Teen Ambassadors - Kum - Ba - Yah

Topic: Religious Folk Music Revival
Moral Re-Armament spawned groups that were similar to its Sing Out ’65 in 44 cities by April of 1966. [1] One apparently was organized at the Indiana Yearly Meeting in August 1965. [2] When the Teen Ambassadors performed in Greenfield, Indiana, in November 1966, a local newspaper described them as "kind of a Quaker Sing Out group." [3] Their second album [4] included Up, Up with People’s "What Color Is God’s Skin?" [5]

Presumably someone from the Yearly Meeting went to the 1965 youth conference on Mackinac Island mentioned in the post for 23 February 2020. The group organized before MRA’s Sing Out ’66 appeared in Indianapolis in April of 1968. [6]

The Ambassadors began with twenty high-school students, [7] and grew to forty to fifty people in a year. In that time they had appeared in fifty churches where they usually conducted the evening service. [8]

The first Quakers in Indiana came from North Carolina in 1806. [9] They soon were followed by others attracted to cheap fertile land that wasn’t embedded in a slave economy. [10] By 1820, more that two thousand Friends had settled in small, enclaves in Wayne, Randolph, and nearby counties. [11] They later were joined by Quakers moving west from Pennsylvania and Ohio. [12]

The October 1860 Yearly Meeting was the first to hold a session specifically for the young. This led to "a new path of evangelicalism." [13] This blended into Phoebe Palmer’s Holiness Movement after the Civil War, [14] with an influx of Methodists toward the end of the century. [15]

The Methodists probably were ones exiled by their home churches when the Methodist hierarchy began opposing more radical forms of Holiness preaching. [16] The immediate effect was an introduction of Wesleyan practices including hymn singing. [17] Some meetings in Indiana began to pay pastors. [18]

The Ambassador’s director, Dale Lewis, was music director for a revival crusade in Winchester that brought together 20 churches from Wayne, Randolph, and Jay counties in 1966. [19] This was probably the homeland of many of the young choir’s members. Lewis lived in Lynn in Randolph County. [20]

The teenagers probably met on a regular basis in Lynn to rehearse, and traveled by automobile to the various churches where they performed. The number who went to any one event probably depended on the distance and the timing in the academic year.

The Teen Ambassadors made an album in June 1971 when more than a hundred people appeared in the group photograph. One side featured contemporary music supported by a Beatles-style band. The other side had more traditional gospel songs like "How Great Thou Art" [21] and "Blessed Assurance" [22] with piano accompaniments that would appeal to older members of the audiences. They also included two songs songs in the spiritual tradition: Ralph Carmichael’s [23] arrangement of "Amen" and "Kumbaya."

The arrangement of "Kum - Ba - Yah" used soloists for the two verses, while the group sang the burden. The first time the young men and women used chordal harmony, and the other two repetitions were more complex, but identical. Variation was introduced by the pianist. [24]

The musical choice showed a deep understanding by Lewis or his assistant of the capabilities of adolescents. No song on the album was outside the range of developing voices, except for the last line of "How Great Thou Art." [25] By using instrumental, rather than vocal, variations in the music he was able to create a version that could be sung by however many people happen to show up an any given event.

The album only included singing by the choir. However, newspapers noted their performances also included instrumental music, with duets, trios, and quartets. [26] Some individuals, no doubt, spoke about the humanitarian missions they supported with the offerings, [27] and their personal faith. [28] This kind of variation was another way Lewis could provide an evening’s entertainment or church service with a group of committed, but variously rehearsed, school students.

Although the group appeared in eleven states, [29] most of the Ambassadors’ appearances fell into the old Quaker area marked by the counties of Howard (Kokomo), Randolph (Lynn), Wayne (Richmond), and Hamilton (Westfield). Lewis indicated "they have been invited back to some churches every year." [30] By 1972, they had their own weekly radio program. [31]

The choir traveled to the Kansas Yearly Meeting in September 1972, [32] and Jan Crouch was listed as musical director in October in the last newspaper report of the group on-line. [33] Lewis’ son entered college that fall. [34] In 1974, Lewis was mentioned as the pastor with a Quaker church in Wichita. [35]

The Ambassadors lasted long enough for children who were in sixth grade when it was organized to sing with the group in their senior year of high school.

Performers
Vocal Soloists: probably Rebecca Reece and Larry Lewis

Vocal Group: photograph shows 26 young men; 36 young women are to their right (stage right) and 44 to their left

Vocal Director: Dale Lewis
Instrumental Accompaniment: banjo, piano, possibly guitars and bass
Rhythm Accompaniment: drum set

Credits
arr. Derric Johnson - Lillenas Pub. [36]

Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: kum by YAH; kum had a hard "k" and a short "u"
Verses: kumbaya, praying, singing

Vocabulary
Pronoun: someone
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none

Basic Form: verse-burden
Verse Repetition Pattern: kumbaya after every verse
Ending: repeat word "kumbaya" at end of each verse
Unique Features: none

Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Tempo: moderate

Basic Structure: strophic repetition after the first "kumbaya" verse with the vocal part; the instrumental accompaniment varied with each iteration

Ending: held last "Lord" of final verse and slow the final repetition of "kumbaya"

Singing Style: one note to one syllable, except for final "Lord"

Solo-Group Dynamics: when the young woman began the "praying" verse, the group repeated "kumbaya" three times, starting a little after she began. They continued this pattern for the rest of the song, both when the young man was singing the "singing" verse and when the group was singing the "kumbaya" burdens. The chords were more complex on the final iteration.

Vocal-Accompaniment Dynamics: banjo solo by Larry Lewis introduced the song and accompanied the first "kumbaya" verse sung by the group. The piano took over with the young female soloist, and remained the main accompaniment thereafter. While the pianist played chords, he or she also added elements borrowed from Southern gospel music like counter melodies and arpeggios in rests in the singing. It remained subdued throughout, and may have been supplemented by the guitars and bass: elsewhere on the album the group used an acoustic and an electric guitar, and an acoustic and an electric bass.

Notes on Performance
Occasion: recording session

Location: "on location recording." [37] The group was photographed in the mourning bench area of a church. The walls were plain white, with a simple wooden cross on the wall.

Microphones: recording session

Clothing: The girls were wearing dresses or jumpers and blouses; the hems generally were 2" above the knees; their hair was nape to shoulder length and not treated with dyes or strong permanents. The boys wore suits or sports jackets with ties; their hair did not extend beyond the hair line in back, but was long in front like the early Beatles.

Notes on Movement
In the photograph, the group was standing in four rows on risers. The young men were in the middle and visible from the central aisle. The wooden pews blocked a clear view of the young women’s legs and feet.

Notes on Performers
Dale Lewis graduated from Fort Wayne Bible College "in 1952 with a Diploma in Bible." He and his wife, Judith Moser, were ordained and served in Quaker and Daniel Warner’s Church of God churches. [38] In 1974 he was named chairman of the Youth Commission of the Evangelical Friends Alliance and listed as living in Wichita. [39]

His son Larry played banjo on the "Kumbaya" and probably sang the male solo. His dormitory supervisor at Fort Wayne Bible College remembered he had a low voice. While at the school he played basketball and sang "with the college singing group Positive Side in the summer of 1973." He moved to Kansas after he graduated, earned a teacher’s certificate and coached high school sports. More recently he has been on the staff of the Evangelical Quaker college in Haviland, Kansas, [40] where he continues to share his "musical talent." [41]

Douglas Jan Crouch grew up around Farmland, a small community in Randolph College where he played trumpet as a boy, [42] and studied piano. [43] He taught choir in the local high school from 1992 until 2007. [44] He later taught at the Muncie Music Center. [45] During the open meeting on the elimination of his position in Knightsbridge he sang eight bars of "Amazing Grace."

"He stated his performance was technically correct, general music will meet the minimum requirements for this task. He repeated the same eight bars and stated the difference between the first and second was the addition of heart and soul. He said when you take away choral you take away the heart and soul of the music department." [46]

Availability
Teen Ambassadors. "Kum - Ba - Yah." Sing for Christ. LP 390. Recorded by Crusade Enterprises, Flora, Illinois, in 1971. [47]

Graphics
Ruhrfisch. "Locator Map of Indiana, United States." Wikimedia Commons. Uploaded 2April 2007; last updated 25 April 2017. Based on map issued by United States Census.

End Notes
1. "‘Sing’ Out ’66 Stirs Waves of Patriotism." Indianapolis News. 30 April 1966.

2. Liner notes, Sing. "The Teen Ambassadors group was born out of an outpouring of the Holy Spirit at the Sessions of Indiana Yearly Meeting of Friends in August of 1965."

3. "Greenfield Friends." The [Greenfield, Indiana] Daily Reporter. 11 November 1966. 6.
4. Teen Ambassadors. Travel for Christ. LPS 452. Produced by Crusade Studios.
5. Details on "What Color" appeared in the post for 23 February 2020.
6. Indianapolis News.
7. "Teen Ambassadors Appearing." The Kokomo [Indiana] Tribune. 17 June 1972. 5.
8. Daily Reporter.

9. John William Buys. "Quakers in Indiana in the Nineteenth Century." PhD dissertation. University of Florida, 1973. 8.

10. Buys. 10–11. Ashley Humphries studied a group who moved from Westfield in Surry County, North Carolina, to Westfield, Hamilton County, Indiana, in the same period. She reached the same conclusion that their reasons were mainly economic. In addition, she thought the fact there was a larger community in Indiana with more possible marriage partners was a draw. [48]

11. Buys. 10.
12. Buys. 11.
13. Buys. 277–278. Quotation, 278.

14. Buys. 280–281. Students at the Quaker Earlham College were involved in the 1866-1867 school year, and "the General Meeting in 1867 became in fact a Friends’ revival meeting with Quaker evangelists in charge." [page 281]

15. Buys. 278–280.

16. A syncretic relationship existed between the Quaker’s Inner Light and the Holiness experience.

17. Buys. 283.
18. Buys. 283–285.
19. Daily Reporter.
20. Liner notes, Sing.

21. A number of settings exist for Carl Boberg’s poem, "How Great Thou Art." Stuart K. Hines’ 1953 version was popularized by the Billy Graham crusades. [49]

22. The music for "Blessed Assurance was written by Phoebe Palmer’s daughter, Phoebe Knapp. [50] The words were added by Fanny Crosby in 1873. It first was published by Palmer’s Guide to Holiness and Revival Miscellany. [51 Carlton Young said it became " one of the ten most popular hymns sung by United Methodists." [51]

23. Carmichael was discussed in the post for 15 December 2017.

24. Three people were listed as piano players on the album: Marjorie Stevenson, Jan Crouch, and Rebecca Reece. Since Reece also was listed as a soloist, she probably did not play on this song.

25. "How Great Thou Art" uses a wide vocal range. The soprano part in the Methodist hymnal goes from middle C to, in the last phrase, high E. [53]

26. "Teen Ambassadors Presenting Program at Sycamore Friends." The Kokomo Tribune. 13 January 1968. 7. Clipping posted by bscjones on 19 December 2015.

"Teen Ambassadors Are To Appear At Friends Church." Anderson [Indiana] Daily Bulletin. 9 December 1966. 24.

27. Liner notes, Sing. "The youth donate their time and travel. Through contributions received at each performance, Teen Ambassadors have supported mission work in East Africa, Jamaica, Oklahoma, and Teen Challenge."

28. Kokomo Tribune, 1972. It described "a program of songs and testimony."
29. Liner notes, Sing.
30. Liner notes, Sing. I assume the notes were written by Lewis.
31. Liner notes, Walk.
32. "KYM Youth Yearly Meeting." Evangelical Friend 6:21: September 1972.
33. Wedding notice. Palladium-Item [Richmond, Indiana] 27 October 1972. 10.
34. "Larry Lewis g76." Fort Wayne Bible Institute alumni website.
35. "Evangelical Friends Alliance Officers 1974-75." Evangelical Friend 7:19 March 1974
36. Liner notes, Sing.
37. Liner notes, Sing.

38. "Larry Lewis g76." Fort Wayne Bible College alumni website. Warner’s Church of God, located in Anderson, Indiana, was discussed in the post for 17 December 2017.

39. Evangelical Friend, 1974. The Evangelical Friends Church evolved among those meetings that were influenced by Joseph John Gurney and John Wesley in the nineteenth century. It began organizing formally in 1965. [54]

40. Fort Wayne Bible College. Haviland was settled by Quakers from Indiana; [55] its high school evolved into Barclay College [56] where Lewis was vice-president of Institutional Advancement. [57]

41. Dave Kingrey. "Larry Lewis." Promotion for Church Leadership Institute for Ministry conference, 11 July 2016. Evangelical Friends Church – Mid America Yearly Meeting website.

42. "Winners Announced." Palladium-Item. 28 March 1954. 12.
43. "Jan Crouch." Muncie Music Center website.

44. Jeff Eakins. "CAB School Board Officially Terminates Crouch’s Position." The [Knightsbridge, Indiana] Banner website. 30 March 2007.

45. Muncie Music Center website.

46. Minutes of a special session of Charles A. Beard Memorial School Corporation, 15 May 2007.

47. Kokomo Tribune, 1972, provided the recording date.

48. Ashley Ellen Humphries. "The Migration of Westfield Quakers from Surry County, North Carolina 1786-1828." Masters thesis. Appalachian State University, May 2013. 105–106.

49. Wikipedia. "How Great Thou Art."
50. Wikipedia. "Fanny Crosby."
51. Wikipedia. "Blessed Assurance.

52. Carlton Young. Quoted by C. Michael Hawn. "Blessed Assurance." The United Methodist Church Discipleship website. 18 February 2014.

53. "How Great Thou Art." The United Methodist Hymnal. Edited by Carlton R. Young. Nashville: The United Methodist Publishing House, 1989. 77.

54. Wikipedia. "Evangelical Friends Church International."
55. Wikipedia. "Haviland, Kansas."
56. Wikipedia. "Barclay College."
57. Kingrey.

Up with People

Topic: Religious Folk Music Revival
Peter Howard took over Moral Re-Armament in 1961 after its founder, Frank Buchman, died. He originally was a rugby player, then a journalist in England. After Howard became involved with the movement in 1941, [1] he wrote books and plays that dramatized how individuals changed themselves to create a better society.

One of the first actions of the 53-year-old man was upgrading the quality of the group’s London theater with professional actors and technicians. [2]. In 1963, he hired an experienced stage and film director to mount its productions. [3] Henry Cass was 61-years old. [4]

More important, Howard recognized generations were missing from the ranks of the group’s leaders. David Belden noted there had been no strong "recruitment of young graduates or other able young people in the 1940’s or 50’s." [5] In addition those leaders who did exist were more likely to be English than American.

Howard planned a six-week conference for college students on The Modernizing of America at Mackinac Island in the summer of 1964. [6] To prepare, he recruited attendees on a lecture tour of college campuses. [7]

MRA erected a large entertainment tent where the Colwell Brothers and Herb Allen performed. [8] The Colwells had been singing Hollywood-style cowboy music [9] in Asia for years with a guitar, mandolin, and string bass. In every country, they had to write new lyrics, often in local languages, to appeal to their audiences. [10] The three men, who were still in their twenties, changed to electric instruments [11] in the style of The Beatles, and found a drummer among the participants. [12]

The conference schedule was modeled on that of college with lectures on moral purity and workshops on film making and other public relations techniques. [13] Keeping with Buchman’s view that athletes were the opinion makers on campus, there were calisthenics and sports competitions. [14] What was missing were the intense, small-group sessions that Buchman realized were key to changing individuals.

Following the success of the conference, MRA teams fanned out to promote the next year’s conference, Tomorrow’s America, and a book by Howard. [15] Rusty Wailes, a former Olympics oarsman, [16] and the Colwell Brothers appeared at Clemson University [17] and Sacred Heart University in March. [18]

Howard died in February of 1965, and Blanton Belk took over. [19] In April he called a planning meeting in Tucson where the Colwells suggested staging weekly happenings with attendees. Paul Colwell recalled that by the time they appeared in July, the suggestion had spawned a full-blown musical revue. [20] The proposed happenings first were called Sing-Ins, an allusion to sit-ins. [21] Then, they reversed it and coopted a term associated with Pete Seeger and the commercial folk-music revival, Sing Out ’65.

The response of the audience was so great, Belk wanted to turn it into a touring road show. Cass and a choreographer were brought from London to professionalize the presentation. [22] The cast first appeared in New England, then in Washington where MRA invited a select group of congressmen and diplomats to see their performance. [23] The 52-year-old Clement Zablocki obligingly entered several of their newspaper reviews into the Congressional Record. [24] From there Sing Out went to the Hollywood Bowl. [25].

A revised version, Sing Out ’66, was created the next year. This time the 63-year-old William Bray [26] commented on them in the Congressional Record, where he said they were "a refreshing contrast to the dreary, depressing parade of beatniks and self-appointed ‘rebels’ who receive attention out of all proportion to their importance as representatives of our young people." [27]

Later the cast went to Estes Park, Colorado, where students from 250 colleges were taught how to create their own shows. [28] MRA also filmed the program that appeared on NBC, [29] and made a point of appearing gratis on military bases. [30]

In their publicity, MRA emphasized the spontaneous nature of the show, claiming it had arisen from the ideas of the students themselves. [31] In fact, everything that could by planned and managed had been. Apart from the costs of mounting large conferences and touring shows, there were legal liabilities and insurance requirements to consider.

What couldn’t be anticipated was the success of the group. In 1967, Belk left MRA and the next year incorporated Up with People as a separate entity. He claimed Dwight Eisenhower had recommended he shed the musty associations of MRA. [32] Donald Janson suggested the motives were more pragmatic: colleges were loathe to let MRA on campuses, but were more open to secular organizations. [33]

Up with People did not perform "Kumbaya," but material written especially for the group. By 1976, when I was collecting songs sung in summer camps, [34] "Up with People," [35] "What Color Is God’s Skin?," [36] and "I Want To Be Strong" [37] were in the repertoire.

Eventually Up with People collapsed under the weight of its own expenses and political affiliations, [38] but not before it had pioneered a new form of religious music that borrowed more from the New Christy Minstrels [39] than from Peter, Paul, and Mary.

End Notes
1. Pamela Georgina Jenner. "Propaganda Theatre: a Critical and Cultural Examination of the Work of Moral Re-armament at the Westminster Theatre, London." PhD dissertation. Anglia Ruskin University, June 2016. 76.

2. Jenner. 129.
3. Jenner. 59.

4. Cass directed the Old Vic theater in London between 1934 and 1935. [40] After that he directed horror and comedy films. [41]

5. David C. Belden. "The Origins and Development of the Oxford Group (Moral Re-Armament)." D. Phil Thesis. Saint Edmund Hall, Oxford University, January 1976. 325. Belden was raised in MRA where his father managed the group’s theater in London. [42]

6. Daniel Sack. Moral Re-Armament: The Reinventions of an American Religious Movement. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. 169.

7. Frank McGee. A Song for the World. Santa Barbara, California: Many Roads Publishing, 2007. 122.

8. McGee. 124. Steve, Paul and Ralph Colwell’s parents were Episcopalians from Detroit who lost money and status in the Depression. Their father, also Paul Cowell, worked for Stokely-Van Camp, which moved him from location to location. The boys began performing while they were in San Marino, California, and continued when the moved to to Indianapolis. The elder Paul left the company to return to San Marino where he formed his own distributorship. [43] The boys became involved with MRA after they saw a film; their parents then became involved in the organization. [44]

9. They wore costumes purchased from Nudie’s Rodeo Tailors. [45] Nudie Cohn designed the elaborate clothing worn by country singers like Hank Williams and Porter Wagoner. [46] The Colwells wore simple shirts with piping on the pockets, western ties, and cowboy hats.

10. McGee. 54, 56, 57.
11. McGee. 123.
12. McGee. 124–125. The drummer was Bob Quesnel.
13. Sack. 171–172.
14. Sack. 172.

15. McGee. 124. The book was Design for Dedication. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1964.

16. Wailes was on the United States rowing team that won the gold in 1956 and 1960. After the games, he moved to Mackinac Island to work for MRA. [47]

17. Dick Miley. "Wailes Calls Youth To Moral Revolution." The [Clemson University] Tiger. 19 March 1965. 6. The Colwells wrote a song for Clemson.

18. Rosemarie Gorman. "Champ Blasts ‘New Morality’; Presses Moral Rearmament." The [Sacred Heart University, Bridgeport, Connecticut] Obelisk. 11 March 1965. 3.

19. Belk’s father was a Presbyterian minister in Virginia whose support for Buchman split the church in 1937. [48] The younger Belk was born in 1925, and joined the MRA staff in 1950. [49]

20. McGee. 126.
21. Belden. 174.
22. McGee. 127.
23. Sack. 175.

24. Congressional Record. 1 September 1965. Appendix A4962–A4963. Zablocki was a Democrat from Milwaukee who supported the war in Vietnam and helped write the War Powers Act. [50] He also was organist and choir director. [51]

25. Sack. 175.

26. William Gilmer Bray was a Republican who served from 1951 until 1975, when he lost during the first election after Nixon’s resignation. [52] He was on the Armed Services committee. [53]

27. William C. Bray. Congressional Record. 5 May 1966. Appendix A2447–A2448.
28. Sack. 181.
29. The televised film was mentioned in the post for 16 February 2020.
30. Sack. 180.

31. Mary Levy Peachin. "1960s Era Led to Founding of Up With People." Inside Tucson Business website.

32. "Preface." Up with People website. Belden said they were "sloughing off the popular image of M.R.A. as a puritanical, old-fashioned group with closed minds. [54]

33. Donald Janson. "Moral Re-Armament Cuts U.S. Operations." The New York Times website. 10 August 1970.

34. Camp Songs, Folk Songs. 546.

35. Paul Colwell and Ralph Colwell. "Up with People!" The Up with People Song Book. Los Angeles: Pace Publications, 1969. They wrote it while they were driving from Arizona to the ferry landing for Mackinac Island in 1965. [55]

36. Thomas Wilkes and David Stevenson. "What Color Is God’s Skin?" Up with People Song Book. They wrote it at the 1964 conference. [56]

37. Glenn Close and Kathe Green. "I Want to Be Strong." Up with People Song Book. This is the same Close as the actress. Her parents moved to the MRA center in Caux, Switzerland, in 1954. Her father went to the Belgian Congo as a physician. [57]

38. Belden. 387–389.

39. The New Christy Minstrels were mentioned in the post for 10 November 2019.

40. Robert Leach. An Illustrated History of British Theatre and Performance: Volume Two. Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2019. No pages in online version.

41. Wikipedia. "Henry Cass."
42. David Belden. "The Forum on MRA, 1990-93." His website. 4 February 2013.
43. W. Paul Colwell obituary. Geneaology Buff website. 16 May 2019.
44. McGee. On Depression, 193; on San Marino, 17 and 21; on Jotham Valley, 23–25.
45. McGee. 27, 47.

46. Wikipedia. Nudie Cohn. The Jewish tailor was born Nuta Kotlyarenko in the Ukrainian part of the Russian Empire. His first customer was Tex Williams, with whom the brothers worked when they first lived in California. [58]

47. "Richard Donald ‘Rusty’ Wailes." The [Everett, Washington] Herald. 10 November 2002.

48. Robert Benedetto. "John Blanton Belk (3 July 1893–28 May 1972)." Dictionary of Virginia Biography website. 198l.

49. "John Blanton Belk." Prabook website.
50. Wikipedia. "Clement J. Zablocki."
51. "Zablocki, Clement John, (1912 - 1983)." United States Congress website.
52. Wikipedia. "William G. Bray.
53. "William Gilmer Bray." C-Span website.
54. Belden. 388.
55. McGee. 2.
56. McGee. 124.
57. Wikipedia. "Glenn Close."
58. McGee. 13.

Moral Re-Armament

Topic: Religious Folk Music Revival
Up with People made its first national appearance in the summer of 1966 in a film shown by NBC television. [1] It was financed by a southern California businessman who contributed to anti-communism organizations. [2] The program set the group’s image as the youthful alternative to protestors preferred by the more conservative corporations who financed its tours. [3]

It then was part of Moral Re-Armament. The organization’s founder, Frank Buchman, was associated attempting to defuse conflicts between nations with efforts to change the attitudes of leaders.

Buchman was raised as a Lutheran [4] in a Schwenkfelder community in eastern Pennsylvania before 1900. [5] He spent much of World War I in Asia with YMCA leaders bent on converting heathen. [6] He accepted its goals as worthy, but thought its methods of mass crusades ineffective. [7] Buchman concluded he should concentrate on leaders and future leaders who could influence others, and it was best to work in small groups.

He made his first experiments at Hartford Seminary and Princeton University. He taught men to set aside an hour in the morning to allow the Holy Spirit to speak to them. He then suggested they form small groups with whom they could share their failings and revelations. Many of the confessions dealt with sexual desires, and at least some students complained that Buchman was too inquisitive. Both schools asked him to leave their campuses. [8] Time magazine made it a cause célèbre in 1926. [9]

Buchman and some of his followers moved to England where they began working with students. As members of the Oxford Group aged, they began holding weekend meetings for middle-class adults who learned to confess their failings and build strength from groups. [10]

The emphasis of the group meetings began changing in the 1930s, when the economy was poor and men like Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini were taking power. Individuals were more concerned with what they could do to avert disaster than with moral failings. [11]

Buchman was impressed with Hitler’s success in changing the attitudes of the German people from ones of despair to ones of optimism. In 1936, he began utilizing some of their techniques to attract people to rallies, where later the interested could be channeled into small groups. This was when he first began using music. [12]

His associates quickly mastered the emerging tools of mass persuasion. In 1938, they made a film with their new name, Moral Re-Armament. [13] The next year, they rented the Hollywood Bowl for a rally that featured patriotic songs and speeches. [14] Instead of ethnic purity, they advocated moral purity.

Buchman was in the United States when war broke out. [15] In 1940, he called his supporters to Lake Tahoe to develop a new program. During the weeks of living together in summer camp conditions, they produced a new play, The Forgotten Factor, to urge labor and management to cooperate in plants producing war materials. [16]

They also created a musical revue that included skits and songs. Buchman recruited corporate sponsors to take You Can Defend America on the road. MRA produced booklets for public schools to use to supplement the message of the show when it appeared in their area. [17]

After the war, MRA redefined itself as a vocal critic of Communism. Buchman had had a stroke in 1942, [18] and spent most of the year in Los Angeles. [19] Each summer the group held training conferences at Mackinac Island in the summer, where they built an auditorium in 1955. [20] When Russell Kirk visited the island that year, he noted many at the meeting were from Africa, that music was used throughout the evenings to diffuse tensions, and that the 87-year-old Buchman appeared to be senile. [21]

Buchman died in 1961. He left a moribund organization.

End Notes
1. "Up with People." 30 August 1966. Archival Television Audio website.

2. "3 CBS-owned TV’s Refuse Schick Show." Broadcasting. 4 July 1966. 38. Patrick J. Frawley, Jr., introduced leak-proof Paper-Mate pens and stainless-steal Schick razor blades. He built a factory in Cuba for the latter that was nationalized by Castro. After that he became vehemently anti-communist. [22]

3. One of the first supporters was the owner of Reader’s Digest, DeWitt Wallace. [23] Others included "Sears, General Motors, Toyota, and Coca-Cola." [24]

4. Buchman’s father’s family came from Saint Gallen, [25] a Protestant area of Switzerland that saw religious wars from the Reformation through Napoléon. [26] His mother’s family may have fled Protestant persecutions in the Palatinate in the early 1700s. Belden said Sarah Greenwalt came from the Kistler Valley. [27] Histories of the valley indicate the immigrant Kistler was born in the Palatinate, and that many others had moved into the area. Some "had left the Lutheran church and had connected themselves with the Moravians from Bethlehem. Many of the German people who lived there were poor and destitute." [28] The name also was spelled Greenwald, Greenawald, and Greenawalt.

5. David C. Belden. "The Origins and Development of the Oxford Group (Moral Re-Armament)." D. Phil Thesis. St. Edmund Hall, Oxford University, January 1976. 76–77, 86–87. Caspar Schwenkfeld formulated his own religious beliefs outside the influence of John Calvin, Martin Luther, and what became the Anglo-Scots reformation. Rather than focusing on Christ, the Silesian emphasized individuals’ relationships with the Holy Spirit and the changes they wrought in them. [29] It was part of the same general theological tradition as the Anabaptists in New Bern and Pamlico County, North Carolina. [30]

6. Belden. 134.
7. Belden. 135–136.

8. Belden. 164, on Hartford; 177–178 on Princeton. Also, "Moral Re-Armament." Encyclopædia Britannica website. Last updated by Gloria Lotha. 20 September 2019.

9. Belden. 177.

10. Belden. 238–256. Belden noted some similarities between Buchman’s house parties and encounter groups. [31] Some of these methods were adopted by Alcoholics Anonymous. [32]

11. Belden. 246–247.
12. Belden. 266–268.
13. Belden. 350.

14. Daniel Sack. Moral Re-Armament: The Reinventions of an American Religious Movement. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. 1.

15. Morris Martin. Always a Little Further. Tucson: Elm Street Press, 2001. 94.

16. Belden. 361.
17. Sack. 122–125.
18. Sack. 117.

19. Sack. 131. The Los Angeles center opened in 1948. Buchman moved to Tucson in 1958. [33]

20. "Mission Point Began as Conference Center and College." Mackinac Parks website. 24 April 2015.

21. Russell Kirk. "Right Reason Does Not Pay." Modern Age 26:228-234:Summer/Fall 1982. Republished by the Imaginative Conservative website. 25 February 2018.

22. Edward Helmore. "Patrick J. Frawley Jnr." The [London] Independent website. 24 November 1998.

23. Mary Levy Peachin. "1960s Era Led to Founding of Up With People." Inside Tucson Business website.

24. Frank McGee. A Song for the World. Santa Barbara, California: Many Roads Publishing, 2007. 129.

25. Belden. 76.
26. Wikipedia. "St. Gallen" and "Toggenburg War"
27. Belden. 77.

28. Records of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg quoted by Judith "Judi" Elaine (McKee) Burns. "Johannes George Kistler." Geni website. 31 December 2018.

29. Wikipedia. "Schwenkfelder Church."

30. See post for 19 January 2020 on religious traditions of Minnie Lee. Anabaptist will be discussed in a future post.

31. Belden. 241.
32. Sack. 81–84.
33. Sack. 167.

James Leisy - Methodist song books

Topic: Religious Folk Music Revival
The Civil War of the early 1860s disrupted religious practices. Church services continued where men were available to serve as pastors, but revivals and camp meetings required resources that were reallocated to the war effort. [1]

The Holiness movement led by Phoebe Palmer revived large gatherings marked by religious fervor in 1867. [2] During the depression that followed the Panic of 1893, Holiness preachers began emphasizing premillennial connections, and urging people to save themselves by leaving their established churches for new ones that promised ways to survive the coming holocaust. The Methodist Episcopal Church South closed its facilities to them in 1894, and the Northern church disdained them. [3]

Both Methodist churches retreated into a literal interpretation of John Wesley’s method that the way to Salvation was avoiding a list of tabooed activities that included dancing. [4] In the North, church members also followed Palmer’s suggestion that one should do positive things like support missions to immigrants [5] and pagans. Since freed slaves were the target of Northern missionaries after the war, the Southern church did not endorse a proactive program.

At some time before 1894, "75% of the young men in the nation were unchurched." [6] The non-denominational YMCA had become active during the Civil War, and continued to attract young men to their programs. [7] Methodists responded with Epworth Leagues in 1889. [8]

The Leagues were hampered by the prohibition against dancing, which was extended to popular music after the introduction of ragtime that was associated with the foxtrot. E. O. Harbin published a collection of games and stunts for the southern group in 1923. [9] He followed it with the group’s first song collection in 1927. As its title implied, Paradology featured humorous songs set to nineteenth-century popular songs. [10]

Lynn Rohrbough began developing a similar program with friends at Boston University in the 1920s. His parents were such strict Methodists, he didn’t sing until he was in high school and never played a musical instrument. [11] His early publications featured games and circle dances.

He discovered international folk songs at a 1931 Recreation Institute in Michigan where they were taught by Martha Cruickshank Ramsey. [12] Ramsey then was the director of the Cleveland Settlement Music School, [13] and translator of the Czech "Came a Riding." [14] Thereafter, Rohrbough focused on such songs, and began collecting them from foreign-born students at local colleges. Ernest Amy suggested he saw it as missionary effort to combat the lure of Communism. [15]

The two Methodist churches merged in 1939, and the separate Epworth Leagues became the Methodist Youth Fellowship. The emphasis on college campuses was recruiting missionaries. [16] It also sponsored caravans of students who traveled from church to church in the summer to help with Vacation Church schools [17] and perform plays. [18] High school students were encouraged to visit retirement homes and hold car washes to raise money for foreign missions. [19]

Recreation leaders still stressed alternatives to dances and popular music. Right after World War II, Harbin hired Larry Eisenberg as the recreation specialist for the denomination’s Youth Department in Nashville. [20] His primary job was training students and adult counselors in the caravans. [21] He issued a set of folk-dance records [22] and published songbooks through CRS.

More than 40% of Sing It Again’s songs were national or international folk songs like "Came a Riding." 10% were Negro spirituals and 15% were other religious songs. The remaining third of the booklet contained graces, rounds and American songs. [23] Lift Every Voice replaced the nationals songs with more religious ones and some Christmas carols. [24]

After the Civil War, Methodists faced competition from the YMCA. During World War II a number of conservative evangelistic groups developed. Jim Rayburn used club meetings with skits and lively songs to attract high school students to Young Life. [25] His summer camps encouraged attendees to commit themselves to Christ like camp meetings had done in the past. [26]

Youth for Christ became associated with Billy Graham, who had worked for the group before he became an independent evangelist. As mentioned in the post for 15 December 2017, it used popular music to make Christianity fun.

Thomas Bergler argued Methodists could not compete. They had "rejected the idea that a conversion experience should be the foundation of the Christian life" in 1894, but found nothing to replace "a personal encounter with God." Instead, adolescents were expected to lead blameless lives of devotion to others. [27]

By 1952, it was obvious this approach wasn’t working. Eisenberg resigned, [28] and Wallace Chappell was brought from Dallas in 1953. He lasted until 1958. [29] While in Nashville, he published another edition of Sing It Again with CRS, and reissued the folk dance recordings with a new manual. [30]

His version of Sing It Again devoted 48% of its space to international and national songs. Reflecting the global membership of the church, Chappell added more songs from Africa, Asia, and Spanish or Portuguese speaking areas. The number of spirituals and religious songs remained about the same. [31]

The breach between North and South had not disappeared with unification. Bergler noted MYF programs in the 1950s "often stagnated because conservative and liberal influences neutralized each other," [32] and that the earlier emphasis on social justice was "toned down." [33]

In 1957, the Methodist Church pursued both impulses. It hired a former missionary to China who was a friend of Rohrbough’s. Ohio-born Bliss Wiant lasted four years as director of the new Ministry of Music.

Simultaneously, it turned from Rohrbough to publish songbooks edited by Dallas-born James Leisy. The first, Abingdon Song Kit, used a word associated with Rohrbough, [34] but in the Southern tradition of Harbin. It had a section of stunt songs and a number of parodies. Many of the songs were published without music. [35]

Leisy edited a second book in 1959 that was more formal: it had hard covers and tunes for every songs. It used American folk songs, and nineteenth century popular lyrics. It’s international songs were national ones like "The Campbells Are Coming." The only central European song published by Rohrbough was the Czech "Walking at Night." [36]

Neither collection contained "Kumbaya."

Notes on Performers
Harbin worked for the YMCA with the army near Memphis, Tennessee, in World War I. He returned to his home in Louisville, Kentucky, where the Southern Methodist church hired him as director of the Department of Recreation and Culture. He joined the central office of the Methodist’s Epworth youth group in 1919. [37]

Rohrbough’s family moved from West Virginia to Colorado and back. After graduating from Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio, Rohrbough went to Boston for graduate work. When he and his wife, Katharine Ferris Rohrbough, returned to Delaware in 1929, [38] they discovered the college had begun sponsoring dances. He turned his barn into an alternative recreation center, while he continued to publish games and songs. [39] The Boston Social-Recreation Union eventually became Cooperative Recreation Service. [40]

Eisenberg was raised in the Northern Methodist Episcopal Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. [41] He met Rohrbough in 1936 when he was 22 years old. That inspired him to "make my ‘ministry’ social recreation." [42] He later wrote books on song leading for the YMCA, [43] and spent time in Southern Rhodesia as a missionary. [44]

Chappell trained as a chemical engineer, but his grandfather had been a Southern Methodist minister. [45] He was called to the ministry by reading Lloyd C. Douglas’ novel The Robe. [46] He was sent to Nashville after working in churches in Dallas and Wichita Falls. [47] After he returned to Dallas he directed the Methodist Student Movement in Texas. [48]

Wiant is discussed in the post for 2 October 2022. Leisy is discussed in the posts for 15 December 2019 and 22 December 2019.


End Notes
1. Vinson Synan. The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1997 edition. 23.

2. Palmer’s Holiness Movement was discussed in the post for 7 December 2017. For more on Holiness camp meetings, see Melvin E. Dieter. The Holiness Revival of the Nineteenth Century. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 1996 edition.

3. Synan. 39–40.
4. John Wesley’s prohibition against dancing was discussed in post for 30 October 2018.

5. Palmer’s Five Points Mission was mentioned in the posts for 25 November 2017 and 14 July 2019.

6. Jacob Embury Price. Epworth League Workers. New York: Hunt and Eaton, 1894. 18. Cited by J. Warren Smith. "Youth Ministry in American Methodism’s Mission." Methodist History 19:224-230:July 1981. 224.

7. The Intercollegiate YMCA was organized in 1877. "By the 1890’s this dominated religious life on most American campuses, a position unchallenged until the 1914-18 War." [49]

8. Smith. 225.

9. E. O. Harbin. Phunology: A Collection of Tried and Proved Plans for Play, Fellowship, and Profit. Nashville: Cokesbury Press, 1923.

10. E. O. Harbin. Paradology, Songs of Fun and Fellowship. Nashville: Cokesbury Press, 1927.

11. Lynn Rohrbough. Letter to Larry Nial Holcomb, 17 February 1972. Cited by Holcomb. "A History of the Cooperative Recreation Service." PhD dissertation. University of Michigan, 1972. 14.

12. Holcomb. 40–41. The fifth Social Recreation Institute was held at Waldenwoods Camp from May 25 to May 31. The grounds were owned by the Michigan Council of Religious Education.

13. Sondra Wieland Howe. Women Music Educators in the United States. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 2014. 192. Ramsey later worked at the Henry Street Settlement in New York.

14. Holcomb. 41. Ramsey probably heard the song in Cleveland where the Settlement Music School collected neighborhood folk songs. [50]

15. Ernest F. Amy. "Cooperative Recreation Service: A Unique Project." Midwest Folklore 12:202–260:1957. 205–206.

16. Smith. 228.
17. Smith. 229.

18. Thomas E Bergler. The Juvenilization of American Christianity. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2012. 75.

19. Smith. 229.
20. Larry Eisenberg. "It’s Me, O Lord." Tulsa: Fun Books, 1992. 54.
21. Eisenberg. 56.

22. Abe Books was offering a 1947 edition of the manual that accompanied The World of Fun Series of Records for Folk Games on 29 November 2019. Discogs website listed 78-rpm records issued as M-101 through M-112 that were produced by Eisenberg for the Methodist Church. Most had two songs on a side played by Michael Herman’s Folk Orchestra. Ron Houston said Paul and Gretel Dunsing supervised the recordings. He noted they were "were responsible for introducing most of the German dances that folk dancers in the United States do today." [51] Svend Tollefsen’s name appeared on several of the records listed by Discogs.

23. Methodist Board of Education. Sing It Again!. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service. The second edition said the first edition was published in 1944. However, in the copy I purchased online, the latest copyright date for an included song was 1947. [52] Eisenberg identified himself as the editor. [53] The cover was light green with four heads: an African-American boy, a Native-American girl, a Spanish girl, and a blond white boy.

24. Larry Eisenberg. Lift Every Voice. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service. One song in the collection was copyrighted in 1948. [54]

25. "Young Life History and Vision for the Future." Young Life website. Young Life was mentioned briefly in the post for 17 December 2017. Jeff McSwain, a Young Life leader who was expelled for heresy, said its method became "preach like Wesley and believe like Calvin." That is, they used the meetings and camps to create a friendly atmosphere, then preached original sin and the damnation of individuals. [55] Rayburn was a Presbyterian, [56] and this was simply a modernization of the methods introduced by Finney, mentioned in the posts for 12 August 2017 and 3 September 2017.

26. "Is Young Life a Cult?" Christian Agnostic website. 4 May 2012.
27. Bergler. 73–74.
28. Eisenberg. 62.

29. Notice of services at Plymouth Park Baptist Church. Irving [Texas] Daily News, 20 November 1970. 5.

30. Irving Daily News. Only the manual was listed in library catalogs. [57] The lead author, R. Harold Hipps, was active in the National Recreation and Park Association and moved to Nashville in 1963 to work as Director of Leisure/Recreation Ministries. He retired from the church’s Board of Education in 1985. [58]

WorldCat listed a 1970 package of World of Fun with seven cassette-tape recordings issued by The United Methodist Church.

Amazon offered World of Fun as a manual and three compact discs issued by Melody House on 29 November 2019.

Discogs listed two versions of record M-108, one produced by Larry Eisenberg and one produced by Wally Chappell. Their content was the same.

31. The Methodist Church. Sing it Again. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, 1958 revised edition. The front cover was teal green with a music staff set vertically to resemble the neck of a guitar. The four heads were on the back cover.

32. Bergler. 79.
33. Bergler. 76.

34. Rohrbough’s first publications were loose-leaf binders, Handy I and Handy II. Each was composed of kits. "Kit Y" of Handy II contained folk songs. [59] Rohrbough reused the Sing it Again title sometime after 1962. It had slightly fewer religious songs than Chappell’s edition; it did have "Kum Ba Yah." [60]

35. James F. Leisy. Abingdon Song Kit. New York: Abingdon Press, 1957.

36. James F. Leisy. Let’s All Sing. New York: Abingdon Press, 1959. "Walking at Night" was collected from Stella Marek Cushing, the daughter of Czech immigrants. She sang, played violin, and gave dance demonstrations in New Jersey. [61] Augustus D. Zanzig first published it in Singing America. Boston: C. C. Birchard, 1940.

37. Camp Songs, Folk Songs. 60.

38. Holcomb. On childhood, 13–14; on Ohio Wesleyan, 16–17; on Boston University, 19; on move to Delaware, 61.

39. Nancy Oldfield. "Rohrbough 22 Provides Novel Recreation Center." The Ohio Wesleyan Transcript. 14 March 1939. 1, 4.

40. Holcomb. Chapter 3, The Social-Recreation Union.
41. Eisenberg. 44, 48.
42. Eisenberg. 51–52.

43. He and his wife, Helen Eisenberg, wrote four books for the YMCA between 1953 and 1956. How To Lead Group Singing was issued by the Association Press in 1955.

44. Eisenberg. 64–71.

45. Wallace Chappell. The Call of God: Selected Sermons. Bloomington, Indiana: Author House, 2011. vi.

46. Lloyd C. Douglas. The Robe. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1942.

47. "Wallace Chappell, Longtime Dallas Methodist Minister, Dies at 96." The Dallas Morning News. 11 October 2016.

48. Irving Daily News.

49. David C. Belden. "The Origins and Development of the Oxford Group (Moral Re-Armament)." D. Phil Thesis. St. Edmund Hall, Oxford University, January 1976. 38.

50. Martha Ramsey and Duane Ramsey. "The Settlement Music School." Music Supervisors’ Journal 19:21-23, 34:May 1933. 34. Cited by Anna Hamilton. "Survey of Outreach Offerings and Practices in Piano Areas of Community Music Schools Affiliated with Colleges and Universities Accredited by the National Association of Schools of Music." PhD dissertation. University of South Carolina, 2012. 22.

51. Ron Houston. "Paul and Gretel Dunsing." Society of Folk Dance Historians website. 2018.

52. "Round-Up Lullaby." Words by Badger Clark. Music by Clifton W. Barnes. Copyrighted 1947 by Ralph Lyman. The poem originally appeared in Sun and Saddle Leather. Boston: Gorham Press, 1915. Page 13 in first edition of Sing It Again!

53. Eisenberg. 62.

54. "Ancient Castle." Japanese folk song arranged by Bliss Wiant; words by Ocutt Sanders. Copyright by Cooperative Recreation Service, 1948. Page 93 in Lift.

55. Jeff McSwain. "Young Life and the Gospel of All-Along Belonging." The Other Journal website. 6 January 2010.

56. Wikipedia. "Young Life."

57. R. Harold Hipps and Wallace Chappell. A World of Fun: Manual of Instructions for World of Fun Records. Nashville: The Methodist Publishing House, 1959.

58. "R. Harold Hipps." The [Nashville] Tennessean. 12 February 2014.
59. Holcomb. 34.

60. Sing it Again. Delaware Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service. The most recent copyright was for "Silvery Star," an Italian song translated by by Max Exner and arranged by Augustus D. Zanzig in 1962, on page 48. The cover was medium green, with the title in a blue box. Three heads were used on the inside front cover.

61. Camp Songs, Folk Songs. 57. The primary source was Dick Oakes. "Stella Marek Cushing." Phantom Ranch website.

African-American Religion in Pamlico County

Topic: Early Versions - Performers
Family traditions have perpetuated details about early African-American religious beliefs and practices in Pamlico County, North Carolina.

One of Ray Credle’s ancestors moved from Edgecombe County to Stonewall "sometime between 1870 and 1875." [1] Young Thomas was born in 1840, [2] just as cotton was becoming the cash crop in that county and the number of slaves increasing. Many of the new bondsmen probably came from Virginia. [3] Thomas’ wife, Polly Mary Foster, was born in Norfolk in 1837. [4]

In the early decades, Edgecombe County experienced the same conflicts between Free Will Baptists and Particular Baptists as Pamlico County. The later dissension between Missionary Baptists and Primitive Baptists was more severe in Edgecombe. [5] In 1897, Thomas was one of the founders of the Mount Sinai Missionary Baptist Church in Stonewall. [6]

While the family became Baptists, Polly never lost her earlier beliefs. Credle learned from a newspaper article that "she claimed to have talked with spirits each day for three days prior to her death and on Sunday the 4th day she told her son that the spirits would come that day and that it would be the last day. She sat out in front of her house on Sunday, bathing in the sun, talking with her friends, and sat up late Sunday night talking to her people and right before midnight she called her son and told him the time has come for her to leave him, told him good-bye, and died in a few minutes thereafter." [7]

The first known relative of Bill Smith to live in Pamlico County was Tamer. She was born around 1760 in Hyde County. William Gibbs sold her to Archibald McCotter around 1800. He left her to his son, Burney McCotter, [8] who was Clifton’s great-grandfather. [9]

In the late 1860s, Jacob McCotter either wouldn’t or couldn’t negotiate with freedmen living in New Bern’s African-American community of James City and recruited laborers in Hyde County. They include Smith’s ancestors. [10]

In 1884, McCotter was an elder in the Concord Disciples of Christ church, near Florence. The congregation included seven African Americans. One was Thamor. [11]

Tamer’s great-grandson, Willie Gibbs married Indiana Moore in 1890. Her mother, Joanna Warner Moore, told her great-granddaughter "they use to pray for their freedom, but they couldn’t let the people that owned them see them or hear them. So they would put their heads down into a big iron pot that they use to wash clothes, and pray and pray and pray." [12]

Joanna was born in 1863 in Hyde County, [13] so she wasn’t talking from first hand experience. However, the knowledge of iron pots seems to have been widespread. The post for 29 September 2019 hypothesized the ritual developed from Igbo traditions among slaves imported primarily into Virginia.

In 1920, the Edgecombe county historian noted "the old trick played on the master by turning a huge pot, the mouth upon the floor of the master’s residence in order to deaden the noise while the negroes danced, was considered a part of the slave’s right." [14]

Union soldiers landed in Hyde County in 1863 to ferret out a group of Confederate guerillas. As they marched on March 10, "Negroes, with all the goods they could collect, left ‘ole massa’ to come with us; sometimes in whole families, with the ‘picaninnies’ strapped to their backs, and most of the captured ox-carts were given to the women and children to ride in." [15] When they "passed the plantation of Judge Donald" on March 11, many of his 400 slaves followed them. [16] They returned to New Bern on March 14. [17]

If Moore’s family was not near the raided area, they certainly would have learned about it, and asked for the same kind of deliverance.

End Notes
1. Ray Credle. "From Hyde County To Pamlico County." Ancestry website. "The Thomas Family Moved" page.

2. Credle. "Descendants of Young Thomas" page.

3. J. Kelly Turner and Jno. L. Bridgers, Jr. History of Edgecombe County, North Carolina. Raleigh: Edwards and Broughton Printing Company, 1920. 160.

4. Credle, Descendants.
5. Turner. Chapter 12. "Baptists."
6. Credle. "Churches" page.

7. Credle. "Family Stories 2" page. His source was an "interesting letter about her that was received by The New Bernian Newpaper from a prominent Stonewall business man."

8. Sonny William Smith. "In Search Of Rodger 1710-2004." Genealogy website. 28 July 2004. Page 6.

9. Clifton McCotter’s line of descent: Hezekiah > Archibald > Burney > Benjamin Franklin > John Lawrence > Clifton. [18] He was one of Julian Boyd’s students.

10. Smith. Page 6.
11. Charles Crossfield Ware. Pamlico Profile. New Bern: Owen G. Dunn Company, 1961. 25.

12. Smith. Page 6. The great-granddaughter was Indiana Jones. Her sister, Ann Marie, was Smith’s mother.

13. Smith. Page 30.
14. Turner. 178.

15. John A. Reed. Diary entry, 10 March 1863. History of the 101st PA Veteran Volunteer Infantry. Chicago: L. S. Dickey and Company, 1910. 69. He was a private. Kay Midgett Sheppard brought this to my attention. [19] Ed Boots of the Civil War Plymouth Pilgrims Descendants Society provided her with a copy.

16. Reed. Diary entry, 11 March 1863. 69.
17. Reed. Diary entry, 14 March 1863. 69.

18. Information on the various McCotters is from Ancestry, Find a Grave, My Heritage, NC Gen, and Wiki Tree websites. Some more detail on Clifton appeared in the post for 6 February 2019.

19. Kay Midgett Sheppard. "Hyde County." NC Gen Web website. Last updated 29 June 2019.

Pamlico County Religion - Antebellum

Topic: Early Versions - Performers
Belief in contact with the spirit as the central religious experience always has created problems for Protestant Reformers who find many manifestations disturbing. As soon as the Anabaptists emerged around Zürich, Johannes Kessler described Margaret Hottinger. She

"undertook to speak of things that nobody could understand, as it she were so deeply raised up in God that nobody could comprehend her speech."

He added

"many of her followers declared that whoever speaks the most or can do the most unusual which nobody can comprehend or evaluate, those were held to be the most devout and most immersed in God." [1]

A Benedictine convert responded by formulating a confession that condemned those who "practice and observe the freedom of the Spirit and of Christ." [2] Michael Sattler created a congregational church structure, rather than one based on experience, and excluded women from leadership positions. [3]

In Scotland, Protestants held four-day sacramental communions that began with fasting on Thursday and ended with a thanksgiving sermon on Monday. [4] Sermons sometimes resulted in ecstatic experiences in the forms of dreams, visions, and unseen voices. Ministers did not condemn them, but selectively included references to them in their official accounts lest they attract the attention of hostile authorities. [5]

Both the Swiss and Scots treated contact with the spirit world as normal and desirable. Those affected by Calvinism treated such events as techniques to frighten individuals into conformity in the way described by Elnathan Davis in the post for 19 January 2020. Once converted, individuals had no desire to repeat the experience.

Eleazar Wheelock adopted George Whitefield’s methods after hearing him preach in 1740 in New England. He soon reported "between 30 or 40 I hope were converted while I was in town and many hundreds I believe were under concern." [6]

Other ministers began telling Wheelock that their sermons "were normally accompanied by shrieks, cries, and other disturbances of those converted." [7] John Lee wrote him

"Parsons had preached to 100 congregants, and ‘a great number cried out with such anguish as I never See it.’ Many were ‘greatly wounded,’ and ‘11 or 12 persons fainted or nearly fainted’." [8]

Soon Wheelock’s brother-in-law was more affected than his audience. James Davenport wrote him "‘the difficulties of the work (of revival) are great’ and described a sermon in which ‘the Lord opened my mouth so that I scarcely knew how to shut it’." [9] He soon was claiming "special revelations from God." [10]

John Fea observed this introduction of divine inspiration created problems for his fellow clergymen "who rested their entire system of religious understanding and knowledge of God’s will on the Scriptural text." [11] They debated if he was "non compos mentis" or if he was "deluded and possessed with the Spirit of Satan." [12] Davenport recanted, and the Puritan ministers continued their old ways.

The problem arose again at Cane Ridge, Kentucky, in 1801 where people trembled and shouted. Warren Barton Stone recalled:

"Many, very many fell down, as men slain in battle, and continued for hours together in an apparently breathless and motionless state—sometimes for a few moments reviving, and exhibiting symptoms of life by a deep groan, or piercing shriek, or by a prayer for mercy most fervently uttered. After lying thus for hours, they obtained deliverance. The gloomy cloud, which had covered their faces, seemed gradually and visibly to disappear, and hope in smiles brightened into joy—they would rise shouting deliverance, and then would address the surrounding multitude in language truly eloquent and impressive." [13]

Presbyterians, who had sponsored the revival, condemned the results. Alexander Campbell accepted the revival’s methods, but distrusted those "drawn more by passion than by faith" and added

"We are generally suspicious of universal propositions depending upon one man’s reason or observation; and therefore, while we have always regarded many of those who come forward under such popular excitements as unfit for immersion." [14]

Like the Particular Baptists, Campbell’s followers in the Disciples of Christ felt it their duty to extirpate any rituals that treated contact with the spirits as anything other than terrifying. They converted a minister in a surviving Free Will Baptist church in Beaufort County, North Carolina. In 1844, Henry Smith then reorganized churches in Broad Creek, [15] Florence, [16] and Bay Creek. [17]

Not all were willing to accept the change. Jacob Utley tried to stop Smith in Broad Creek [18] and Florence. [19] The second faded away when Smith grew too old to pastor it. After 1858, "‘by non-attendance and negligence the church became and now is in a deplorable condition.’ Some had united with other churches and some had ‘made shipwreck of the faith’ and had ‘again turned back to the world by following the desire of the flesh’." [20]

The other Disciples’ churches survived. Enoch Holton was the elder at Upper Broad Creek. [21] The first person buried was the infant, Mary Eliza Holton, in 1845. [22] He was bondsman for the marriage of Carlos Holton’s grandparents. [23] The church was located in Olympia, west of Grantsville on the road between Alliance and New Bern.

The Bay Creek Church was located at Bethany Crossroads, now Arapahoe. The Disciples merged with Stone’s followers in 1832 to become the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). [24] However, the Campbellites maintained their identity for decades, but since have accepted the official name. What is now the Bethany Christian Church hosted the memorial service for Clifton McCotter’s sister in 2009. [25]

In 1852, the Disciples felt confident no Free Will Baptist churches survived, and that the few remaining Free Will Baptist "aberrations" in ritual "gradually disappeared" from the absorbed churches. [26]

Despite the power of the Disciples, some Free Will Baptist churches did persist in Pamlico County, North Carolina. The oldest identifiable burial [27] in the Goose Creek graveyard was Silas Miller, who died in 1850. [28] This was where Minnie Lee [29] and Ludie Parsons [30] were interred.

Free Will Baptists may have had a new appeal during the stresses of the Civil War. The oldest memorial in the Rock of Zion cemetery was for a Confederate soldier who died in 1862. [31] This Grantsville church provided the burial ground for two of Julian Boyd’s students, Frederick Liverman [32] and Duval Scott. [33] Other last names of his students found on tombstones were Banks, Bennett, Dixon, and Tingle.

All the other cemeteries in Pamlico County indexed by Find a Grave with antebellum dates were family plots, including Brinson-Bennett (1835), Alonzo Holton (1839), Cornelius Dixon (1842), and Rawls (1862). The first was in Grantsboro, the next two in Olympia, and the last in Arapahoe. [34]

End Notes
1. Johannes Kessler. Sabbata. Quoted by C. Arnold Snyder. "Margaret Hottinger of Zolliken." 43-53 in Profiles of Anabaptist Women. Edited by Snyder and Linda A. Huebert Hecht. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1996. 49. This appears to be an early reference to speaking in tongues. The fact she began dancing while naked contributed to her problems.

2. Schleitheim Confession. Quoted by Snyder. 50.
3. Snyder. 51.
4. Leigh Eric Schmidt. Holy Fairs. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989. 61.
5. Schmidt. 145–152.

6. Eleazar Wheelock. Letter to Daniel Rogers. 18 January 1742. Quoted by John Fea. "Wheelock’s World: Letters and the Communication of Revival in Great Awakening New England." American Antiquarian Society. Proceedings 109:99–144:1999. 128. "Under concern" meant individuals had made an initial commitment to Christ, but had not met all the requirements for acceptance set by the clergy for church membership.

7. Fea. 135.

8. John Lee. Letter to Eleazar Wheelock. East Lyme, Connecticut, 20 April 1741. Quoted by Fea. 111.

9. James Davenport. Letter to Eleazar Wheelock. Southold, New York, 5 October 1740. Quoted by Fea. 119–120.

10. Fea. 120. Davenport finally began burning books and one time cast his pants into the flames. It was after this that he recanted. [35]

11. Fea. 136.

12. Solomon Williams. Letter to Eleazar Wheelock. Lebanon, Connecticut, 1741. Quoted by Fea. 139.

13. Barton Warren Stone. The Biography of Eld. Barton Warren Stone. Cincinnati: American Christian Publication Society, 1853 edition. 34–35.

14. Alexander Campbell. "Re-immersion and Brother Thomas." The Millennial Harbinger 7:56–58:February 1836. 58.

15. Charles Crossfield Ware. North Carolina Disciples of Christ. Saint Louis: Christian Board of Publication, 1927. 265.

16. Ware. 267.
17. Ware. 269.

18. Ware. 266. I could find no local Utleys. He may have been a Free Will Baptist leader who went from church to church to counter the activities of the Disciples.

19. Ware. 267.
20. Ware. 267–268. No source was provided to date the observation.
21. Ware. 265.
22. J.D. Larimore. "Mary Eliza Holton." Find a Grave website. 23 May 2014.
23. J.D. Larimore. “Ada M. Holton Roberts.” Find a Grave website. 31 August 2015.
24. Wikipedia. "Thomas Campbell (Minister)."
25. Mildred McCotter Lee. Obituary. [New Bern] Journal Sun. 5 July 2009.
26. Ware. 85.

27. The problems with dating churches and cemeteries were discussed in the post for 19 January 2020.

28. Avilon Walston. "Silas Miller." Find a Grave website. 31 October 2013.
29. For more on Minnie Lee’s background, see the post for 8 December 2019.

30. John47. "Ludie Price Parsons." Find a Grave website. 4 July 2011. Her relationship to Minnie Lee was discussed in the post for 8 December 2019.

31. Bernd Doss. "Corp David L. Banks." Find a Grave website. 9 September 2010.
32. Bernd Doss. "Benjamin Frederick Liverman." Find a Grave website. 4 September 2010.
33. Bernd Doss. "W. Duval Scott." Find a Grave website. 6 September 2010.

34. Amity Christian Church in Grantsboro has a marker for an infant who died in 1832, [36] before the Disciples had much influence. There are graves through the 1920s for a few families that suggest it was then a family plot, which later was next to land provided to the church. As mentioned in the post for 6 February 2019, this was what happened in Alliance where the original McCotter cemetery was located next to the more recent United Methodist Church and became associated with it.

35. Wikipedia. "James Davenport (Clergyman)."
36. John47. "Baby Barrington." Find a Grave website. 25 June 2011.

Pamlico County Religion - Early Years

Topic: Early Versions - Performers
Settlement in Pamlico County, North Carolina, was dictated by geography. Only about 15% of the land was drained enough to support agriculture in 1930, and that was done with manmade ditches. [1]

The Minnesott Ridge, used by the north-south road at the center right on the map below, was the remains of an ancient sea shore. Land sloped eastward from 30' to 20' to an escarpment, that was marked by the north-south road that meandered at the right side of the map. Beyond that break lay wetlands, identified by the green. [2]

Better land lay west of the sand ridge, where three north-south rivers flowed south into the Neuse River. Closest to the western edge of the peninsula was Upper Broad Creek. It extended as far north as New Bern and formed part of the county boundary. Next to it was Goose Creek, and east of that was Beard Creek. The mouth of the last appears on the map.

New Bern was founded on the Neuse in 1710 as a refuge for Anabaptists being expelled by Bern. [3] The site selected by Christopher deGraffenried infringed on lands of the Tuscarora, who killed most of the settlers living between the Neuse and the Pamlico river on the eastern side of the county peninsula. [4] He tried to sustain the community, but incurred debts that allowed a local speculator to foreclose on the land purchased from the Carolina proprietors. [5]

deGraffenried returned to Bern, and his oldest son moved to Virginia. [6] Christopher’s great-grandson, Trezevant deGraffenried, [7] migrated to Sumter County, Alabama. One of his slaves was later interviewed by Ruby Pickens Tartt. [8]

The fate of the New Bern settlers is obscured by the confusing labels applied to Baptists then and now. [9] Swiss Anabaptists did not believe original sin condemned individuals to do evil. They thought people had the will to do both good and bad, and that baptism was a ritual that confirmed they had chosen to follow God. They also believed in the agency of the Holy Spirit. [10]

Free Will Baptists were founded by John Smythe after he met Anabaptists in Amsterdam during the rein of James I. [11] He rejected the formal liturgy of the Anglican church because any use of the Bible, including psalms, was a manmade impediment that quenched the spirit. [12] He focused on gifts from the Holy Spirit that sustained individuals’ relationships with Christ. [13]

Paul Palmer spread Smythe’s ideas in Craven and Beaufort counties. Between 1735 and 1739 he established congregations on Broad Creek, Goose Creek, at Flea Point on the Bay River east of the area shown on the map, and on Greens Creek to the south. He also met with people on Swift Creek [14] about six miles south of modern Vanceboro [15] where Minnie Lee’s family lived in 1910. [16]

The First Great Awakening in Craven County arrived when George Whitefield preached in New Bern in 1739. He claimed his audience was "uncommonly attentive, and most were melted to tears." [17]

The immediate effect was organized hostility toward Free Will Baptists. When Swift Creek requested permission to build a church under the Acts of Toleration in 1740, it not only was refused, but the members were jailed and whipped. Two of the Baptists were John James and Nicholas Purefoy. [18]

Congregants at Flea Point petitioned to build in 1741, but nothing is known about the outcome of their request. Among those who signed the petition were Jonathan West, mentioned in the post for 6 February 2019. Five of the men, including Nicholas Purefoy, had been involved with the Swift Creek request. [19] Purefoy Gut empties into Beard Creek toward the upper left hand corner of the map.

Whitefield returned to New Bern in 1764. The local Anglican minister told him local Methodists rejected infant baptism and accepted the "heretical doctrine of the irresistible influence of the [Holy] spirit." [20] Whitefield responded by preaching against "the ‘rebaptism’ of adults and for the baptism of infants, in order to make it plain that the Baptists did not belong to his flock." [21]

Particular Baptists were aroused by the discovery of Arminians who believed in free will.

Their theology derived from the thinking of John Spilsbury. This Englishman accepted predestination, but argued individuals shouldn’t be baptized until they had heard

"the Word of God ‘which is to fit and prepare the matter for the form.’ The preaching of the Word assaults the pride of man, smooths his ‘hard and rough turbulent’ spirit, aligns his ‘crooked and Serpent-like nature,’ and brings him humbly to embrace the ‘low and mean condition of Christ upon His cross’." [22]

Particular Baptists talked to ministers and enough members of Free Will Baptist churches to gain control of the their buildings and land. [23] Less than 5% of the members would accept original sin and repent of their sins. [24] They were not deemed to be part of the Elect, and thus not genuine Baptists.

Separate Baptists emerged in New England as a response to Whitefield. Shubal Stearns moved to Sandy River, North Carolina, in 1755 [25] where he preached

"that to be saved one must be born again; that no regular and prolonged course of instruction was necessary to bring one into acceptance with God, but only repentance and faith; that to as many as received Him to them gave He power to become the sons of God; that this was brought

about by the irresistible influence of the Holy Spirit; that the one saved had immediate revelation of it in his soul." [26]

Elnathan Davis recalled there was "a trembling and crying spirit among" his listeners. He, himself, "had not been long there before the trembling seized him also; he attempted to withdraw; but his strength failing and his understanding confounded he, with many other, sunk to the ground. When he came to himself he found nothing in him but dread & anxiety, bordering on horror. He continued in this situation some days, and then found relief by faith in Christ." [27]

After the American Revolution, Free Will Baptists congregations in Swift Creek and Goose Creek, which had been taken over the Particular Baptists, affiliated with the Sandy River Association in 1784. [28] However, the Particular Baptists had already absorbed them. [29]

End Notes
1. John T. Miller and Arthur E. Taylor. United States Department of Agriculture. Bureau of Chemistry and Soils. Soil Survey of Pamlico County, North Carolina. Washington: Government Printing Office, August 1937. 2.

2. Roy A. Goodwin, Jr. United States Department of Agriculture. Soil Conservation Service. Soil Survey of Pamlico County, North Carolina. Washington: Government Printing Office, August 1987. 1. The highway is Route 306.

3. Christian Neff. "Bern (Switzerland)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 1955.

4. A. T. Dill. "Graffenried, Christoph, Baron Von." NC Pedia website. 1986.

5. Donald E. Collins. "Swiss and Palatine Settlers." NC Pedia website. 2006. Thomas Pollack was acting governor of Virginia, and using his contacts to amass large tracts of land. [30]

6. Thomas P. deGraffenried. History of the deGraffenried Family. New York: Thomas P. deGraffenried, 1925. 149.

7. Thomas deGraffenried. 253–255.
8. Oliver Bell was discussed in the posts for 15 September 2019 and 22 September 2019.

9. Collins simply said they "intermarried with residents of other nationalities, and the Swiss-German community blended into the population at large. Their family names, however-including Metz (Metts), Kernegee (Kornegay), Eibach (Ipock), Mueller (Miller), and Kuntz (Koonce)-are still prominent in eastern North Carolina." [31] Christoper deGraffenried noted that while some were pious, many who came to New Bern were the dregs of society who were selected by authorities eager to be rid of them. [32]

10. Tammy Graham. "Free Will from Luther to the Brethren." The Hanover Historical Review Spring 1995. She wrote, the Swiss theologian, Hubmaier Balthasar, "asserted that the soul, ‘awakened by the Word of God’ and ‘enlightened through the Holy Spirit,’ can choose between the way of the flesh and the way of the spirit." Her source was his "On Free Will." Reprinted in Spiritual and Anabaptist Writers. Edited by George Hunston Williams. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1957. 124.

11. David Plant. "Anabaptists & Baptists." British Civil Wars Project website.
12. Jason Lee. The Theology of John Smyth. Macon: Mercer University Press, 2003. 55.
13. Lee. 231.

14. George Stevenson. "Palmer, Paul." NC Pedia website. 1994. Palmer may have had a special understanding of the Holy Spirit because he met with the Perquimans Monthly Meeting of Friends between 1719 and 1722. This in turn may have made it easier for him to communicate with descendants of the New Bern Anabaptists.

15. Victor Jones reported experts agreed the Swift Creek church was now Kitts Swamp Christian Church in Ernul, North Carolina. [33] Disciples of Christ merged with Barton T. Stone’s Christian Church in 1832. While the official name is Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), many use just one designation or the other, without signifying descent from one or the other.

16. For more on Minnie Lee’s background, see the post for 8 December 2019.

17. George Whitefield. Quoted by Bill Hand. "When George Whitefield Came to Town." [New Bern] Sun Journal website. 28 April 2019.

18. George Washington Paschal. History of North Carolina Baptists. Raleigh: The General Board, North Carolina Baptist State Convention, 1930. 1:158, 1:160, 1:187. As mentioned in the post for 8 December 2019, John James Parsons was related to Minnie Lee. The same names may be coincidence, or one of those tantalizing clues to her past that lead to cul-de-sacs.

19. Paschal. 1:198.
20. James Reed. Quoted by Hand.
21. Paschal. 1:313.

22. Wikipedia. "John Spilsbury (Baptist Minister)." It appeared to be quoting Spilsbury’s The Lawfull Subject of Baptisme. London: 1643.

23. Paschal. 1:214.
24. Paschal. 1:212.

25. Morgan Edward. "Notebook on North Carolina Baptist." Reprinted by Pascal, 1:228. Based on the original in "the library of the American Baptist Historical Society, at Chester, Pennsylvania" and a "copy made by by Mr. J. C. Birdsong for the North Carolina State Library." [34]

26. Paschal. 1:308–309.

27. Betty G. Bunce. "Shubal Stearns and Separate Baptist beginnings in North Carolina." 1976. 7. Her source was Morgan Edwards. "Materials Toward a History of the Baptists, 1770-1772." Manuscript in Wake Forest University Library. 26–27.

28. Paschal. 1:317.
29. Paschal. 1:399–400.
30. W. Conard Gass. "Pollock, Thomas." NC Pedia website. 1994.
31. Collins.

32. Christoph de Graffenried. "Relation of My American Project." Translated by Julius Goebel. 74–118 in Thomas deGraffenried. 112.

33. Victor T. Jones, Jr. "Remember the Days of Old: A History of New Haven Church." New Haven Church, Ernul, North Carolina website.

34. Paschal. 1:224.