The Great Dismal Swamp

The Great Dismal Swamp, known by that name since the early eighteenth century, is a forested marshland in southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina. Although it has been shrinking over the centuries, it still covers about 175 square miles. Gazetteers and travel writers often note that it was surveyed in 1763 by George Washington. A vast wilderness, the area once served as a haven for Native Americans avoiding colonists, and as a hiding place for runaway slaves, the theme of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's 1842 poem "The Slave in the Dismal Swamp."[1] At its center is Lake Drummond, sometimes called the Lake of the Dismal Swamp. Writer John Tidwell has described the lake as a place that "feels ancient and dreamlike," where "huge cypresses form prehistoric-looking islands in the black, shallow water."[2] It must have made a similar impression on the Irish poet Thomas Moore. In late 1803, Moore was taken to see the Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond by John Hamilton, the British consul at Norfolk, Virginia, and Moore's host in America. Hamilton told Moore the story he used as the inspiration for a ballad he titled "The Lake of the Dismal Swamp," first published in 1806. Moore's introduction to the ballad reads as follows:

They tell of a young man, who lost his mind upon the death of a girl he loved, and who, suddenly disappearing from his friends, was never afterwards heard of. As he had frequently said, in his ravings, that the girl was not dead, but gone to the Dismal Swamp; it is supposed he had wandered into that dreary wilderness, and had died of hunger, or been lost in some of its dreadful morasses.[3]

According to Howard Mumford Jones, Moore's biographer, the ballad was "greatly admired" by "that sentimental epoch."[4] The poem's popularity in the nineteenth century and the close proximity of the Dismal Swamp to Meta Chestnutt's home in Lenoir County, North Carolina, helps to explain why she would have memorized the poem in her youth.

Notes

[1] William S. Powell, North Carolina Gazetteer: A Dictionary of Tar Heel Places (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1968), 145;  Archie Hobson, ed., Cambridge Gazetteer of the United States and Canada (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 176; Saul B. Cohen, ed., Columbia Gazetteer of the World, ed. Saul B. Cohen (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 1:839. Ridwaana Allen, "Wild Paradise: Hope in the Great Dismal Swamp." Southeastern Geographer 61, no. 1 (Spring 2021): 1-4, reports that in 2021 the swamp covers 112,000 acres, which comes out to approximately 175 square miles. For Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem "The Slave in the Dismal Swamp," see Poems on Slavery, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, MA: John Owen, 1842), 18-20.

[2] John Tidwell, "The Great Dismal Swamp," American Heritage 53, no. 2 (April-May 2002), 68.

[3] Thomas Moore, Epistles, Odes, and Other Poems (Philadelphia: Hugh Maxwell, 1806), 28. For Moore's trip with John Hamilton to the Dismal Swamp and its lake, see Howard Mumford Jones, The Harp That Once--A Chronicle of the Life of Thomas Moore (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1937), 69-70; B. J. Lossing, "Tom Moore in America," Harper's New Monthly Magazine 55 (September 1877), 537-41.

[4] Jones, The Harp That Once, 70.

From North Carolina to Indian Territory

The train traveling west from Greenville, North Carolina, left the station three hours late. But Meta Chestnutt didn't mind. The only thing that mattered to her was that she was going to Indian Territory and the challenges awaiting her there. The conductor eventually made his way to her row.

"What city, Miss?"

"Silver City, Indian Territory."

"I beg your pardon."

"Silver City," she repeated.

"You must be mistaken. There is no such place."

"Oh, but there is and I am going there."

"I will have to let you off at the next stop and you can talk with the station agent."

After looking at his map, the agent repeated what the conductor had said: there was no Silver City, Indian Territory. The best the agent could do was to send Meta some forty miles further west, to Goldsboro, North Carolina. Perhaps the people in the station office there could help her.

The agent at Goldsboro gave her no more help. He suggested that she take the next train to Richmond, Virginia. By that point, Meta was exasperated. She had letters with her, sent by Annie Erwin and postmarked "Silver City, I.T."  She insisted that there was such a place, and that she had to get there. But her only choice was to go to Richmond. Maybe someone there could help her.[1]

Thanks to the nineteenth-century's transportation revolution, by 1889 the United States had been knit together by an ever-expanding network of railroads. From 1850 to 1870, massive investment in railroad construction created a web of tracks totaling 53,000 miles. The first transcontinental railroad was completed in May 1869. By the end of the 1880s, the decade when construction reached a fever pitch, there were 164,000 miles miles of track in operation.[2]

Still, for all of that, no railroad ever reached Silver City, Indian Territory. Meta Chestnutt knew the place was there. But judging from a map of the nation's railroads, it wasn't. She must have felt anxious as she rode the train 165 miles from Goldsboro, North Carolina, to Richmond, Virginia, following the path of today's Interstate-95. If she was ever going to make it to Silver City, she would need to travel south and west. At this point, she was going north and east!

At Richmond, the agent encountered the same problem, but had the presence of mind to ask, "Do you know of any town that might be near where you want to go?" Looking at the map, the only place Meta could suggest was Oklahoma City. So the agent sold her a ticket to Oklahoma City and suggested that she send word to her friends in Indian Territory to pick her up there. She was starting her trip to the west all over again. This time, she was further away.

It would be difficult to trace the exact route that Chestnutt followed from Virginia to Indian Territory. It appears, however, that she eventually traveled west through Missouri and into Kansas before heading south into I.T.

At some point in Kansas, she had a brief encounter she would remember for the rest of her life. A black man boarded the crowded train and looked for an empty seat. He noticed the spot next to Meta and sat down. Immediately, the white woman from North Carolina, born during the Civil War, the grand-daughter of slave owners, reacted. Not once in her life had she been that close to a black man. In fact, the only time she could remember seeing an African-American beside a white person, it was a servant girl sitting next to her white mistress.

Meta concealed her anxiety and disgust as best she could, but her emotions must have shown. Soon, a white man spoke up and asked the black man sitting next to Miss Chestnutt to move and sit next to him instead. With no apparent surprise or indignation, the black man stood up, walked to the seat next to the white man, and sat down.

Telling this story years later, Meta insisted that the black man who sat next to her that day was someone whose photo sometimes appeared in the newspapers: George Washington Carver. When recalling the episode, she would add, "I would be proud to have him sit beside me today."[3]

The available facts support Meta's story. For example, the train that brought her to Oklahoma City in 1889 ran on the Southern Kansas Railway, a subsidiary of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, traveling south out of Kansas.[4] As a young man, George Washington Carver left his home in Diamond, Missouri, and moved to Kansas. For several years until 1890, Carver spent much of his time in Kansas, Missouri, and Iowa "seeking an education while supporting himself doing laundry, cooking, and homesteading."[5]

Notes

[1] Eva Heiliger, "Born to Meet Adversity (and Rise Above It)," 31-32. The unpublished book typescript is located in box 1, folders 6 and 7, Meta Chestnutt Sager Collection, Oklahoma Historical Society, Oklahoma City. The spoken words here do not come from a transcript. Instead, they represent what appears to be Heiliger's imaginative recreation of what could have been said--and might likely have been said--at a certain point in Meta Chestnutt's story. Heiliger was Sager's great niece as well as biographer. As the Meta Chestnutt Sager Collection reveals, the two women corresponded with one another for many years.

In one of his books that contains reported dialogue, William F. Buckley Jr. wrote, "The reader is entitled to ask if the material here is factually reliable. Reliable is the perfect word in this context. The book is not strictly factual, in that conversations are reported which cannot be documented as having taken place word for word. Yet it is reliable in that these words might well have been spoken. There are zero distortions here--no thought is engrafted in anyone that alters the subject's character or inclinations, or even habits of speech." William F. Buckley Jr., Flying High: Remembering Barry Goldwater (Philadelphia: Basic Books, 2008), xi-xii. In the spirit of Buckley's apology I occasionally report dialogue taken from Eva Heiliger's manuscript.

[2] Paul Johnson, A History of the American People (New York: HarperCollins, 1997), 532.

[3] Heiliger, Born to Meet Adversity, 32-34. Chestnutt's emotional reaction in this instance might be compared to a story Melton A. McLaurin tells in his memoir, Separate Pasts: Growing Up White in the Segregated South, 2nd ed. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1998), 27-41. McLaurin's chapter titled "Bobo" is named for a black childhood acquaintance of the McLaurin's. The two boys had gone to a store where they used an air compressor to inflate a leaky basketball. Bobo put the air needle in his mouth first. The first attempt at airing up the basketball didn't work. So McLaurin, without thinking, put the needle in his own mouth. Instantly, he recognized what he had done. For a moment, he imagined that Bobo's blackness was somehow already infecting him. Still, he managed to conceal his distress. Part of his assumed white superiority meant that he could not visibly react. Later, though, he went by himself to an outdoor spigot where he repeatedly rinsed out his mouth.

[4] See Augustus J. Veenendaal, Jr., "Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway," The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=AT001, and Linda D. Wilson, "Oklahoma City," The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=OK025.

[5] Linda O. McMurry, "Carver, George Washington," in American National Biography, ed. John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 4:513.

The Majesty of the Great Plains

"There was nothing but land: not a country at all, but the material out of which countries are made. No, there was nothing but land--slightly undulating, I knew, because often our wheels ground against the brake as we went down into a hollow and lurched up again on the other side. I had the feeling that the world was left behind, that we had got over the edge of it, and were outside man's jurisdiction. I had never looked up at the sky when there was not a familiar mountain ridge against it. But this was the complete dome of heaven, all there was of it."

-- the character named Jim Burden recalls what it was like when, still a boy, he moved from Virginia to the plains of Nebraska in Willa Sibert Cather's novel My Antonia. How great is that?

Source: Willa Sibert Cather, My Antonia (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1918), 8.

Like a Giant among Dwarfs: Robert Sandeman

On April 17, 1771, Ezra Stiles, then pastor of the Second Congregational Church of Newport, Rhode Island, wrote in his diary about something he had recently seen in the newspapers:

that lately died at Danbury in Connecticutt [sic] Mr Robert Sandeman Founder of the Sect of Sandemanians. He came from Scotland into New Engld Autumn 1764. then about aet. 47. as he then told me.

Stiles (portrait below) would go on to serve as President of Yale College from 1778 until his death in 1795. An influential church leader during his day, he met Sandeman when the Scotsman first arrived in America, landing at Boston in 1764. Even before that time, Stiles and several of his fellow Congregationalist pastors had taken a wary interest in Sandeman and the independent Christian group of which he was the leading light.

It's hardly a stretch to say that Stiles, like many other great men, was interested in just about everything. The same was true of his friend Benjamin Franklin. But not everything captured Stiles' attention as did the life and times and demise of Sandeman. From the diary entry for August 5, 1772:

In the Boston print [i.e., newspaper] of 3d Inst. it is said.

"A Monument has been cut in this Town by Mr. Henry Christian Geyer, Stone cutter at the South End, to be sent to Connecticutt: it is executed on the composit Order with twisted Pillars, and the other proper Ornaments, having a Cherub's Head on Wings, and the following Label from his Mouth Rev. xiv 6, 7. --On the Tomb-stone is this Inscription.

Here lies

Until the Resurrection

The Body of

ROBERT SANDEMAN

A Native of Perth, North Britain,
who in the face of continual Opposition
From all Sorts of Men
Long and boldly contended
For the ancient Faith:
That the bare work of JESUS CHRIST,
without a Deed, or Thought, on the part of Man,
Is sufficient to present
The chief of Sinners
Spotless before God:
To declare this blessed Truth

As testified in the holy Scriptures

He left his Country--he left his Friends,

And after much patient Suffering

Finished his Labors

At DANBURY

2d April 1771,

aged 53 years.

Deigned Christ come so nigh to us

As not to count it shame

To call us Brethren--shall we blush

At aught that bears his Name.

Nay let us boast in his Reproach

And glory in his Cross,

When he appears, one smile from him

Shall far o'erpay our Loss."

The April 3, 1826 issue of The Christian Baptist includes an exchange between a semi-anonymous writer and the editor, Alexander Campbell. The initial letter, says Campbell, was written by one of the most worthy bishops in Virginia; whose standing in the learned world obtained for him the honorary degree of D. D. and whose piety and intelligence refused the title as a badge of popery. That, along with the signature R. B. S., leads to the conclusion that the letter's author was none other than Robert B. Semple, a great leader among the Baptists in Virginia at the time.

In his letter, Semple offers a number of compliments to Campbell as a preacher and writer. He also lists a few thoughtful and well-worded criticisms. Campbell then responds to Semple's letter. Among the points that Campbell takes up is the assertion that he is basically a Haldanian or Sandemanian, i.e. that he is a follower of the brothers Robert and James Haldane; or yet another church reformer from Scotland, Robert Sandeman. In his reply, Campbell acknowledges that he has learned from an array of writers, including the likes of the Haldanes and Sandeman, Luther and Calvin and Wesley. But, he adds, I do not believe that any one of them had clear and consistent views of the Christian religion as a whole.

Then, Campbell says more about Sandeman. He explains that many years before he had taken up a special project. He explored the question of rational versus experiential conversion: When a person initially comes to Christ, which is prior, the mind or the heart? Campbell admits that at the beginning of his studies, he was prejudiced against Robert Sandeman, the champion of rational religion. Instead, he had favored James Hervey, whose popular book Dialogues between Theron and Aspasio breathes the warm spirit of the revivalism of his day. Campbell mentions that, with the Bible nearby, he studied many authors, including Hervey, Marshall, Bellamy, Glass, and Cudworth. But as he went along, he discovered Sandeman to be like a giant among dwarfs . . . like Sampson with the gates and posts of Gaza on his shoulders (228).

So who was Robert Sandeman? And why did he so impress the likes of Stiles and Campbell? More to come in future posts.

Rice Haggard, Barton W. Stone, and the Christians of Kentucky

From the mid-1790s until the beginning of the 1800s, Rice Haggard was a preacher and leader among the former Republican Methodists. In August of 1794, the group adopted by name "the Christian Church."

It was likely in 1803 that Haggard made a trip westward from Virginia to Kentucky. One of his reasons for going there was to visit his brother David who, like Rice, had also served as a Methodist preacher. As early as 1791, David Haggard had been assigned to ride the circuit of Lexington, Kentucky. A few years later, he decided to settle in the newly-formed state.

Another of Rice Haggard's reasons for going to Kentucky was to arrange for the purchase of land, which he must have heard about from his brother. According to the records of Cumberland County, in 1798 David Haggard was granted 200 acres of land on the Little Renox Creek. The next year he was granted an additional 300 acres in the same vicinity. [1]

During his trip to see David, Rice Haggard met Barton W. Stone, a leader of the newly-formed Springfield Presbytery. The relationship between these two men, as well as the relationship between the former Republican Methodists in Virginia and the Christians in Kentucky, is not well known for the most part.

However, we do have the record of Joseph Thomas, known by his distinctive outfit and called by many in his day "the White Pilgrim." Thomas, a Kentucky preacher of the early 1800s, gives us some important first-hand information. Recounting the actions of Stone and the Springfield Presbytery in the early months of 1804, Thomas writes:

About this time R. Haggard, a minister of the christian church in Virginia, heard of them. At that time he found them a wise, candid people, enquiring after the plain simple truth as it was laid down in the scriptures. And at a great meeting held by them at Bethel he proposed to them publicly the name by which they should distinguish themselves as the followers of Christ. -- "And the disciples were first called Christians at Antioch."-- "And that the scriptures were all sufficient to govern the church of Christ, and that any other written rules or laws were spurious and only calculated to separate and keep apart the lambs of Christ." They then saw that the day of the redeemed had come, and that the day star, with all the shining beams of truth had shined into their hearts. With great joy and thankfulness they received this name, as being sent down from heaven for them to be called by. I will observe that in the time of the interview of R. Haggard with these people, I am induced to think that he received a greater and more perfect understanding of some of the doctrine of the gospel than he ever before received. . . .

Not long after this, at a memorable meeting, held at Cane Ridge in 1804, the Springfield Presbytery dissolved their body by a mutual and unanimous consent. [2]

Here, Thomas confirms for us two important facts about the Springfield Presbytery. First, Rice Haggard's counsel at the meeting at Bethel in April 1804 led to their adoption of the name Christian. Second, Haggard's influence among the Presbytery contributed to its eventual demise. It was no mere coincidence that the Bethel meeting took place in April and that the breakup came two months later on June 28th. In fact, the words of Stone himself relate that Haggard directly influenced him and his colleagues:

Under the name of the Springfield Presbytery we went forward preaching, and constituting churches; but we had not worn our name more than one year before we saw it savored of a party spirit. With the man-made creeds we threw it overboard, and took the name Christian--the name given to the disciples by divine appointment first at Antioch. We published a pamphlet on this name, written by Elder Rice Haggard, who had lately united with us. Having divested ourselves of all party creeds, and party names, and trusting alone in God, and the word of his grace, we became a byword and laughing stock to the sects around. Yet from this period I date the commencement of that reformation, which has progressed to this day. [3]

Notice how Stone acknowledges the leadership of Haggard in that "reformation" with which Stone was associated.

Finally, the place of Haggard as a leader among the Kentucky Christians--not only in his suggestion of the name Christian, but also in more-general teaching--is confirmed for us by the remarks of Robert L. Davidson, a historian of the Presbyterian Church, who sarcastically wrote:

Filled with the pleasing dream of an approaching universal kingdom which was to embrace the whole earth, they proposed to establish a grand communion, which should agree to united upon the simplest fundamental principles according to a plan drawn up by Rice Haggard, such as worshiping one God, acknowledging Jesus Christ as the Saviour, taking the Bible for the sole confession of faith and organizing on the New Testament model. To this union, all disciples of Christ, they gave the name "The Christian Church" and would recognize no sectarian appellation. Their views were communicated to the world in the promised "Observations of Church Government" and An Address to the Different Religious Societies on the Sacred Import of the Christian Name. [4]

That Davidson knew of what he spoke is verified by a comparison of his description of the "plan drawn up by Rice Haggard" to what Haggard actually published in his pamphlet in 1804.

Of course, no one doubts that the leading personality among the Kentucky Christians was Barton W. Stone. But what hasn't always been recognized is that, in 1804, when Stone and his brethren were searching for answers, the veteran reformer Rice Haggard offered biblical counsel and timely suggestions. Indeed, it is said by Davidson that it was the plan drawn up by Haggard which was approved and adopted by the Springfield Presbytery.

Considering that description, a person has to wonder how the Stone Movement might have been different had it not been for the timely influence of Rice Haggard.
___________________

[1] For more about this, see the outstanding article by R. L. Roberts, "Rice Haggard (1769-1819) 'A Name Rever'd'," Discipliana 54 (Fall 1994), pp. 67-81.

[2] Joseph Thomas, The Travels and Gospel Labors of Joseph Thomas (Winchester, VA: J. Foster, 1812), p. 26.

[3] Barton W. Stone, Biography of Eld. Barton Warren Stone (Cincinnati: J. A. and U. P. James, 1847), p. 50.

[4] Robert L. Davidson, History of the Presbyterian Church in the State of Kentucky (New York: R. Carter, 1847), p. 198.

Rice Haggard Among the Methodists

The beginning of the Rice Haggard story takes us back at least as far as December 1784, when the Christmas Conference of the Wesleyan Societies in America was held in Baltimore. At that conference Thomas Coke, who had been sent to America by John Wesley (pictured here), ordained Francis Asbury. Then, both Coke and Asbury were elected general superintendents in America, and the Methodist Episcopal Church began. In the last paragraph of his letter to the conference, John Wesley said:

As our American brethren are now totally disentangled both from the State and from the English hierarchy, we dare not entangle them again either with one or the other. They are now at full liberty simply to follow the Scriptures and the primitive church. And we judge it best that they should stand fast in liberty wherewith God has so strangely made them free. [1]

The words of Wesley electrified the conference, especially those freedom-loving preachers among the Methodists like James O'Kelly who would later write:

We perceived the counsel in the circular letter to be good; because we were directed to follow the Scripture and the primitive church; and to stand fast in our liberties, seeing we were free from the power of kings and bishops. [2]

But such liberty within the newly-formed church would soon be lost. Not long after the Methodists became an independent group, Francis Asbury emphasized the monarchical aspect of their church government (as opposed to the democratic aspect), and set out to seize control. In defense of Asbury it might be argued that he had been sent by Wesley with some measure of authority. Yet these later actions were a step beyond what Wesley himself had in mind. Sometime later, he sent a rebuke to Asbury, the self-proclaimed bishop:

How can you, how dare you suffer yourself to be called bishop? I shudder, I start, at the very thought. Men may call me a knave, a rascal, a scoundrel, and I am content; but they shall never, by my consent call me a bishop. For my sake, for God's sake, put a full end to this. [3]

History bears the sad testimony that Francis Asbury rejected Wesley's appeal.

It was during this period that Rice Haggard converted to Methodism in 1787, then only eighteen years old. Two years later, he delivered his first sermon. A year after that, in 1790, he received an assignment to ride the Bedford circuit in Virginia. In 1791, he was ordained by Francis Asbury and rode the Cumberland circuit; in 1792, the Micklenburg circuit. [4]

Rice Haggard worked hard and made a good bit of progress among the Methodists. So it was natural for him to attend their Baltimore conference of November 1792. By that time, Francis Asbury had made great strides in his quest to control the church. But there was among the Methodists a group who believed that Asbury had stepped over the line, and they wanted to be controlled by no one but God.

At issue in 1792 was the right of a Methodist minister to reject the assignment given to him by Bishop Asbury. Though that was the particular point, men like James O'Kelly believed that there was a much larger question at stake. Would they be free to follow the Word of God, or would their first allegiance be to a man? During the sessions of debate, Rice Haggard looked on as James O'Kelly, brimful of passion, took a New Testament in hand and said,

Brethren hearken unto me, and put away all other books, and forms and let this be the only criterion and that will satisfy me. [5]

But soon the conference turned not on the authority of the Scriptures, but on the question of Asbury's character. This was a natural move for the Methodists. Their short history had been the story of the leadership of Wesley. It seems that their implicit reasoning went as follows: If, on the other side of the Atlantic, the Methodists had entrusted themselves to the benevolent rule of John Wesley, then why couldn't they do the same in America under Francis Asbury? With that question on the table, an elder stood up and asked,

[W]here is the man that will say [that Francis Asbury] ever injured a preacher?

After the question was repeated, a young man whose name was Rice, assured the conference that he had known two preachers who were injured by Asbury. Later, Haggard said, I am the man he has injured. After the right of appeal was rejected by the council, Rice Haggard walked out of the Baltimore Conference along with James O'Kelly and others. [6]

Nine months later, on August 2, 1793, O'Kelly and his colleages met at Piney Grove in Chesterfield County, Virginia, and sent a letter to Asbury. They requested a meeting at which everyone could examine the existing form of church government in the light of the Scriptures. On Christmas Day of that year, the O'Kelly group convened at Manakin Town to receive Asbury's reply. It read:

I have no power to call such a meeting as you wish, therefore if 500 preachers would come on their knees before me I would not do it. [7]

It seemed that Asbury assumed the power to make binding appointments, but had no such power to call a meeting to discuss the policy! It was then that O'Kelly, Haggard, and like-minded leaders saw no other option but to separate entirely from the Methodists and form another religious group which they called the Republican Methodist Church.

By 1801, they had not only adopted the name Christian for themselves as individuals, but had come to call the new body the Christian Church. [8] Interestingly enough, besides James O'Kelly, the only dissenter among the former Methodist preachers to stay the course was Rice Haggard.
______________

Notes:

[1] As quoted in Colby D. Hall, Rice Haggard: The American Frontier Evangelist Who Revived the Name Christian (Fort Worth, TX: University Christian Church, 1957), p. 24.

[2] Hall, Rice Haggard, p. 24.

[3] Hall, Rice Haggard, p. 24.

[4] Hall, Rice Haggard, p. 23. See also R. L. Roberts, "Rice Haggard(1769-1819) 'A Name Rever'd'," Discipliana 54 (Fall 1994), pp. 68-69.

[5] Roberts, "Rice Haggard," p. 69.

[6] Roberts, "Rice Haggard," p. 69.

[7] Roberts, "Rice Haggard," p. 69.

[8] Earl I. West, Search for the Ancient Order, vol. 1, reprint ed. (Germantown, TN: Religious Book Service, 1990), p. 10.

Remembering Rice Haggard

On Monday, August 4th, 1794, a group of about thirty preachers met at the Old Lebanon Church near Surrey, Virginia. There just a few miles from the James River they searched together for truth.

The first and most important question before them was, "What should we call ourselves? By what name should we be known to the world?" Less than a year had passed since the group had adopted the name Republican (meaning "free" or "independent") Methodists. But standing by their commitment to the authority of the Scriptures, they searched for a name that was biblically approved. In the course of their meeting, they considered and debated several resolutions. Finally, a young man named Rice Haggard stood up with a copy of the New Testament in his hand and said:

Brethren, this is a sufficient rule of faith and practice, and by it we are told that the disciples were called Christians, and I move that henceforth and forever the followers of Christ be known as Christians simply.

The conference unanimously adopted the proposal, and from that time on they wore no other name. [1]


Most of the standard textbooks on Restoration history associate Rice Haggard with the Republican Methodists and their leading figure, James O'Kelly. And it is the story just told for which Haggard's name has barely been remembered. [2]

But the larger picture of Haggard's life and influence have all but been forgotten. Few people recognize his name. Even fewer recognize that of the three earliest attempts to return to primitive Christianity on American soil, he alone exerted a direct influence on each one. More than two centuries later, it's time we rediscovered this giant of faith to whom we owe so much.

More next time. . . .

Notes:
[1] Wilbur E. MacClenney, The Life of Rev. James O'Kelly (Raleigh: Edwards and Broughton, 1910), pp. 115-16.

[2] See, for example, Earl I. West, The Search for the Ancient Order, vol. 1, reprint ed. (Germantown, TN: Religious Book Service, 1990), p. 10, and Everett Ferguson, Church History, Reformation and Modern, 2nd ed. (Abilene, TX: Biblical Research Press, 1967), p. 68.
___________________

The historical markers pictured above are located along Virginia Route 10 (also known as Colonial Trail West) near present-day Surrey, Virginia in Surrey County. Click for map.

Also, you can click on the lower photo in this post to get a better look at the text on the monument. I took these photos in the summer of 1998.

This post and the ones to follow about Haggard are an updated version of my article, "Rice Haggard: Unsung Hero of the Restoration," Gospel Advocate (March 1997), pp. 26-31.