Camp Meetings

Topic: Early Versions
The idea of holding a public assembly to convert people to Protestantism was a uniquely Methodist idea.  Lutherans were born into religious communities.  Calvinists were selected by God before birth; conversion was an impossibility. One either was or was not; one could not become saved.

George Whitfield created the rhetorical style, while John Wesley developed the organizing techniques necessary to instruct converts.  The size of Whitefield’s audiences was noticed, and his methods were copied by Calvinists like Jonathan Edwards in the Northeast in 1741. [1]

The mingling of ideas continued among the Scots Irish who left Ulster in waves: 1717–1718, 1725–1729, 1740–1741, and 1754–1755.  They moved first to Pennsylvania, where William Penn’s colony was more welcoming than the Puritans of New England.  In the 1740s, they began moving into western Virginia through the Shenandoah valley. [2]

The governor of North Carolina began actively recruiting immigrants, and in 1753 a group in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, leased land from John Carteret [3] in what would become Guilford County. [4]  The grant was east of Quaker settlements and west of German refugees from the Palatinate. [5]  While each group stayed within its boundaries, they no longer were completely isolated from one another.

James McGready was born in Pennsylvania in 1763. [6]  It’s possible his parents came in the third wave as indentured servants, and were free to marry in 1761 or 1762.  They were in Guilford County by June 1776 when their son Israel was born. [7]  The elder McGready was able to buy land from David Caldwell in 1784. [8]  Caldwell was the local preacher, and had married the daughter of another Presbyterian minister, one converted by Whitfield. [9]

An uncle took McGready back to Pennsylvania in the early 1780s [10] where he was sent to a school influenced by Presbyterian revivalists who believed in a conversion experience that depended on  “experimental” rather than “intellectual knowledge.” [11]

McGready attended his first genuine revival at Hampden-Sydney College in 1788 when he was returning to North Carolina. [12]  He was able to observe “how effective a preacher could be in promoting it.” [13]

His first attempts at preaching the need to modify behavior were greeted with hostility in Orange County, North Carolina. [14]  McGready left in 1796 to follow some of his parishioners to Logan County, [15] on the Kentucky border with Tennessee.  His sermons on the need for repentance gradually took hold, and a revival of sorts spread through the churches he pastored. [16]

 

In 1799, he held a meeting on Red River that drew upon older Scots-Irish traditions of four-day gatherings centered on communal Lord’s Suppers.  Hours-long sermons were accompanied by psalm and hymn singing, and sometimes resulted in ecstatic experiences in the forms of dreams, visions, and unseen voices.  In Scotland, ministers encouraged the first, indeed condemned those who didn’t sing as Judases.  They were more wary of the second, lest they brought the attention of hostile authorities.  Leigh Schmidt noted, they selectively included references to the supernatural in their official accounts. [17]

McGready invited other Presbyterian ministers to speak, including William McGee, whom he had known in Guilford County.  On the final day, “a woman in the east end of the house got an uncommon blessing, broke through order, and shouted for some time, and then sat down in silence.” [18]

William’s brother John noted, at the end of the sermons, “the people seemed to have no disposition to leave their seats.”  A power took over “which caused me to tremble.” [19]

“Having a wish to preach, I strove against my feelings; at length I rose up and told the people, I was appointed to preach, but there was a greater than I preaching, and exhorted them to let the Lord God Omnipotent reign in their hearts, and to submit to Him, and their souls should live.  Many broke silence, the woman in the east end of the house shouted tremendously, I left the pulpit to go to her.” [20]

Unlike his Presbyterian brother, John had been converted to Methodism by the head of the church in this country, Francis Asbury.  As he went “through the people” to reach the woman, “it was suggested to me, ‘You know these people are much for order, they will not bear this confusion, go back and be quiet’.” [21]  Despite their remonstrances

“the power of God was strong upon me, I turned again, and loosing sight of the fear of man, I went through the house shouting, and exhorting with all possible ecstacy and energy, and the floor was soon covered with the slain; their screams for mercy pierced the heavens, and mercy came down; some found forgiveness, and many went away from that meeting, feeling unutterable agonies of soul for redemption in the blood of Jesus.” [22]

The paradigm for conversion — the preaching technique and the evidence of salvation — was set for others to follow.

The venue was defined that same summer when McGready noticed families had arrived in wagons with enough food to last a week.  He urged others to follow their example at another gathering he was holding on the Gasper River. [23]

Ministers from Guilford County, who had spoken at McGready’s meetings, took his example back to their congregations.  John McGee held a camp meeting at Smith County north of Nashville in August. [24]  William Hodge held a Presbyterian revival in neighboring Sumner county in September, and John Rankin moved through Presbyterians in eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina. [25]  In October, Asbury met the three and asked for accounts of McGready’s meetings. [26]

Barton Warren Stone heard about McGready’s success, and planned his own camp meeting in northern Kentucky in 1801.  Cane Ridge drew crowds counted in the thousands.  He hadn’t been born a Presbyterian, but had converted after hearing McGready at Caldwell’s school. [27]  He made sure Baptists and Methodists were aware they would be welcome. [28]

Newell Williams said the Cane Ridge revival began conventionally enough, but the number who came was unprecedented.  On Saturday, preaching in the meeting house was non-stop, and outside four or five were speaking at the same time.  People began falling to the ground. [29]

Not many Methodists were allowed to join the Lord’s Supper, but their preachers were among those speaking outside.  Williams thought few Baptists attended, partly because they were holding their own convention in Lexington. [30]

He found evidence on Sunday that “there was also preaching by an unidentified African American preacher to a group comprised largely of African Americans probably about 150 yards southeast of the meeinghouse.” [31]

After rain stopped on Sunday, Williams said “preaching, exhorting, and falling continued throughout the camp.”  On Monday, after the thanksgiving sermon, the service entered a new phase when people refused to leave.  People wanted “more singing, praying, and preaching,” and ministers were willing to oblige. [32]  People continued to arrive until Wednesday, when “provisions for such a multitude failed in the neighborhood.” [33]

Asbury assimilated camp meetings into the Methodist church’s frontier organizational structure: ministers preached sermons in local churches following defined circuits for months, and then large groups met for quarterly and annual camp meetings.  The denomination’s most important frontier evangelist, Peter Cartwright, was raised in Logan County and converted by McGready. [34]

Baptists depended on individuals to organize their own churches, and regional associations like the one in Lexington.  As a rule, William Nowlin said they “declined to join in general camp meetings.” [35]  He didn’t believe they became active evangelists until the rise of Missionary Baptists in 1837. [36]

Presbyterians, swayed by their more conservative leaders, rejected camp meetings.  Three groups broke away: the Christians led by Stone in 1803, the Disciples of Christ led by Thomas Campbell in 1809, and the Cumberland Presbyterians the same year.  In 1832, the Stoneites and the Campbellites, as they were called, merged into a single denomination. [37]

Graphics
L. B. Folger.  Map included in B. W. McDonnold.  History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church.  Nashville: Cumberland Presbyterian Church, Board of Publication, 1899.  Facing 1.

End Notes
1.  See the post for 2 November 2017 for a brief discussion of Whitefield and Edwards.

2.  James G. Leyburn.  The Scotch-Irish.  Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1962.  169–172.  There was one later migration that began in 1771 and ended when the colonies cut ties with United Kingdom.  After the Revolution, the UK directed its emigrants to its other colonies.

3.  When England repurchased the royal grants in North Carolina in 1729, Carteret refused to sell.  His family kept control of the land until the American Revolution. [38]

4.  John Thomas Scott.  “James McGready: Son of Thunder, Father of the Great Revival.”  PhD dissertation.  College of William and Mary, November 1991.  37.  The group was the Nottingham Company.

5.  Sallie W. Stockard.  The History of Guilford County, North Carolina.  Knoxville. Tennessee: Gaut-Ogden, 1902.  13.

6.  “Family of Rev. James McGready.”  Website for the Historical Foundation of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church and the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in America.  Last updated 10 December 2015.

7.  Cumberland Presbyterian Foundation.  Details on the other children are missing.  Their existence seems to be known from McGready’s father’s will. [39]

8.  Scott.  37.
9.  Scott.  39.
10.  Scott.  41.
11.  Scott.  46.
12.  Scott.  70.
13.  Scott.  76.
14.  Scott.  116.
15.  Scott.  120.
16.  Scott.  116.

17.  Leigh Eric Schmidt.  Holy Fairs.  Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989.  On the general form, 61; on singing, 97–98; on ecstatic experiences, 145–152.  The post for 26 January 2020 mentions Schmidt’s belief that pastors tolerated the ecstatic experiences that appeared in Scots Presbyterian kirks so long as they didn’t attract the attention of authorities.

18.  John M’Gee.  Letter to Thomas L. Douglass.  June 23, 1820.  Published as “Commencement of the Great Revival of Religion in Kentucky and Tennessee, in 1799.”  The Methodist Magazine 4:189-191:May 1821.  190.  When he wrote his memoir twenty years later, he believed the events had occurred in 1799.  Benjamin Wilburn McDonnold noted other witnesses recall it occurred in 1800. [40]

19.  M’Gee.  190.
20.  M’Gee.  190.
21.  M’Gee.  190.
22.  M’Gee.  190.
23.  Scott.  134.
24.  Conrad Ostwalt.  “Camp Meetings.”  Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture.
25.  Wikipedia.  “Revival of 1800.”

26.  Francis Asbury.  The Journal of the Rev. Francis Asbury.  New York: N. Bangs and T. Mason, 1821.  2:396.  Entries for 20 October 1800, 21 October 1800, and 23 October 1800.

27.  Barton Warren Stone.  The Biography of Eld. Barton Warren Stone.  Cincinnati: American Christian Publication Society, 1853 edition.  He was raised in Maryland. [41]  After the Revolutionary war, Baptists and Methodists flooded the area. [42]  He went to Caldwell’s school to study law, [43] and there came under the influence of Presbyterians. [44]  He made the final step at  Hampden-Sydney. [45]

28.  D. Newell Williams.  “Cane Ridge Revival.”  164-166 in The Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement.  Edited by Douglas A. Foster, Paul M. Blowers, Anthony L. Dunnavant, and Williams.  Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2004.  164.

29.  Williams.  165.
30.  Williams.  166.
31.  Williams.  165.
32.  Williams.  165.
33.  Stone.  38.

34.  Autobiography of Peter Cartwright.  Edited by W. P. Strickland.  Cincinnati: L. Swormstedt and A. Poe, 1859.  36–38.  

35.  William Dudley Nowlin.   Kentucky Baptist History, 1770---1922.  Louisville, Kentucky: Baptist Book Concern, 1922.  63.

36.  Nowlin.  47.

37.  Sydney E. Ahlstrom.  A Religious History of the American People.  New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972.  445–452.  The Disciples of Christ are discussed in posts for Pamlico County, North Carolina. [46]  The Cumberland Presbyterian Church is mentioned in posts about Arkansas and Texas. [47]

38.  Thornton W. Mitchell.  “Granville Grant and District.”  NC Pedia website.  2006.

Wikipedia.  “John Carteret, 2nd Earl Granville.”

39.  Marsha George Richeson.  “Descendants of James McGready.” Genealogy website.
40.  McDonnold.  16.
41.  Stone.  1.
42.  Stone.  4–5.
43.  Stone.  6.
44.  Stone.  7–8.
45.  Stone.  9–10.
46.  The most important post is the one for 26 January 2020.
47.  See the posts for 28 August 2019 and 11 April 2021.