Jesus Comes to Penhook
Scots-Irish
Presbyterians
In 1603 King James VI of Scotland inherited the English and Irish thrones, uniting the crowns and making him King James I of England, Scotland and Ireland. As James was a Protestant king, and Ireland was a Catholic nation, his rule in Ireland was mostly titular. The English planed to pacify the recently conquered Irish by planting Protestant, English speaking loyalists there. Other plants or plantations as they were called, had been attempted in Ireland, but this was the most effective. In 1607 two Ulster chieftains moved to France rather than live under English rule. James confiscated their land, consisting of about four million acres and encouraged settlement on these lands - especially by Scottish Presbyterians. The Gaelic Irish were not displaced; the majority remained in occupation of their land, usually in close proximity to and even in the same vicinity as the Protestant settlers. This was no land grab, but an immigration into unoccupied and undeveloped land. Most Scots built their farms and homes on overgrown terrain best described as a wilderness.
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Lowland Scotland
in the 17th century was overpopulated and rents were high. The lands of Ulster
lent themselves to the same farming practices that these families knew in
Scotland. Scots settling in Ulster could expect to reasonably lease land
for a period of 21 to 31 years, an improvement over Scotland. By1619 over 8,000
families had relocated to Ulster and by 1715 one in three persons of
Ulster’s 600,000 inhabitants were Scotch Presbyterians.
Consequently, there were three major ethnic groups and three religions in the Ulster: English/Anglican, Scottish/Presbyterian, and Irish/Catholic. The Irish resentment of occupation by Protestants made them more devoutly Catholic than ever. The Anglican Church, because of the English conquest, was the official Church of Ireland. Thus, surrounded by hostile Catholics and feeling oppressed by the government sanctioned Anglican church, Scottish Presbyterians became defensive and intolerant of other religions. They were able to maintain close ties with the Presbyterian Church in Scotland by frequent visits of ministers, but there were differences. While in Scotland, the church was sponsored by the government in Ulster, no such support existed. Presbyterians had no role in the government, but paid tithes to the Anglican church.
The Scots had come to Ulster for a better life, but the population of Ulster had grown, land was growing scarce and rents were rising. In short, the economic and social conditions were deteriorating and America was becoming attractive. Vast numbers of people left Ulster for America between the years 1717 and 1727, which corresponds to the end of the leases issued in the 1690s. Since America was a part of the British Empire, there were no emigration restrictions, and no language problem, and best of all, there was cheap land in America, no landlords, and no tithes to the Anglican church As a linen trade route existed between Ulster and Philadelphia, finding passage was not a problem; emigrants could find passage aboard a linen trade vessel. The ships bringing flax from Pennsylvania to Ulster welcomed a return cargo. Most people could pay cash, but some emigrants arranged to become indentured servants, selling their labor for a period of seven years for a ticket to America. In the 1730s and 1760s Carolina offered land, tools and seeds to settlers, thus making Charleston another popular destination.
Sometimes entire congregations left together, in 1772 a Rev. William Martin led 467 families to Carolina. Some Catholics and Anglicans came across, but the vast majority of people leaving Ulster were Presbyterian Scots. Between 1717 and 1800 some 250,000 people left Ulster for America: 20,000 Anglo-Irish, 20,000 Irish, and the rest were Scotch-Irish Presbyterians. The arrived mostly at Pennsylvania and Carolina ports. Soon, land became scarce and prices began to rise, especially in Pennsylvania. As they had no roots in Pennsylvania the cheap and fertile land of the Virginia Valley attracted them. The Swannanoa Valley of Virginia was also a large trade route between the middle and the southern colonies. With time, Presbyterian missionaries also moved south, but many of the same Scots-Irish who had purchased cheap land in Virginia and turned it into desirable farmsteads, sold the farms to new Scots-Irish migrants and bought even cheaper land in the Carolinas - migration became a trait of Scots-Irish culture. Although the strategy was profitable, it presented a problem for the Presbyterian Church, which required an educated clergy, and educated laity, and depended on an organized structure connected thr9ough presbyteries and synods; in short, Presbyterians needed to be settle. The church and the frontier movement were not compatible; and as one writer put it, "they were sheep without shepherds, and many strayed." The Methodist and Baptist got 'em.
In the sparsely populated areas, in the rough frontier days, the pattern of organization in the Methodist Episcopal Church worked especially well. In the Methodist denominations, congregations do not employ a pastor of their own choice. Instead, a bishop appoints a pastor to a congregation or a group of congregations. Methodist clergy were appointed to circuits wherever people were settling. Because of the distance between churches the circuit riders would ride horseback and were called circuit riders or saddlebag preachers, as they traveled with what could fit in their saddlebags. They preached at any place available: homes, courthouses, fields, and meeting houses. They were enormously successful. As more people moved westward towards the mountains, they encounter a British government that did not want settlers on Cherokee land. The Scots-Irish settlers thus began fighting both the British and the Cherokee. When the Revolution started in 1776, the British enticed the Cherokee to attack the settlers. Unsurprisingly, the Scots-Irish were on the patriot side of the Revolutionary War, seeing it in part as an extension of their old conflict with the British. After the Revolution, the government of North Carolina gave large land grants to Revolutionary War veterans, thus encouraged many of the Scots-Irish to push on even further west.
One grave marker at the
Mounds cemetery, of a Revolutionary War veteran, which reflects the westward
movement to Penhook, reads: English Methodist
Edward Johnson
b. North Carolina,1766
d. January 26, 1846
There is an official DAR marker attached to the headstone indicating
that he was a Revolutionary War Veteran.
In addition to the loss of
members to the Methodist and Baptist, the Presbyterians had internal problems in
the 18th century. The church split between the Old Side, congregations of
Scots-Irish, who favored a doctrinally-oriented church with a highly-educated
ministry and the New Side, mostly English congregations, who put greater
emphasis on the revival techniques. The formal split between Old Side and New
Side only lasted for a few years, but the two orientations remained in the
reunified church. Because of the loss of members, the Cumberland Presbytery in
Kentucky drawing on New Side precedents, began ordaining men without the
educational background required by the synod. Presbytery and synod were involved
in a protracted dispute which touched upon the nature of ecclesiastical
jurisdiction. Eventually the synod expelled the Cumberland Presbyterians.
Methodist Camp Meeting 1819 (Library of Congress)Straw was spread out all around the raised altar From the
doctrine of original sin the tradition of a mourner’s bench and alter
call arose. The bench was two feet high and several feet long - a place
of outbreaks of tears over sin. When the preacher managed to infect
participants with the spirit, these "mourners" would be struck down and
fall on to the straw. As life became more settled, the emotional
elements of Methodist services gradually faded away. If someone struck
by the spirit fell
down in a Methodist service today, an ambulance would be
called.
Baptist are
characterized by the practice of adult baptism, local church autonomy and a
disavowal of creeds, which lead to a diversity of beliefs and practices. The
movement is linked to the English Dissenter and Separatist movement of the 16th
century. By 1644 about fifty Baptist churches were already established in
England. Roger Williams came to America to escape religious persecution, and in
1638 established the First Baptist Church in America in Providence, Rhode
Island.
By the mid
eighteenth century the number of Baptists increased greatly as a result of the
Great Awakening. By 1775 there were 42 churches in the North Carolina area,
referred to as the Separate Baptists. They believed in emotional
conversion, membership in a community, personal accountability and adult baptism
by immersion.
By the early 1800's Baptists began to organize and expand, they
formed missionary societies, which led to other organizational structures that
would define and make a denomination of Southern Baptists. The
Baptists migrated from England, where they had been discriminated against by the
Church of England. They established their first church in Charleston in 1682.
New members, both black and white, were converted by Baptist traveling
preachers. As the Baptists welcomed African Americans more so than other
denominations, black congregations and churches were founded in South Carolina,
Virginia and Georgia before the Revolution.
Before the Revolution,
Virginia and most other southern colonies, the Anglican Church was the
state-established church and was supported by taxes, in Britain. Baptist
preachers were prosecuted for preaching without licenses from the Anglican
Church. James Madison at the Constitutional Convention, ensured that
religious rights were incorporated into the constitution. Thus, when the
American Revolution began, most Baptists became active patriots in the cause of
independence. Before the Revolution Baptist and Methodist
evangelicals in the South promoted the view of man's equality before God,
which embraced African Americans. They challenged the hierarchies of class
and race, and urged planters to abolish slavery. But, the next generation of
Baptist preachers accommodated themselves to society. Rather than
challenging the gentry on slavery, they began to interpret the Bible as
supporting its practice.
By the 1830's tension began to
mount between the Northern and Southern Baptists. The Baptists in the south met
in May of 1845 and organized the Southern Baptist Convention.
By the late 19th century African Americans established a separate association
within the Baptist denomination.
Baptists in different regions also prefer
different types of organization. Baptists in the north prefer a loosely
structured system composed of individuals who paid annual dues, while Baptists
in southern churches prefer a more centralized organization of congregations
under the direction of one denominational organization. Each
church is free to determine its own membership and to set its own course. It may
enter into alliance with other churches as it chooses, so long as those other
churches are willing.
After the War northern Black Protestants attempted to assist the
adjustment of the freed slaves to American life. In a missionary effort,
northern Black leaders established missions to their Southern counterparts,
resulting in the growth of independent Black churches in the South between
1865 and 1900. Predominantly white denominations, such as the Presbyterian,
Congregational, and Episcopal churches, also sponsored missions, opened schools
for freed slaves, and aided the general welfare of southern Blacks, but the
majority of African-Americans chose to join the independent black denominations
founded in the northern states.
Within a decade the African Methodist Episcopal
(AME) and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AMEZ) churches claimed Southern
membership in the hundreds of thousands, far outstripping that of any other
organizations. They were joined in 1870 by a new Southern-based
denomination, the Colored (now "Christian") Methodist Episcopal Church, founded
by indigenous Southern black leaders.
Finally, in 1894 black Baptists formed the
National Baptist Convention, an organization that is currently the largest black
religious organization in the United States.The missionary effort was successful. It helped finance
new churches and schools, facilitated an increase in Southern black
literacy (from 5% in 1870 to approximately 70% by 1900), and, as had been the
case in the North, promoted the rise of many African American leaders. But there
were tensions between Northerners, who saw themselves as superiors
of their less fortunate Southern brethren. Southerner Blacks had their own ideas
about how to worship, work, and live. Most Northern blacks saw Southern
black worship as hopelessly primitive. Northern "Missionaries"
attempted to educate Southern blacks to true Christianity. They
wanted the Southerners to give up all remnants of African practices, such as
drumming, dancing, and moaning, for a more intellectual and sedate form of
religious practice. Southern blacks thought of religion as a matter of oral
tradition, immediate experience, and emotions. Northerners thought Christians
should be able to read the Bible, understand the creeds and written literature
of a text oriented religious system.
Gradually, Southern religious life became more variegated,
with Protestant churches adopting a variety of styles. Generally, poorer and
more rural churches clung to older customs, and to more emotional forms of
worship. As the majority of Southern blacks remained in rural areas, many of the
traditions of the "hush harbors" remained a part of church service.
Religion in urban areas of the South also changed after the
1880s. Issues of class arose, as middle-class blacks began to build a religious
life like that of their white counterparts: the AME Church, organized
formal churches, educational networks of schools and colleges, and a publishing
arm. Yet unlike white church leaders, who were engaged in disputes
about biblical history and interpretation, middle-class blacks were mostly
concerned with issues of social justices. This cause promoted a degree of
political unity among Black Protestant groups that eventually outweighed their
many differences. In 1895, a gathering of over 2000
clergy was held in Atlanta, Georgia. The three largest conventions of the day:
the Baptist Foreign Missionary Convention, the American National Baptist
Convention and the National Baptist Educational Convention merged to form the
National Baptist Convention of the United States of America. This brought both
northern and southern black Baptist churches together.
Locally, the Macedonia Baptist Church was organized in 1869, the Hopewell
Church and the Camp Springs sometime later. Of the remaining churches
around Penhook, the Macedonia Baptist Church is the most viable.
White Penhook churches
Rev. William Stevenson, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, came to
Hempstead county in 1816, and organized a church. Rev. Mr. Perkins, of the
Missionary Baptist Church, located where Nashville now stands, organized a
Baptist congregation and was their pastor until his death in 1851. Rev. James
Black, of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, came to Arkansas in 1826 and
organized the first Cumberland Presbyterian church, called the Mound
Prairie Congregation.
1875, the Presbyterians built a new church in Penhook. Before that great grandpa Robert Wilson
used a buggy pulled by a spirited horse to attend church at Washington.
The buggy ride took about and hour in good weather, but a wagon pulled by a team
of mules would take twice as long. As the roads had no gravel cover, wet
weather could turn the roads into quagmires, making the going slower.
The Methodist built a log church
around 1817, then a fine two towered building later in the century.
That building had doorways at the base of both towers; one entry for women
and one for men, as the sexes were seated on opposite sides of the church. The
Methodist church was destroyed in a storm in the 1940's and never rebuilt. By
then the Presbyterians were running out of members and so the Methodist began
holding services in that church.
The Baptist built a church in Penhook in 1893 and a bell tower was added in
1907. At midnight each New Year's, somebody rings the bell; Penhook has a pulse,
but it is ever so faint.
Penhook Baptist ceremony in the 1940's. Notice the absence of obese
individuals.
Originally, the gentry was comprised mostly of Presbyterians, who were large land
holders and slave owners. The Presbyterian church said little about slavery.
Their church services were formal and the congregation was always well dressed.
Their ministers were well educated and Presbyterians sent their daughters to
finishing schools and their sons to college in the east, if they could. As they
tended to marry into other families within the gentry, there were many cousins
who became husband and wife. Although they spoke a Southern dialect, they
employed correct English grammar, and tended to look down at those
who did not.
The merchants and business men were mostly Methodist, roughly forming a middle
class. Church services were much like the Presbyterians, with a few differences
in doctrine. The Methodist retained the old emotional element of the early
Methodist church through the yearly camp meetings. After WWII those camp meeting
began to fade.
The Baptist were drawn mostly from the working class. Their preachers were less
educated and their church services more emotional with frequent alter calls. As
their children were often needed on the farm, many did not finish high school,
some did not finish 8th grade. You need not wear a coat and tie to an early
Baptist service.
The first couple married in the Presbyterian Church
in 1875 were James S. Wilson and Mary Stuart, my grandparents.
The Presbyterian church in Penhook was decommissioned after
World War II and the synod planned to dismantle the building, but discovered the
church was on private land. The Methodist began holding services there until
that congregation also diminished. The building sat empty until a calm night in
2008 when a dead red oak tree fell across the nave collapsing the building. A few of us poked around the fallen church and found a half grown great horned owl peaking out of
the collapsed bell tower.
The next day a few family members returned, one with
a dead mouse and another with some bacon bits, but the owl could not be
found. The
Sidhe-that-Rides-the-Wind