a patience that was never ruffled. He 
 remained conspicuously connected with what was known as the New School 
 branch of the Presbyterian Church, but through press and pulpit contributed 
 largely to that state of things which made the reunion of the Presbyterian Church 
 possible, and which so happily characterizes the union as actually accomplished." 
 
 BEECHER AND BARNES COUNSEL MODERATION 
 
 Albert Barnes was undoubtedly one of the great figures of his time in the 
 Anti-Slavery Movement. He was offered a professorship in Lane Seminary in 
 1849, but declined it. He was elected New School Moderator in 1851. In the 
 correspondence with Dr. Lyman Bcecher regarding the wisest procedure in the 
 pending trials before the division of the Old and New School sides in the General 
 Assembly, Mr. Barnes and Dr. Beecher were of one mind. This moderation was 
 strikingly exemplified about this time in Dr. Beecher's advice to his son William 
 regarding a radical stand on Abolition: 
 
 "As to Abolition, I am still of opinion that you ought not, and need not, 
 and will not commit yourself as a partisan on either side. The cause is moving 
 on in Providence, and by the American Union, and by colonization * * * 
 will succeed, as I believe. And I hope and believe that the Abolitionists as a 
 body will become more calm and less denunciatory, with the exception of a few 
 he-goat men, who think they do God service by butting everything in the line 
 of their march which does not fall in or get out of the way. They are the off- 
 spring of the Oneida denunciatory revivals, and are made up of vinegar, aqua 
 fortis, and oil of vitriol, with brimstone, saltpeter, and charcoal, to explode and 
 scatter the corrosive matter." 
 
 The comment of Dr. Beecher's biographer, Charles Beecher, on the gathering 
 storm of Abolition, coincident with the climax of the Old and New School 
 struggle, is no less illuminating: "There was another cause of the great catas- 
 trophe — we refer to the slavery question, which yet is not another. The first 
 number of the Liberator was issued January, 1831, a few months after Dr. 
 Beecher received his call to Lane Seminary. Confessing himself to have been 
 till September, 1829, the advocate of gradual emancipation, the editor defines 
 his present and future position by the emphatic menace, 'Let Southern oppressors 
 tremble! Let their secret abettors tremble! Let all the enemies of the perse- 
 cuted blacks tremble!' 
 
 "The interval between this challenge and 1837, while gradually destroying 
 Mr. Garrison's original sympathy with the theology of revivals and its kindred 
 developments, added constantly to the intensity and power of his appeals. Yet 
 the fact of this divergence of the Liberator from the theology of the Puritans 
 does not nullify the fact that it was itself the child of that theology, albeit a 
 wayward child. Its first numbers speak the dialect of Canaan — the dialect of 
 faith, and prayer, and evangelical sympathy." 
 
242 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 DR. BEECHER ACQUITTED; THE STORM BREAKS 
 
 Dr. Beecher was acquitted of the charges preferred against him by Dr. Wilson 
 in the Assembly of 183 6. But this Assembly was characterized by the heated 
 and violent discussion of the subject of slavery. Dr. Witherspoon of South 
 Carolina afterward said to Dr. Beecher in a personal letter: "Division I do most 
 sincerely and deeply deplore. * * * Yet so it will be if the Abolitionists 
 rule. Our land must be deluged in blood by a contest fiercer and more bloody 
 and unrelenting than even Tory warfare during the Revolutionary struggle. 
 When men contend for liberty — an opinion — they will fight like men. But 
 when they contend for property, they will fight like devils." 
 
 These were the solemn and momentous words of Rev. Thomas Witherspoon. 
 a South Carolina Emancipationist, a man of profound social insight and spiritual 
 perception. He was a new and tremendously significant figure in those perilous 
 times. He was a man who weighed his words and who knew to the very last 
 letter what he was saying. He was no fire-eater nor fanatic. He saw, as clearly 
 as if revealed by the Word of God, just what the outcome of this terrible busi- 
 ness would be. It is an awfully convincing fact — this frank, fearless, and full 
 statement to Dr. Beecher as to the impending peril of violent and uncompromis- 
 ing Abolition agitation. Astonishing as it seems, there came a man of God 
 from South Carolina, the home of Nullification and Secession, to give due warn- 
 ing to the nation, North and South, as far back as the crisis of Old and New 
 School in 1836. These are his deliberate and measured sentences, uttered from 
 a soul as sincere, enlightened, liberty-loving and compassionate as ever preached 
 the Gospel of the Son of God: 
 
 "Division I do most sincerely and deeply deplore; and if it must, as a 
 dernier resort, come to this, I am strongly inclined to the opinion that Mason 
 and Dixon's line must be the ridge. It needs but the lifting of a finger to bring 
 this to> pass; and if it will promote the peace of the Church, it shall be done 
 as speedily as the most violent Abolitionist could desire. 
 
 "And what will be the effect of this? Southern ministers will be utterly 
 excluded from Northern pulpits and churches — Northern ministers driven from 
 the South, or conducted to 'the lamp-post a'la mode de Paris' — a pretty state 
 of things in Christian America, the nest of the eagle, home of the stranger, 
 asylum of the oppressed. * * * 
 
 "This cause will arm son against father, daughter against mother, and pros- 
 trate the strongest and most tender ties of life. I have been a slave-holder from 
 my youth, and yet I detest it as the political and domestic curse of our Southern 
 country. And yet I would contend to the death against Northern interference 
 with Southern rights, and would follow Dr. Beman to the scaffold on Charleston 
 Neck if he continued to hold the sentiments he expressed at Pittsburgh in 183 5. 
 I give you, Brother Beecher, my honest, undisguised sentiments. They may be 
 wrong, but I think them right. 
 
 "Abolitionism leads to murder, rapine, and every vile crime that an enthusi- 
 astic, ignorant slave could commit; and therefore I abhor Abolitionism and detest 
 the Abolitionist. It was well that I was not on the floor of the last Assembly; 
 but, if God spare me, I shall be on the floor of the next: and let Lovejoy. or 
 Patterson, or Dickey, or any like them, dare to advance the opinions I have 
 heard expressed, and — the consequences be theirs." 
 
CHAPTER XLV 
 
 <l>kt %hm\\\mn (jSpAmim 1&&mt>& 
 
 /^ T WOULD be impossible to do justice to the mind, heart, and soul 
 fm VJ of the Old South on the perilous social problem of African Slavery 
 ^^ J and its ultimate abolition did we not glimpse briefly one or more 
 great religious leaders, who longed and labored as earnestly as any 
 Northern Abolitionists for the final extinction of the hated institution of human 
 bondage. Such a leader was the Rev. Thomas Sydenham Witherspoon, a South 
 Carolinian, born January 2, 1805, and deceased October 20, 1845, on his pas- 
 toral field in the State of Alabama. His loss to his church and country was 
 tragic. He was a blood relative of President Witherspoon of Princeton College. 
 He came of the finest Scotch Presbyterian parentage. He was educated in the 
 State of New York and was a young man of broad mind and generous spirit. 
 He was a most genial and humorous character, nothwithstanding the shadow of 
 illness and early death that followed his family with fatal consequences. He had 
 only one brother living when he passed away. His beloved wife and three chil- 
 dren were deceased before him; and his own health was frail. Yet he was tire- 
 less in his ministerial duties and was a power in the camp-meetings and sacra- 
 mental services held all over that part of the country. He was very averse to 
 using the written sermon or notes in preaching. He was a natural orator and 
 with inimitable mimicry discountenanced the scholastic method of sermonizing. 
 He was a man of medium height, a slender and graceful figure, thin countenance, 
 dark complexion, keen and discerning eyes, and with a fascinating cordiality and 
 ease of manner typically Southern. It is only necessary now to add what his 
 biographer records regarding his attitude toward Slavery and Emancipation to 
 conceive clearly his hope for the South in this crucial hour of change and revo- 
 lution: 
 
 "I should do injustice to the character of this excellent brother, if I did 
 not say a word in reference to his connection with the subject of Slavery. He 
 was the possessor of a considerable number of slaves — perhaps thirty — whom he 
 had received by inheritance. But he treated them almost with the affection of a 
 father. Instead of constantly employing an overseer, he, for the most part, 
 employed one of their own number, a venerable old pious Negro, by the name 
 of Paul, who was greatly respected by the whole community, and withal was in 
 some sense a preacher — to take the general direction of affairs on the plantation; 
 and, under his superintendence, everything moved on in the most quiet and har- 
 monious way. 
 
 "Many years before his death, he offered to set them free, and to pay the 
 expense of their passage to Liberia — and this was a standing offer as long as he 
 lived; but they unfortunately declined it. By his will, he presented them to 
 Henry Clay, as President of the Colonization Society, to be sent to Liberia, and 
 his will has accordingly taken effect, (May 30, 1857)." 
 
244 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 THE PASSING OF COLONIZATION 
 
 The American Colonization Society, at first so widely and persistently pop- 
 ular at the South, (though honestly regarded by many national public men in 
 Washington City at its very inception as Utopian) had become a menace to real 
 Emancipation. Its chief officers were slave-holders who soothed their conscience 
 by subscribing to its high-sounding sentiments. It is said that more slaves were 
 smuggled into the South in one year by seven times than were transported to 
 Liberia in fifteen. William Lloyd Garrison struck the Society a body blow in 
 his famous pamphlet, "Thoughts on African Colonization," published in 183 2. 
 This pamphlet converted many sincere and thoughtful Emancipationists to the 
 Abolition side, and the wealthy Christian merchant, Arthur Tappan of New 
 York, ordered the pamphlet by the hundred copies for circulation. It was charged 
 that the Liberian Republic was a makeshift of democracy, and that it was utter 
 folly to consider exiling the liberated Negro people from their homeland to such 
 a far-off wilderness without their own consent. Henrv Clay's latest biographer 
 speaks of the Society as "a chimerical scheme both as regards the number of freed 
 men that were deported and as to their success in Liberia. It served as a salve 
 for the consciences of many Southern slave-holders, who contributed to its funds 
 and thus thought they were doing all that human ingenuity could devise to get 
 rid of an odious, though profitable institution." 
 
 GARRISON STRIKES THE SLAVE TRADE 
 
 Garrison insisted that he was striking at the Slave Trade, the traffic in 
 human beings, and that his language was necessarily harsh, severe, and even vio- 
 lent. He burned with indignation at the wide-spread power and influence of the 
 slave-holders throughout the country. In the year 1830 when he made his 
 great Anti-Slavery speech in the free-thinkers' hall in Boston (because none of 
 the churches would open their doors to him) he was compelled to disclaim allegi- 
 ance to the opposers of religion but to blush with shame because no minister 
 of the gospel would tolerate his utterances inside a Christian pulpit. Dr. Lyman 
 Beecher was in the audience, with other well-known men. among them the Rev. 
 Samuel J. May. Mr. May testified afterward that the address was astounding: 
 
 THE VOICE OF A PROPHET 
 
 "Never before was I so affected by the speech of man. When he had ceased 
 speaking, I said to those around me: 'That is a Providential man. He is a 
 prophet. He will shake our nation to its center: but he will shake slavery out 
 of it. We ought to know him. We ought to help him. Come, let us go and 
 give him our hands.' 
 
 The next day Mr. May went to Garrison's boarding house and talked with 
 him till 2 p. m. He found this man a humble printer, poor and unsupported 
 by any large following, but terribly in earnest in his crusade against Slavery and 
 Colonization. He denounced the latter as but a scheme to get free people of 
 color out of the country so the rest of the black folk could be held in securer 
 bondage. He was writing letters of moving and powerful appeal and protest to 
 prominent clergymen like Lyman Beecher and William Ellery Channing. as well 
 
THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 
 
 245 
 
 as to statemen and other leaders of thought and opinion. Garrison had great 
 hopes of enlisting Dr. Beecher, but the violent and uncompromising character of 
 the crusade meant mob violence in turn and the certainty of Civil War. Henry 
 Ward Beecher said of Garrison that he "was a man of no mean ability; of 
 indefatigable industry; of the most unbounded enterprise and eagerness; of per- 
 severance that pushes him on like a law of nature; of courage that amounts to 
 recklessness." And he added, (to quote the Garrison Biography) "had he pos- 
 sessed, as a balance to these, conciliation, good nature, benevolence, or even a 
 certain popular mirthfulness; had he possessed the moderation and urbanity of 
 Clarkson, (the Abolitionist, 1740-1846), or the deep piety of Wilberforce, he 
 had been the one man of our age. These all he lacked. Had the disease of 
 American needed only counter-irritation, no better blister could have been 
 applied." 
 
 REV. WM. L. BRECKINRIDGE, D. D. 
 
 Our Mother says that this Dr. Breckinridge, who was 
 her pastor when a Louisville school g"irl, was the gentlest 
 and most beloved of men. He was as different from his 
 brother Robert as day and night. 
 
 THE SOUTH AROUSED TO RESIST 
 
 It was this Abolition Crusade that alarmed and horrified even Emancipation- 
 ists like the Rev. Thomas Sydenham Witherspoon. He it was who predicted nation- 
 wide division and ultimate bloodshed as the outcome. And the Lyman Beecher 
 Biography comments thus upon his words: "Southern Presbyteries and Synods 
 were expressing themselves emphatically in the same direction. The Princeton 
 Review had already, as early as 1832. recommended a plan of reorganization, by 
 which 'the churches in the slave-holding States will be separated from those in 
 the Northern States.' 
 
 Dr. Beecher himself said: "The South has generally stood neutral. They 
 had opposed going to extremes in theology either way. Rice, of Virginia was a 
 noble fellow, and held all steady. It was Rice who said, after my trial, that 
 I ought to be tried once in five years, to keep up the orthodoxy of the church. 
 He was full of good humor, and did so much good. But they got scared about 
 Abolition. Rice got his head full of that thing, and others. John C. Calhoun 
 was at the bottom of it. I know of his doing things — writing to ministers, and 
 
246 
 
 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 REV. ROBERT J. BRECKINRIDGE, D. D. 
 
 A powerful figure in the Old and New School struggle 100 years ago. 
 Dr. Breckinridge warmly supported Dr. Wilson in the "Western Memorial" 
 protest tio the General Assembly of 1834 against alleged disloyalties in doc- 
 trine of New Scholol men. The Assembly did not receive this "Memorial" 
 favorably. The strictures on previous Assemblies were answered; and like- 
 wise the charges against Presbyteries and individual] ministers. The danger 
 of a divided church was immediate. 
 
 The famous "Act and Testimony" was 1 drawn up after the "Memorial" 
 was not accepted by the Assembly of 1834. Dr. Breckinridge and Dr. Wilson 
 were foremost in this movement and document. A convention was called to 
 meet in Philadelphia in May (1835) preceeding the Assembly. The same griev- 
 ances and charges were repeated: 41 Presbyteries and 13 minorities of Pres- 
 byteries were represented and the Assembly of 1835 gave very favorable 
 consideration to every grievance and charge. But the Assembly was not 
 ready to break off friendly relations with the New England churches. 
 
 The Synod of Philadelphia at once prosecuted and suspended the Rev. 
 Albert Barnes; but the Assembly of 1836 not only reversed this action but 
 triumphantly vindicated him. The "Act and Testimony" side thereupon called 
 another pre-Assembly Convention at Philadelphia in May, 1S37. Confidential 
 correspondence and activity to insure a majority in the Assembly, and to take 
 decisive action looking to a division of the Church if they failed, brought the 
 crisis speedily ion. The "Princeton Review" appealed for peace and unity 
 in the Church; but the "Act and Testimony" men felt that division was inevit- 
 able. When a committee of both sides reported to the Assembly the impos- 
 sibility'and unconstitutionality of a voluntary division, Dr. Breckinridge led 
 the fight for decisive action; and the Western Reserve Synod and the Synods 
 of Utica, Geneva and Genesee were excinded. He also moved the dissolution 
 of the Third Presbytery of Philadelphia to which Mr. Barnes belonged. 
 
 Dr. Breckinridge was an Emancipationist and Colonizationist and in vio- 
 lent aversion to Abolitionists 1 like Garrison. But he was an undying Union 
 man in the Civil War; and it was against the severity and political character 
 of his loyalty tests upon Southern members of the General Assembly during 
 the Civil War period that gave rise to Dr. Samuel R. Wilson's famous "Dec- 
 laration and Testimony." 
 
 As champions of the Colonization Society Dr. Robert J. Breckinridge an 1 
 his brother John went to Boston in July, 1S34, to hold a series of public 
 meetings to offset Garrison's attacks on Colonization. The Mayor gave warn- 
 ing that the mob would attack any sort of a meeting about slavery: and. 
 though widely advertised to be opened at a Methodist Church on Sunday 
 night, the meeting was called off. Dr. Breckinridge afterward blamed Gar- 
 rison for tTie hostility of public sentiment even, in pro-slavery Boston. 
 
 July 25, 1834, Garrison called upon the Rev. John Breckinridge, and for 
 several hours discussed the whole slavery question and the means of its 
 abolition. The first half hour was amicable and then Mr. Breckinridge 
 became extasperated and denounced the Abolition propaganda in severe lan- 
 guage. He refused to debate with Garrison, who went home much depressed 
 over the interview and got down on his knees and prayed for the eradication 
 of bitterness between them. 
 
THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 247 
 
 telling them to do this and do that. The South finally took the Old School 
 side. It was a cruel thing — it was a cursed thing, and it was Slavery that 
 did it." 
 
 THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT 
 
 Charles Beccher, the biographer, adds this comment: "So the great and im- 
 posing fabric was shattered in fragments, and the Rebellion now raging was 
 not a distant consequence. And it was ideas that did it. It was ideas concern- 
 ing God and man. Ideas concerning the divine administration, the government 
 of the universe, the origin of evil — that convulsed the church and convulsed the 
 nation; and why should they not? Theology and Politics are next of kin. 
 Their study is but the study, in different relations and connections, of the fun- 
 damental principles, and historical facts, and moving powers of the universal 
 government of God." 
 
 The Synod of Kentuciky was overwhelmingly anti-slavery. It was but 
 two years later that President John C. Young- of Centre College, wrote one 
 of the greatest Emancipation Reports for the Synod that the whole period 
 produced. Rev. Wm. L. Breokinridgie was on that Committee of Synod and 
 indorsed the report fully. These Breckinridge Brothers represented the very 
 best Southern sentiment that was sincerely desirous of ending slavery. 
 
 It seems that the Southern Old School men supported the conservative 
 "Act and Testimony" side 100 years ago because they were willing to exclude 
 the subject >of slavery from the Assembly in consideration of the backing 
 they received to discipline and excind the New School Synods. The: Abolition 
 Terror was thus a means of Old School victory for the time, because the very 
 mention of it in the councils of the "Act and Testimony" conventions would 
 havei split them into fragments and factions immediately. 
 
CHAPTER XLVI 
 
 ,3Vvth U^lrrr-c Slxiph ^\xh«tvt Zhxx k&v\x 7 - 
 
 f A UGUSTUS C. BUELL, the biographer of Andrew Jackson, says that 
 VX \ the General made a promise to Mrs. Jackson, which he often 
 
 Jj \ repeated, that when he "got out of public life," where he was free 
 from the suspicion of ulterior motives, he would make a profession 
 of his faith and come into the communion of the Presbyterian Church. "Rough 
 as his nature was in many respects," says Buell, "and fierce as his career may 
 have been, Andrew Jackson was filled with the instincts of purity and the im- 
 pulses of righteousness." 
 
 The biographer then relates that when the General heard of the death of 
 Aaron Burr in 183 6 he remarked that Burr came within one trait of exalted 
 greatness, and that was his lack of reverence. As a backwoodsman Jackson first 
 saw him in Philadelphia in 1796 and noted this deep spiritual void in the nature 
 of Burr. What especially displeased Jackson was the remarks Burr made about 
 the dying confession of Hamilton reminding him of an expiring monk trying to 
 square himself with Deity and Death. "If I had thought such a thing, after 
 killing a man," said Jackson, "I would have left its utterance to somebody else." 
 
 The point is that General Jackson had the root of genuine religion in him, 
 namely, reverence. And it does not surprise us to read in Buell's Life as to his 
 conversation: "In regard to General Jackson's formal communion, with the or- 
 thodox Presbyterian Church in 1843, we think it may be safely described as the 
 outward manifestation of a change of heart which really began with the passing 
 of Mrs. Jackson in 1828. In our own observation we have seen and known 
 some men as obdurate, as exultantly brave, as heedless of danger, as stoical under 
 bodily pain, and, generally speaking, as hard and grim as Jackson may have 
 been at his worst, to be softened, chastened and subdued suddenly and perma- 
 nently by some irrcperable bereavement . that inflicted an unspeakable sorrow, 
 never to be assuaged. 
 
 "It usually happens that the bravest and hardest men, if they be men of 
 chivalry and honor, are the tendcrcst lovers. That these words describe General 
 Jackson, we do not think any close student of his nature will try to gainsay. 
 Now, such a man may be very wicked in the common acceptation of the term, 
 so long as no great shock comes to his brain and heart, to teach him — with all 
 the force of a rifle bullet but without its dcadliness — that this life is not all in 
 what we see today or may have seen yesterday. Time and again have we seen 
 such men take their first glimpse of the soul's immortality in a hope, vague and 
 shadowy at first, but constant within them and always growing, that they may, 
 when this life is done, meet and greet once more and forever the loved one in 
 the realm of God's Eternity. 
 
 "There can be no doubt, we think, that this preparation for the Christian 
 change, if not the change itself, crept over the heart and through the soul of 
 
THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 249 
 
 Andrew Jackson when he consigned to the Hermitage Garden the mortal ashes 
 of his Rachel. At any rate, we know that from that moment he mended the 
 ways of his life. He subdued his daily walk and he moderated his daily con- 
 versation. True, his temper rose now and then — but so does the wrath of the 
 righteous. One need not be a sheep to be a Christian. 
 
 "But on the whole the Jackson who survived 'Aunt Rachel' was a different 
 man from the one she called husband in her lifetime; a milder, gentler-spoken, 
 more tender-voiced and more reverent man than she had ever known. The love 
 he bore her in the body seemed to follow her soul away somewhere, he knew 
 not where, but he did know that it followed her spirit; and in his rugged, 
 strife-scarred, storm-beaten and pain-seared simplicity of manhood, that itself 
 was a religion. These observations — trite in themselves, mayhap — lead us irresist- 
 ibly to the conclusion that, when General Jackson formally and outwardly 'joined 
 the church,' in 1843, he only avowed in the sight of men a faith he had long 
 ago confessed to God Almighty in the silent sanctuary of his own soul." 
 
 We have already mentioned the profound friendship of Dr. Gideon Black- 
 burn and Andrew Jackson in another connection, together with the fact that 
 Dr. Blackburn duly urged upon the General the fulfillment of the promise to 
 make a profession of his faith and unite with the church. But there was another 
 Presbyterian minister who exercised the pastoral relation with the General in the 
 latter years of his life and brought him to the decision, under God's grace, which 
 had been so long deferred. This minister was the Rev. John Todd Edgar, D. D.. 
 who, with Dr. Gideon Blackburn, stands out in the spiritual experience of 
 Andrew Jackson as Dr. James Smith and Dr. Phineas Gurley do in the spiritual 
 life of Abraham Lincoln. It is well that coming generations should hear the 
 story of this eminent bosom friendship and the remarkable man of God who 
 brought so great a joy of salvation and peace to the rugged heart of Old Hickory. 
 
 REV. JOHN TODD EDGAR 
 
 From the historic records of the First Presbyterian Church of Frankfort, Ky., 
 we read that: "Rev. John Todd Edgar, D. D., was born in Lexington, Ky., in 
 1793. His name first appears on the roll of t-he Synod in 1817. He came to 
 Frankfort in December, 1827, and took charge of this church as stated supply. 
 He found it in a confused and disorganized condition, without officers, save one 
 elder, and he a non-resident. Shortly after his coming the church was greatly 
 strengthened by accessions, which gave material for office-bearers, and it was at 
 once reorganized by the election of a full bench of ruling elders and a board of 
 deacons. 
 
 "In March. 1829. Mr. Edgar accepted a call to the pastor's office, which 
 he held until July, 1833, when he removed to Nashville, Tenn. He took charge 
 as pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of that city, and in it he ended his 
 labors in the year 1860. Dr. Edgar was greatly beloved by this congregation, 
 and very Highly esteemed by the whole community. He was a man of very 
 popular manners and address, and an eloquent and successful preacher. He was 
 the acknowledged pulpit orator of the Synod, and his services were constantly in 
 demand elsewhere while pastor here." 
 
 A closer examination of the records of the First Church at Frankfort dis- 
 closes some very fine spiritual facts about Dr. Edgar's pastorate in the Kentucky 
 
250 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 State Capital: "During his ministry here Dr. Edgar, under direction of Pres- 
 bytery, spent a considerable part of the summer and fall months in missionary 
 tours, confirming and strengthening the weak and destitute churches in different 
 parts of the Presbytery. He also preached statedly to the country churches in 
 this vicinity. 
 
 "At that period the Presbyteries seemed to have exercised a very close watch 
 and paternal care over their weaker and struggling congregations, making regular 
 details from the pulpits of the stronger churches for their spiritual nourishment. 
 These ministers were sent according to the scripture injunction, 'two and two.' 
 holding usually four-days meetings, administering the ordinances, concluding with 
 the sacrament of the Lord's Supper on the Sabbath. The stated meetings of 
 Presbytery, and especially of Synod, were occasions of great import and interest 
 to the churches and to the whole community. 
 
 REV. JOHN T. EDGAR, D. D. 
 
 "The entertainment of these bodies no doubt fully taxed the ability of the 
 places where the meetings were held, but the scriptural rule of hospitality without 
 grudging' seemed to have prevailed, for the occasions were earnstly sought after, 
 contended for and enjoyed by the churches. That being before the day of good 
 roads and adequate public conveyances, the visiting ministers and elders came 
 mostly on horseback, occasionally in their own vehicles. The congregation was 
 called on to entertain 'man and beast,' as is shown by sundry livery bills in our 
 church papers, paid bv our treasurer, one of which, for keeping the horses of 
 Synod, amounted to $78.22. In contrast somewhat with these ecclesiastical 
 bodies of today, they were then in no hurry to depart, remaining over the Sab- 
 bath, and thus these convocations were a benediction to the church and com- 
 munity." 
 
 Dr. Edgar was not only an evangelical but an evangelistic preacher and pastor. 
 When the Frankfort pulpit became vacant in the latter part of 1827. as there 
 were no elders to represent the church at Presbytery, a very strong committee of 
 
THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 
 
 251 
 
 Frankfort citizens, among them John J. Crittenden, went to that body with 
 an earnest request for the ministerial services of Mr. Edgar, who had been acting 
 as temporary supply. This request was granted and "Shortly after Mr. Edgar's 
 coming the church experienced perhaps the greatest revival and work of divine 
 grace in its history. Over sixty persons were added to the membership, many of 
 whom were heads of families and prominent and influential citizens of the 
 place." 
 
 Ephraim M. Brank of Greenville, Muhlenberg- County, Ky., about 1850. 
 Chief of the famous Kentucky Rifleman at the Battle of New Orleans, Jan- 
 uary 8, 1815, who struck terror to the advancing- columns of British veterans 
 by his' deadly aim from the breastworks. He was described by the British 
 historian as "a tall man standing- on the breastworks, dressed in linsey- 
 woolsey, with buckskin leggings, etc. . . . The roar of cannon had no effect 
 upon the figure before us; he seemed fixed and motionless as a statue. At 
 last he moved, threw back his hat rim over the crown with his left hand, 
 raised the rifle to his shoulder, and took aim at our group." The effect was 
 so terrific that he seemed a phantom of Death itself until the enemy wavered 
 and fell back in utter defeat. 
 
 When James Parton wrote his Life of Andrew Jackson he communicated 
 with Dr. Edgar with reference to the circumstances under which the General 
 made his public profession of faith and united with the little Hermitage Church. 
 Dr. Edgar made answer that sometime during the season of 1839, the adopted 
 
25 2 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 daughter of General Jackson was ill and desired his presence to administer spirit- 
 ual consolation. The General was present in the room during the conversation. 
 She was troubled about being "a great sinner." This statement aroused the 
 astonishment of the General who said, "You call yourself a sinner? Why. I had 
 always considered you the very incarnation of goodness and purity. You should 
 unite with Dr. Edgar's church by all means." 
 
 STORY OF A GREAT SERMON 
 
 Louis Albert Banks, who gives a very impressive version of this whole inci- 
 dent in his book, "Religious Life of Famous Americans," says that Dr. Edgar 
 did not believe General Jackson was clear in his own mind what constituted a 
 true repentance and acceptance with God. It so happened that in a very short 
 while Dr. Edgar was called upon to conduct a revival meeting in the little Herm- 
 itage Chapel. General Jackson was a very constant and attentive auditor. The 
 evangelist took as the main thought of his discourse that evening the Providence 
 of God in the affairs of men. He pointed out the many ways and times of 
 divine protection and interposition. He drew a graphic and eloquent picture of 
 General Jackson's own personal exposure to dangers seen and unseen in his long 
 and perilous career and how God had preserved him alive almost by miracle. 
 
 General Jackson was deeply moved. He sat with his eyes fixed upon the 
 minister and at the close of service got in his carriage and was driving back to 
 the Hermitage. Dr. Edgar had come out on horseback and rode past the car- 
 riage of the General, who exclaimed: "Doctor Edgar, I want to talk with you. 
 Won't you go home with me tonight?" 
 
 Dr. Edgar answered that he had promised to go to see a sick lady and could 
 not possibly break his word. The General urged him three distinct and separate 
 times to stay; but the pastor replied that he would come the very first thing in 
 the morning. That was an anxious and momentous night to Old Hickory. He 
 paced back and forth in his room, talked to his adopted daughter, and prayed 
 as best he could. Even James Parton was moved to say of this great spiritual 
 crisis: "What sins he repented of and what actions of his life he wished he had 
 not done, no one knows, or ever will know. But the value of this upheaving 
 of the soul depends upon that. There is a repentance which is radical, sublime, 
 regenerating. There is a repentance which is shallow and fruitless. Conversion 
 means a turning. It is only when we know from what a man turns, and to 
 what he turns, that we can know whether his turning is of any benefit to him." 
 
 Dr. Edgar reached the Hermitage shortly after sunrise. The General had 
 wrestled the whole problem through as Jacob did of old. and he informed the 
 pastor that he wished to unite with the church that morning. He was ready 
 in every way but one — he could not. from the heart, say that he forgave his 
 enemies. The pastor insisted with gentle but uncompromising frankness that 
 as he forgave so would he himself be forgiven. At length the General assented. 
 Dr. Banks gives a touching account of the reception of the General into the 
 bosom of the church: 
 
 A MEMORABLE COMMUNION SERVICE 
 
 "The Hermitage Church was crowded that Sunday morning to the utmost 
 of its small capacity. At the windows were the eager faces of the colored servants. 
 
THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 253 
 
 After the usual services General Andrew Jackson rose in his place to make the 
 required public declaration of his concurrence with the doctrines and his resolve 
 to obey the precepts of the church. He leaned heavily upon his walking stick 
 with both hands; tears rolled down his cheeks. His daughter, the fair young 
 matron, stood beside him. The silence was profound and the emotion of 
 the people beyond description as the General answered the questions proposed to 
 him. 
 
 "When at last the formal ceremony was ended and he was pronounced a 
 member of the church, and Dr. Edgar was about to continue the services, the 
 long restrained feelings of the congregation burst forth in sobs and devout excla- 
 mations which compelled him to pause for several minutes. The clergyman was 
 himself speechless with emotion and abandoned himself to the exultation of the 
 hour. A familiar hymn was announced, and all the people, both within the 
 church and outside in the gathered groups about the windows, joined with an 
 esctatic fervor which at once expressed and relieved their feelings-" 
 
 Mrs. W. H. Richardson, of Nashville, Tenn., in a recent article descriptive 
 of the Hermitage Church as it is today, quotes from an old and valued record of 
 that memorable service thus: "It may well be imagined that the scene was thrill- 
 ing when this veteran of years and service of his country, professed allegiance to 
 the Sovereign of all worlds, and promised an eternal fidelity to Him who demands 
 the homage of all created intelligence. 
 
 "The whole preparatory service was deeply interesting, but when the time 
 arrived for "him and his relatives and friends to arise and take their seats at the 
 table of their Ascended Lord and Redeemer, a scene of weeping gratitude and 
 joy seemed to pervade the whole congrgation. To see this aged veteran, whose 
 head had stood erect in battle and through scenes of fearful bearing, bending 
 that head in humble and adoring reverence at the table of his Divine Master, 
 while tears of penitence and joy trickled down his careworn cheeks was indeed 
 a spectacle of most intense moral interest. No one indeed could question the 
 sincerity of his profession of faith in the Son of God." 
 
 THE CRISIS OVER SLAVERY 
 
 The Presbyterian Church in the South during the Civil War took positive 
 ground on the exclusion of all social and political questions from consideration 
 and discussion in religious assemblies. In their famous Address on the State of 
 the Country, adopted in session at Augusta, Georgia, in December, 1861, we find 
 this unmistakable language: "The only conceivable condition, therefore, upon 
 which the Church of the North and the South could remain together as one 
 body, with any prospect of success, is the rigorous exclusion of the questions and 
 passions of the forum from its halls of debate. This is what always ought to 
 be done. The provinces of Church and State are perfectly distinct, and the one 
 has no right to usurp the jurisdiction of the other. The State is a natural insti- 
 tute, founded in the constitution of man as moral and social, and designed to 
 realize the idea of justice. It is the society of rights. The church is a super- 
 natural institute, founded in the facts of redemption, and is designed to realize 
 the idea of grace. It is the society of the redeemed. The State aims at social 
 order, the church at spiritual holiness. The State looks to the visible and out- 
 ward, the church is concerned for the invisible and inward. The badge of the 
 
254 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 State's authority is the sword by which it becomes a terror to evil doers, and a 
 praise to them that do well. The badge of the church's authority is the keys 
 by which it opens and shuts the Kingdom of Heaven, according as men are believ- 
 ing or impenitent. The power of the church is exclusively spiritual, that of the 
 State includes the exercise of force." 
 
 Upon the subject of African Slavery and the proposition to make the holding 
 of human beings in bondage a ground of exclusion from church fellowship we 
 find these defensive arguments set forth with masterly logic: "There is one 
 difference which so radically and fundamentally distinguishes the North and the 
 South, that it is becoming every day more and more apparent that the religious, 
 as well as the secular, interests of both will be more effectually promoted by a 
 complete and lasting separation. The antagonism of Northern and Southern 
 sentiment on the subject of slavery lies at the root of all the difficulties which 
 have resulted in the dismemberment of the Federal Union, and involved us in 
 the horrors of an unnatural war. The Presbyterian Church in the United States 
 has been enabled by Divine grace to pursue, for the most part, an eminently con- 
 servative, because a thoroughly scriptural, policy in relation to this delicate 
 question. It has planted itself upon the Word of God, and utterly refused to 
 make slave-holding a sin, or non-slave-holding a term of communion. But 
 though both sections are agreed as to this general principle, it is not to be dis- 
 guised that the North exercises a deep and settled antipathy to slavery itself, while 
 the South is equally zealous in its defense. 
 
 "Recent events can have no other effect than to confirm the antipathy on the 
 one hand and strengthen the attachment on the other. The Northern section 
 of the church stands in the awkward predicament of maintaining in one breath, 
 that slavery is an evil which ought to be abolished, and of asserting in the next, 
 that it is not a sin to be visited by exclusion from communion of the saints. 
 The consequence is, that it plays partly in the hands of abolitionists and partly 
 in the hands of slave-holders, and weakens its influence with both. It occupies 
 the position of a prevaricating witness whom neither party will trust. It would 
 be better therefore for the moral power of the Northern section of the church 
 to get entirely quit of the subject. At the same time, it is intuitively obvious 
 that the Southern section of the church, while even partially under the control 
 of those who are hostile to slavery, can never have free and unimpeded access to 
 the slave population. Its ministers and elders will always be liable to some 
 degree of suspicion. In the present circumstances. Northern alliance would be 
 absolutely fatal." 
 
 A FAMOUS DEFENSE OF SLAVERY 
 
 Then follows the view of slavery adhered to by the Presbyterian Church of 
 the South at that crucial time: "We would have it distinctly understood that, 
 in our ecclesiastical capacity, we are neither the friends nor the foes of slavery; 
 that is to say, we have no commission either to propagate or abolish it. The 
 policy of its existence or non-existence is a question which exclusively belongs to 
 the State. We have no right, as a church, to enjoin it as a duty, or to condemn 
 it as a sin. Our business is with the duties which spring from the relation: the 
 duties of the master on the one hand, and of their slaves on the other. These 
 duties we are to proclaim and enforce with spiritual sanctions. The social, civil, 
 political problems connected with this great subject transcend our sphere, as God 
 
THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 
 
 255 
 
 has not entrusted to His church the organization of society, the construction of 
 Government, nor the allotment of individuals to their various stations. The 
 church has as much right to preach to the monarchies of Europe, and the despot- 
 ism of Asia, the doctrines of republican equality, as to preach to the govern- 
 ments of the South the extirpation of slavery. This position is impregnable, 
 unless it can be shown that slavery is a sin." 
 
 The authors of this historic document then address themselves to a defense 
 of the institutions of slavery: "Slavery is no new thing. It has not only existed 
 for ages in the world, but it has existed, under every dispensation of the cove- 
 nant of grace, in the Church of God. Indeed, the first organization of the church 
 as a visible society, separate and distinct from the unbelieving world, was inaugu- 
 rated in the family of a slave-holder. Among the very first persons to whom 
 the seal of circumcision was affixed, were the slaves of the father of the faithful, 
 some born in his house, and others bought with his money. 
 
 m *^^B^^^M 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■ -v? 
 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 *"• s? 5 - ; 'i :."%a 
 
 '••< 
 
 THE BRANK RESIDENCE, GREENVILLE, KY. 
 
 "Slavery again re-appears under the Law. God sanctions it in the first table 
 of the Decalogue, and Moses treats it as an institution to be regulated, not abol- 
 ished; legitimated, and not condemned. We come down to the age of the New 
 Testament, and we find it again in the churches founded by the Apostles under 
 the plenary inspiration of the Holy Ghost. These facts are utterly amazing, if 
 
 slavery is the enormous sin which its enemies represent it to be We stand 
 
 exactly where the Church of God has always stood — from Abraham to Moses, 
 from Moses to Christ, from Christ to the Reformers, and from the Reformers to 
 ourselves. We stand upon the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles, Jesus 
 Christ Himself being the Chief cornerstone. Shall we be excluded from the fel- 
 lowship of our brethren in other lands, because we dare not depart from the 
 charter of our faith? Shall we be branded with the stigma of reproach, because 
 we cannot consent to corrupt the Word of God to suit the intuitions of an infidel 
 philosophy? Shall our names be cast out as evil, and the finger of scorn pointed 
 at us, because we utterly refuse to break our communion with Abraham, Isaac 
 and Jacob, with Moses, David, and Isaiah, with Apostles, Prophets and Martyrs. 
 
256 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 with all the noble army of confessors who have gone to glory from slave-holding 
 countries and from a slave-holding church, without ever having dreamed that 
 they were living in mortal sin, by conniving at slavery in the midst of them.' 
 If so, we shall take consolation in the cheering consciousness that the Master 
 
 has accepted us We feel that the souls of our slaves are a solemn trust, 
 
 and we shall strive to present them faultless and complete before the presence 
 of God-" 
 
 ANDREW JACKSON AND THE FEDERAL UNION 
 
 We have cited this famous document and its defense of slavery and the South 
 in connection with the story of Andrew Jackson's religious experience because it 
 will afford us clearer evidence to demonstrate how these acute and irreconcilable 
 issues were settled in the crucible of history. There is a lot of fundamental 
 truth in the argument for the entire and eternal separation of Church and State 
 touching these vital problems of human life and liberty: and perhaps we should 
 consider first how Old Hickory met the issue of Nullification and Secession. 
 His biographer, Buell, leaves no doubt in any mind as to where General Jackson 
 stood. It was at the famous Jefferson Day Banquet in Washington City during 
 Jackson's first administration: 
 
 "The Jefferson banquet was a grand one. To the President was, of course, 
 accorded the honor of the first volunteer toast. No one — except his private secre- 
 tary and the members of his 'kitchen cabinet' — had the remotest inkling of what 
 was to come. Only Benton, Hill, Lewis and Kendall knew the President's inten- 
 tion. The general drift of the regular toasts, as Benton describes the affair, and 
 of the short speeches that accompanied them, had been that of an effort to 
 identify Jefferson's teachings with the ultra State-rights theory and to make him, 
 not the apostle of democracy, so much as the high priest of nullification. 
 
 "When Jackson rose to the privilege of the leading volunteer toast, he 
 straightened to his full height, raised his right hand, looked straight at Calhoun 
 and, amid a hush that was almost breathless, said — in that crisp, harsh tone 
 that had so often been heard above the crashing of many rifles — 'Our Federal 
 Union---it must and shall be preserved.' 
 
 "Not long afterward Isaac Hill, who was present, said: A proclamation of 
 martial law in South Carolina and an order to arrest Calhoun where he sat could 
 not have come with more blinding, staggering force. All hilarity ceased. The 
 President, without adding one word in the way of a speech, lifted up his glass 
 as a notice that the toast was to be quaffed standing. Calhoun rose with the 
 rest. His glass so trembled in his hand that a little of the amber fluid trickled 
 down the side. Jackson stood silent and impassive. There was no response to 
 the toast. Calhoun waited until all sat down. .... 
 
 "Of course the issue involved then was upon a minor question as compared 
 with the one that soon took its place. It was only an affair of customs: of a 
 tariff. There was nothing in that to kindle the imagination or stir the hearts 
 of the people. It was only when human slavery became the issue that the repub- 
 lic shook to its foundations. But all great things begin small. That Jefferson 
 Banquet in Washington. April 13, 1830. set going a contest between two irrecon- 
 cilable schools of thought: between two doctrines that could not live together 
 under the same flag; between two forces that must fight until one or the other 
 
THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 257 
 
 perished. The contest begun at the banquet lasted thirty-five years and ended 
 
 at Appomattox. In such a struggle it was a miracle of good fortune for the 
 
 right side to have Andrew Jackson at its start and Abraham Lincoln at its 
 finish." 
 
 A QUESTION OF SOCIAL CONSCIENCE 
 
 Upon the point of putting any test questions of social or political policy 
 in the examination of anyone for admission to the communion of the church., 
 the South contended that it was absolutely right, and within its rights, at that 
 time. Take the case of General Jackson. Who for a moment, say they, would 
 have imagined it necessary for his pastor, Dr. Edgar, to have questioned him, 
 privately or publicly, with regard to slave-holding as a moral obstacle debarring 
 him from the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper? That was a matter of the Social 
 Conscience entirely. Men like Dr. Gideon Blackburn did indeed put such tests 
 to men when the issue was directly involved, and they were right in so doing. 
 But the biographer Buell tells us that as a master and slave-holder General Jack- 
 son was kind, gentle and indulgent to a fault: 
 
 "At any time during the last forty or forty-five years of his life the colored 
 people of the region where he lived considered being sold or traded into the 
 possession of 'Mass Andrew* the next best thing to freedom — if not better. But 
 he was absent much of his time, and the plantation was managed mainly by 
 Mrs. Jackson, while she lived, or by the overseer after her death. Both of them 
 were wont to complain that whenever he was around home for any length of 
 time, he spoiled the slaves so that 'it took quite a while to get them in good 
 working order after he went away.' He habitually trusted his slaves with im- 
 portant business affairs, frequently involving travel as far from home as New 
 Orleans or to points in the North where the soil was free. If any white man 
 maltreated or insulted one of his slaves, he would call him to an account as swift 
 and summary as he might exact on his own account." 
 
 It was this genial, humane attitude toward the slaves upon the part of the 
 typical master of the Old South that justified Southern Presbyterian toleration 
 and defense of the institution in their own eyes. But we shall presently see that 
 the continued existence of the institution was utterly irreconcilable with the very 
 life and progress of the nation itself: and the dread issue was joined in battle 
 and settled in blood, without the shedding of which there is no remission. So 
 that in the end John Rankin was right. Slavery was a social sin. a national 
 calamity and crime. And abolition triumphed under God. But Andrew Jack- 
 son and the South saved the Union through the undying loyalty of the Border 
 States. 
 
 We wish to close this chapter with a final reference to the death of Dr. 
 Edgar, President Jackson's noble, eloquent and beloved pastor, November 14, 
 1860: "Rev. John T. Edgar, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church (Nash- 
 ville, Tenn.) died of appoplexy at 8 a. m. yesterday. He conducted services 
 as usual in his church on the previous evening, afterward attending a business 
 meeting of the church officers, and entertaining company at his house until ten 
 o'clock, and then retired. At one o'clock he was stricken, and did not regain 
 consciousness. 
 
25 8 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 "His long residence in our city, his eminent and distinguished services in the 
 pulpit, his identification for so many years with every work of charity and benev- 
 olence, caused him to be regarded as belonging to no class or limited circle, but 
 to the whole community. His death will be universally mourned as a public 
 calamity. His great goodness of heart, his gentle and winning manners, his 
 readiness and alacrity in responding at all times to demands made upon him, 
 which were frequent and continuous, will be remembered with gratitude for 
 many, many years." 
 
CHAPTER XL VII 
 
 eASSIUS M. CLAY in his Autobiography gives a clear, vivid, ami 
 convincing account of his social awakening to the iniquity of the 
 system of African Slavery in America, and especially in Kentucky, 
 his own native State: "My father being the largest slave-owner 
 in the State, I early began to study the system, or rather, began to feel its wrongs. 
 Whilst I was yet a boy my sister Eliza being very fond of flowers and their 
 culture, I had my miniature garden also; with great delight living close to nature. 
 and feeling that serenity and passive happiness which she always lavishes upon 
 those who love her. 
 
 "One day, whilst absorbed in my favorite pastime, I heard a scream, and 
 looking up, what was my horror to see Mary coming into the yard with a 
 butcher's knife, and her clothes all bloody. All the servants from every cabin, 
 big and little, ran wildly around in tears, with exclamations of grief and terror. 
 "Who was Mary? A handsome mulatto girl, of about eighteen years of age, 
 who had been engaged years ago as one of the flower-gardeners. She was a fine 
 specimen of a mixed breed, rather light colored, showing the blood in her cheeks, 
 with hair wavy, as in the case with mixed whites and blacks. Her features were 
 finely cut, quite Caucassian; whilst her eyes were large, black, languid, and uncon- 
 scious, except when some passion stirred the fires of her African blood, when 
 they flashed as the lightning through a cloud. It was Mary who had assisted 
 in laying out my garden. A peach tree, then planted by me, was in full bearing 
 long after I was married, being more than a foot in diamater. 
 
 "After some years she was sent to the house of an overseer, at one of the 
 separate plantations, to cook for the whites, the 'hands' and the overseer, his 
 wife, and two or three grown daughters. 
 
 "Mary was very bloody, but not hurt. Payne, for that was his name, was a 
 drunkard; and, returning home after sprees, made it his custom to abuse Mary 
 by words, which was not submitted to in those days by any slaves, when com- 
 ing from 'poor white trash,' as they called the non-slave-holders. And so she 
 in turn used a woman's tongue in such a way as to arouse the anger of the 
 whole family. 
 
 "Mary was sent into the kitchen or elsewhere, whilst the family, having 
 made all preparations to bar up the doors, prepared to punish the woman severely, 
 and, as the jury afterward decided, to kill her. They called her in. and sent 
 her upstairs to shell the seed-corn for planting. All the field-hands were out 
 at work. 
 
 "But Mary, suspecting mischief, knowing Payne's temper, secreted a butcher's 
 knife in her bosom, and went sullenly to her work. As she anticipated, thev 
 soon came up and all attacked her. She attempted to run downstairs and out 
 
260 
 
 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 of the house; but, finding the door securely fastened, she turned upon them 
 and slew Payne, and at length succeeded in making her escape. She came home 
 to the family. The whole community was in arms, and Mary was taken to jail 
 in a few hours. But my father, being a man of fortune, and a 'long head,' Mary 
 was finally acquitted and set free. 
 
 Rev. John G. Fee. founder of Berea College, will live in the history of 
 human freedom with Rev. John Rankin and other great Southern Abolition- 
 ists. As preacher and pastor of the "Old Glade Church" at Berea he followed 
 John Rankin in refusing church fellowship to slave-holders. This was an 
 oft agitated question in the Synod of Kentucky, raised by the Concord 
 Church near Carlisle in 1800, in evidence of the powerful Abolition movement 
 in Kentucky at that time. Lane Seminary gave Mr. Fee a great vision. 
 
 1. In 1787 the Synod of New York and Philadelphia declared in favor 
 of "universal liberty" in America and approved of "the abolition of slavery," 
 but recommended the gradual emancipation plan of education and preparation 
 for freedom. 
 
 2. In 1793 a Quaker Memorial handed to the Moderator of the Assembly 
 on the subject of slavery occasioned the republication of the Minute of the 
 Synod on the subject. And in 1795 a question came up from the Presbytery 
 of Transylvania as to a conscientious Abolitionist holding Christian com- 
 munion with slave-downers. The Assembly answered that it was wise and 
 scriptural "to live in charity and peace" with such persons, but expressed the 
 concern and conviction of the Church that slavery must be abolished. On 
 the committee was Father Rice of Kentucky. 
 
 3. In the Assembly of 1815 slave-holding and the slave traffic were again 
 disapproved and deplored. The Assembly of 1816 favored the baptism of 
 slave-children, and in 1818 Dr. Ashbel Green was chairman of a committee 
 which made a memorable report on the whole subject of slavery; and this 
 document became historic as an Emancipation utterance. The Assembly 
 answered a Resolution which declared that a man who sold a Christian 
 slave against his will ought to be refused church fellowship. The whole 
 system of slavery was declared utterly contrary to the gospel, and "th< 
 total abolition" of slavery was set forth as an ideal to be attained. 
 
 4. In 1836 the Synod of Kentucky adopted one of the greatesl Emancipa- 
 tion reports in American history, written for a Committee of Ten by President 
 John C Young of Centre College, Danville. 
 
 "Sidney Payne Clay, our oldest brother, who had been educated at Princeton 
 College, New Jersey, and had returned home, was an Emancipationist as well as 
 Presbyterian. By my father's will he was appointed chief executor. As was 
 the custom in all the Border Slave States, Mary was. by his will, ordered to be 
 sent South, I suppose to make murder odious. Now the most astonishing fca- 
 
THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 261 
 
 turc of the slave system was the delusion that, as it was legal, it was morally 
 right; whilst all the sentiments of the soul and the force of the mind proclaimed 
 it wrong. 'For the greatest of all rights,' said the eloquent Robert J. Breckin- 
 ridge, 'is the right of a man to himself.' This doctrine, joined to some passing 
 remarks in the Bible, written in an age when slavery was the result of a common 
 barbarism, confused the strongest intellect and led to the most conflicting results. 
 
 "Never shall I forget — and through all these years it rests upon the memory 
 as the stamp upon a bright coin — the scene, when Mary was tied by the wrists 
 and sent from home and friends, and the loved features of her native land — the 
 home of her infancy and girlish days — into Southern banishment forever: and 
 vet held guiltless by a jury, not of her 'peers,' but her oppressors. 
 
 "Never shall I forget those two faces — of my brother and Mary — the oppres- 
 sor and the oppressed, rigid with equal agony. She cast an imploring look at 
 me, as if in appeal; but meekly went, without a word, as 'a sheep to the 
 slaughter.' 
 
 We can readily imag'ne the maturing convictions of this powerful Kentucky 
 youth as an undergraduate in Yale College some years after the tragedy enacted 
 under his burning eyes at home. Let us again hear his own impressive recital: 
 "There were quite a number of Southerners then in Yale; so I soon felt at 
 home, and entered upon my studies with good heart. I joined one of the col- 
 lege societies, and took a leading part in the debates; but as I soon entered upon 
 an exciting political career, I do not now remember to what society I did or do 
 now belong. I believe it was the Alpha Beta Phi. 
 
 "President Day was silent, dignified, and amiable. He never said anything, 
 but we all loved him. All the other professors had their admirers and their 
 critics. Benjamin Silliman, the chief figure, was then in the height of his emi- 
 nence as a chemist, and inventor, and experimentor, in all the civilized world; 
 of large stature and of large brain, and 'as happy as a big sunflower;' full of 
 vanity, but of that pleasant sort which, running over, allows his friends to 
 share the intoxicating fluid; and so he, too, had no enemies 
 
 "The Rev. Leonard Bacon was then the leading preacher in the Independent 
 Presbyterian Church at Yale, a cold, technical, dogmatic Puritan. He was 
 always an uncompromising defender of slavery; bolstering it up, when it could 
 only take a stand in the Jewish Scriptures, after it had been driven for centuries 
 from the hearts of all true Christians. Perhaps he found it his interest to be 
 on the winning side for the Union when he saw it was inevitable, and that 
 slavery and all its defenders would go down. But I pass the learned doctor 
 to consider a character worthy the admiration and gratitude of all mankind. 
 
 "One of the peculiarities of the ante-bellum times was the isolation of thought 
 between the Liberals of the South and the North. Such was the policy of the 
 South. So. when I entered Yale, with my soul full of hatred to slavery, I had 
 never known anything of Garrison or his history. Soon after I entered college 
 before I had noted the situation, it was announced that Garrison was going to 
 speak in the South Church that night — rthe church, at least, nearest the south 
 of the city, and, I think, so called. 
 
 CASSIUS CLAY AND WM. LLOYD GARRISON 
 
 'Who is Garrison?' I asked. 'Why, Garrison is the Abolitionist. Don't 
 you know? So, as I had never heard an Abolitionist, nor the name hardly, I 
 
26 2 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 went to hear Garrison. Every accessible place was crowded; so I pressed on 
 determinedly to the front, so far as to see and hear him fully. In plain, logical, 
 and sententious language he treated the 'Divine Institution' so as to burn like 
 a branding-iron into the most callous hide of the slave-holder and his defenders. 
 
 "This was a new revelation to me. I felt all the horrors of slavery; but rav 
 parents were slave-holders; all my known kindred in Kentucky were slave-holders: 
 and I regarded it as I did other evils of humanity, as the fixed laws of Nature 
 and of God, and submitted as best I might. But Garrison dragged out the 
 monster from ail his citadels, and left him stabbed to the vitals, and dying at 
 the feet of every logical and honest mind. 
 
 "As water to a thirsty wayfarer, were to me Garrison's arguments and senti- 
 ments. He was often and boisterously hissed; but I stood silent and thoughtful 
 in the depths of my new thought. Another meeting of the citizens was called 
 for the next night, to answer Garrison. I do not now remember who were the 
 orators; but the 'Liberal' Dr. Bacon ought to have been, if he was not, the man 
 to answer such broad logic of truth, and justice, and% religion, and humanity; 
 for he had that temperament and technical training which best fitted him to make 
 the worse appear the better cause. 
 
 "I once more got a good place to hear; and. as sophism after sophism and 
 false conclusions from false assumptions followed, in chain-like succession, they 
 were greeted with thundering applause. This aroused me from my apathy. I felt 
 the greatest indignation. I never, in all my life, was so agitated in a public 
 assemblage. I first thought I would interrupt him. and deny his assumptions of 
 fact; then I concluded to answer him in order; and was preparing to do so. 
 when another sprang up, and gave me time to reflect, that I had come to Yale 
 to learn, and not to teach. So I returned to my room as full of tumultuous 
 emotions as on the night before. I then resolved, however, that when I had 
 the strength, if ever, I would give slavery a death struggle." 
 
 This social awakening to the iniquity of the slave system was very closely 
 allied to his religious awakening. Being chosen as the class orator of the Seniors 
 for the Washington's Birthday celebration, he made a ringing Anti-Slavery address. 
 All his family except his brother Brutus and he were connected with some church. 
 And he not only had the satisfaction of making this dedication of himself to 
 the Abolition cause in the presence of all that impressive throng of friends and 
 loved ones, but he adds: "So the good seed which Garrison had watered, and 
 which my own bitter experience had sown, aroused my whole soul." 
 
 During a revival in his Senior year at Yale Cassius Clay professed his faith 
 and was baptized by immersion in New Haven Sound. His mother was a Cal- 
 vinistic Baptist, but, remembering the pro-slavery logic of the Reverend Leonard 
 Bacon, he turned his back on the upper-class Christians and sought out what he 
 called "a common-place Baptist preacher, and was baptized in the sea. and received 
 into his church." Upon his return home he did a lot of general reading on 
 religious history, evidences, and the like, and became so unsettled in his faith 
 that he had his name stricken from the rolls of the little church back in New 
 England. But what gave his soul its shock was "the fruits of Bacon's theology," 
 as he termed it, "which I had seen in the Old South Church; for I saw all 
 around me the whole clergy, with the exception of John G. Fee (now of Berea 
 College, Madison County, Kentucky), standing for slavery as a 'divine institu- 
 tion.' I had no fellowship with men with such a creed; and I preferred, if God 
 
THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 
 
 263 
 
 was on that side, to stand with the Devil rather; for he was silent at least. So, 
 if I said and wrote hard things against the Scriptures, and especially the preachers, 
 it was because they were the false prophets which it was necessary to destroy 
 with slavery." 
 
 REV. JOHN C. YOUNG, D. D. 
 
 Successor of Dr. Gideon Blac/kburn as President of Centre College in 1830. 
 Author of a masterly and noble Paper and Plan for Gradual Emancipation, 
 prepared by a Committee of Ten for the Kentucky Synod in 1S35. The 
 historian of Berea College speaks of this paper as "one of the cleanest, 
 strongest, and wisest deliverances on slavery ever made;" and says that this 
 an,ti-slavery movement and memorial gave a powerful impetus to the "Birth 
 of Berea College." 
 
 Dr. John C. Young- was in some respects a more gifted and national 
 character than Dr. John Finley Crowe. Dr. Young- was a native of Green- 
 castle, Pa., August 12, 1830. His father Avas an Associate Reformed Church 
 pastor, and John C. was educated at Columbia and Dickinson Colleges. In 
 1823 he refused the most tempting offers in law from his uncle, who was 
 Clerk of the House of Representatives in Washington City. Instead he 
 studied for the ministry at Princeton with Drs. Hodge, Dod, and the Alex- 
 anders. Licensed to preach in the year 1827, he traveled through several 
 large Eastern cities and declined tempting pastoral locations. He then set 
 out for the Ohio Valley and visited Kentucky. In 1828 he accepted a call to 
 the McChord Presbyterian Church in Lexington. He was such an eloquent 
 and brilliant pulpit orator and personality that his choice as successor to 
 Dr. Bladkburn over Centre College was unanimous. Princeton gave him the 
 highest praise and for nearly 27 years he was one of the great educators 
 of youth in America. He was also pastor in Danville till his death, June 
 23, 1857. 
 
 As Moderator of the Old School General Assembly at Philadelphia in 1853 
 he attracted international attention of Old World Presbyterians by his match- 
 less eloquence and gracious personality. Dr. Young's wife was a daughter 
 of Senator John J. Crittenden, and his son, Rev. Wm. C. Young, D. D., became 
 the successor of his revered father in Centre College and the Presbyterian 
 Church. Born in Daniville in 1842; educated at Centre College and the Dan- 
 ville Seminary, he was pastor at Covington 1862-'70; First Church, Madison, 
 Ind., 1870-'72; Chicago, 1872-'79; Louisville, 1879-'88, when he was chosen 
 President iof "Old Centre." His inauguration in 1889 at the 70th anniversary 
 of the College was one of the most memorable occasions and gatherings of 
 notable men in the history of Kentucky. 
 
 In May, 1892, the General Assembly met in Portland, Oregon, and Dr. 
 Young was chosen Moderator — the first man South of Mason and Dixon Line 
 since the Civil War. He not only made an epochal presiding officer in the 
 conciliatory and graciious spirit of his service to the Church, but his sermon 
 as retiring Moderator/ at Washington City, in 1893, gave an impetus to faith 
 and fellowship throughout all branches of the Presbyterian Church o,f America 
 and the world that will never he forgotten. Dr. Young measured up i to the 
 great fame of his noble father, as a Leader of Truth and Peace-maker of 
 the highest order. 
 
264 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 BEGINNINGS OF BEREA COLLEGE 
 
 The abiding monument of the Abolition Movement in the mountains of 
 Eastern Kentucky is Berea College. General Clay tells the story of its origin 
 after he became the mighty leader of Abolition in his native State back in the 
 years before the Civil War: "When I converted mechanics, tenants, and laborers 
 to my liberal views, the Slave-Power either bull-dozed them, or starved them into 
 emigration to Ohio, Indiana, and the West. So I set about finding a remedy 
 for this exhausting evil. I saw that a large portion of the State was mountain- 
 ous, where there were but few slaves, and the people courageous; so that, if 
 they were once committed to liberation of the slaves, we could have a permanent 
 nucleus of political and physical force 
 
 "I owned a considerable tract of land at the 'Glade,' in Madison County — 
 the present site of Berea — and at the foot of the mountains of Kentucky. I had 
 already given Hamilton Rawlings a tract of land, worth about one thousand 
 dollars. He had been my ardent and intelligent friend for years, and had at once 
 adopted my liberal views. 
 
 "When John G. Fee, a native of Bracken County, and a preacher of the 
 Presbyterian Church, stood openly on our side, his father, a slave-holder and 
 churchman, was alienated from him, and ultimately disinherited him. I saw in 
 Fee's heroic and pious character a fit man for the service I projected. So I wrote 
 him to come on to Madison and help us. This he did, bringing with him his 
 intelligent wife, a Miss Hamilton, the daughter of a plain and sensible farmer 
 of the same county. I remember also her sister Laura as a fine woman. 
 
 "I gave my friend a small lot of land — as much as he wanted for his pro- 
 fession — as a homestead, which is now a part of the town of Berea; and a 
 small tract for the church and school, when it became practical to move in that 
 direction. I also sold several lots of land at nominal prices to our most courage- 
 ous friends for self-protection." 
 
 Looking back in historic retrospect to this foundation of human freedom. 
 General Clay said: "I can say at least that 'we builded better than we knew.' 
 It served a great purpose in my political career; but I had not then anticipated 
 its present growth, and the co-education of blacks and whites, males and females, 
 for liberation itself was then too uncertain for such project. The honor of this 
 last patriotic and Christian work belongs to John G. Fee alone. The political 
 differences of opinion between us is fully set forth in these volumes (of auto- 
 biography) — so that all the world may judge us. 
 
 "He has always been free to criticise my course, but my friendship for him 
 has never abated. Any other man saying what he has at times said of me would 
 have brought on him my greatest indignation. But as I know his sincerity 
 of purpose, and his idiosyncracies of thought, I have not believed it necessary 
 to defend myself. 
 
 "At the late commencement at Berea. where several distinguished strangers — 
 among others Roswell Smith of the Century Company — were present. I took 
 occasion to refer to the higher law of controversy. I hold and have held from 
 the beginning, that there is an inborn sentiment of justice and humanity which 
 is the base of all human laws, and to which they should be conformed; that 
 the existence of slavery, though sanctioned by constitutions and laws, was in 
 opposition to that higher law, and that it should be abolished — not by indirec- 
 tion, or slave-escaping, or by armed assault upon the master, but by free dis- 
 cussion and the ballot — to peacably conform them to the higher law." 
 
THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 265 
 
 REV. JOHN G. FEE 
 
 The character sketch of Rev. John G. Fee as drawn by General Clay is an 
 impressive one: "As I have known Fee long, and perhaps better than most men, 
 it may be interesting to mv readers to hear something more of the man. who has 
 made so large a figure in the world. He is a classical scholar. In person rather 
 below medium size, slender, with a head large in proportion to a rather deli- 
 cate body. His features are not remarkable, being rather heavy than classical: 
 hair once auburn, and skin fair but tanned. His expression is rather sad and 
 earnest: but. when pleased, his face lights up into a very agreeable and sympa- 
 thetic animation. 
 
 "His voice, like Horace Greeley's, is piping, but with little inflection or com- 
 pass; so that he is a better writer than speaker, as his style is concise, terse, and 
 earnest. His mind concentrates upon one truth, the subject at issue; but he 
 lacks generalization, and he can hardly be deemed an eminent thinker. With 
 such singleness of purpose and unselfish philanthropy, he cannot fail to have a 
 touch of fanaticism, and consequent bigotry; but it is not of the ascetic kind, 
 but full of tender passion and Christian love, when his ideas of right do not 
 prevent. On the whole, he is the first great figure in the Southern Church, 
 in the great struggle for Liberation. His work in Berea is fruitful of great good 
 to the races; and the college is based on true ideas, and must live." 
 
 In the History of Berea College, published fifty years ago by the Prudential 
 Committee of the institution, we find a most illuminating account of Mr. Fee's 
 early life, his conversion, his social awakening, and his dedication of himself 
 unreservedly to the sacred cause of human freedom and uplift. The story of this 
 heroic man and his great work is hardly known to one in ten thousand, and 
 yet no more typical and impressive example and experience exists in the history 
 of the past hundred years right here in our own home land. 
 
 "Rev. John G. Fee," says this account, "was born in Bracken County, Ken- 
 tucky, in 1816. His father, a farmer, was a member of the Presbyterian Church, 
 and the owner of thirteen slaves. John early embraced religion, and commenced 
 preparation for the ministry. He entered college at Augusta, Kentucky, studied 
 two years at Oxford, Ohio, and graduated at Augusta. His theological course 
 was taken at Lane Seminary, Ohio; where, after much discussion, with earnest 
 prayer for Tight, terrible mental struggles and many tears, he became convinced 
 of the great evil and sinfulness of American Slavery. With a full sense of the 
 obloquy and danger he must meet, he consecrated himself to preach the gospel 
 of impartial love in his native State." 
 
 This social awakening, which was part and parcel of his spiritual vision, as 
 in the case of John Finley Crowe, of Hanover College, became the motive power 
 of his entire life and work. Surely Dr. Lyman Beecher had no more devout 
 disciple than this man. "He first labored several months with his parents; but 
 failing to persuade them to liberate their slaves, with great sadness he relinquished 
 the effort, and carried the gospel to others. His father, a severe man, disowned 
 and disinherited him. giving him one dollar in his will. His mother wept over 
 her deluded son. He continued to visit his parents, though twice the door was 
 shut against him. Afterward he was invited in. Learning that his father was 
 about to sell a female slave, wife of a slave man of the family, and a member 
 of the same church with her master, he bought her at the price demanded, and 
 liberated her. His father was very angry because he would not sell her back. 
 
266 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 "Before he became an Abolitionist his father had given him a farm, in Indi- 
 ana, which he sold for two thousand four hundred dollars, and spent the whole 
 in buying this slave, in publishing an anti-slavery manual, and in self-support. 
 His people, in Lewis county, promised him one hundred dollars for preaching, 
 but being offended by an anti-slavery sermon, very mild and gentle, paid him 
 but twenty- five dollars. For two years he received two hundred dollars annually 
 from the American Home Missionary Society. But finding that this society 
 was aiding fifty-two slave-holding churches, he felt that he could not conscien- 
 tiously solicit contributions for it, and hence must decline to receive its support." 
 
 You have here the martyr type, and we are not surprised to read further: 
 "On joining the Presbytery he made a full statement of his anti-slavery convic- 
 tions. As these convictions ripened, his anti-slavery efforts multiplied. His 
 church, in Lewis County, passed resolutions denouncing slavery as sinful, and 
 refusing fellowship with slave-holders. The Synod reviewed this action, and 
 censured Mr. Fee for disturbing the peace of Zion, and introducing a test of 
 membership to the constitution of the Presbyterian Church. Assured by the 
 Presbytery that 'repentance on their part was hopeless.' after fully stating his 
 views, he withdrew, and received a qualified letter of dismission. 
 
 "The publication of these facts in the New York Evangelist brought him 
 to the notice of the American Missionarv Association, and its aid was offered 
 him. From that time to this, a period of twenty-six years, he has been sup- 
 ported wholly or chiefly by that society. 
 
 "In Lewis and Bracken counties he labored eight years, and organized three 
 anti-slavery churches. At the request of Cassius M. Clay he sent a box of the 
 anti-slavery manuals, which were scattered through Madison county. The result 
 was the people invited him here (to Berea) where, after preaching nine sermons, 
 he organized a church which refused fellowship with slave-holders, and after one 
 year he became its pastor. This relation he has now sustained twenty years 
 (1855-1875). There was little to encourage when he came. The place was a 
 wilderness. It was inviting chiefly because it was central. 
 
 "The same reason which led to the organization of anti-slavery churches 
 demanded an anti-slavery school. This was organized in 1855. Its first 
 teacher was William E. Lincoln, who came from England to pursue his studies 
 in Oberlin College. He was one of the Wellington rescuers, and has since been 
 a preacher in Ohio, and is now (1876) in the State of New York. Its next 
 teacher was Otis B. Waters, also a student of Oberlin College. He has for sev- 
 eral years been a professor in Benzonia College. Michigan. 
 
 "In 1856 Mr. Fee experienced a series of mobs in this region. He had before 
 this been mobbed in Lewis. Mason and Bracken counties. The first of this 
 series was at Dripping Springs, the next near Mr. Vernon, the third, and most 
 violent, was near Texas, in Madison county " 
 
 The story of these mobbings is a thrilling one. a revelation of the direful 
 situations in which this man of conviction and courage found himself, and yet 
 how supremely he sustained his purpose to witness for the truth as he saw it. 
 He did not go armed, nor did he make rcsistcncc to his persecutors, as did 
 Cassius M. Clay. He justified General Clay in defending himself in the exercise 
 of the right of free speech; but General Clay did not deem it wise or expedient 
 or necessary to take the extreme Abolition attitude in the midst of a slave-holding 
 community. He thought this brought exile upon Mr. Fee: but every man to 
 his own convictions; and these two great Forerunners of Lincoln in our home 
 State have no possible superior. 
 
CHAPTER XLVIII 
 
 
 ONE OF THE most famous and historic documents of the Presbyterian 
 Church in America was "The Declaration and Testimony," written 
 by the Rev. Samuel R. Wilson, D. D-, of Louisville, under circum- 
 stances of peculiar peril and stress. This celebrated deliverance sub- 
 jected its noted author to a cross-fire of hostile and terrific criticism at the time, 
 occupying as he did a rather neutral and strategic position between the two 
 extremes of North and South. But the occasion was a crucial one. and in the 
 uttermost sincerity and with unflinching courage, Dr. Wilson and the strong 
 men of God associated with him gave utterance to the principles and sentiments 
 animating them and left to after generations the decision as to whether they were 
 right or wrong. When the passions and animosities of the hour had somewhat 
 subsided Dr. W'ilson left on record his own careful account of the circumstances 
 and incidents referred to; and from this account our own is derived. 
 
 AFTER LINCOLN'S ASSASSINATION 
 
 "In April. 1865. the Louisville Presbytery, then undivided, met in the City 
 of Louisville, just after the fall of Richmond, and at the moment when the 
 country was in an intense state of excitement by the assassination of President 
 Lincoln. Various acts of the General Assembly, from the adoption of the Spring 
 Resolutions in 1861, down through several years of ecclessiastical and civil strife, 
 had produced such a state of conviction and feeling in the Presbyterian Church 
 of Kentucky that some of the Presbyteries had almost come to the conclusion 
 that they would not, until things were more quiet, send representatives to that 
 body. 
 
 "Such was the prevailing feeling and sentiment on this subject in the Pres- 
 bytery of Louisville, of which I had onlv been for a short time a member. 
 During the sessions of that body at the above date, in the city of Louisville, 
 brethren came to me and said in substance, 'If you will go to the coming 
 Assembly at Pittsburgh, we will appoint you as our representative, but otherwise 
 we will decline to appoint anyone.' 
 
 Dr. Wilson replied that if they would appoint him and leave it to his discre- 
 tion to go or not, well and good. They so assented. Then a letter from the 
 Rev. Stuart Robinson, D. D., was received by Dr. Wilson under date of May 
 6, 1865, saying that now was the time to put on record a protest to future 
 Assemblies, which, if disregarded, would justify the withdrawal of the Synod 
 of Kentucky" from the Church. He urged Dr. Wilson to go to the Pittsburgh 
 Assembly despite attack and abuse. 
 
268 
 
 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 AT THE PITTSBURGH ASSEMBLY 
 
 Accordingly, Dr. Wilson went to the Assembly. He said that it had been 
 threatened before he went that if he appeared he would not be seated. This was 
 the Assembly that adopted the "Pittsburgh Ordinances." 
 
 "These I opposed," says Dr. Wilson, "to the uttermost of my ability, earn- 
 estly pleading that if the Assembly could not at that moment hold out the olive 
 branch to those brethren who had gone away from the Old Church under the 
 excitement of a great revolution, they would at least say nothing, and do noth- 
 ing, but allow a year to pass for the quieting of passion and the exercise of a 
 calm judgment and mature reflection." 
 
 Renr. Stuart Robinson. D. D., of Louisville. One of the 
 greatest Southern preachers and signers of "The Declara- 
 tion." 
 
 Upon the floor of the Assembly Dr. Wilson said: "My brother (Dr. Lord) 
 has said that we from Kentucky are not capable of judging in such a question 
 as this, because of our sympathies. And if our sympathies, who come from a 
 State where brothers and sons and fathers have fallen upon the same bloody field 
 in fratricidal strife, incapacitate us from judging in this matter, how. sir. arc 
 brethren who come from other scenes of horror and sadness, with their sympa- 
 thies, any more capable of judging? 
 
 "The sentiment of the brother is founded in an utter fallacy, which would 
 dehumanize a man as a condition of his being able to judge respecting the prin- 
 ciples of justice and the claims of humanity. For my own part, as much as in 
 me lies, I have from the beginning of this sad conflict aimed to rise above the 
 fierce passions raging around me, and to avoid as a minister of the gospel of 
 peace, being so indentified with cither of the contending parties as would pre- 
 clude my ministering to the souls of cither in the consolations of that gospel. 
 And it has been my mournful privilege to sit by the side of mothers whose sons 
 had fallen upon the same battlefield as focmen. and to speak words of comfort 
 to them both from the same blessed Bible. 
 
THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 269 
 
 "I am loyal to my country and I am loyal to Christ; and it is because I am 
 so that I am standing up here to speak thus in the presence of this venerable 
 Assembly. It is because I am thus loyal that I now entreat them to pause, con- 
 sider well what they are about to do; to stop before they take a step full of con- 
 sequences so far-reaching and so full of peril. Brethren, take not this fatal 
 plunge." 
 
 It seems that in one sense Dr. Wilson stood alone before that Assembly, under 
 circumstances and dangers and difficulties not easy for us to imagine now. Yet 
 some six or seven others fearlessly stood with him, "and uttered their entreaties 
 and their protests against what seemed to us all" — quoting Dr. Wilson — "to be 
 the giving way of the still venerable and beloved Assembly of our Church to the 
 most unrestrained outbursts of passion against an erring and now prostrate 
 people. And others there were who, though their voices were hushed under the 
 terror of the hour, yet in their judgments and their hearts approved our course." 
 
 CONFERENCE OF BORDER STATE MEN 
 
 The church of Dr. Wilson at Louisville was seized by the military on his 
 return home. A letter came from the Rev. James H. Brookes, D. D., of St. 
 Louis, June 5, 1865, urging some form of action as a protest. Dr. Wilson 
 advised as to what should be done, "wisely and without haste." to wait till the 
 action of the Assembly was known throughout the Church and discussion of its 
 nature and tendencies should get under way. 
 
 Dr. Brookes replied, under date of June 14, 1865, that there must be many 
 in the Northern branch of the Church who deplored and looked with dismay 
 upon the Assembly's action; and advised that a circular letter should be sent, 
 feeling them out. On June 16, 1865, Dr. Brookes sent Dr. Wilson another 
 letter proposing to meet him in Cincinnati and go on to Brooklyn together. He 
 wanted two or three discreet Kentucky men, if Dr. Wilson could not go. The 
 proposition was to meet in the pastoral study of the Rev. Henry Jackson Van 
 Dyke, D. D.. of the First Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn, who was known to be 
 seriously and earnestly contemplating this same momentous problem. 
 
 There was not time to lose or to postpone action; and Dr. Wilson met Dr. 
 Brookes, as agreed, and they journeyed to New York together. On June 29 
 and 30. 1865, the meeting took place in Dr. Van Dyke's study in Brooklyn. 
 Those present were Dr. Van Dyke, Dr. Brookes, Dr. Wilson, Rev. Wm. B. Lee, 
 of Brooklyn, and Mr. Edward Bredell, of St. Louis. Other brethren were asked 
 but failed to appear. 
 
 MEETING IN DR. VAN DYKE'S STUDY 
 
 Dr. Van Dyke sat at his table and noted down the points made against the 
 action of the Assembly and which seemed imperative to be framed into a "Dec- 
 laration and Testimony." Dr. Wilson kept these notes and points and the main 
 content was embodied by him in the document when it was produced. The con- 
 ference adjourned to meet in the study of Rev- W. A. Scott, D. D.. of New 
 York City. Dr. Van Dvkc was not present at this next meeting. Those pres- 
 e-t were. Dr. Scott, Dr. Brookes, Dr. Wilson, Rev. Mr. Lee. Mr. Bredell. Mr. 
 Cyrus McCormick. The Rev. Dr. Nathan L. Rice was invited but did not 
 appear. 
 
270 
 
 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 At this next conference all were agreed together as to the purport of the 
 deliverance, but there was discussion as to the timeliness and by whom it should 
 be drafted. Dr. Wilson insisted upon an Eastern man: but Dr. Scott declined 
 when he was suggested. They all then with one accord designated Dr. Wilson- 
 He agreed to consider the matter prayerfully; and upon his return home to 
 Louisville spent several nights and days putting together the "Declaration and 
 Testimony." 
 
 Old First Presbyterian Church. Louisville, whose pastors, 
 Rev. Samuel Et. Wilson, D. D.. and Rev. Stuart Robinson, 
 D. D., were such stalwart defenders of "The Declaration and 
 Testimony." Pastored now by the Rev. Edgar C. Lucas. 
 D. D. 
 
 DR. WILSON FACES DR. BRECKINRIDGE 
 
 Dr. Wilson was on record in the Synod of Cincinnati in 1861 against 
 political action and deliverances by that body in the crisis of war. In due season 
 upon the floor of the Synod of Kentucky he met Dr. Robert J. Breckinridge, 
 his most powerful antagonist, in debate over this same "Declaration and Testi- 
 mony." He defended its advocates with masterly and eloquent reasoning: 
 
 "These witnesses were actuated by the purest love to the principles of what 
 they conscientiously understood as being true, free, scriptural Prcsbyterianism: 
 
THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 
 
 271 
 
 and were devoted still more sincerely to what they regarded the highest interests 
 of the Church of their fathers, and were actuated by no designing schism, but 
 an earnest desire to maintain the unity of the Church upon the basis of a scrip- 
 tural and constitutional purity." 
 
 Continuing, Dr. Wilson said: "They were earnestly and prayerfully, and 
 at great sacrifice both of personal feeling and comfort, endeavoring to bring back 
 the Church to what they regarded as the basis upon which she had been founded 
 and built up; and they also hoped to reclaim that portion of the Church in the 
 South which had gone away in a similar manner from the same scriptural founda- 
 tion. 
 
 Madison (Indiana) Presbyterian Church. A church of 
 famous pastors and notable men and women organized in 
 1815. Went with the Old School Assembly in the division 
 of 1837-8. Once pastored by Rev. Samuel R. Wilson, D. D. 
 Now reunited with the Second Church (formerly New 
 School) under the splendid ministry of the Rev. Jesse M. 
 Tidball, D. D. 
 
 "It was not a question which came into the minds of the originators of the 
 Declaration and Testimony with whom they were in 'affinity,' whether weak, 
 or strong, but simply who, in all their Church, whether North or South. East 
 or West, were one with them in their convictions concerning the priceless views 
 of those principles to which they were bearing their testimony. Toward all 
 such they held out the right hand of true fellowship, and with all such their 
 affinity was as strong as their love of Christ and His Church could possibly 
 make it. 
 
 "Standing as they did in connection with the Old Church, and occupying, 
 most of them, a position between the Northern and Southern sections of the 
 
272 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 country, they felt that God had laid upon them the special duty, and assigned 
 to them the high privilege of being mediators and peace-makers between those 
 who, holding a like precious faith, had been alienated for a time by unnatural 
 but almost irresistible causes." 
 
 ACTION OF THE KENTUCKY SYNOD 
 
 We learn from Dr. Wilson's account that at first those who were invited in this 
 Testimony agreed to stand in their lot as independent bodies until the way opened 
 for "the reuniting of Presbyterians both North and South on the basis of the 
 old constitution." In this will be found the reason why, when some who had 
 united in the Testimony were urging the precipitate union of the Synod of Ken- 
 tucky with the Southern Assembly, "there were those, and prominently among 
 them the author of the Declaration and Testimony, who endeavored to stay 
 that movement and earnestly desired that it should not be effected, for the sake 
 of preserving unobscured the light of their testimony." 
 
 When, however, it appeared useless and only calculated to produce strife to 
 no purpose, to continue to oppose this union with the Southern Assembly, Dr. 
 Wilson very reluctantly acquiesced in it. We should remember also that at this 
 time overtures were under way for the reunion of the Old and New School 
 Assemblies; and, now that the underlying issues of the whole civil commotion 
 and conflict were practically settled by blood and revolution, namely, Secession 
 and Slavery, Dr. Wilson's appeals for the stay of passion and the compromise 
 of peace and reconciliation upon the old constitutional basis become the more 
 impressive and historic. There is something of infinite pathos now in his 
 statement: 
 
 AN OPEN DOOR TO PEACE 
 
 "But sooner than the most sanquine could have anticipated, and to as full 
 an extent as can ever perhaps be reasonably expected, I now rejoice in the fact 
 that so far as relates to the Presbyterian Church of the North, they have removed 
 out of the way those barriers which had seemed to present an insuperable 
 obstacle in the way even of fraternal intercourse between them and their brethren 
 of the South. 
 
 "The Baltimore Conference, and several papers that passed between the Com- 
 mittees — one paragraph containing all that was necessary to the South as opening 
 the door for them without dishonor, and in the spirit of brotherly love, to have 
 entered upon the interchange of official fraternal relations: 
 
 'We declare that all the acts and deliverances of the Northern Assemblies 
 of which you complain are wholly null and void and of no binding efficacy as 
 judgments of the Church we represent, or as rules of proceedings for its Synods. 
 Presbyteries and church sessions.' 
 
 The Committee of the Northern Church said, furthermore, concerning the 
 Assembly which delegated them that the Body they represented had confidence 
 in the soundness of doctrine and Christian character of the Southern Presbyterian 
 Church, and that if they believed them to be as charged by some — a church organ- 
 ization in the interests of the Rebellion and to conserve and perpetuate the insti- 
 tution of Slavery — self-respect would have prevented seeking fraternal relations 
 with them. 
 
 "We did not deny," said the Committee, "that mistakes had been made, but 
 
THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 273 
 
 we asserted that if made they belonged to both sides, and that our earnest desire 
 was to forgive and forget in the spirit of the Master; and we asked the same 
 charity in return." 
 
 Upon his part, Dr. Wilson could not see what more the Southern Church 
 could reasonably ask at the hands of their Northern Brethren as a basis, or as 
 fully opening the way, if not toward organic union on the common standards, 
 yet at least to coming together in the very closest bonds of brotherly love and 
 ministerial fellowship — especially since the Southern Church had come to admit 
 that some blame attached to her also on the same ground. It seems that the 
 Southern General Assembly in session at St. Louis wished to clear her records 
 upon this point, even as the Northern Assembly had already done. 
 
 DR. WILSON'S TRIBUTE TO DR. VAN DYKE 
 Dr. Wilson paid a glowing tribute to the Rev. Dr. Henry J. Van Dyke of 
 the Northern Assembly for his now historic action with the author of the Dec- 
 laration and Testimony to maintain the content of that famous deliverance: 
 "It is known that the Rev. Dr. Van Dyke, of Brooklyn, for his noble, fearless, 
 and eloquent utterances in the Synod of New York in defense of the principles 
 of a non-political Church and Presbyterianism utterly free from all complicity in 
 the affairs of the State, was exposed to the assaults of an infuriated mob, and 
 only saved from the extremest violence of that mob by the interposition of those 
 of his brethren who were esteemed to be more loyal to the Federal Government. 
 
 "And among all the men not living within the territory of the Southern 
 Church, there are none whom that Church has seemed more to delight to honor 
 than Dr. Van Dyke, he having been elected immediately after the close of the 
 war to a professorship in the Theological Seminary at Columbus, South Caro- 
 lina, and subsequently called to the pastorate of one of the largest and wealthiest 
 Southern Presbyterian churches, the church at Nashville, Tennessee." 
 
 AND TO DR. SCOTT 
 In a passing tribute to another of this able coterie of Declaration and Testi- 
 mony witnesses to a non-political Church, Dr. Wilson speaks of "The Rev. Dr. 
 Scott, long the devoted and most deservedly honored pastor of the Presbyterian 
 Church in New Orleans in which Dr. Palmer is now (1878) his successor, has 
 felt compelled to leave San Francisco rather than yield in the least his commission 
 as a minister of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, to preach the gospel to 
 men of all classes and parties, or for a moment to descend from the high and 
 divine sphere which he believed the Church ought to maintain, and to become 
 a combatant in the arena of fratricidal strife concerning the things of Caesar." 
 
 MAIN POINTS CONTENDED FOR 
 Let us now note a few of the fundamental principles of this famous Declara- 
 tion and Testimony. The signers and approvers of its contentions bore witness: 
 
 I. Against the assumption on the part of the courts of the Church of the 
 right to decide questions of State Policy. 
 
 II. We testify against the doctrine that the Church, as such, owes allegiance 
 to human Rulers or Governments. (Allegiance or loyalty in respect to human 
 governments, is alone predicable of persons as citizens. The Church owes her 
 allegiance alone to Jesus Christ, who is sole King in Zion) . 
 
274 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 III. We testify against the sanction given by the Church to the perversions 
 of the teachings of Christ and Flis Apostles upon the subject of the duty of 
 Christians, as citizens, "To render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's," and 
 to "be subject unto the higher powers." These and similar scriptures are cited 
 to sustain the claim of the Assembly and other Church courts to decide upon polit- 
 ical questions: to prove that the allegiance of a Christian, as such, is due to a 
 particular Government: to warrant the exclusion of a minister from his office 
 or a member from his church privileges because he does not believe his allegiance 
 is due to this or that particular Administration: or that he is bound to obey 
 every decree or law of the Government under which he may chance to live; and 
 to bind the citizen, as a Christian, by the law of Christ, "to uphold, strengthen, 
 and encourage a particular form of Government, or a present Administration of 
 that Government." 
 
 These doctrines are contrary to the teachings of the Word of God. and are 
 virtually the doctrines of despotism and unquestioning, unconditional submission 
 and obedience to the commands of any actual ruler, no matter what those demands 
 may be. 
 
 IV. We testify against the action of the Assembly on the subject of Slavery 
 and Emancipation in 1864. and as confirmed in '65. ... It omits altogether 
 all reference to the uniform and most important declaration contained in its 
 previous expressions of opinion, that immediate, indiscriminate emancipation of 
 the Negro slaves amongst us would be injurious, and injurious to both master 
 and slave. . . . There is laid down a new doctrine upon this subject of Slavery, 
 unknown to the apostolic and primitive Church; a doctrine which has its origin 
 in infidelity and fanaticism. . . . Nor has the Assembly been content with merely 
 affirming these new doctrines upon Slavery and Emancipation, but has required 
 a cordial belief and approbation of them as a condition of membership to the 
 church and of the exercise of their official functions to the ministry. 
 
 In the light of the foregoing facts of history as related by Dr. Samuel R. 
 Wilson, a letter to Dr. Henry Van Dyke. Jr.. of Princeton, requesting a state- 
 ment of his distinguished and beloved father's thought and action throughout 
 this memorable period of stress and trial in Civil War times, elicited a most 
 candid, succinct and masterly summary of the convictions and principles for 
 which his father fearlessly and faithfully stood. Their serious contemplation in 
 face of our own times and perils and problems cannot but be profoundly 
 fruitful. 
 
 DR. VAN DYKE SUMMARIZES THE CRISIS IN CHURCH AND STATE 
 
 Princeton. N. J.. May I 7 ). 1927 
 Rev. Lucien V. Rule. 
 Goshen, Kentucky 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 Your letter of May 21st recalls ancient and dim memories. In regard to the 
 so-called "Declaration and Testimony" I cannot recollect facts, names and dates 
 with sufficient accuracy to make a report of any value. But mv honored father's 
 position in the controversy in Church and State at that time is perfectly clear 
 in my mind. He never changed it. and I can describe it clearly. 
 
THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 275 
 
 1. My father did not believe that domestic slavery was a sin per se. But he 
 regarded it as a very great evil and desired our country to get rid of it. In 
 his judgment, as in that of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and others, the best 
 way to do this would have been by the gradual emancipation of the Negroes and 
 by some plan of purchase and compensation for the former owners. If this line 
 had been followed we should have had no Civil War. 
 
 2. My father was a strong "states right" man. He thought that the ques- 
 tion of the possible withdrawal of States from the Union was not settled in the 
 Constitution. But he considered that secession was highly undesirable, extremely 
 dangerous, and that if it involved the seizure of federal property by seceding 
 States, it would lead to an inevitable and dreadful civil war. This opinion he 
 stated strongly in Charleston, after South Carolina had seceded, and in Richmond 
 while the Virginia legislature was considering the question. He was against 
 slavery, against "abolitionism," and against war. He was for union and peace. 
 
 3. My father believed firmly in the absolute separation of Church and State. 
 He held that a free Church should exist under the protection of a free State. He 
 did not hold what you state as the theory of the Southern Church, namely, 
 "that social and political discussions have no place in the House of God." On 
 the contrary, he always taught and preached that Christians should be guided by 
 the principles and rules of Christ in all their conduct, in civil and social affairs 
 as well as in religious matters. 
 
 4. My father deeply regretted the separation of the Southern and Northern 
 Presbyterian Church. He thought there had been faults on both sides, and that 
 these should be forgiven and as far as possible forgotten, and that the breach 
 should be healed by the reunion of the two churches. For this cause he labored 
 long and earnestly in conferences and committees of various kinds. When he was 
 Moderator in 1872 he put forth his best efforts in this direction. But not long 
 after that — I cannot recall the exact year — he returned from one of these con- 
 ferences with leaders of the Southern Church under the sad conviction that 
 reunion was impossible at that time: that to press it then would be to imperil 
 its ultimate success; and that until there was a change of mind and heart in the 
 Southern Church the best thing for the Northern Church to do was to let the 
 subject alone, but not without expressing clearly a strong and lasting desire for 
 reunion on the basis of the standards pure and simple. 
 
 I have tried to state his position clearly and accurately. He held it consist- 
 ently throughout his life. As his years increased his orthodox faith remained 
 simple and steady. But he believed more and more with advancing age that 
 Christian liberty is the most precious of all things, and that without it there can 
 be no true and genuine Christian orthodoxy. Very sincerely yours, 
 
 HENRY VAN DYKE. 
 
 So far as these questions are still living — slavery and secession being for- 
 tunately dead — I hold the same views which my father held. H. V. D. 
 
CHAPTER XLIX 
 
 51 IpWiiiml ^mgf&ig &nh Jfar %tmm&n 
 
 ON NOVEMBER 16, 1887, the John C. Breckinridge monument was 
 dedicated on Cheapside Square, in Lexington, with an oration by 
 Senator Blackburn, blood-kinsman of Gideon Blackburn, the great 
 pioneer Presbyterian pulpit orator. They were both my ideals of 
 human eloquence and exerted a lasting influence in my own public speaking- 
 There is no question but what Senator Blackburn upheld the historic traditions 
 of his time and state in forensic eloquence and debate; and in dedicating the 
 Breckinridge monument he measured up to public expectation. But as time has 
 dimmed the luster of political and military glory, typified by Blackburn and 
 Breckinridge, the great pulpit orator and educator, Gideon Blackburn, has loomed 
 larger and grander to me on the horizon of history. He was known in every 
 quarter of our country as the Western Whitefield; and he was unquestionably a 
 greater orator than Senator Blackburn. He was the opponent of slavery, of 
 duelling, of intemperance, of injustice to Indians and weaker nations by the 
 great world powers; and he stood at the fore with the progressive New School 
 Movement in the Presbyterian Church, with such men as Albert Barnes. Charles 
 G. Finney, Lyman and Henry Ward Beecher. There was substance to his 
 oratory; and as a teacher of youth he advocated and founded a real manual labor 
 college in Illinois, like Berea in Kentucky, which is today his most enduring 
 monument. In grace of person and presence, in descriptive power and impassioned 
 utterance he was a veritable Patrick Henry, and established at Old Centre College 
 a century ago a type and school of oratory that has given the State of Kentucky 
 world-wide renown. 
 
 The same day the Breckinridge monument was dedicated, an incident occurred 
 in Lexington that had a transforming influence on all my after life. I was proud 
 of the honor of enrollment and participation with the cadets that day. though 
 the gray uniform of the old State College did not appeal to me as did the 
 Union blue. But I was a loyal Kentuckian and a devoted admirer of Senators 
 Beck and Blackburn, Congressman Breckinridge, and other great men assembled. 
 Mrs. General John C. Breckinridge visited next door to my aunt's and was told 
 of my boyish hero worship of her noted husband. She was pleased and amused. 
 John C. Breckinridge was reared and trained in the classical school of political 
 eloquence at Old Centre. The sculptor Valentine depicted him in bronze as he 
 was shortly after 1850 when he first appeared in the halls of Congress from 
 the famous Old Ashland District. He was then one of the finest looking 
 men in America, and the grace and music of his oratory soon made him a national 
 figure.. The flowing mustache of the bronze figure was an addition of the 
 sculptor Valentine to make a composite of the orator and the Civil War soldier. 
 Owsley Stanley, afterward United States Senator from Kentucky, was a cadet 
 commander at the dedication of the monument. We had stacked arms and were 
 
THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 
 
 277 
 
 at rest during Senator Blackburn's oration. Stanley was only a little way 'from 
 my company. I knew him well. He was a brilliant and eloquent speaker and 
 debater at the Old State College. He gave every promise of future distinction. 
 Suddenly I saw Stanley with his arms raised before his face, shaking with sobs. 
 It alarmed me. I asked what was the matter and the boys told me that just 
 a brief half hour before one of Stanley's bosom friends had been shot down in 
 a street duel in front of the Phoenix Hotel. From that moment it seemed as 
 though a film of blood obscured the sun and sky. 
 
 Old Centre College, Danville, Kentucky 
 
 HOW THE TRAGEDY CAME ABOUT 
 
 Col. Thomas M. Green, of Maysville, and Col. Lewis D. Baldwin, of Nicho- 
 lasville, were the principals in the tragedy just precipitated. The trouble dated 
 back to the August election in Col. Baldwin's home county of Mercer. Fraud 
 was charged. Certain poll books had disappeared, which were said to contain 
 the names of 400 illegal ballots. The books were not recovered. It became a 
 matter of partisan dispute, and Col. Green, correspondent of the Cincinnati Com- 
 mercial-Gazette, was sent to Nicholasville to write up the affair. He investigated 
 and intimated certain damaging complicities in his article. Col. Baldwin sent a 
 letter to the paper indignantly denying this accusation. Col. Green replied with 
 data and taunted Col. Baldwin with sponsoring the poll-book thief. He said 
 it was worse because Col. Baldwin was employed in the American Civil Service, 
 being deputy internal revenue collector in his home district. These allegations 
 brought Baldwin to the newspaper office in Cincinnati without delay, demanding 
 to see Green and settle the matter forthwith face to face. 
 
 The editor wired Green at Maysville, and Green answered that he would 
 come by boat or train at once; but he did not. Baldwin waited until he was 
 worn out with impatience and then departed for home. He told the editor to tell 
 
278 
 
 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 Green he would fight him on sight with pistols or tooth-picks! This was in 
 September. They did not meet for a couple of months, but mutual friends knew 
 it was to be a deadly encounter. They had never seen each other; nor would 
 they have known each other by sight. They came to the unveiling at Lexington 
 on the same day. They were told of each other's presence. Baldwin said to 
 his friend that since Green was in the city he proposed to find him and have 
 it out with him. 
 
 Just a half hour before noon the two men met in front of the Phoenix 
 Hotel. Green was pointed out to Baldwin, who accosted him with the demand 
 for an apology. Green answered: "I do not know you, sir; who are you?" 
 
 "My name is Baldwin." 
 
 "Oh, no: I don't owe you any apology." 
 
 Hutchinson Memorial Presbyterian Church, New Albany, Indiana 
 
 "You are a liar! You do!" cried Baldwin with a burst of passionate and 
 profane epithets. Green was very deaf and put his hand to his car saying. "What 
 was that?" 
 
 Baldwin repeated his demand with the epithets for emphasis: but Green 
 shook his head and said he would not apologize, nor would he have trouble with 
 a blackguard like him. Green then started away but Baldwin reached for his 
 pistol, and Green closed in on him. Baldwin's right hand was free, holding the 
 weapon, with which he struck Green savagely over the head. Green let go of 
 Baldwin and stepped backward, drawing his own gun. 
 
THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 279 
 
 W. H. Polk, a warm personal friend of Baldwin, had been standing across 
 the street from the Phoenix as the men approached, and anticipated the tragedy. 
 He rushed up and appealed to the bystanders to separate them. In thus expos- 
 ing himself he received two pistol wounds, either of which came within a hair's 
 breadth of his own life. Green fired twice and Baldwin three times. Green's 
 first shot passed through Polk's hand and penetrated Baldwin's heart. Baldwin 
 cried out, "Oh, my God," and fell to the pavement, expiring in three minutes. 
 Green rushed to his room, pistol in hand, summoned a physician and had his 
 own wounds dressed after the ball was removed. 
 
 A coroner's jury quickly returned a verdict and Green was put under arrest. 
 Baldwin's body was taken to Nicholasville at 7 p. m. He was 3 8 years old, 
 handsome, brave and popular. He left a young wife and six children. He had 
 been noted for hunting down moonshiners. Green was a widely known news- 
 paper correspondent of the old school partisan, political type; and the encounter 
 and tragedy were typical of Kentucky politics. 
 
 It seems that Col. Green was cleared at the trial which followed; and we saw 
 him a number of times in Danville afterward, with his charming family, during 
 our college days. The events of that year at the Old State College instinctively 
 turned our feet toward Old Centre, where the tradition and atmosphere were far 
 more congenial to young men seeking success and renown at the bar or in the 
 pulpit. Owsley Stanley came down to Old Centre to graduate. He was the 
 son of a Christian minister, and one would have imagined him a promising 
 preacher of 'the gospel; but, like Sam Wilson, at the same school about that 
 time, his aspirations were to practice law and go to Congress. 
 
 THOMAS B. TERHUNE 
 
 Among the outstanding ministerial students at Old Centre when we arrived 
 was Thomas B. Terhune, a tall, slender, rather delicate-looking young man. 
 He dispelled our homesickness with his genial cordiality and took us to the 
 Deinologian Literary Society, of which he was a member, and which upheld the 
 Gideon Blackburn tradition of oratory. We were told that the society name 
 meant "Great Speaker," and in reasoning power and graceful utterance, Thomas 
 B. Terhune speedily became our ideal. Sam Wilson and Owsley Stanley were 
 also ideals to us in the high art of public speech; but Terhune could hold his 
 own with any of them. He was born in Perryville some years after the Civil 
 War. His father lived there and was a miller. He was a widower during the 
 Battle of Perryville and married again. He was a Union man and a member of 
 the Home Guards. When his son Tom came to Old Centre it was with the 
 dream of studying law and going to the United States Senate. He had excep- 
 tional opportunities with Milton Durham and other leading attorneys of Central 
 Kentucky, and he was brought up amid the ideas of the classic old school oi 
 Southern oratory. He had the grace and elegance of manner and conversation, 
 the personal charm of that brilliant generation, a keen and unerring valuation 
 of human nature and an abounding sense of humor. But Terhune came of an 
 old line of Huguenot Presbyterians, and was endowed with unusual intellect, 
 a profound spiritual instinct, and a pervading social vision. After some passing 
 contact with the wild oats crowd at college he came under the spell of the gospel 
 and was converted. This was no mere emotion or mood with him but a real 
 
280 
 
 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 awakening of the whole man- It was the changed and regenerated viewpoint 
 and spirit of a young man whose heart God had touched. It was a typical and 
 epochal experience, just as great in his day and generation as in olden time. 
 Bound up in it was his decision to study for the gospel ministry. He relinquished 
 his dream of law and the National Senate. 
 
 THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS 
 
 This may seem a rather astonishing and disappointing decision to any young 
 man of such possibilities and expectations; but Terhune says the call to preach 
 the gospel was with him an overpowering experience. Owsley Stanley was in 
 those days a school teacher down in Terhune's home neighborhood. He was 
 a real teacher in the sense of making the youth think: and he said to Terhune 
 one day, "Tom, what are you going to do in life?" 
 
 B.EV. THOMAS B. TERHUNE, D. D. 
 Pastor Hutchinson Memorial Presbyterian Church 
 
 "Preach the gospel," answered Tom: and Stanley replied. "Well, Tom. the 
 pulpit is the only place left now for real eloquence." Terhune backs up his 
 decision and Stanley's statement today by saving that the great political leaders 
 of the world get the ear of mankind only when they become preachers of 
 righteousness. Bryan, Roosevelt, Coolidge. appeal most when they are non- 
 partisan and spiritual. Terhune insists that the men of God are the greatest 
 messengers to humanity of our own and of all time. 
 
THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 
 
 281 
 
 With regard to Stanley going to Congress and the Senate, Terhune says that 
 success in law and politics in Old Kentucky was not such a difficult thing as it 
 may appear. Men of alert brain and brilliant gifts of speech like Stanley set 
 before them the practice of the law and participation in public affairs; so that 
 when the time came to select leaders, they were the available men. It was a 
 consistent and logical success. 
 
 Old-time Presbyterian Sacramental Camp-meeting- in the Forest 
 
 The Mt. Tabor Camp-meeting- originated in the weekly 1 religious services 
 held every alternate Tuesday night at a home near Mt. Tabor, in November, 
 1835. In the spring and early summer of 1S36 the Riev. Samuel K. Sneed, 
 pastor of the First Church, New Albany 1 , who was conducting* these services, 
 had seen such results from the Tuesday night meetings, and a Sunday after- 
 noon Bible Class of young people, that he encouraged the formation of a 
 camp-meeting at Mt. Tabor. This was an, immediate success. It was held 
 both in summer and fall for a number of years. 
 
 It was in the summer of 1836 that a few members of the First Church 
 purchased three acres of ground at Mt. Tabor and a farmer donated another, 
 which was set apart as a camp-meeting and solemnly named Mt. Tabor for 
 the Mount of Transfiguration. The first camp-meeting was in June, 183 6, 
 with numerous conversions, including the man who gave the acre of ground. 
 The meetings were continued twice a year until 1843. 
 
 The Second Church was organized in the fall of 1837, and the Mt. Tabor 
 Camp-meetings passed under its auspices and the continued direction of Mr. 
 Sneed. A house of worship was erected at Mt. Tabor in 1838. The Second 
 Church was connected with the New Schoiql Assembly, but was always 
 friendly with the First Church; and in 1853 the Third Church was organized. 
 Mr. Sneecl continued with the Second Church until 1843. The camp-meetings 
 were very popular with the churches at that time; and in the green groves 
 of Mt. Tabor many souls were converted who came into church fellowship. 
 
 But men like Terhune, who chose the gospel ministry thirty years ago, had 
 no path of flowers nor bed of roses. In fact, when Terhune went to McCormick 
 Seminary in Chicago in the early nineties, that memorable gestation period of 
 American social and economic history, the period of panic and unemployment and 
 social upheaval, the period that once for all terminated the Civil War times and 
 practices and ideals — he experienced a tremendous shaking up of soul and body, 
 
282 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 and upheaval of spirit more terrible and testing than when he was first con- 
 verted and made his decision to study for the ministry. God was calling him 
 to be a preacher of righteousness and regeneration, in the midst of a great modern 
 Ninevah; but like Jonah, he lost his nerve and ran away from both God and 
 the call. 
 
 He was in the hot water of mental readjustment from the old secluded, 
 cloister idea of God and man to the new and trying ordeal of consolidated, social, 
 industrial, business life. He had several calls from churches round about; and 
 one from far away Montana. He had prepared himself by street preaching and 
 mission work in the City by the Lake. He had accepted the call to Montana 
 and made all arrangements to go; but at the last moment wrote them a candid 
 letter telling them he would not suit their needs and expectations. They replied 
 in good spirit, releasing him, and he took the train home, feeling like a bird 
 out of a cage. He had made up his mind to go back to law and to politics! 
 
 EVADING THE CALL OF GOD 
 
 But it was Jonah running away! He staid around home with great release 
 and relish for a while; but in time it proved to him the whale's belly. Finally 
 he told his wife he was going West to find God's place for him in the pulpit. 
 He had the Pacific Coast in view; but this time he was not running away from 
 God and duty. He landed in Missouri and was invited to preach in a certain 
 town. He was called and accepted the charge, which proved to be one of the 
 most memorable in all his life. He found a loving and appreciative people. He 
 realized his dream of human brotherhood and became a Freemason. Here. too. 
 he planned to settle down and write the story of his terrific spiritual struggle 
 and triumph. But he was taken down suddenly with a dread disease and made 
 his preparations to die. He was calm and unafraid in face of death. One faith- 
 ful friend and his devoted wife refused to give up hope when he was all but 
 dead. Finally, during an interval of consciousness, he rose up and told his 
 wife and friend he was going to get well; that he had a super-natural assurance 
 from God as to this; and that he had been close to the Borderland and knew of 
 a truth the existence of a living God and Life Eternal. From that hour he 
 began to mend and to improve. He came up out of the Jaws of Death and 
 back from the Valley of Shadows. His healing and release were pronounced 
 almost, if not actually, a miracle, by the physician. 
 
 THE RETURN AND TRIUMPH 
 
 Terhune traced back the tradition and history of education and eloquence to 
 the Old Log College of pioneer days in the New West. This primitive institu- 
 tion found boys and youth hungry for light and education; and their teaching 
 and training fell on ready soil. It was not every youth who could go to acad- 
 emy or college in those days. They were the exception. Terhune says that even 
 in his day, while there was a free school, it was men like his father who sub- 
 scribed and made it possible for the local school to become an academy, and for 
 the man who taught it to prepare promising youth for the professions by a col- 
 lege foundation. Today, after thirty years even of Tcrhunc's life, education is 
 far more widely disseminated. The average high school lad knows more than 
 
THE OLD SOUTH IN THE NEW 283 
 
 boys did graduating from college in those days, or far back in the time of the 
 Log College of the New West. Democracy in education is fast becoming a fact; 
 and the youth of our time, in town and country, is familiar with facts of science 
 and life that the youth of long ago, or thirty years ago, was an utter stranger 
 to. The teacher and preacher of our generation have a much harder task to win 
 the attention and hold the interest of the student body and the congregation; 
 and as pastor of the big Hutchinson Memorial Presbyterian Church, New Albany', 
 Indiana, he is pre-eminently a man's minister. 
 
 The interview with our old schoolmate, Terhune, in which he told us these 
 things so near to his heart, was at the hotel in North Vernon, Indiana, after an 
 address to our Men's Brotherhood, an address full of vision and humor and great 
 human understanding. He insists that the church has undergone a great change- 
 In the days of Wesley and Whitefield, William Tennent, Gideon Blackburn and 
 Charles G. Finney, the American people lived amid a background of the primitive 
 American forest, close to Nature and were highly sensitized and spiritualized. 
 God was a very real person and presence as in the days of Moses and Elijah 
 and the old prophets. 7'hese pioneer men of God on our continent had but to 
 speak and they commanded instant attention. Sometimes by their very presence 
 alone, like Charles G. Finney, they struck down the souls of men and women 
 under deep conviction of sin; and conversions were startling and inevitable. It 
 was an age of great orators and spiritual eloquence. They accomplished marvel- 
 ous things and remain the wonder of their age and of after generations. They 
 were trained in a school of oratory associated with the names of Gideon Black- 
 burn, the Breckinridges, and other great pulpit leaders, which has given to Ken- 
 tucky a fame almost world-wide. 
 
 But our task is very different today, in the midst of a complex commercial 
 civilization. We can no longer hide behind barriers of doctrine and fight our 
 religious neighbors, like Campbell and Rice, who were champions to their time 
 and following. We can no longer herd off our congregations so that they will 
 not mingle and fellowship with peoples of other faith, as did the denominational 
 leaders of long ago. No. the preacher of today has the biggest and greatest task 
 of all time committed to the man of God. It is a task so much larger than the 
 political partican conceives, that they are not to be mentioned in the same breath. 
 On it world issues .-and destinies hang. And no apology is offered by Terhune 
 today for giving up his dream of the law and the Senate to become an humble 
 preacher of the gospel. The moral is that the statesman must himself measure 
 up to a standard and ideal infinitely higher and nobler than in days of old. 
 From our own personal life and experience we realized the truth of every word 
 he said. Religion is today in the Melting Pot; and just as the panic period of 
 the nineties moulded anew in the crucible and fiery flame of suffering our own 
 individual vision and devotion to God and man, so the times through which 
 we are now passing are as sure to remould and remake the conviction and vision 
 of Christian Citizenship, local, national and international. In the light of such 
 a conception the selfish partisan is almost an enemy to humankind. 
 
President Wm. A. Millis of Hanover College. Moderator Synod of Indiana. 
 1926-7. Anthor of a "History of Hanover College." A central figure in the 
 movement to /make education democratic. Son of a brave Civil "War veteran 
 who was wounded at the Battle of Richmond, Ky. Dr. Millis incarnates the 
 best in the old class-leal and the new scientific and vocational ooll/ege systems. 
 Reared at PaJoli, the son of the home church and school, he carries in his 
 heart the welfare of the small town and country boy and girl of limited 
 means seeking- an education. Came to Hanover with a splendid reputation 
 as a High School; educator and restored the college to front rank efficiency 
 in its service to the masses of Christian people all over Southern Indiana. 
 Has made Hanover the center of training youth for social and religious 
 leadership. A master of the small town and country church problem. Takes 
 the position that they are spiritual producers of the! choicest youth, that go 
 away to the larger towns and cities, and hence must be miiinitainod,' at all 
 hazards. Dr. Millis was ordained to the ministry in 1911 at the old Mt. Lebanon 
 Church near Henryville at a memorable meeting 1 of Presbytery (New Albany). 
 The superb Centennial Pageant of Hanover College history, written by Mrs. 
 .Millis. and produced in .June. 1 !» 1Z 7. told the story of Christian education in a 
 way never to be forgotten. 
 
3£ kt £ 0xtx%\nntxm 
 
 Forerunners of the Better Time to be; 
 Love Voices in the Western Wilderness; 
 Pathfinders in whose footsteps still we press, 
 Climbing the perilous steeps to Liberty. 
 Teachers of Truth they set the people free — 
 Co-workers in the Old World House of Toil. 
 They braved the deep to find a virgin soil 
 And Promised Land beyond the sundown sea. 
 Their Church and Altar were the cabin home, 
 The open wood, and God's unbounded dome. 
 Without a thought of glory, self or gold, 
 They fed the flock within the forest fold; 
 And we, their children, in a New Crusade, 
 Must lift the Cross and follow unafraid! 
 
 By ALBERT EDWARD WIGGAM 
 
 CS^ EORGE GREY BARNARD, the sculptor, studied the Lincoln mask 
 
 j" •>■ ten hours a day for one hundred and twenty- five days. Yet the 
 
 ^^ JL passing citizen, who has gotten his education in art from a study 
 
 of advertised merchandise or the pictorial appeal of Jones' Soups 
 
 glancing at Barnard's statue of Lincoln, feels entirely competent to pronounce 
 
 with finality upon its truth, definition and power. 
 
 It is no trivial thesis I have advanced. The beauty of Lincoln is a tremend- 
 ous thing — a tremendous thing in science, in art. in America's contribution to 
 the sum of life. I have said he was democracy made flesh. This is no rhetor- 
 ical flourish. Written in his face and figure, his stride and gesture are all the 
 authorized symbols of democracy. They are as clearly carved as the symbols of 
 religious worship upon some ancient monument. There are patience with human 
 error, sympathy with human suffering, indignation against human wrong. There 
 are the light of exhuberant hope, the far-away melancholy of unfulfilled dreams, 
 the utter reliance upon self coupled with the grace of selflessness, the forgiveness of 
 folly, and the touch of copious undying humor. 
 
 And what are all these but the adequate and abiding characters which enable 
 men to co-operate with one another toward the great ends of a self-governing 
 civilization? And in symbolizing and formulating these immense facts of life 
 Lincoln fulfills the requirements of the sublime and beautiful. If the beauty of 
 Lincoln were taught in our schools by those who understand it, it would do as 
 much at least, to Americanize Americans and democratize foreigners as all our 
 flag-waving and singing out of tune to wheezy organs our nationalistic shib- 
 boleths. 
 
286 
 
 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 THE ROMANCE OF JONATHAN JENNINGS AND ANN HAY 
 
 (Somewhat in the background of the story of heroic struggle to make In- 
 diana and the Northwest Territory Free-soil, from 1809 to 1816, lies the fascin- 
 ating love tale of Jonathan Jennings and Ann Gilmore Hay. He it was who 
 made good the pledge and purpose of Thomas Jefferson in this deliverance, and 
 she typifies "Democracy" in her glorious young girlhood. She is thus described 
 by Mabel C. Morrison in an exquisite brochure biography: "Jonathan Jennings 
 came to John Hay's home (in Charlestown) in 1809, to enlist his support and 
 influence for his candidacy for territorial represntative. It was at this time he 
 first saw Ann Hay. The Kentucky maid had bloomed into a beautiful young 
 woman, with large brown eyes, reddish brown hair, a fair skin and a graceful 
 carriage. Her manners were most pleasing. Her voice had an enticing, soft 
 Southern accent. Mr. Jennings, while exerting every effort for his election, found 
 time to keep in touch with Ann. On his return from his first year in Congress 
 he brought her a miniature of himself, which Ann wore as a locket. It is from 
 this miniature that the portrait in the Indiana State House was made.") 
 
 JONATHAN JENNINGS 
 
 A boyish and unbearded youth. 
 
 Who held aloft the Torch of Truth, 
 
 And in the cause of Freedom gave 
 
 His soul to serve the shackled slave. 
 
 A child of Home and School and Church. 
 
 Brought up by brains and not by birch: 
 
 And when he came to man's estate. 
 
 Democracy became hts mate. 
 
THE BEAUTY OF LINCOLN 28! 
 
 He met her in the Western wild, 
 So beautiful and undeRled, 
 That to her altars still we turn. 
 And in her lovely temple learn. 
 Equality for one and all. 
 Without their backs against the wall; 
 Lending a kindly, helping hand 
 To every lad within the land. 
 
 Even for those who sinned and fell, 
 
 He had a heart that wished them well, 
 
 And left a trail of genial light 
 
 Backward to Reason and to Right. 
 
 Yea, on the Level and the Square 
 
 He daily lived, and everywhere 
 
 Men called him comrade, as they do 
 
 The brave and good, sincere and true. 
 
 So while the centuries come and go, 
 Their ashes, sleeping here below, 
 Will hither summon pilgrim feet, 
 Who still find Human Freedom sweet. 
 And so in song and storied stone 
 Their noble memory men enthrone, 
 Tribute unto the great and free 
 Who live and die for Liberty. 
 
CHAPTER LI 
 
 WITH A WORD FROM DOCTOR VAN DYKE 
 
 Avalon, Princeton, N J. June 4, 1927. 
 My Dear Mr. Rule: 
 
 This is just a line to thank you for your letter of June 2nd, and for your 
 courtesy in sending me your excellent summary of Dr. Wilson's story of "The 
 Declaration and Testimony." While the controversy itself belongs to the past, it 
 has, as you say, a direct bearing upon the problems which we are facing at 
 present in Church and State. I still hold to the principles which my father 
 held, of ecclesiastical non-interference in political matters; the duty of the State 
 to protect religious liberty; and the duty of the Church to promote by moral 
 means social welfare. 
 
 With best regards, Faithfully yours, 
 
 HENRY VAN DYKE. 
 Rev. Lucien V. Rule, 
 Goshen, Kentucky. 
 
 [ C ■ VER since the days of Samuel Davies and John Witherspoon historic 
 
 m Old Princeton has occupied a peculiar and impregnable position in 
 
 ^. J the controversies and revolutions of Church and State. She has 
 
 been the arbiter of truth in contention, the moderator of passion 
 
 in dispute, the interpreter and dispenser of constitutional law and liberty in the 
 
 Kingdom of God Samuel Davies was foremost in defending the rights of 
 
 American freemen as British subjects; and John Witherspoon moulded the mind 
 
 of James Madison in the principles that compose the American Constitution 
 
 Charles Hodge followed after as a true Princctonian. for while he furnished 
 
 Robert J. Breckinridge the points of difference between Old and New School 
 
 theology, Princeton did not lend herself to forcing the Division of 183 7-8, and 
 
 Dr. Hodge fearlessly led the opposition in the General Assemblies of Civil War 
 
 times to the political tests of loyalty advocated by Dr. Breckinridge. 
 
 President Lincoln said that he liked the preaching of Dr. Phineas D. Gutlev. 
 his Washington pastor, "because he kept so far aloof from politics in the pulpit," 
 thus sanctioning the very principle of constitutional Presbyterianism here empha- 
 sized. It was in the Columbus Assembly of 1862 that Dr. Samuel B. McPhect- 
 crs, a trained Princctonian, challenged Dr. Breckinridge in so masterly a manner 
 upon this very principle and brought down upon himself such severe condemna- 
 tion. Even President Lincoln was baffled and worried and troubled how to 
 
THE BEAUTY OF LINCOLN 
 
 289 
 
 settle so fine a point in the heat of war time, when the attitude of Dr. Mc- 
 Pheeters seemed to everybody a concealed Southern attachment. But time has 
 proven the sincerity of Dr. McPheeters' loyalty to the Union and his integrity 
 of defense of the most precious legacy of the Reformation — A Free Church in a 
 Free State. Dr. McPheeters sealed his signature to "The Declaration and Testi- 
 mony" with his life. 
 
 Dr. Charles Hodge, of Princeton Seminary, a great and historic character 
 in Presbyterian annals. The most beloved religious teacher of his time 
 and country. In his classes at Princeton were numbers of Baptist! students 
 for the ministry. Rev. James P. Boyce, D. D., of South Carolina, founder of 
 the Southern Baptist Seminary at Louisville, was for two years a pupil 
 of Dr. Hodge. Associated with Dr. Boyce was Rev. John A. Broadus, D. D.. 
 who as a teacher and preacher was known and beloved like Dr. Hodge; and 
 the Baptist Seminary at Louisville was a powerful factor in national reunion 
 and social progress. Drs. Boyce and Broadus were bosom friends, men of the 
 Gamaliel mould, and gave their institution a fame like Princeton's. 
 
 April 23d. 1873, the jubilee of Dr. Hodge's coming to Princeton, was 
 celebrated bv the presence of 400 former students and representatives from 
 every Presbyterian Seminary and body in the world. The Episcopal, 
 Methodist, Congregational, Lutheran, and Reformed churches sent repreisenta- 
 tives also. It was a forecast of a reunited Protestantism; and June 19th, 
 1878 the venerable and beloved master in Israel fell asleep in Jesus as the 
 summer sun sank to rest. 
 
 It was a great satisfaction, therefore, to crown this story of a hundred 
 years of struggle and controversy in the Presbyterian Church of the Ohio Valley 
 during the mighty age of Abolition and Civil War with such a Historic Sum- 
 mary as Dr. Van Dyke has written to supplement Dr. Samuel R. Wilson's story 
 of the famous "Declaration and Testimony." There are Gideons and Gamaliels 
 in every such crisis of Church and State. The Gideons are raised up of God 
 to smash our idols and to attack the hoary wrongs entrenched amongst us. The 
 great Abolition preachers of the foregoing pages were the Gideons of their time 
 and country. 'The Man With the Hammer" must do his work and deliver his 
 blows. He always seems fearless, unfeeling and fanatical; but he has his place 
 in human progress. He incarnates the Social Conscience of his age. His vision 
 is that of revolt and revolution. 
 
290 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 Yet we must all admit that the mission and spirit of Gamaliel is the final 
 solvent of social ills and wrongs because it is Love fulfilling the Law. It is 
 Justice tempered with Mercy. "The Man With the Hammer" in this case is the 
 Moderator with his gavel from session to General Assembly, representing at all 
 times the ultimate triumph of order and equity, of forbearance and good will, 
 of patience, unity and peace. Few men in all our hundred years of history as a 
 Church herein portrayed have so perfectly typified the spirit and power of Ga- 
 maliel in two generations as have Dr. Van Dyke and his revered father. 
 
 It is the glory of our communion that it has always embraced the Gideons 
 and Gamaliels. They are the pillars of Truth and Love in the Temple of 
 Freedom and Faith. Perhaps the conception of a great Mother Church un- 
 prejudicial, impartial, dispassionate in times of terrific social upheaval and fratri- 
 cidal strife seems Utopian and poetic only. Yet the Masonic Lodge of America 
 was precisely that during our Civil War and never divided asunder. It was 
 the Foster Mother of the American Red Cross whereas the Abolition Movement 
 was Anti-Masonic. 
 
 Ordinary human nature seems capable only in rare moments of those inspir- 
 ing principles of impartial justice and those deep sentiments of human com- 
 passion and brotherhood which underlie our very spiritual and social existence. 
 It is to the eternal honor of Dr. Breckinridge that in time of uncertainty and 
 dissention he stood like a Gibraltar Rock for Lincoln and the Union. Says his 
 biographer: "In 1861 and throughout the Civil War. the same unwavering 
 and determined faith in himself and in the justice of his cause — which character- 
 ized him in the courts and councils of the Church from 1831 onward to within 
 a year of his death — found gradual development and then full and vigorous sway. 
 He was a Union man decidedly, from the beginning of the contest to its close: 
 but more actively and intensely so than his writings in 1861-2 gave earnest of — 
 sustaining many of even the most extreme war measures in Kentucky, where his 
 influence with the military authorities, as also with the Administration at Wash- 
 ington was commanding if not controlling. He was one of the giants of the 
 intellectual and religious world and the power of the Government was strength- 
 ened by his co-operation and support." 
 
 This same biographer remarks of Dr. Breckinridge that "he encouraged the 
 Church to make deliverances on the 'state of the country.' in which it left its 
 true sphere to intermeddle with things civil;" but he, with equal truth, declares 
 that in 1860 the measure of Dr. Breckinridge's fame was full — as a statesman, 
 as a writer, as a preacher of the gospel, as a theologian: and without the slightest 
 evasion or equivocation he sacrificed everything upon the altar of loyalty to the 
 Union. He had powerfully defended the rights of the South in the controvcrsv 
 over Slavery; but when it came to the crucial hour he stood out .like Andrew 
 Jackson and other mighty Southern leaders, for all that Abraham Lincoln lived 
 and died to see endure among men. 
 
 All men, however, have their limitations. Dr. Breckinridge's biographer 
 records that "firmly and consistently he opposed, to the day of his death, the 
 Reunion of the Old and New School Presbyterian Churches: never consenting to 
 'go back upon.' or acknowledge as wrong the Old School action in which he 
 took so prominent a part in 1834-38." It was even so with Dr. Charles 
 Hodge, and the Reunion had to come about without them. Dr. Lyman Beecher 
 deeply deplored the prejudice of Scotch-Irish Presbyterians toward New England. 
 
THE BEAUTY OF LINCOLN 291 
 
 It was due to an old race animosity between the English Puritans and the Scotch- 
 Irish Covenanters; and this hostility animated the war waged against Dr. Beecher. 
 Yet it was Henry Ward Beecher who, in 1873, made his triumphal lecture tour 
 of the South and paved the way for the restoration of good will and reciprocity 
 between the sections of our once divided Union of the States. In Louisville his 
 lecture, February 21st, on "Manhood and Money" to an immense and enthusiastic 
 audience, kindled the soul of leaders like Henry Watterson: and in due season 
 Henry W. Grady arose like a star to declare "The New South" a reality. 
 
 A JUBILEE VOLUME 
 
 It has long been the custom in the Presbyterian Church to celebrate its 
 jubilee occasions by the publication of a notable book of history and by a con- 
 secration or endowment offering to some great cause or benevolence. At the 
 Reunion of 1870 such a book was published, and the gifts to the cause of home 
 and foreign missions totaled nearly seven million dollars. The present centennial 
 time of Presbyterianism in the Ohio Valley has centered especially in the Synod 
 of Indiana at Vincennes (1826-1926), and at Hanover College (1827-1927): 
 and the Historical Committee of the Synod of Indiana has published a beautiful 
 brochure. President Millis has published a fascinating "History of Hanover Col- 
 lege." And the present volume has followed by a peculiar force of circumstances 
 that transformed it from a historic record of our pioneer heroes in the Old 
 Louisville, Salem and Madison Presbyteries into a chronicle of the "Forerunners 
 of Lincoln, in the Ohio Valley." The contemplation of these heroes of the 
 Cross in our Western country the past hundred years, many of whom closed their 
 lives of service upon the mere pittance of poverty and charity, should do more 
 than anything else to justify the wonderful provision made by our new 
 Pension System against the rainy day and the evening of life for the disabled 
 and retired veterans of the gospel evangel. And not only are we proud of the 
 work of Will H. Hays, as a member of the Synod of Indiana, in this achievement; 
 but the return of the spirit of faith and fellowship between all branches of the 
 Presbyterian Church in America bids fair to hasten the day of a closer unity 
 and federation in the Kingdom of God on earth. 
 
 Other histories have been written to show the influence of our Church and 
 her heroes in the Colonial and Revolutionary Periods; but this is the first attempt, 
 so far as we know, to vision and evaluate the tremendous spiritual contribution 
 of our Church to the entire Civil War and Lincoln Period — which was our 
 second great Revolution. 
 
 It would require another volume to chronicle the story of the Restorers 
 and the Great Reconciliation that followed after the Civil War. This beautiful 
 story is suggested in the Historic Summaries of Dr. Charles R. Erdman and Dr. 
 Thornton Whaling. Especially does Dr. Whaling live and work in a city, sem- 
 inary and state where these things have already come to pass. Himself one of 
 the great statesmen of the Presbyterian Church, U. S., and Moderator of her 
 General Assembly in 1924, he has stood at the wheel in perilous times and 
 places, like Dr. Erdman, and heartens every true lover of God and man by his 
 message. It is only the matter of a few years when the Southern Church too, 
 will have completed her Pension Endowment system: and already in the city of 
 
292 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 Louisville she has (in the John Little Industrial School) created and established 
 a work of Negro Missions that Dr. Warren H. Wilson says is the model for 
 the entire Church. A spiritual campaign for its endowment, in the autumn of 
 1927, has enlisted the hearty co-operation of all related Presbyterian and Reformed 
 bodies in the city, and will demonstrate once more that when we work together 
 for the glory of God in the good of our fellowmen, the Kingdom of Heaven is 
 at our very doors. The very presence of the noble and noted African missionary, 
 Rev. Wm. H. Sheppard, D. D., with Mr. Little has made the years memorable; 
 and one by one the dreams of the old Liberators are coming to pass. 
 
CHAPTER LII 
 
 HISTORIC SUMMARY OF WARREN H. WILSON 
 (An Interview) 
 
 To Dr. Wilson 
 
 No braver man of God in all the years 
 
 E'er called the recreant Church to serve her time. 
 
 From dull, dead days to faith and work sublime, 
 
 Her desert blooms, and Hope's sweet spring appears. 
 
 Her balm to others dries her own sad tears- 
 
 And in long silent towers the Christmas chime, 
 
 With pilgrim penitents of sin and crime, 
 
 Restored and trusted where each scene endears. 
 
 The barren countryside and little town 
 
 To fruitful effort turn and settle down; 
 
 And songs of Harvest Home now fill our ears. 
 
 Eye hath not seen, nor hath the heart yet heard 
 
 The glory hidden in His Holy Word 
 
 For war-torn worlds that wear His Cross and Crown. 
 
 |^ ^Y T THE Centennial Meeting of the Synod of Indiana at Vincennes in 
 V y^J k October, 1926, we discussed at some length and with the utmost 
 
 ^ j^ candor and critical analysis the entire scope, purpose, and subject 
 matter of the present volume with Dr. Warren H. Wilson of New 
 York, another outstanding authority and man of vision in our communion on 
 so great a subject as that herein attempted. 
 
 Dr. Wilson agreed at once that a book was sorely needed to describe the 
 religious movements and social migrations of the Ohio Valley between Louisviile 
 and Cincinnati — a section of country rich in material yet unused and demanding 
 a competent, conscientious, discriminating and unprejudiced hisotrian. But he 
 asked with penetrating insistence: 
 
 "Why single out the Presbyterian Forerunners when there are Methodist 
 Forerunners, like Peter Cartright, and Disciple or Christian Forerunners, like 
 Thomas and Alexander Campbell? I came upon Cartright's' tradition with 
 great satisfaction, and it is partial and prejudicial not to include him or any 
 Baptist Forerunners. It might gratify our Presbyterian pride and complacency 
 to imply that the Forerunners were more typical of our own Church and people; 
 
294 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 but, as a matter of fact, they are not. On the contrary they were present in these 
 other churches and communions, for Emancipation and Abolition were spiritual 
 conceptions and social movements confined to no one church or community of 
 people. In a word, the Social Conscience was a possession of certain souls highly 
 sensitized to the appeals of justice and human sympathy, no matter what churcn 
 or communion they were found in. 
 
 "Again, the sentiment of liberty was not so much an over-sea importation 
 of our pioneer forefathers as it was a necessity and practice of their isolated and 
 individualized lives. What was once a necessity became a habit of mind that 
 remained after the isolation was gone. 
 
 "Furthermore, can we really say that these men whom you designate as 
 'Forerunners' were possessed by a prophetic preconception or auticipation of the 
 tragedy of Civil War and the martyrdom of Lincoln the Liberator? Why con- 
 nect these spiritual dreamers and pioneer prophets with Lincoln, whose mission 
 and accomplishments for Liberty were wholly political? Were they not worthy 
 in their own right to be considered and described? Why magnify a bridge or 
 a ferry unduly because Lincoln once crossed it, when hundreds and thousands 
 no less obscure than he at that time, and no less worthy as pioneers of the great 
 Northwest Territory, crossed the same bridge or ferry? 
 
 "Can you not imagine that the pioneer 'Forerunners' themselves might have 
 resented or objected to being thus connected with a political Emancipator and 
 Movement when their dream and mission were wholly spiritual? Can you not 
 imagine also that Lincoln himself would have disliked being magnified and 
 glorified above the common people he loved so well? 
 
 "In a word, had we better not be trying to get toward a reawakened re- 
 ligious conscience in our own time and section and social problems by rediscov- 
 ering the religious consciousness of the pioneer people and describing it in a 
 simple, illuminating, and helpful manner? 
 
 "The 'Forerunners' as educators were by no means all Presbyterians. The 
 Methodist and Baptist educational movements were just as early on the 
 ground, and worthy in their own way, and of course can not at all be ignored 
 or left out. The Presbyterians do have a few dominating and dynamic characters 
 like McGready, 'The Son of Thunder,' whose flaming denunciations of sin 
 struck terror to the hearts of evil-doers in the forest wilds of Kentucky and 
 Indiana at the primitive camp meetings: but let us seek and describe other 'Voices 
 in the Wilderness,' be they Methodist, Baptist or Christian.' 
 
 As a partial reply to these very suggestive and forceful comments of Dr. 
 Wilson, we insisted that the Social Conscience as a part, product or experience of 
 a spiritual rebirth is so unusual and startling to the average, casual, or conven- 
 tional convert that the Church has never in any age recognized or acknowledged 
 it at all. We might almost characterize it as bastard and taboo. At least to the 
 priestly and time-serving type it is always and forever beyond the pale of spiritual 
 legitimacy. That is why the Social Conscience has so often, alas, been deemed 
 and dubbed the child of Atheism and Anarchy! The saying of M. Taine in his 
 "History of English Literature" rings eternally in our soul: "Beyond this uni- 
 versal sympathy that gathers mankind about the oppressed there is the working 
 of the religious sentiment.' And President Millis. of Hanover College, insists 
 most emphatically that the Anti-Slavery Vision of John Finlcy Crowe, for which 
 he was exiled from Kentucky to Indiana, was part and parcel of his evangelistic 
 
THE BEAUTY OF LINCOLN 
 
 295 
 
 and missionary conviction and passion. Hence, it seemed to us most timely and 
 important today, when we are passing through a period and experience identical 
 with the social awakening of one hundred years ago, to interpret for Presbyterian-; 
 especially their own prophetic social pioneers of the past, to give them vision and 
 anticipation of the impending future. 
 
 REV. JAMES K. PATTERSON, D. D. 
 
 'Hanover graduate in the class of 1856, who became the founder of the 
 Kentucky State College and University when the Morrill Bill for the land 
 endowment of scientific and vocational education by the Statie universities 
 became a law in Lincoln"s Adminisration. A terrific struggle ensued between 
 the old classical colleges and these new State institutions. It was a tre- 
 mendous move toward democracy in education; and in Kentucky President 
 Patterson made a heroic stand, unaided and alone, to prevent the defeat of 
 the appropriations for the university in the State Legislature. Arrayed 
 against him were the combined forces of the old classical system. A cripple 
 on crutches, he appeared on the floor of the Legislature as the sole attorney 
 for his cause, and pledged every dollar of his own private resources to 
 keep the university alive. The writer was a pupil under President Patterson 
 in those heroic days and witnessed the) Scotch intelligence and Courage that 
 so signally triumphed. Ranking with President MciCosh of Princeton, and 
 President Fisher of Hanover, as a reconciler of the conflict between science 
 and faith, he became, like them, the> instructor of scores and hundreds of 
 youth in the modern day who have adorned every human advocation and 
 blessed their race and time. President Patterson, like President McCosh, spent 
 the evening of an advanced age, vigorous and unimpaired, at the great 
 university to which he gave his life. The small college has readjusted its 
 curriculum to meet the demands of modern education and is now addressing 
 itself nobly to the tasik of Christianizing the social and industrial order. 
 
 Dr. Wilson made answer thus: " 'The pioneer Forerunners' were not troubled 
 so much about the future. They were grappling with the day and conditions 
 under which they lived; and so are we. Hence, it will be a tremendous service 
 to give us social vision and spiritual courage to meet the tasks and toils that 
 await us just ahead. The Emancipation and Abolition Movements were indeed 
 supreme expressions of the. Social Conscience, as you say; but your treatment of 
 this life and period of the early pioneers should not confine itself to that one 
 
296 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 phase or experience, however picturesque or arresting. It should be thorough and 
 consistent, even as life itself is manifold and wonderful. For the production of 
 such a book you should gird yourself as one of God's anointed — having lived in 
 the midst of your historic material from your youth up." 
 
 It is nedless to add that we have taken to heart every injunction of this 
 candid critic and faithful friend of many years. We have thought and toiled over 
 these pages day and night to make them conform in some measure at least to 
 the needs and demands existing. Dr. Wilson insisted further that no just and 
 accurate interpretation of Lincoln in relation to those "Forerunners" who pre- 
 ceded him could possibly evade or leave out some account of the mighty men of 
 God on the other side, south of Mason and Dixon Line. He pointed out with 
 unerring truth that the modification of the Abolition extremists, the "justice tem- 
 pered with mercy." the "charity for all and malice toward none." that so nobly 
 characterized Lincoln, originated in the heart of the South, his Motherland. 
 
 So then, as to the "Forerunners," Dr. William Chalmers Covert, in his dedi- 
 catory address at the unveiling of the Centennial Tablet at Vincennes. expressed 
 in brief and forceful sentences the scope and purpose of our own historic por- 
 trayals: 
 
 "We are compelled to say that there can be no conquering Church today. 
 no dominant Christian leadership in our social life, no supreme note of godliness 
 in our education,, no sacrificial giving or serving in our great philanthrophies, if 
 the men of the pulpit and pew today in anywise lose out of their lives these 
 old time principles that gave power, victory and immortality to those pioneer 
 preachers. While we write their names in bronze let us write their principles in 
 our hearts. They have been personalized conspicuously in the lives of these found- 
 ers. They brought joy, peace and spiritual power into this wilderness, one hun- 
 dred years ago. They are as necessary and effective today as they were then. 
 
 "These men of the wilderness reveal the pastoral urge at its maximum. 
 
 "They register evangelism as the major emphasis in their work. 
 
 "They held the gospel to be the only moral dynamic capable of regenerating 
 trie social order. 
 
 "They insisted that education and Christian culture were essential to sound 
 religion and sane leadership. 
 
 "These are principles that are so fundamental to our healthy spiritual life 
 as a Church today, and so essential to any kind of a worthy saving program in 
 a sin-ruined world, that we had better let go some of our controversial enthusi- 
 asms and rigorous logic and give our attention to the elemental principles that 
 undergird the very foundations of the Church." 
 
CHAPTER LIII 
 
 4i Ipp Wtnii 0$'ikt ^FamiLg ^xtt 9f 
 
 ^CT\ R. ALBERT EDWARD WIGGAM prefaces his famous book. "The 
 
 III Fruit of the Family Tree," with a chart of the Edwards Family 
 
 J |J£ of New England. The intellectual, moral and spiritual heritage of 
 
 this remarkable family he regards as "God's wealth of heredity 
 
 stored in the germ cells," which, "if lost, can never be reproduced." 
 
 Pointing out the indisputable facts,, he says, "Let the frontispiece chart tell 
 the graphic story, Elizabeth Tuthill was a marvelous girl, nearly three hundred 
 years ago at Hartford, Connecticut. She married Richard Edwards, a great 
 lawyer. They had one son and four daughters. They have all left their mark 
 upon American blood. And when anything marks a nation's blood, it marks 
 for weal or woe its ideals, institutions and history. 
 
 "Later in life Richard Edwards married Marv Talcott. She was an ordi- 
 nary, every-day, commonplace woman. She had ordinary, every-day. common- 
 place children. The splendid heredity of Richard Edwards was swamped by the 
 mating. But the union of two streams of great blood of similar character begets 
 great blood. The son of the first marriage was Timothy Edwards, one of the 
 founders of Yale University. He was the father of Jonathan Edwards. From 
 Jonathan Edwards, who married also a wonderful woman, Sara Pierpont, have 
 descended 12 college presidents, 265 college graduates, 65 college professors, 60 
 physicians, 700 clergymen, 75 army officers, 60 prominent authors. 100 lawyers, 
 30 judges, 80 public officers — state governors, city mayors and state officials — 
 3 Congressmen, ,2 United States Senators and 1 Vice President of the United 
 States." 
 
 It was in the light of such facts that Mr. Wiggam suggested a tabulation 
 of the descendants of Rev. Thomas Cleland of Kentucky, the first pioneer Presby- 
 terian preacher in Indiana Territory. This remarkable man of God belonged to 
 the period of the Log Cabin and the Log College. He was born in Fairfax 
 County, Virginia, May 22, 1778. He speaks with great modesty of his par- 
 entage, and that in the third person, thus: 
 
 "In regard to his ancestry he knows but little. His father was an humble 
 mechanic; his principal calling was that of making spinning wheels, but could 
 do almost anything in wood or iron, that anyone else could do. He was very 
 poor as to this world's goods, and withal very feeble in physical constitution. He 
 had an ordinary English education; but he possessed a good share of common 
 sense, and his intellect was rather above the common order. Beyond my father 
 I have no knowledge of my paternal anccstrv. 
 
 "My mother"s maiden name was Richards. She was a plain woman, a kind 
 mother, and in domestic life rather excelling than otherwise, in regard to econ- 
 omy and good management. Father and mother were both highly respected by 
 
298 THE FORERUNNERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 their neighbors and all acquaintances. Neither of them ever publicly professed 
 religion. They were very moral and friendly toward religious people, and raised 
 their family in good repute.'" 
 
 This modest and simple mention of his parentage reminds us of the brevity 
 and force of Bible genealogy: "And there went a man of the House of Levi 
 and took to wife a daughter of Levi." But from this first Thomas Cleland, in 
 one hundred years, were descended 34 ministers of the gospel, not to mention 
 other professions and avocations that have been adorned by men and women of 
 the same blood and birth. 
 
 There were three Thomas Clelands, ministers, in three generations. Thomas 
 Cleland, Second, was born December 12, 1816, and died in January, 1892. at 
 Lebanon, Ky. He was the biographer of his father. The third Thomas Cleland 
 was a son of John W. Cleland, brother of Rev. Thomas H. Cleland. John W 
 was born February 24, 1814, and died September 6, 185 6. His son was born 
 March 13, 1843, and died August 26. 1916. 
 
 Mrs. Annie Cleland Barbour of Louisville, sister of the third Thomas Clel- 
 and, has graciously furnished us with valuable facts and pictures of the Cleland 
 family. We may mention in passing that in several instances the Clelands inter- 
 married with other notable Southern families, such as the Wickliffes and Lapsleys. 
 Robert Wickliffe Cleland, a minister of California, was a son of the second 
 Thomas Cleland. He had a son who was a most promising young student vol- 
 unteer at Princeton and died at the threshold of service. Samuel Lapsley. the 
 famous missionary hero and martyr of the African field, was a near cousin of the 
 Clelands. 
 
 Thomas Cleland, the pioneer, made his cabin home in Mercer County, 
 Kentucky, a home and seminary for young students for the ministry. He thus 
 established one of the earliest Log Colleges and Seminaries in the Kentucky wil- 
 derness. Thomas H. Cleland, Second, in the biography of his father, speaks of 
 "his manhood and force of character, and much that was attractive in him; his 
 vigorous constitution, the resolution with which he met difficulties and opposition. 
 The primitive structure of his dwelling and its appointments. His frankness 
 and honesty: the simplicity of his manners, dress, and mode of thought and ex- 
 pression. The familiarity of his intercourse with all classes of people; his genial 
 humor; his fondness for the implements of frontier life — the axe and the rifle. 
 His hearty and unostentatious hospitality at home, and his exemplary patience 
 with what his younger brethren find intolerable — bad roads, bad weather, and 
 rough fare when on duty abroad.'" 
 
 Thomas Cleland belonged to the second generation of the pioner preachers 
 of Kentucky, his son tells us. and was the first Presbyterian Home Missionary 
 to Vincennes, Indiana, in 1805. Governor Harrison's wife was a Presbyterian, 
 and the welcome extended the young preacher was cordial indeed. John Scott 
 Harrison, the infant child of Governor and Mrs. Harrison, was the first Protestant 
 child baptized in Indiana Territory, during this visit of the young Kentucky mis- 
 sionary. Governor Harrison held the candle while he read the Bible, lined out 
 the hymns and gave his sermon. Mrs. Harrison was a communicant of the first 
 church group at Old Vincennes. When they removed to North Bend, Ohio. 
 General Harrison was a Sunday School teacher for many years, and from there 
 was elected to Congress. One of the sons was the son of a President and the 
 father of another. These young men were devout Presbyterians. 
 
THE BEAUTY OF LINCOLN 299 
 
 It is interesting to record that in 1809 a young Methodist Circuit Rider 
 on the Vincennes group appeared, supposing that he was the first Protestant 
 preacher to visit the town. But Thomas Cleland had already preceded him twice. 
 Nevertheless, General Harrison and other government officers, a few English and 
 French settlers, and two or three red men, constituted a very respectable audience 
 in the fort. Tallow candles lighted the room and General Harrison again held 
 the candle for the young preacher to read his scripture and line out the hymns: 
 but he spoke extempore with great acceptance, as Thomas Cleland had done. 
 
 During the Reminiscent Hour of the Centennial of the Indiana Synod at 
 Vincennes, in October, 1926, the Rev. E. P. Whallon. D. D., had this to say 
 of the Harrisons and the Old Vincennes Presbyterian Church. "The church was 
 organized in 1806, during the Governorship of Wm. Henry Harrison, who was 
 Governor from 1800 to 1813; and it was in his home and in the Council 
 Chamber where he exercised that Governorship that the early meetings were held; 
 and the first sermon that was preached was made possible by Governor Harrison 
 holding the candle in order to lighten the page read from the Word of God. 
 
 "The first child baptized in Indiana was a Presbyterian, John Scott Har- 
 rison, the son of Wm. Henry Harrison. That child grew up, and as the years 
 went by Governor Harrison moved from this place and went to North Bend, 
 Ohio, where, as Major General and as Congressman, and as United States Sen- 
 ator, he passed on to the Presidency of the United States. His son, John Scott 
 Harrison, the child baptized here in Vincennes, grew up in the Cleves Church, 
 in which Wm. Henry Harrison was a Sabbath School teacher and a trustee. In 
 the Cleves Church, of which I am the present minister, there is a Bible which was 
 presented by Mrs. Anna Symmes Harrison to that church. John Scott grew up 
 to be an elder, Sabbath School superintendent, Congressman, and eight of his 
 grandchildren were baptized in that Cleves Church, one of them being Benjamin 
 Harrison, who from Indiana, went to the Presidency of the United States. He 
 was the son of a President and the father of a President. So we can not know 
 the position which one of these children may yet occupy. The Bible still rests in 
 the pulpit from which I read the lesson on last Memorial Sabbath. I was once 
 pastor of this church where the Harrison family worshipped one hundred years 
 ago; and I now minister to the Ohio congregation with which for five genera- 
 tions the Harrisons have worshipped." 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Frontispiece— -'Barnard's ■Louisville Lincoln 
 
 Rev. Charles R. Erdman, D. D XI 
 
 Log Cabin of Lincoln's Birth XVI 
 
 Old Portrait of John Finley Crowe 'Z 
 
 Edward Eggleston 7 
 
 Scene of "Old Union Meeting House" 11 
 
 Gideon Blackburn 15 
 
 Francis Snowden 16 
 
 The Old Francis Snowden Homestead 17 
 
 Hanover Presbyterian Church 21 
 
 Old Vernon Presbyterian Church 22 
 
 New Albany Presbytery at Vernon Church Centennial 24 
 
 North Vernon Presbyterian Church 25 
 
 George Grey Barnard: and his First Grteat Mastelrpiecie 29 
 
 Dr. J. R. Barnard and Dr. Francis S. Downs 35 
 
 Birthplace of George Grey Barnard 3 6 
 
 Lincoln FaTnily Pew, First Presbyterian Church, Springfield, 111 40 
 
 Rev. J. R. Barnard, D. D 43 
 
 Dr. Barnard the Year of his Death 47 
 
 Rev. James Smith. D. D., Lincoln's Pastor 52 
 
 Rev. Phineas D. Gurley, D. D., Lincoln's Washing-ton City Pastor 54 
 
 Boyhood Home of Dr. Smith, Newton Airds, Scotland 56 
 
 Monument to Dr. Smith. Glasgow, Scotland 57 
 
 "Beautiful Jane Todd" 58 
 
 Monument to Father David Rice, Danville, Ky 60 
 
 Typical Log Pioneer School House, Goshen, Ky 62 
 
 Charlestowri, Indiana, Presbyterian Church 68 
 
 Mrs. Elinor Snowden Loughrie 76 
 
 Rev. P. S. Cleland, D. D 78 
 
 Grave of Parson John Todd 81 
 
 Rev. David Nelson 92 
 
 Jonathan Jennings 101 
 
 "Uncle Bill Wood," Old Pioneer, Utica, Ind 104 
 
 Old North Carolina Prarie Schoioner 106 
 
 Lyman Beecher 128 
 
 Mt. Tabor Presbyterian Church, Indiana 130 
 
 Rev. Henry Ward Beecher in his younger years 131 
 
 Jennings County Court House, Vernon, Ind 132 
 
 Grave of Rev. John M. Dickey 135 
 
 Rev. Ninian S. Dickey 138 
 
 Rev. Henry Little, D. D 144 
 
 Father Gale, Pioneer Sunday School Organizer, Indiana II 6 
 
 John Vawter 152 
 
 Old Vernon Baptist Church 154 
 
 Rev. Beverly Vawter 155 
 
 Old Vernon Christian Church 157 
 
 Old Vernon Methodist Church 158 
 
 John, Lattimore, Jennings County Pioneer 160 
 
 Old Graham Church, Jennings County, Indiana 161 
 
 Rev. Daniel Lattimore 162 
 
 The Lattimore Home, Vernon, Ind 163 
 
 Rev. Walter O. Lattimore 161 
 
 Vernon's Earliest Academy Building 169 
 
 Old Academy of 1859 and after 170 
 
 Summer Home of Albert Edward Wiggam, Vernon, Ind 173 
 
 Prof. Wm. H. C. Butler and Wife 179 
 
 Prof. Noble Butler 181 
 
 George A. II. Shideler [nterviewing Prisoners 1S7 
 
List of Illustrations — Continued 
 
 Rev. Thornton Whaling-, D. D 181) 
 
 Rev. Samuel Davies, D. D 191 
 
 Rev. John Witherspoon, D. D 192 
 
 Rev. and Mrs. John Rankin 198 
 
 Bankin Home Where Mrs. Stowe met "Eliza" 200 
 
 Rev. Samuel Doak, D. D 202 
 
 Birthplace of Rev. John Rankin '. 203 
 
 Rev. George W. Gale, D. D 207 
 
 Rankin Monument, Ripley, Ohio 208 
 
 Henry Ward Beecher 218 
 
 Presbyterian Church and Manse, Lawrenceburg, Ind 219 
 
 Lawrenceburg Church in Beecher'a Time 220 
 
 Rev. Forest C. Taylor 221 
 
 Rev. Joshua L. Wilson, D. D 225 
 
 Rev. Thomas Cleland, D. D 226 
 
 First Presbyterian Church, Vincennes, Ind 229 
 
 First Presbyterian Church Building, Cincinnati 235 
 
 Rev. James Kemper, first Pastor in Cincinnati 23G 
 
 John Finley Crowe 239 
 
 Rev. Samuel R. Wilson. D. D 240 
 
 Rev. Wm. L. Breckinridge, D. D 245 
 
 Rev. Robert J. Breckinridge, D. D 246 
 
 Rev. John T. Edgar, B. D 250 
 
 Ephraim M. Brank 251 
 
 The Brank Residence, Greenville, Ky 255 
 
 Rev. John G. Fee 260 
 
 Rev. John C. Young, D. D 263 
 
 Rev. Stuart Robinson, D. D 268 
 
 Old First Presbyterian Church, Louisville 270 
 
 Madision, Indiana, Presbyterian Church 271 
 
 Old Centre College 277 
 
 Hutchinson Memorial Church, New Albany, Ind 27S 
 
 Rev. Thomas B. Terhune, D. D _. 280 
 
 Old-Time Sacramental Camp-Meeting 2S 1 
 
 Wm. A. Millis 2S4 
 
 Jonathan Jennings 2S6 
 
 Dr. Charles Hodge 2S9 
 
 Rev. James K. Patterson, D. D 295 
 
PROMINENT PEOPLE MENTIONED 
 
 Allen, James Lane 39 
 
 Alexander, Archibald 70, 86 
 
 Barnes, Rev. Albert 240, 241, 246 
 
 Barton, Rev. Wm. H 52, 55 
 
 Banks, Rev. Daniel C 12 
 
 Banks, Rev. Louis Albert . . 252 
 
 Ballard, Rev. Frank 20-28 
 
 Ballard, John 75, 246 
 
 Baldwin, Col. Louis D 277-220 
 
 Barnard, Rev. Jos. R 30-50 
 
 Barnard, Geo. Grey 29-50, 288 
 
 Bernheim, J. W 34-38 
 
 Beeeher, Lyman 99-100, 128-133, 210-216, 224-247, 290 
 
 Beecher, Henry Ward 78, 217-223, 290-291 
 
 Beeeher, George 238-240 
 
 Beecher, Charles 241, 247 
 
 Blackburn, Gideon 13-14, 18-19, 20, 65, 90, 95, 276 
 
 Blaokburn, Jos. C. S 276 
 
 Blanchard 96 
 
 Bicknell, Mrs. Ernest P 153 
 
 Black, Charles 50 
 
 Boione, Daniel 39 
 
 Brank, Ephraim 251 
 
 Breckinridge, Rev. Robert J 91, 95, 246-247, 288-290 
 
 Breckinridge, Rev. Wm. L 245-247 
 
 Breckinridge, John C 276 
 
 Brown, John Mason 195-19 6 
 
 Britan, W. A 134-136 
 
 Buell, Augustus C 248 
 
 Butler, Wm. H. G 170, 175-184 
 
 Butler, Noble 181 
 
 Caldwell, Adaline C 13-14 
 
 Cameron, Rev. Archibald 12, 13, 89 
 
 Campbell, Alexander and Thomas 95, 122-123 
 
 Clay, Cassius M 259-266 
 
 Cleland, Rev. Thomas 74, 78, 81, 226, 288, 297 
 
 Cleland, Rev. P. S . 78 
 
 Covert, Wm. Chalmers 296-299 
 
 Crowe, John Finley 11, 20-23, 63, 64, 65, 89, 95, 169, 239 
 
 Curtain, Governor 35 
 
 Davies, Samuel 62-63, 85, 191 
 
 Daviess, Joseph Hamilton 63 
 
 Derrow, Rev Nathan B 167-168 
 
 Dickey, Rev. John M 12, 23, 88, 134-136 
 
 Dickey, Rev. Ninian 88, 129-133, 139-142, 143-151 
 
 Dickey, Rev. Sol C 129-133, 137-142 
 
 Diller, Isaac R 51-53 
 
 Doak, Rev. Samuel 18-19, 202-203 
 
 Donnell, Samuel 197 
 
 Downes, Rev. F. S 35 
 
 Douglas, Stephen A 41 
 
 Dunn, Judge 23, 27, 159-168 
 
 Dunning, Rev. A. J 197 
 
 Edwards, Ninian W 55 
 
 Edson, Rev. Hanford A 84-88 
 
 Edgar, Rev. John Todd 249-258 
 
 Eggleston, Edward XX-XXII, 35, 185-188 
 
 Erdman, Chas. R XII, 291 
 
 Fee, Rev. John G 259-266 
 
 Finney, Rev. Charles G 210, 216, 276 
 
 Gale, Father 146 
 
 Gale, Rev. George W 207-215 
 
 Garrison, Wm. Lloyd 205, 241-244, 245-246, 261-263 
 
 Gibson, Mrs. Mary Louise 67. 75-S3 
 
 Glazer, Prof. Chas. R 20 
 
 Green, Col. Thomas M 277-279 
 
 Green, Rev. E. M 60 
 
 Grossman, Rev. F. W 135 
 
 Grubbs, George G 47, 48 
 
 Gurley, Rev. Phineas D 43, 54, 94, 288 
 
 Gudgell, Edward 172-174 
 
 Harrison, Wm. Henry 74. 118, 226, 298-299 
 
 Hay, Ann 73, 115, 286-287 
 
 Hopper, Rev. W. H 11 
 
Prominent People Mentioned, Continued 
 
 Hikes, W. S 72 
 
 Hinchman, Roy 20 
 
 Hartwell, Frank N 38 
 
 Hodge, Rev. Charles 3 7, 45, 288-289 
 
 Hurst, Rev. F. M 72-73 
 
 Jaokson, Andrew 248-258 
 
 Jackson, Rachel 248, 240 
 
 Jackson, Prof. D. A 21 
 
 Jackson, Stonewall 191-192 
 
 James, Prof. Wm 43 
 
 Jefferson, Joe 4f. 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas 97-99, 116. 197 
 
 Jennings, Jonathan 72-73, 76, 101-127, 286-287 
 
 Jennings, Ohadiah 120-127 
 
 Johnson, James H 23 
 
 Kemper, Rev. James 234-235 
 
 Lattimore, John 160 
 
 Lattimore, Rev. Daniel 162 
 
 Lattimore, Rev. W. 142, 161, 164 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham XII-XX, 30-57, 267, 285, 2S8 
 
 Lincoln, Eddie Baker 51-52 
 
 Lincoln, Mary Todd 30-57 
 
 Lacy, Rev. Drury 227-23X 
 
 Lyle, Rev. John 197-204 
 
 Little, Rev. Henry ' 132, 143-151 
 
 Logan, George 23 
 
 Loughrie, Lemuel 76 
 
 Loughrie, Mrs. Elinor Snowden 76 
 
 Lundy, Benjamin 64 
 
 Mason, Rev. John Mitchell 97 
 
 Martin, Prof. Asa Earl 64 
 
 Millis. Wm. A 26, 63, 239, 281 
 
 Mitchell, Wm. D 75-83 
 
 McDowell, Dr. Ephraim 83, 9 
 
 Moore, Rev. James 87 
 
 McMillan, Pastor 111-114 
 
 McPheeters 288-289 
 
 Nauer, Wm 20 
 
 Nelson, Rev. David 90-94 
 
 Nelson, Rev. Samuel K 91 
 
 Nicholas, George 198 
 
 Owens, John A. H 66 
 
 Parton, James 251 
 
 Paine, Thomas 93 
 
 Priestly, Dr 28 
 
 Rankin, Rev. John 197-209 
 
 Rankin, Mrs. John 197-209 
 
 Rankin, Mary 197-209 
 
 Randall 97-100 
 
 Rice, Rev. David 59-62, 70. 85, 95, 195-198, 226-234 
 
 Mother Rice 61-62 
 
 Rice, Rev.^N. L 95-96. 97. 237 
 
 Ritchie, Gideon 15 
 
 Robinson, Wm 16 
 
 Robinson, Rev. Stuart 267-2t;s 
 
 Roosevelt, President 39 
 
 Rockefeller, John D 47 
 
 Rule, Rev. John 200 
 
 Rutledge, Anne 94 
 
 Searl, Rev. Thomas C 21 
 
 Schachner, Dr S3 
 
 Sheppard, Rev. Wm. H 292 
 
 Shideler, Geo. A. H 1X6-1 SS 
 
 Smith, Rev. James 43. 51-57. 92, 94 
 
 Smith, Jeanette 53-57 
 
 Snowden, Francis 13. 14. 77 
 
 Snowden, Grandmother 13-14 
 
 Snowden, Samuel 67, 75-83 
 
 Snowden, Virgil 76 
 
 Snowden, Richard 14 
 
 Stowe, Harriet Beecher XXI. 200, 206, 232 
 
 Stanlrv, Senator Owsley 275-281 
 
 Tarbell, Ida M 30 
 
 Taylor, Rev. Forest C 221-223 
 
 Taylor, Za chary . t 
 
Prominent People Mentioned, Continued 
 
 Taft, Charles P 40 
 
 Tennent, Rev. Wm 15-17 
 
 Terhune. Rev. Thomas B 279-283 
 
 Todd, Mary 30, 51 
 
 Todd, John Sr S4-85 
 
 Todd, Parson John 66-74, 84-88 
 
 Todd, Jane 67, 75-83 
 
 Turner, Prof. Frederick J XVII-XX 
 
 Vail, Rev. P. Y 229 
 
 Vance, Rev. James 12, 72, 73, 74, 234 
 
 Valentine, the Sculptor 276 
 
 Van Dyke, Rev. Henry J 269-273 
 
 Van Dyke, Rev. Henry 274-275, 288-290 
 
 Vawter, John 152-158 
 
 Vawter, Jesse 154-156 
 
 Vawter, Beverly 155 
 
 Venable, Wm. H 171-172 
 
 Warren, Rev. Edward L 70-72 
 
 Ward, Matt 175-184 
 
 Waddell, Rev. James 70 
 
 Weld, Theodore 214-216 
 
 Wesiley, John 17 
 
 Whallon, Rev. E. P 226, 298-299 
 
 Whaling-, Rev. Thornton 189-194, 291 
 
 Witherspoon, Rev. John 85 
 
 Witherspoon, Rev. Thomas S 242-245 
 
 Whitenack 81 
 
 Wiggam. Sehert Edward XVII-XX, 172-174, 285, 297 
 
 Whitef ield 17 
 
 Wilson, Warren H. 292, 293-296 
 
 Wilson, Rev. Joshua L 72. 224-247 
 
 Wilson, Rev. Samuel R. 225, 237, 240, 266-275, 288-289 
 
 Wilson, Judge Samuel M 231-233 
 
 Woolfolk, Mary 77 
 
 Y.oung, Rev. John C 95, 260, 263 
 
 Young, Rev. W,m. C 263 
 
The Illustrations for this book were made by 
 
 The Tinsley-Clingman Co., 
 
 Louisville, Ky.