Recollections of an old man: seventy years in Dixie 1827-1897

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RECOLLECTIONS OF AN OLD MAN
SEVENTY TEARS IN DIXIE

1827-1897

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RECOLLECTIONS

OF AN OLD MAN

Seventy Years in Dixie

1827-1897

BY

D. SULLINS

v

CLEVELAND

TENN.

SECOND EDITION

1910

THE KING PRINTING COMPANY

LXKOI PREIS

BRISTOL, TENNESSEE

B >C 6

S *

INTRODUCTION

HOUGH not an old man, my
memory goes back for somewhat
more than half a century. The
things that happened then are
as clear in my mind as if they
took place only yesterday.

In 1854-55, or thereabouts, Brother Sullins
— they did not call any preacher Doctor,
except Sam'l Patton, those days — was station
preacher in my native town of Jonesboro.
How distinctly he stands out before me as he
then was: six feet and over tall, with a great
shock of coal black hair on his head, blue-grey
eyes that kindled when he talked to you, and a
voice that could be as caressing as a mother's
and as martial as a general's on the field of
battle.

My mother was a Methodist of the old
pattern, and Brother Sullins was often in the
home. Two of my sisters went to school to
him and loved him dearly. In social life he
was a charmer, often breaking out into

*

42527'

Introduction

mirthful stories. Now and then he did not
hesitate to play the boy. But for the scruples
of his flock, I am sure he would have been
glad on the frosty October mornings to
follow the hounds after a fox; for the breath
of the country was in his nostrils.

He was even then a wonderful preacher;
at least there was one little boy in his con-
gregation that thought so. But I loved best
to hear him exhort and sing. Once in the
midst of a great revival, he came down out of
the pulpit, his arms outstretched, the tears
streaming from his eyes, and walked up and
down the aisles, beseeching his hearers to
accept Christ. There was nothing studied
in it, and the spontaneity of it thrilled me.
I wonder if he dreamed how much he was
stirring my childish heart. And how he
could sing! There were no choirs in those
days, and he did not need one, as he was
entirely competent to "set and carry" any
tune. Now and then he would sing a solo
before the morning service, usually one of the
great old Methodist hymns; but occasionally
something new.

When he went away, everybody was sorry;

Introduction

the whole town was devoted to him. It was
a long, long time ago! One whole generation
has since passed into eternity, and a large part
of another. But in the providence of God,
Brother Sullins — now and for many years
Doctor Sullins — still lingers with us; the
old man eloquent of the Holston Conference,
every man's friend and the friend of every
man. More than four score years have
passed over his head. He has been preacher,
teacher, soldier.

A few years ago, at the urgent request of
many friends, he began to write some remi-
niscences of his early life for publication in
The Midland Methcdtst. He will not be
offended when I say that even those who
knew him best were surprised at the facility
with which he used his pen. They had
recognized him as an almost incomparable
orator, but that very fact had perhaps blinded
them to his other gifts. Anyhow the reminis-
cences were eagerly read, with a constant
demand for more. Ever since the series
ended there has been a succession of inquiries
as to whether they would not be put into a
book.

Introduction

And here they are! From New River to
Lookout Mountain, they will be read again
and again, often with tears and sometimes
with laughter. I take great pleasure in
introducing them to the general public. The
man who wrote these papers ought to have
written more.

itju^?,

Nashville, Tenn.,

February 14th, 1910.

PREFACE.

FTER what Bishop Hoss has
said in the introduction to these
Recollections, and Dr. Burrow,
who was editor of The Midland
Methodist while they were pass-
ing through its columns, said, it is not necessary
to explain further, the why, and the how,
of this little book. It will be seen also that
the first chapter is largely prefatory. Only
this I will say, that but for the repeated re-
quests of Dr. Burrow and other friends,
for some reminiscences, they would never
have been begun, and but for encouragement,
after the first few chapters had appeared, they
would never have been continued. Their
appearance in this book form, is in compliance
with a request of the Holston Conference in
annual session. So I say Brethren, I am
not so much publishing a book as that I am
publishing my obedience to your wish.

Dr. Burrow and the Conference are
responsible for the gathering up and preserving
of this "basket of fragments. "

Cleveland, Tenn.,

February, 1910.

JJ.0laJ^U^^'

CONTENTS

I. Biographical .

II. Early History

III. Our Family Altar .

IV. Camp Meetings

V. Camp Meetings — Cont'd

VI. The Simple Life .

VII. Our Country Life

VIII. Love Feasts and Class
Meetings

IX. Early School Days

X. Early Days at Emory

XL When and Where

Licensed

XII. A Memorable Day .

XIII. Interesting Incidents

XIV. Cherokee Preachers
XV. Death of James H. Card-
well ....

XVI. My Third Appointment

XVII. Revival in School

XVIII. Marriage .

XIX. Year at Chattanooga

XX. Great Revival

XXL Chattanooga Revival
— Continued

X2ll. Year 1858-59 .

XXIII. Days of Secession .

18

25

3i
40

56

65

I3
82

92
100
108
119

127

134
142
149

I5fJ
107

J74
183
192

11

Contents

XXIV.

XXV.

XXVI.

XXVII.

XXVIII.

XXIX.

XXX.

XXXI.

XXXII.

XXXIII.

XXXIV.
XXXV.

XXXVI.
XXXVII.

XXXVIII.
XXXIX.

XL.

XLI.

XLII.

XLIII.

XLIV.

Nineteenth Tennessee
Regiment

Commissioned Quarter-
master

Still at Shiloh

Shooting a Deserter

Camp at Tangipahoa

At Knoxville

Refugees .

Wytheville Raid .

Refugees on Cripple
Creek

Camp Meeting at Old
Asbury

Camp Meeting Incident 303

Dr. Kennedy's Expe-
rience

War Over .

To Wytheville After
The War

Pioneers of Bristol

At Emory and Henry
College .

At Emory and Henry
College — Cont'd .

History of Centenary

Still at Centenary

Money and Money-
Making 404

Final Words . . • . 414

200

212
221
231

242
252

262
273

284
294

312
322

332
343

355

367
377
391

12

BIOGRAPHICAL

\mwm

OD willing, I will furnish some
brief chapters for our Midland,
made up of the recollections
of a lifetime. This I do at
the request of the Editor, and
of friends. To go back along the way I
have come will be for the most part pleasant
enough; for only now and then we shall
pass places where I cried when first there,
and, thank God! these are few and far be-
tween ; while long stretches of sunshine,
barely flecked with shadows, make up the rest
of the way. My purpose is to write recollec-
tions of the times in which I have lived, and of
some of the men and women I have known
personally, and preach a little as I go along.
I can hardly suppose that my individual
career by itself would interest the reading
public; but interwoven with the men and
times of the last eighty years, it may become
worth reading. I always want to know who
is talking, as well as what he is talking about.

13

Recollections of An Old Man

So I hope it will not be set down to my vanity
if in this opening chapter I introduce myself
by a little autobiography and some family
traditions and ancestral history.

I was born two miles west of Athens,
McMinn County, Tenn., in July, 1827. And
I was well born. That is, I was born of well
developed, healthy, sensible, religious parents,
and on a, farm. All of which is much in my
favor, but nothing to my credit. And here I
begin thus early to thank God. First, that
I was born at all, and then that I was not
born cross-eyed nor club-footed nor deaf nor
blind nor of cranky, irreligious parents. That
last clause is a climax. I fear that we stalwart
men and graceful women, each with five good
senses, a sound body, and lithe limbs, do not
sufficiently appreciate the parental care.

My ancestors were Scotch-Irish. I re-
member while yet a boy to have heard my
father tell that somewhere about 1750 his
father and two brothers, came from "the
old country" to America. These brothers
were Scotch-Irish, and all unmarried. They
separated after they arrived in this country.
One stopped in Pennsylvania, and married
there; one went to North Carolina, married,

14

Seventy Years in Dixie

and located near Guilford Courthouse; the
third came to Virginia, married a Miss Mays
in Halifax County, and settled on Dan River.
This was my grandfather. Here my father
was born. When he was twelve years old,
his father came, among the first pioneers,
to Tennessee, and settled on Poplar Creek,
in Knox (now Roane) County, near Oliver
Springs, in 1795. Here my father grew up to
manhood in the wilderness of the new country.
He had one brother (Joseph) and three
sisters. These sisters married Dr. William
Farmer, Joseph Stubblefield and William
Gent. Some of the descendants of these
families are still here in East Tennessee.
Rev. Joseph A. Stubblefield, D. D., who for
many years was President of Centenary
Female College, is the grandson of the Stubble-
field who married my paternal aunt.

There were no schools in those days,
save an occasional "subscription school/ '
kept in the winter. Father told us that he
attended one of these and learned to spell a
little. This, he said, was all the schooling he
ever got. When he was twenty-one he married
my mother, Miss Rebecca Mitchell, daughter
of Rev. Morris Mitchell, a pioneer local

IS

Recollections of An Old Man

preacher of the Methodist Church. I think
he was of Irish descent. His wife was proba-
bly German. They lived on the south side
of the Holston River, two miles above Lenoir's
Ferry, now Lenoir City. The river was
called Holston then as far down as the mouth
of the Little Tennessee River. There it
took the name of Tennessee. The Little
Tennessee was the northern boundary of
what was known as the Cherokee Hunting
Ground. When father married, he rented
the ferry and the island at the mouth of the
Little Tennessee, built a cabin close by,
and brought mother there. So there was only
the small river between them and the Indians.
Along on their side of the river the Indians
had many little towns — Coyalee, Tomotlee,
Choitee, Tellico, and some others — and close
by was the ill-fated Fort Loudon, of sad
history. Here in father's cabin were born
seven of my brothers and sisters; there were
thirteen of us, all told — a good, honest
family, you see.

My mother was the youngest of a large
family of brothers and sisters. My father
married her when she was sixteen years old.
He was not religious then, but mother was.

16

Seventy Years in Dixie

In those days the preachers used to call on the
women sometimes to lead in prayer. My
mother was known as the "praying young
woman on the south side of the river/' O,
how I have heard her pray a whole camp
meeting onto its feet! "And there was the
sound of going in the mulberry trees." It
was said at her funeral that "her father, four
brothers, two sons, and eleven nephews were
Methodist preachers." It was in the blood
of that old pioneer local preacher and his
blessed old wife, and it had come down through
their children and children's children for four
generations; and if there has ever been a pauper
or a "jail bird" among them, I have never
heard of it. This is our family testimony
for the truth of God's promise of "mercy
unto children and children's children to such
as fear him." Who hath ears to hear, let him
hear.

l7

II

EARLY HISTORY

N the other side of the river
from Grandfather Mitchell's,
and a little above, lived John
Winton, the father of a large
and influential family often men-
tioned in the journal of Bishop Asbury. Two
of his sons, William and James, married sisters
of my mother, and John McClure married
another. Soon after this, grandfather, together
with most of his family, moved to Missouri and
located near Springfield. Here and hereabouts
the Mitchells and Wintons and McClures
gathered somewhere in the thirties. Missouri
was called the "Far West" then. I recollect that
my father paid fifty cents postage on letters
sent them, and this recalls a remark in one of
grandfather's letters to mother. He was a
very fat man — so fat that he could not tic
his own shoes — and, wanting mother to know
that he was doing well in the Far West,
said: "Rebecca, I am as fat as a buck, but
cannot jump quite so high." This made us

18

Seventy Years in Dixie

children laugh. Missouri Methodism owes
much to these Mitchells and Wintons and
McClures. Their names are found on almost
every page of her wonderful history from that
day to this, on districts and circuits and mis-
sions, home and foreign, and in schools and
colleges, on down to the present editor of the
Christian Advocate. (Cousin George, I did
not mean anything but a smile by tailing out
that last sentence with an anticlimax. But
don't let your wife see it. She and I are good
friends now, and I want us to continue so
until we meet over the river.)

I was at the funeral of John Winton. His
death occurred during a camp meeting at
old Muddy Creek, near his home. My
brother, Timothy, was presiding elder, and
had charge of the meeting. Mr. Winton's
remains were brought to the camp ground,
and brother conducted the services in the
presence of a very large assembly of his devout
neighbors. He was the father of the two
Wintons who married my aunts, Mary and
Rhoda. William Winton, who married my
Aunt Mary, went to Missouri about 1837.
He was the father of Rev. George Mitchell
Winton, who for more than forty years stood

19

Recollections of An Old Man

on the firing line of our Methodism in the
Middle West, and who in turn was the father
of Rev. George B. Winton, D. D., present
editor of the Nashville Christian Advocate.
James Winton, who married my Aunt Rhoda,
did not go West when the other members of
his family did. He lived at Winton's Island,
twelve miles below Kingston, on the Tennessee
River. Here he brought up a large family
of sons and daughters. The oldest son was
Rev. Wiley B. Winton, who for many years
was a member of the Holston Conference,
and one of the very best preachers ever among
us — a gentle, sweet-spirited, and lovable man.
His eyes failing, he took the superannuated
relation, and went with his family to Missouri,
but kept his membership with us till he died.
His wife was an honored claimant on our
Conference fund till her death, a few years ago.
William M. Winton, of Missouri, Wiley B.
Winton and Timothy Sullins, of Holston, were
cousins. The first two were double cousins.
And no general ever had a trio of marshals
truer or braver than were these captains.
"One blast of their bugle horn was worth a
thousand men." There were giants in those
days. Preach ? Ah, how they did preach

20

Seventy Years in Dixie

and exhort and pray and sing! Sons of
thunder and consolation, they were all good
singers. O, to hear them again! And I
expect to, "some sweet day/' in the swelling
chorus of celestial singers. Amen.

When my father married, he rented Lenoir's
Ferry and the big island at the mouth of the
Little Tennessee, built a cabin, and brought
mother to it. Here they began their life work.
They used to tell us what they had to begin
with. Father had a cow and mother a set
of pewter tableware, a wedding portion from
her father. I remember that some of the
plates were in the family when I was "getting
a big boy," and particularly a basin which
was used in the yard for watering the chickens
— a good thing. It did not rust, and was so
heavy that a hen could not turn it over and
'not deep enough to drown the little ones.
Here they lived until the Hiwassee land sales,
in 1819. These lands included the Indian
hunting ground between the Hiwassee and the
Little Tennessee. Father bought of the State
one hundred and sixty acres two miles west of
Athens, in McMinn County, and brought his
family to it.

The country was then an unbroken wilder-

21

y

Recollections of An Old Man

ness. Father said there was "not a stick
amiss" where Athens now is. Here another
cabin was built with unhewn logs, clapboard
roof, puncheon floor, and wooden chimney.
I remember this cabin, though I was not born
in it. It was moved to another part of the
farm, and a renter lived in it when I was a
child. When father got to his new possessions
with his stock, it was all woods. So they cut
some saplings and made a sort of enclosure for
the cattle for the night, and then in the
morning salted them and let them go to the
"range." After a few years, a large two-
story house was built of hewn logs, with a
brick chimney. On the back of the chimney,
some ten feet up, is the date of its erection,
1825. This house still stands. Here I was
born and brought up. There were but few
preaching places in those days, so father left
the lower room of his house without a parti-
tion, which made a good place for the neigh-
bors to meet for preaching and prayer and
class meetings. Father kept some benches
packed away for use on such occasions.
I helped to bring them in and arrange them
when the people came to preaching.

I remember to have heard Bishop Morris

22

Seventy Years in T)ixie

preach at our house once. It was the day
after the Conference closed at Madisonville,
Tenn., 1837. He came in the evening seven-
teen miles, and preached at night. He was
the first Bishop I ever saw. I remember well
how he looked as he stood up by the old family
clock, which was "taller by half" than the
Bishop himself. Here in this house I was
born, and here cluster all the sweet associations
of childhood and youth — father and mother,
brothers and sisters, the fields and the orchard,
the big forest oaks in the yard, the well with
its wooden pump, and the spring house by it,
the horses and my own pretty colt which
father gave me for my own — aye, and my pack
of dogs, whose leader and chief was True
Boy. He was a wise old dog, and merited his
name. I learned many things from him, of
which I may tell you later, maybe.

But of all the recollections of my childhood,
the dearest and most sacred was the gathering
of the large family for the morning and
evening prayers. I can see them now, all
quietly seated while the lesson was being read,
and then all stood up to sing. This was
father's rule. And oftener, perhaps, than
anything else we sang "Father, I Stretch My

23

Recollections of An Old Man

Hands to Thee," to the tune of "Mean" But
I told you above that father was not religious
when he married mother. That was true.
And indeed I think that what religious bent
there was in our family was largely due to
the Mitchell blood and training in mother.
The Sullins stock in my father was strongly
marked by the blood of his Virginia mother,
Mary Mays. The Mayses were more noted
for their love of fine horses, fox dogs, and
handsome women, than for their piety. Yes,
and I know one living grandson of Mary Mays
in whom have always been some troublesome
streaks of fondness for these things. Then
how did my unconverted father come to be
holding family prayers? Well, mother told
me, in substance, this:

24

Ill

OUR FAMILY ALTAR

W0i

WWS^

I

p3j

H ftl.A

T was not long after marriage
till father, through the exhorta-
tions of grandfather and the
prayers of mother, was deeply
convicted and was induced to
join the Church as a "seeker on probation."
Matters stood thus for some time. But
the children were growing up, and mother
was much concerned about them. So in the
middle of a sleepless night of prayer she said
to father: "Nathan, we can never bring
up the children right without family prayers."
"Well," said father, "what are we to do,
Becky ? I can't pray." But mother insisted
that he could and ought to, and then added:
"If you will try, I will take it time about with
you holding prayers." That brought the
question to an issue, and so finally father,
almost with a groan, said: "Fll try." The
die was cast. So next morning mother held
prayers. Father went to his work. He plowed
and prayed all that day, he said. After

25

Recollections of An Old Man

supper mother got the children all quiet, and
said: "Nathan, we are ready for prayers/'
Father dropped on his knees and, stammering
and choking, began. Soon, under a crushing
sense of sin and helplessness, he began to
confess and cry for pardoning mercy. Mother
prayed and cried, and the Comforter came
and light broke in and father was converted at
family prayers. Amen and amen! And that
forever settled the question of family prayers
at our house. No wonder! It settled many
other things in the family, too, as it always will
in any family. Of the thirteen children born
in the home, eleven have already "fought the
good fight" and gone to join father and mother
in glory. Today there is a family altar in the
home of every living child and every grand-
child, and every great-grandchild old enough
to know and love Jesus is a Christian and in
the Church, as far as I know. Here I want to
bear testimony to the honor of my brothers —
they are all dead now. I never heard a pro-
fane oath from the lips of one of them. So
much for a faithful family altar. And still
more. There are but two of us living. One
is my youngest sister, Mrs. Rebecca Dodson,
of Knoxville, Tenn., the mother of a religious

26

Seventy Years in Dixie

family. We are old, but we are still singing:
"Father, I Stretch My Hands to Thee." The
day is far spent ; but our faces are turned toward
home, and we expect to get there by sundown.
If these reminiscences are to be continued,
I must leave the field of tradition and write
from memory. And here let me beg the
reader of these crude sentences to bear in
mind that I am not writing history or tabulated
statistics for books; but am writing of men and
things carried in memory through this turbu-
lent world, many of them for seventy years and
more. My very earliest recollections of per-
sons and things, outside of the family, are of
the preachers who came to our house and of
the meetings they held — "circuit preaching/'
quarterly meetings, and especially camp meet-
ings. We lived in the Athens Circuit, which
had some twenty preaching places. Athens
was in the circuit then. Indeed, there were
perhaps not a half dozen stations in the bounds
of the Conference, including the two districts
in North Carolina. We generally had two
preachers, a senior and a junior. I recall
very vividly the first preachers I ever saw at
our house. It was just after an Annual Con-
ference. The coming of an Annual Conference

27

Recollections of An Old Man

in those days was a memorable event; for,
as a rule, the preachers were changed every
year, and we looked for a new man, except the
presiding elders. The Conference had been
in session several days, somewhere up the
country, and it was time the new preachers
were putting in their appearance. Father had
taken me, a boy eight or ten years old, out on
the farm to help him lay a fence worm. I
could put a rock or a chunk under the end of
the rail to level it where the ground was uneven.
The house was in full view on the hill, among
the big oaks a quarter of a mile away. It
was nearly dinner time when we saw two men
ride up to the house, hitch, and go in. This
was not strange; for we lived on the main road
leading to the Indian Territory, just across the
Hiwassee River, twelve miles away, and
travelers often stopped with us. But the fact
that mother did not blow the horn for some one
to take care of the horses was significant.
Very soon the men came out and started
toward the barn with their horses. Father
said : "I expect they are preachers going from
the Conference." The preachers put up their
own horses in those days when the hands were
in the fields.

28

Seventy Years in Dixie

Not long after we saw them coming out to us.
I was curious to see them. One of them was
a long, loose-jointed, careless-looking man
with a very sallow, sole-leather colored face,
and no beard, and was evidently the older
man. The other was a smaller man, closely
built, had a vigorous, nervous step, and was
looking everywhere; and as he came down the
hill he picked up a rock and threw at a bird,
like a boy. As they came up to us, the older
man held out a long, bony hand that looked
like it, might have been disjointed at the wrist
and bunglingly reset, and in a kind, frank tone
of voice said: "And this is Brother Sullins ?
Glad to see you. My name is Haskew. Let
me introduce Brother Brownlow." And
Brownlow shook hands with father and turned
and pinched my ear.

Of course, the transaction made a lasting
impression on me, and I recollect Joseph
Haskew and William G. Brownlow as the
first preachers seen at our house. They were
our circuit riders for that year, and for the next
fifty years I knew them well. Joseph Haskew
was for many years one of the most popular
and efficient preachers in the Holston Con-
ference. A good man, full of faith and the

29

Recollections of An Old Man

Holy Ghost, he was a good preacher, but a
better exhorter. He was by nature both a
wag and a wit. I always loved him; for he
waited on himself, put up and caught his own
horse; and if he wanted a fire, he got the wood
and made it. I liked that. Many pleasing
stories are told of his kind ways and witty
words. You can find them in the "History of
Holston Methodism/' by Dr. R. N. Price.
(Smith & Lamar, #1.25.) Rev. W. G. Brown-
low was altogether one of the most remarkable
men our Holston country ever produced. But
for me to write of him is to unkindly assume
that the reader is ignorant of the common
history of the country. He was a mighty man
with both tongue and pen, as many had
occasion to know. He was not so lovable a
man as Haskew. I loved Haskew all the
time, but Brownlow part of the time only.
I shall try to tell you of their camp meetings
next.

30

IV

CAMP MEETINGS

EVENTY years ago camp meet-
ings were very common here
in these Holston hills between
the Great Smokies on the east
and the Cumberland Moun-
tains on the west. The Methodists took the
lead, but were closely followed by the Presby-
terians and Baptists. Taking our circuit
for example, there were three Methodist camp
grounds, two Presbyterian, and one Baptist.
And it was about the same on other charges
in the district. So it was not uncommon to
find twelve or fifteen in one presiding elder's
district, to be held along from the middle of
August to the last of September. These
meetings have almost disappeared in the last
few years. A brief account of them may not
be uninteresting. Our old people who know all
about them, why theyjwere established and how
conducted, need not take time to read this
chapter of recollections. It is written more for
the young people, who know little or nothing

3i

Recollections of An Old Man

about their origin, the why and the what and
the how of those great religious gatherings.

Let us make it very clear in the outset to
our young friends that they were not great
annual assemblies for social enjoyment and
pleasure. True, there was a measure of social
pleasure when old friends and neighbors who
rarely met elsewhere came with their families
and tented side by side for days together. But
these meetings had their origin in a profound
concern for the souls of men, to build up the
faith of believers and call sinners to repentance.
The particular form of service as seen in the
camp meetings was not an accident, but the
deliberate adoption of the best methods under
existing conditions to compass the end in
view — the salvation of men. And they did it
gloriously. Some argue that their discontin-
uance is an evidence that the Church is less
concerned now than then, but this is perhaps
not true. Conditions have changed. Then
churches were few and small; pastors were
overworked on large circuits sparsely settled;
religious workers in any given neighborhood,
were few and timid. Camp meetings met
these conditions. First, by providing com-
fortable places large enough for whole com-

32

Seventy Years in *Dixie

munities to worship together, and thus giving
the pastors an opportunity to see and serve
their people, gathered from far and near.
Then they called Christian workers from
different neighborhoods to sustain the song and
prayer services and instruct penitents. They
created interest enough to bring the scattered
people from the fields and flocks to the place of
worship. In a word, they were great religious
rallies. |H

The recollections of my boyhood are full of
these camp meeting occasions. Our camp
ground was at Cedar Springs. There was a
small log church here, and here my father and
Jacob Hoss, a kinsman of the Bishop, built
a shed one hundred and twenty-five feet long and
seventy-five feet wide, with wings on hinges.
When these wings were down, it was a great
house; and when up, would seat two thousand.
The tents were rude shacks made of logs,
many of them with bark on. There were no
fireplaces. Beds were scaffolds along the
sides of the tents. All floors were dirt, covered
with straw. Some used sawdust, but I liked
the straw better. It had associated with it
the smell of the fields and the bantering ring
of the reapers' blades and the metheglin that

33

Recollections of An Old Man

mother made for the three-o'clock lunch for
the harvesters and the cheery whistle of Bob
White from his rail perch, piping to his old
mate on the nest hard by. So I liked the straw
better. We and our neighbors usually moved
to the camp ground on Friday, which was fast
day. At night, after things were arranged in
the tents, we had short introductory services
under the shed. Shed; pavilion, and auditor-
ium belonged to a later period. At this
service the leader, who was usually the pre-
siding elder, announced the regulations for the
government of the meeting. "The ground and
groves on the south are reserved for the
women, and those on the north for the men,"
was generally the first rule. The second rule
was: "The women will occupy the seats on
the right of the center aisle in the congrega-
tion; the men, those on the left." And this
rule was strictly observed. If a man should
take a seat on the side assigned to the women,
some officer would quietly call his attention
to the rule in a general way. If this modest
hint did not move him, he was waited on and
told plainly that he must take his seat on the
other side of the aisle. I saw this done again
and again. These were queer old ways our

34

Seventy Years in Dixie

fathers had. But they were wise, and broke
up much of the whispering and giggling which
disturb public worship often in promiscuous
assemblies.

We were next told that at the first sound of
the horn all must get up and prepare for the
day. (Mother took her dinner horn and hung
it in the preacher's tent.) This first horn was
blown about sunup if one of the young
preachers had to blow it; but if Uncle Haskew
had it in charge, it sounded out about the peep
of day. All subsequent soundings of the horn
were to call the people to worship. At this
time all persons must leave the tent, save one,
and the tent be closed. The hours for service
were 9:30, n, 3, and "candle-lighting." At
night the whole encampment was lighted up
with candles under the shed, and around it
with blazing pine knots. These candles were
fastened to the posts and set on the pulpit
board. It was the special duty of some one to
keep the pine knots going. At the close of the
three-o'clock service the people were exhorted
and urged to go to the grove and form praying-
circles, women and men to their separate
groves. And here was done much hand-to-
hand and heart-to-heart work. Neighbor with

35

Recollections of An Old Man

neighbor and neighbor's children, with songs
and prayers and exhortations and personal
pleadings, out in the woods with God at the
holy, quiet hour of sunset. O, what scenes I
have witnessed and what thrills of pious joy
have I felt on these occasions, boy as I was!
And now, old man as I am, as I walk back
in memory over those holy hours, my soul
"doth magnify the Lord."

Often when there was a little lull in our
grove we would hear the women over in theirs,
led on by some modern Miriam, singing and
shouting. And we knew and felt that God
was among them and that his hosts were press-
ing the enemy and the cry of victory was in the
air. Listen! I can hear them now over the
seventy intervening years, singing:

"Our bondage here will end by and by,

by and by ;
From Egypt's yoke set free,

hail the glorious jubilee,
And to Canaan we'll return by and by,

by and by."

These praying groups would sometimes
return to the encampment about dusk singing,
bringing a half dozen penitents, and when they

36

Seventy Years in Dixie

met at the altar, there was the shout of a king
in the camp. Usually under these conditions
we had no preaching that night. The leader
would throw his voice over the great, surging
mass of people and invite sinners to come to
Jesus. No preaching and no supper that
night. The tenters would keep a pot of coffee
hot out at the back of their tents for the work-
ers. The altar service would last all night.
I have seen more than one man converted at
daybreak, as Jacob was at the Jabbok, after
an all-night's wrestle with the angel.

Here is a custom which was wise but queer,
the benediction was never pronounced until
the close of the last service of the meeting.
Why? Well, this was then a new country.
There were many rude, bad men in it, and
whisky made them worse. We needed the
protection of the State as a worshipping
assembly. So we never closed the services,
but were a worshipping people all the while
we were there.

There are very many other interesting
features left out of this report of camp meetings
of seventy years ago. It is long enough. Let
us have the benediction and close and go home
to do better and be better, having been to

37

Recollections of An Old Man

another camp meeting. One smile before we
go. As I run back in thought to those days
there is one incident recalled which still pro-
vokes a smile. The old church was used for
the preacher's tent. Mother was a sort of
self-appointed superintendent there to see that
these men of God had at least moderate com-
forts: straw for their beds; a bucket and a
dipper; a good big lump of home-made soap,
which was hardened by putting salt in it as we
stirred it off; some home-made flax towels,
which sometimes scratched a little if you
rubbed hard; and a wash pan for those who
did not want to walk down to the spring with
Uncle Haskew to wash. As the clans gathered
on Saturday, mother slipped off to reconnoiter,
to count noses and beds. When she came
back, she said to father: "Nathan, we must
take another bed up to the preacher's tent."
"Well," said father, "we'll attend to it after
supper." Now Mr. Workman, clerk of the
court in town, two miles away, was in the
habit of riding out to attend night services.
He was a very fleshy man — full, very full in the
chest and body, too — and being very fat, he en-
joyed a white vest, which he wore cut long and
pulled well down in the front, with his coat

38

Seventy Years in Dixie

thrown back. He had just arrived and hitch-
ed his horse at the rear of our tent and was walk-
ing up slowly toward the preacher's tent,
when father came to the door and, peering into
the twilight, stood a moment, and then, turn-
ing to mother, said: "Becky, we need not take
another bed to the preacher's. I see some
one going up with one now." This brought
mother to the door to see who might be med-
dling with her business. In a moment she began
to laugh, and father said: "What are you
laughing at ?" "Why," she said, "that is not
a man carrying a bed ; it is Mr. Sam. Workman
and his long white vest." Father could not
see well in the twilight. But we children
laughed with mother.

39

V

CAMP MEETINGS—CONTINUED

IND reader of these recollec-
tions, I thought that when we
parted at the close of the camp
meeting which we attended in
the last chapter that I had said
what I had to say on the subject; but camp
meetings were a great thing with me when I
was a boy, and very many scenes and occur-
rences come up for notice. So if I tell the whole
truth they must come in. Among the well-
remembered things that interested me was
the gathering of people from far and near,
and then the taking care of them when they
came. Besides the tenters, many came in
covered wagons, bringing their provisions and
a few cooking vessels with them. These did
their own cooking by a fire built by a stump or
log, slept in their wagons, and so took care of
themselves. I have seen as many as twenty
or thirty of such groups scattered around in the
groves at the same time. Many others came
on horseback, the women with big satchels

40

Seventy Years in Dixie

hanging on the horns of their saddles. These
were received as visitors and taken care of by
the tent holders. I have known my father to
set apart a good piece of pasture where there
were water and a strong fence, where we turned
the horses, fifteen or twenty sometimes. It
will appear to the thoughtful that these meet-
ings made large demands on the liberality and
generosity of the tent holders and the neighbors
near by. It was no child's play to take care
of the hundreds of men and women and horses
who gathered on these occasions for days
together — ten to fifteen days sometimes. They
generally began on Friday, and closed Tuesday
or Wednesday following. But when the Lord
was graciously present, killing and making
alive, they were carried over two Sundays.
In such cases the preachers and tenters were
called together to consult as to what should be
done.

I recall several such instances. But one
especially impressed itself upon me. It was
at Cane Creek, in my own county, about 1842
or 1843. The meeting had been one of great
power. One Monday night the atmosphere
seemed charged, as it were, with the awful
presence and power of God. Sinners walked

4i

Recollections of An Old Man

about softly and with solemn faces, and the
service lasted nearly all night. Tuesday
morning the preachers and the tent holders
came together for consultation, and after
serious counsel agreed to go on through the
week. This necessitated additional prepara-
tions to care for the many then present and
others likely to come. And so the tenters got
together just inside the inclosure by the shed
for a conference. They formed a ring facing
to the center, twenty or twenty-five of them —
all serious, thoughtful men. A large crowd
gathered around them, I, with others, but no
one joined them. After the situation had been
talked over, it was agreed that certain of them
should go home, some to kill a beef, others a
hog or two, others to go to the mill for meal and
flour, etc. — all to be brought and divided
among them as each might need. This
settled, there was a minute or two of solemn
silence. Then some one suggested a "word
of prayer/' Uriah Payne, a local preacher,
led the prayer, as I recollect, and we all felt
that the Lord heard those men talking to him.
The prayer ended, they all stood for a moment,
still facing each other in the ring; and then one
of them began to laugh, and in a moment the

42

Seventy Years in Dixie

laugh flew around that ring as quick as a flash
of light, peal after peal. This lasted a minute
or two, and then all was as solemn and silent as
death. Then one began a half-smothered
laugh, like he was trying to keep it down, and
with that away went the laugh around the
group in absolute convulsions. They would
lean forward until their heads almost touched
each other, and then backward, while peals
of laughter burst in concert from each until
they almost lost their breath. This strange
proceeding lasted ten or fifteen minutes.
Now what was most strange was that this
laughter did not produce levity in any beholder.
It was a very solemn scene. Somehow it was
pleasant to be there, but no one saw anything
ludicrous. I had seen what they called the
"trance" several times when the person lay as
dead for hours and then sprang up shouting the
praise of God. But this was a purely laugh-
ing exercise. I had never seen it before.
But I have seen modifications of it a time or
two since. This was twenty or thirty years
after the days of the "jerks" or "falling
exercise."

What was this ? Well, I know; for once in a
while on my way I have been enabled by grace

43

Recollections of An Old Man

to so far forget time and self as to just lay all —
verily, all — on the altar of service for God and
humanity, and then I felt the laugh start in my
heart. And I can see away ahead of me where
the laugh struck those good men. What was
it ? Why, this: Those good men had left their
farms and shops, canceled all business arrange-
ments, shut up their homes, and taken their
families, with their substance, bread and meat,
and for ten days had given their entire time
and labor to the cause of Christ. And all this
with no desire or expectation of ever receiving
one dollar in return — all purely for God and
their fellow-men. Our God never was, and
never will be, behindhand with such men for
such unselfish devotion. And so "he filled
their mouth with laughter, and their lips with
rejoicing." Sometimes, but not always, the
Lord rewards his servants "in kind" for their
unselfish devotion to his cause. When Jesse
Cunnyngham, father of the late Dr. W. G. E.
Cunnyngham, fed a hundred men and horses
at a great meeting, some of his neighbors said :
"The Methodists will eat Cunnyngham out
of house and home yet." But they did not
consider that they would have to bankrupt
Cunnyngham's God before they could do that.

44

Seventy Years in Dixie

I knew that good man. He was our neighbor.
I heard him preach seventy years ago. He
died at a good old age, "full-handed. " And
the influence of his unselfish light shed a sweet
light on all around, like the lingering rays of a
setting sun that makes a half hemisphere
luminous after its ball is far behind the hills.

Among the wonderful manifestations of the
power and work of the Spirit in saving
sinners, I recall a scene which I witnessed at
a camp meeting at Cedar Springs, where
father camped. There was great solemnity
felt everywhere, a conscious presence that
awed the vast assembly. (A no uncommon
thing, be it remembered, when God's people
are waiting for him.) Sinners were subdued.
There was in the audience a large man —
thirty years old, perhaps — a strong, resolute
man with a set, determined look, yet much
agitated. I saw him get up suddenly and
start out of the congregation. He walked
eight or ten steps, and then broke into a run,
but stopped abruptly, as if seized by a giant,
and fell to the ground, crying out at the top of
his voice as one stricken with terror. He had
not gotten outside of the inclosure. Some of
the brethren went to him at once, and got down

45

Recollections of An Old Man

on their knees by him. Those old soldiers
did not seem much troubled, but looked rather
like they were glad of it. And I believe they
were. They knew he was wounded, and
where, and they knew the tree that bleeds the
balm he needed. So they told him of the cross
and the Jesus who died on it for sinners. And
Uncle Joe Gaston, the old class leader, began
to sing, "Show Pity, Lord; O Lord, Forgive,"
and to clap his hands, as he was wont to do
when things went his way. And we knew
the case was hopeful. This was Alexander
Robeson. He became a local preacher and was
the father of the late Rev. William Robeson,
who for fifty years was a member of the
Holston Conference.

Thank God for camp meetings in their
season! More than half of the preachers in
the Holston Conference fifty years ago had
been converted at camp meetings. And in
most instances they were the sons of the
fathers and mothers who had tented at these
meetings. Somehow the head of the Church
seems to have found the men he wanted for
pioneer and field work among the sons of
these old tent holders.

46

VI
THE SIMPLE LIFE

HESE recollections will be very
incomplete if, having spent the
ever-to-be-remembered days of
my childhood and youth on the
farm, I do not give a chapter
to that period and tell how a farmer and
his family lived in those days in this East
Tennessee country. I was born in the
"Cherokee Hunting Grounds/' seven years
after the Indians gave it up, with all its bears
and wolves and deer and turkeys still roaming
over the mountains and valleys. During
those seven years the country had been settled
up by young families, most of whom had
been renters, as father had been. These had,
by industry and economy, made and saved
enough money to buy a few acres of govern-
ment land in the woods. Here they built a
cabin and began their life work. When I was
a boy, they had cleared a few acres around the
cabin and about the pens where they stacked
the fodder and kept the horses. It will occur

47

Recollections of An Old Man

to the reader that such a citizenship was
very homogeneous, and likely to be harmon-
ious. They all worked, knew how to work
and how to take care of what they made.
They were a sort of brotherhood, and under-
stood and sympathized with each other.
If I tell you how we lived, you will know how
our neighbors lived. Every man had to get
his victuals and clothes off the farm, for
there was no other way to get them. We had
no market and little use for any, for we con-
sumed what we made. We had almost no
money, and but little use for any, as there
was nothing to sell or buy. If one had a little
more meat or corn or fodder than he needed,
and his neighbor was needing it, they barter-
ed some way — gave a colt or a calf for what
was necessary to tide them over. I saw much
of this done after I was ten years old.

Our home life was the "simple life" long
before Mr. Wagner ever wrote it up. The
farm, under the management of father, pro-
duced what was needed for comfort. He
added to his original one hundred and sixty
acres till he had a thousand, and almost all
of it still in the woods when I was a boy.
Father had his own notions about slavery. He

48

Seventy Years in Dixie

never would own a negro. But whether these
notions grew out of any convictions that
slavery as it existed among us was in itself
wrong, or out of other and very different
considerations, is not quite clear. I think the
latter is true. Somehow he never seemed
to think that negroes in the family were to be
desired. They had to be Hectored to make
them worth their keep, and he did not like
to boss. I have heard him and mother laugh
and tell that Grandfather Mitchell (mother's
father) had a negro boy he sometimes took to
church with him; but instead of the boy
hitching grandfather's horse, it worked the
other way, for grandfather would hunt up a
swinging limb and hitch the boy's horse to it.
They said that grandfather had two or three
negroes to wait on, and father could never see
much in that to be desired. Then father con-
sidered another important fact: he had four
boys, ranging in age from sixteen down to ten
years, and he had the now almost obsolete
idea that it was well for a boy to have some-
thing to do and be required to do it. So we
boys did the work; and if we failed, then he
generally did something memorable, but not
put in this chapter.

49

Recollections of An Old Man

There was plenty for us all to do on that
thousand acres of forest — grubbing and brush
burning and rail-splitting and fence-making.
Yes, and then came the plowing. My, my!
Were not those young hickory roots tough ?
And did not that old plow punch my ribs
black and blue ? And I had a stone bruise, too;
but father never thought that a stone bruise
ought to excuse a boy from work, and so I
went on my "tippies." Mother was good on a
stone bruise with a big, warm flax seed or
mush poultice, or a piece of fat meat at night.
In fact, mother knew a heap of things to
help a boy when he got hurt — a stumped toe,
a splinter under his nail, or a bee sting — but a
stone bruise had to run its course. I am by
stone bruises like Josh Billings was by boils:
"They are not fit to be anywhere but on a
stick. " But I never did like them. They
say we ought not to talk about folks we do
not like, and I think it a good rule.

To meet the numerous wants of his family
for food and clothes, almost every farmer had,
in addition to his main crops of corn and
wheat and oats, vegetables of all kinds,
patches of cotton and flax, a flock of sheep,
a drove of geese, some hogs, a good milch cow

5°

Seventy Years in Dixie

or two, a young bullock for beef and his hide
for shoes, a few bee-gums, and a little tobacco
around by the pigpens. We did not have to
fence that, for nothing would eat it but man
— and that other big, nasty tobacco worm!
Look at this list, and you will see that he had
his eye on the coming wants of his family.
And well he might, for it all had to come out
of the farm. And mother, blessed helpmeet!
was just as thoughtful and wise as he to utilize
the material furnished by the flocks and farm
to feed and clothe us all — cotton and flax
from the fields and wool and hides from the
flocks. I never had an article of "store
clothes" until I was half grown. As for hats,
and shoes, we furnished the wool and hides,
and old Mr. Blankenship made our wool hats
and Uncle Sam. Hogue made the shoes.
These were for winter. Our summer hats
mother and sisters made of plaited straw.
For summer shoes we wore our calf skins,
as we used to say when we turned barefoot in
the spring. Corn was our main crop — corn
and hogs, "hog and hominy." They say now
that cotton is king, but not so then. Corn was
king.

When the country had to be redeemed from

5i

Recollections of An Old Man

the Indians and the forests, corn was king.
The farmer who had plenty of corn had both
bread and meat for himself and family. Suppose
our fathers had had to depend on wheat for
their bread ? It would have taken them a
hundred years longer to reach the Rockies.
Only think of a pioneer in the woods depend-
ing on wheat for bread. Corn will produce
four times as much as wheat per acre, and
requires only one-tenth of the seed to seed
it down and only one-third of the time from
planting till it can be used for food. Wheat
must have a well-prepared soil, and be sown
in the fall and watched and guarded for nine
months before it is even ready to harvest;
whereas a woman can take a "sang hoe" in
April and with a quart of seed plant a patch
around the cabin, and in six weeks she and the
children can begin to eat "roastin' ears;"
and when it gets too hard for that, she can
begin to parch it. She needed to gather only
what she used for the day; for it will stand all
winter, well protected by its waterproof shucks.
Not so with wheat. It must be all gathered at
once when ripe, and thrashed, cleaned, and
garnered. And even then it is hard to get
bread out of it without a mill. But a small

52

Seventy Years in Dixie

sack of parched corn with a bit of salt was
an ample supply for a ten days' hunt or a dash
with Jack Sevier after thieving Indians. Corn
was king when I was a boy.

Mother and sisters, with Polly Shook to help
them, worked the cotton and wool and flax
into clothes and other needful articles for the
family. I have helped mother put many a
web into the loom that stood in the back part
of the kitchen. Speaking of Polly Shook
brings up some more boyhood scenes. Her
name was Mary, but we always called her
Polly when we did not call her Pop. It fell to
me to mind off the calves when Polly went to
milk — a duty I did not take to kindly, for
sometimes when I took the young sucker
by the ears to pull him away he would set
his sharp little hoof down on my bare foot,
and the harder I pulled the harder he bored
his hoof into my foot. That made me mad,
and I would bang him over the head with a
stick. Then Polly would shame me "for
striking the poor dumb brute that way." I
could not see that it was any of her special
business, and I would say things to that effect
to her. She was not tongue-tied, so she would
say things back. One day I said to mother :

53

Recollections of An Old Man

"I don't like to mind the calves off for Pop" —
that is what I called her when I was mad —
"for she quarrels with me." Now mother
knew Polly, and she knew me, too. So she
said she could tell how to manage so that
Polly would not quarrel with me. That
interested me very much, for I wanted to get
the upper hand of Polly and make her hold
her tongue. I said: "How, mamma?" With
a touch of whisper in her voice, mother said:
"The next time you go to milk just go by the
water bucket and get your mouth full of cold
water and keep it there till the milking is over,
and Polly can't quarrel with you one bit."
"Good," thought I. And I could hardly
wait for milking time to come, so anxious was
I to try my witchery on Polly. When the
time came and she started with her milk pail,
I ran to the water bucket and got my mouth
chock full of water and started for the bars.
I minded off the calves, watching Polly all the
while to see if she was going to quarrel with
me. As soon as she was done milking and the
bars were put up, I spurted the water out and
ran to mother. "Mamma, mamma! She
never quarreled one bit." Mother smiled and
said: "I told you so." And there is where

54

Seventy Years in Dixie

the laugh comes in; but I, little goose, did not
know it. However, there is something in it.
I have seen many a quarrel that never
would have occurred if one of the parties
had had cold water in his mouth. Try it with
little brother next time he is Sir Touch-me-not,
and see if little sister can quarrel with him.

I think likely that if our young people should
read this brief and imperfect outline of life
as we lived it seventy years ago they would say:
"Well, that was all work and no play, and I
I don't see how any one could be happy with
that sort of dry, tread-mill kind of life." Well,
we did have to work, and had but little time
or opportunity for what men call amusements
nowadays. And yet, believe me, we were a
happy family, both young and old. How was
it ? Well, maybe I can give some satisfactory
explanation of it, its how and why, the next
time we have a talk.

55

VII
OUR COUNTRY LIFE

REMEMBER that at the close
of the last chapter of "Recollec-
tions" I half-way promised to
explain for our young people
how and why the simple life,
as we lived it on the farm seventy years ago,
was a happy life; but now I almost wish I had
not done so, for it takes me off from my
original purpose to write recollections. How-
ever, we can make short work of this and go
on to our regular line. \ •••*

Mr. Editor, begging your pardon, I thought
I put enough in the last "turn" I sent to your
mill to make two grists, but you poured it all
into the hopper at once. Well, Mr. Editor,
you are the miller and know what you want;
but you do not know how much raking and
winnowing it takes to get even a little grain
out of the straw and chaff which have accumu-
lated on the thrashing floor of an old man's
recollections. Friends, I know how it comes
about that he thinks I am wiser than I am:
I was president of a college, with a hundred

56

Seventy Years in Dixie

and seventy-five young ladies in attendance,
in his town when he yet had his milk teeth
and wore his bib; and he got the childish im-
pression that a man must be very wise to hold
such a position, and these early impressions,
as usual, seem to be lasting. But he is old
enough now to know that not every man who
is president of a college knows it all. Yes,
he is old enough to know better than that, and
to get married.

Well, we all had some profitable work to
do, we were never idle, and, therefore, never
restlessly looking about for something with
which to fill up the dull hours, thinking of
what to do or where to go to find entertain-
ment. Thus occupied, we were contented;
and more, we were safe at home with father
and mother. Take this for explanation No. i.

Next, our tastes were simple and our needs
few. As for the substantial comforts of life —
food and raiment — we had them sufficient to
meet our real needs and gratify our simple
tastes, and so were satisfied. For our plain
food, a few hours' work on the farm gave us
an appetite that was better than a French
cook. Thank God for the luxury or a healthy
appetite — the appetite of a plowboy — that

57

Recollections of An Old Man

wakes up with him in the morning to munch
that big, yellow Hoss apple that he stuffed
into his pocket yesterday when he was down
in the orchard! No going to the breakfast
table with a sort of loathing and half disgust
of everything there, and the need of a little
coffee to tease it to work; no indigestion —
moping mother of the twins, Melancholy and
Moroseness, firstborn in the family of Dis-
content, whose children are Petulance and
Peevishness, prone to talk too much, and
whose ungracious words hiss and sting like a
mad bee, leaving a smart, if not a scar, for
days to come.

Yes, thank God for the farmer boy's appe-
tite and sound digestion, for they send his rich
life-giving blood to put roses on his cheeks and
iron in his muscles, and make his hoecake a
luxury! I defy any caterer for any club to
furnish at any cost a banquet that will be
enjoyed as much as we children enjoyed
mother's mush suppers. The truth is, mother
could make the best mush mortal man or boy
ever ate. She did not put in much meal at a
time, added it slowly, stirring it all the while,
so as not to have lumps in it nor have it raw in
the center, then cooked it half an hour.

58

Seventy Years in Dixie

"Hasty pudding" is a misnomer when
applied to mush. Mother always said it took
a full half hour to cook mush well; but it
seemed longer than that to me as I watched the
operation, my mouth watering all the while.
Then each one with a bowl of milk and a big
spoon — a pewter spoon, at that. Now Miss
Angelina Cherubina Seraphina, please don't
turn up your nose at that pewter spoon. I
don't hone after pewter spoons myself these
latter days, but that was mother's spoon,
given to her as a part of her wedding portion
from her father, and as good as the country
then afforded. And I hold myself ready at
the sword's point to resent any insult a pert
miss may offer by snubbing it. There now;
you understand that Miss A. C. S., once for all.

I should fail in much if I did not mention
the glorious sleep of the farmer boy as one of
the good things that belonged to his life.
Yes, thank God for that sound and restful
sleep of a fellow when he was a plowboy tired!
It came uncourted about the time the whip-
poor-will began his song in the copse at the
back of the field — a luxury unknown to night
revelers, and never followed by a bursting
headache in the morning. The question,

59

Recollections of An Old Man

" Wherewithal shall we be clothed ?" when
we went to church or to visit our neighbors
was a very simple one.

Neither the weather nor the hour of the day
cut any figure in that grave problem; whether
it was a bright or a dull day, noon or night, no
matching of colors or puzzling as to the par-
ticular suit we should wear for that special
occasion. I knew a week before the wedding
came off just what suit I would wear — my
mixed jeans, the same I had been wearing to
all the big quiltings and singing schools for
weeks past — "Hobson's choice," The oneness
in the case simplified the question very much,
you see. I said "case," but they were not in a
case — they hung on a peg with my flax shirt
behind the door. No bother as to what or
where. The fact is, friends, young and old,
the question of physical comfort is in itself
a simple one, and its demands are few and
easily met. It is only when the clamorous
desire for show and shine comes in, with its
complex demands, that the everlasting worry
of life begins. Pride and Vanity are the
prolific parents of the peevish brood that is
hounding good Comfort and sweet Content-
ment out of the land. And mark my words,

60

Seventy Years in T)ixie

they are of little use in the formation of happi-
ness of the noblest men and women.

As to amusements (better called pleasant
occasions), we were not wholly without them.
We knew the happy art of combining work
and pleasure. Our log-rollings, house-raisings,
corn-shuckings, quiltings, singing schools, and
an occasional dash with the dogs after a deer
or fox were seasons of real enjoyment. The
quiltings we were careful to bracket with the
others wherever we could; thus, a house-
raising and quilting, at such and such a home,
day and date, or a log-rolling and quilting.
The quilting brought out the girls, who were,
and always have been, essential to a good social
time, I reckon. "Well/' you say, "if you
could find pleasure in tugging your arms off
rolling logs and wearing your finger tips sore
at a corn-shucking, you must have been easily
pleased." Even so, even so — happy faculty,
secret of a contented life, easily pleased ; sweet
bud from the plant, heart's-ease, that flowers
and fruits in the life of our best friends and
companions. Grow it in your garden, child.

Well, talking about old house-raising and
quilting days of my boyhood brings to mind
many cherished recollections of the long ago —

61

Recollections of An Old Man

pleasing scenes and youthful friends — brave,
frank, generous young fellows, country born
and bred, who would scorn to do an unmanly
or ignoble thing; and, as they pass before my
eyes, half filled with tears at this moment, I
recall with unfeigned pleasure the fact that
they were nearly everyone religious. As
for the girls (that is what we called them in
those days), a whole bevy of them comes
trooping by this minute. Not mincing in
patent leather slippers and crepitating silks,
but walking with an elastic step that tells of
healthy muscles, arrayed in gowns woven and
fashioned by their own industrious fingers,
with now and then a burst of hearty laughter
and a snatch of song — all merry as a flock of
bobolinks in springtime. And there among
them is my first old sweetheart, Phoebe Steed.
See, her modesty has half hidden her in the
group (as the daisy peeps from behind a leaf
in the grass). Her willowy grace of move-
ment was the rhythm of motion, her voice
gentle and musical as the harp of the wind
god, and a heart and life as pure as snow twice
washed. Did I love her ? Don't talk of love
till you know something of the swellings of
the heart in a sixteen-year-old country boy who

62

Seventy Years in Dixie

has just begun to stand before the looking
glass and roach his hair and paste it down
with bear's grease. Did I marry her? No;
we were never engaged. She married a better
man, Wm. Horton, as she deserved to do, while
I was away at college.

That singing school! We met on Saturdays
and sang all day. Our book was the "Knox-
ville Harmony/' by John B. Jackson, pub-
lished at Knoxville. It was written in four
syllables — fa, sol, la, mi. It was several years
later when the seven syllables were introduced.
Andrew Hutsell was our teacher. We sang
four parts — bass, tenor, alto, and treble. My!
my! How Will Cassady and Urb Rudd and
Wash Peck, in his new suit of jeans, did roar
on the bass! Boys and girls both sang on the
tenor (air), Phoebe Steed and Myra Gaston
led the treble, and the Misses Howard, two
beautiful sisters, "carried" the alto. Usually
we had two recesses, when a walk to the spring
or a stroll in the grove gave us the coveted
opportunity for social enjoyment. Then the
noonday lunch, when the girls took all our
baskets and spread a common meal on the
homemade table cloth under the long-armed
elm by the spring. The day done, we took the

63

Recollections of An Old Man

girls home — all on horseback. How we boys
did curry and comb the mane and tails of our
colts to have them ready to prance at the
Saturday's singing! And with what marvel-
ous art and ease those girls would spring from
the top of that old chestnut stump into their
saddles, and adjust their riding skirts for
grace and safety in managing their horses, now
grown restless from having been hitched up all
day! And the horsemanlike skill with which
Lizzie Noel did curb that mettlesome bay
would shame the best jockey of to-day.
Country lasses, happy lasses, good-by. I
never expect to see your equals any more on
earth. And now if the young people of to-day
are happier and safer than we were on the
farm seventy years ago — why, I am glad of it.
That is all.

64

VIII

LOVE FEASTS AND CLASS
MEETINGS

HESE chapters have run in a
somewhat similar strain long
enough. Let us vary the exer-
cises, as the preacher would say,
and hold an "experience meet-
ing/' I like experience meetings, especially
when I feel religious, and I believe most
people do under similar circumstances. As
a Church we have used this kind of ser-
vice with great spiritual profit. The love
feast and the class meeting were of this char-
acter. The love feast is still known among
us, often in a very modified form. But many
of our young people, even members of the
Church, who have never attended a class meet-
ing, know nothing of them, how they are con-
ducted, or why established. The love feast
was more a testimony meeting, while the class
meeting was designed as a special opportunity
for helpful oversight, counsel, and exhortation
by one called the leader. The old preachers
used to set great store by these meetings.
A few sentences giving an account of them,

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Recollections of An Old Man

I think, may meet the approval of the reader,
and at least preserve some knowledge of a
religious exercise so much esteemed in the
early history of the Church.

They were peculiar to us as people, and
subjected us to criticism, and sometimes to
ridicule. They were primarily and almost
exclusively designed for members of the
Church. Strangers and outsiders were allowed
to be present as a special privilege. The
exercises consisted in an inquiry by the leader
into the spiritual condition of the members,
particularly the younger members of the class,
and giving such admonition and exhortation
and encouragement as might be needed and
helpful. And many young Christians had
occasion to bless God for such help. The
preacher in charge usually held class meeting
immediately after services. I think I never
knew Uncle George Ekin to fail. They called
it "meeting the class" and the preacher was
leader.

The class book was an interesting and
important volume. It contained the names of
the leaders and the members, usually in
families. It was ruled in columns running
perpendicularly and marked so as to show

66

Seventy Years in Dixie

at a glance the following facts: The first
column was to show whether the member was
married or single, and was marked M or S;
the second column was to indicate the spiritual
condition of the member, whether a believer
or seeker, and was marked B or S; the third
column recorded the amount of quarterage
paid by that member; the other columns were
marked P or A or D, for present or absent or
distant (from home). The roll was called at
every meeting, unless the leader knew who
were there and so marked the book. This
book was inspected by the pastor at every
round, if he desired it, and furnished him
particular information concerning every mem-
ber of that class. If a member were absent
twice consecutively, the leader called to see if
he were sick. The preacher would sometimes
say to me, with kindly concern, after looking
over our class book: "David, I see you were
not at class the last time." Ah, those frequent
reckonings with self and one another wrought
careful living and much prayer in a boy, as I
well remember. / know no adequate substi-
tute. But I rejoice in all our young people's
meetings, and pray God to make and keep
them spiritual. But I proposed to have an

67

Recollections of An Old Man

experience meeting, and here I am writing
about an experience meeting. Did you ever
notice how much easier it is to talk about a
thing than it is to do or be that thing — to talk
about religion than it is to be religious, to talk
about charity than to be charitable ? There
is a man staying here in my room and sleeping
in my bed who has made observations and had
experience on that very subject, and he some-
times gives me a dig in the ribs about it.
Have you ever had such a fellow about your
house ?

And now, kind reader, let me explain a little
about the next few chapters of these recollec-
tions. Two years ago my children asked me
to write out for their use my early life — that
part with which they were not acquainted. I
copy in part from that sketch, which will ex-
plain why certain family affairs are made
prominent. It was for the children to read at
their leisure. Thus :

I was converted, as I verily believe, on a
cold Sunday in the old log church in the town
of Athens, Tenn., when I was in my twelfth
year. Our place of worship was two miles in
the country, at Cedar Springs; but occasionally
when there were no services at our church, we

68

Seventy Years in Dixie

went to town to preaching. It was a cold day;
but my parents were going to church, and
father asked me if I did not want to go.
So I got my colt, and was looking about for a
saddle when my father said: "Son, I don't
think I would get a saddle; just spread your
blanket on the colt, and he will keep you
warmer than if you had a saddle. " So I did,
and we went to church. Rev. Frank Fanning
was the preacher. There were not twenty
persons present, perhaps — just a few old
people hovering around the stove. I sat with
my hands between my knees to keep them
warm, and listened to the preacher. He
preached about Jesus, but what he said I do
not know. But there came into my childish
heart a feeling unknown before — a strange
sense of the nearness and love of Jesus, of
whom mother had so often spoken to me. I
felt that I loved him. A simple, childlike
tenderness filled my heart and I felt that he
loved me. It was a most delightful sensation.
I think I wept for very joy, but said nothing.
It was all so new and strange and sweet that I
knew nothing to say. I looked over to the
seat where father and mother were seated, and
such a flood of love for them swept through

69

Recollections of An Old Man

me that I could hardly repress the desire to
run and hug them. I did actually love every-
body and everything. And that sweet feeling
stayed with me after the benediction, and went
home with me and made the colt ride better.
His coltish ways, worming in and out of the
road, did not fret me. It stayed with me all
about the house and barn, singing in my heart
when alone in the woods; and I wanted to
pray, and did not want my dog to catch that
little rabbit and kill it. Do you ask, "What
was it ?" I never once thought what it was.
I was happy and peaceful, and everybody
was good, and that was enough. Sometimes I
would stay around mother and wish she would
tell me to do something, that I might have
the pleasure of showing her how quickly and
well I could do it. It did not occur to me that
I had religion. Indeed, I hardly thought a
boy could get religion except at Cedar Springs
Camp Meeting. But that sweet, love-every-
body feeling staid with me till camp meeting.
I was glad when that came. At the first call
I went to the mourners' bench, and down in
the straw father and mother and brother
and sister came, and we prayed together,
and I began to laugh and hug them. It

70

Seventy Years in T)ixie

was the same old feeling of love and tender-
ness which I felt on the cold Sunday six
months before. I said: "I've got religion.
Hallelujah!" It was true, and I have never
had any better, and all I want now is more of
it. So I sometimes tell my friends that I was
converted six months before I got religion.
Maybe somebody will look religiously wise
and shake his theological head at this. But
if you will be careful to use these terms in the
sense here employed, I do not believe they will
hurt your good creed, and perhaps maybe
help somebody who does not know what
religion is.

Our good Dr. Tillett, who wrote that wise
and helpful book, "Personal Salvation/' can
make this clear to the young theologues if he
has a mind to; and when he has done so, I will
be for once in my life like General Jackson.
When Calhoun was firing the heart of South
Carolina with the spirit of nullification, the
General sent word, "Tell Calhoun that if he
don't behave himself I'll hang him as high as
Haman," but did not tell him why. Sometime
afterwards, when Daniel Webster, in an argu-
ment, showed that logical nullification could
not exist under the Constitution, Jackson said:

71

Recollections of An Old Man

"There, I knew I was right all the time/' It is
said that he put in some words to give emphasis
to his utterance. Here is the law on this
subject: "He that loveth is born of God."
Now let us sing with Mrs. Prentiss No. 367.
And as the disciplinary "one hour" for love
feast is now out, we will for the next chapter
have the experience meeting continued.

72

IX
EARLY SCHOOL DATS

Y place was on the farm till I
was about eight years old,
with father and mother,
happy brothers and sisters;
often in the field with play-
ful colts, skipping lambs, singing birds,
and my ever-present dog — a happy boy. I
went to school two or three months during
the winter till I was fifteen. These were sub-
scription schools, made up and supported by
the neighbors. We had no public schools
then. The first school I attended was at
Rocky Mountain, on the back of my father's
farm. The little house was made of logs
with the bark on, a weight-pole roof (I have
not time to explain that term to the ignorance
of to-day) and puncheon floor. The only
window was made by cutting out a log ten or
twelve feet long. Under this opening was a
slab, resting on pegs, which made a sort of
shelf upon which the larger boys and girls
wrote. The ink was made of ink balls —

73

Recollections of An Old Man

a sort of vegetable excrescence, sometimes
formed on the twigs or leaves of oak trees,
containing a substance which turned black
on exposure to the air — or of polk-berry juice
or elder berries. This was kept in a small
vial with a string around the neck to hang it
up by when not held in the hand for use. The
benches were slabs with peg legs. Here I
learned to spell. When I learned my A B C's
I do not know. After I was fifteen, I had two
years at Forest Hill Academy, under Charles
Patrick Samuel, a tall, scholarly Kentuckian —
"Old Pat," of blessed memory. After this I
went to Emory and Henry College.

I mention a sad providence which led to
my going when I did. My brother, Timothy,
who was fifteen years my senior and had been
a member of the Holston Conference thirteen
or fourteen years, was stricken with paralysis
while on his way to the Annual Conference,
which met that year at Wytheville, Va.
He was at Abingdon when stricken. The
report of this affliction saddened all hearts at
home. In a very few days father decided to
send me to Virginia. First, to nurse my
brother if he needed me; and if not, then I was
to sell my horse and go on to college, ten miles

74

Seventy Years in Dixie

farther east. How this conclusion stirred the
household, and especially the boyish heart of
the writer and that of his mother, will never
be forgotten. I was soon fitted out for the
trip, and the morning for my departure had
come. Family prayers that morning were
perhaps a little longer and tenderer than usual,
and breakfast was almost in silence. Mother
cried, and I said: "Don't cry, mother. I will
soon be back." She replied: "No my son,
not back with us at home. When you have
finished your college course you will go to $our
life work, and only be a visitor at home here-
after." Two older brothers had gone off to
college, and mother knew. "A visitor only
hereafter." I could not realize it, and yet so
it was. My outfit was not elaborate. A pair
of saddlebags contained all, save a suit of
mixed jeans, which had been taken from the
back of our sheep and fitted to mine. A small
muskrat-colored Indian pony, fourteen hands
high and badly sway-backed, had to carry me
and all I had two hundred miles. I left home,
mother standing nearest the gate to say good-
by last, and brother going two miles on the way
to see me get a good start. We rode side by
side those two miles, almost in silence. A

75

Recollections of An Old Man

word or two about my pony and a passing
remark about the weather and a last injunction
about my dogs. He ventured to say: "We will
miss you at home and at the coming Christ-
mas." And then there came a choking sensa-
tion, and maybe a tear, but no audible answer.
Finally he said: "Well, I must go back.
Take care of yourself. Write often, for we will
all want to know about you and brother
Timothy. Good-by." And his horse's head
was turned toward home — the dear old home;
how dear, I never knew before. My pony
and I faced for the first time the great unknown
outside world. Day and hour never to be
forgotten. Brother — dear fellow — he was as
tender as a woman, lived a long bachelor
life, fought through the Civil War with Lee,
and now sleeps the Christian's hopeful sleep
near Wolf City, in Texas.

By a previous agreement, Ben Hale, a boy
about my age living in the upper end of the
county, was to join me a few miles farther on.
In the meantime thoughts crowded each
other in rapid succession — now back home with
loved ones a moment, and then back to myself
and surroundings. Of what was in my
saddlebags I knew but little. Father and

76

Seventy Years in Dixie

mother and sister had furnished and packed
them, and whatever belonged to me I knew
was there, be it little or much. But here is
Ben waiting by the roadside, and I am glad to
see him — a hearty country boy on a good horse,
going to visit his army of kinsfolk — the Hales
and Canutts and Wards, etc., in Grayson
County, Va. A jolly fellow on a visit to spend
Christmas with his kindred. And now I shall
have the pleasure of leaving off in my narrative
the oft-recurring "I," and say "we" without
affectation of being an editor. We (Ben and
I) moved on, and about noon passed in sight
of Daniel HeiskelPs home, the road running
through the woods, where Sweetwater now
stands. We pressed on, making good use of
the short December day, and ate our lunch
as we rode along. When I opened mine and
found a ham sandwich and some buttered
biscuits with jam between, a hard-boiled
egg, and an apple, it all looked so much like
mother and sister that, had it been practicable,
I think I would have preferred to keep it as a
souvenir, rather than eat it.

Soon we passed the old town of Philadelphia,
and came to Blair's Ferry, on the Tennessee
River, where Loudon has since been built.

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Recollections of An Old Man

We crossed the river and urged our tired
horses four miles more to Mr. John Browder's,
an old friend of my father, two miles west of
what is now Lenoir City. Here we spent the
night — our first night from home. But we
slept like tired boys, and were up early and
ready for our second day. This day we passed
by the home of William Lenoir, where Lenoir
City now stands, and the home of Rev. John
Winton, great-grandfather of Dr. G. B. Win-
ton, editor of the Christian Advocate. We
finally reached Knoxville, where I had a
brother-in-law (Dr. A. Woodward), and sister.
Sister made us feel at home. The next day,
in the evening, we rode out ten miles on the
Rutledge Road, and spent the night with Mr.
R. L. Blair, the uncle of a young lady whose
acquaintance I made seven years later and who
will come into these reminiscences after a
while if they are not cut short in some way.
The next day we passed the town of Rutledge
and the celebrated Bean's Station, often
mentioned in the journal of Bishop Asbury.
Here the Kentucky escorts used to come over
the mountains to meet him and conduct and
guard him over the Clinch Mountain, through
Cumberland Gap, to the "dark and bloody

78

Seventy Years in Dixie

ground" of Kentucky. Two miles east we
came to what is now the very noted Tate
Springs, but we saw only the rounded hills
there. By night we reached the village of
Mooresburg, and spent the night at the Red
Bridge, a little farther on.

The fifth day we passed the good town of
Rogersville, and on up the beautiful valley
to Mr. Phipps\ This was a home of wealth,
and gave us a royal entertainment; and here we
got a glimpse of the very beautiful daughter
of the household, who seemed a bit interested
in a couple of tired boys who had stopped for
a night's rest. I had the opportunity in after
years to thank her for it, which I did with all
the grace I could muster. It was apparent
from some talk next day that Ben had an eye
for a beautiful girl, elegantly dressed. Indeed,
the Hales of Virginia are built that way, as I
found out later. This day brought us to the
boat yard, where two branches of the Holston
River come together, now Kingsport — so
named perhaps because William King, who
owned the salt works in Virginia, boated his
salt down the north fork of the Holston River
to that point. It was now growing colder, and
we pressed on to Mr. David Shaver's —

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Recollections of An Old Man

twenty-seven miles yet to Abingdon. Here we
spent the night.

Next morning the snow was two or three
inches deep, and increased in depth until we
reached Abingdon, where it was eight or ten
inches deep. This I had good reason to
remember: for if my pony got out of the
beaten way, I had to hold up my feet to keep
them from dragging in the snow. As we
entered the town I asked the first man we met
for information as to my brother. He told me
he was at John Campbell's on the next street.
Ben and I said good-bye, and I turned to find
brother. In a few minutes I was in his room,
to his great surprise, and to my delight found
him much improved. I had a brother-in-law
(H. Card well), and sister living in the town.
Soon they called; and as brother had a nurse
and did not need me, I went home with them,
a tired, but happy boy.

It was Christmas Eve, and my brother,
Nathan Asbury, who was a student in the
college, only ten miles away, came to spend the
holidays with us. After consultation, it was
decided that I was not needed with Timothy
and that I should enter the spring term of
college, as father had directed. So I sold my

80

Seventy Years in T)ixie

pony to Major Davis, who kept the boarding
house, for a credit of forty-five dollars on my
bill, took a room with my brother, entered the
freshman class half advanced, joined the
Calliopean Society, and settled down to work.
Here I remained till June, 1850, when I
graduated with the degree of A.B.

81

X

amum

EARLY DAYS AT EMORY

OW that I am back again to my
college days, a thousand mem-
ories come trooping up, and I
hesitate to attempt to make a
selection where each is so dear.
It was in the early years of old Emory and
Henry history. There were only three houses
there then: the old college building on the
hill, the brick house at the west end of the
campus (both still standing), and the farm
house in which Mr. Crawford lived when the
Church bought the property (long since burn-
ed). The faculty consisted of Charles Col-
lins, D.D., President and Professor of Mental
and Moral Science; E. E. Wiley, D. D., Pro-
fessor of Latin and Greek; Rev. Edmond
Longley, A.M., Professor of Mathematics
and Modern Languages; and Rev. J. A.
Davis, tutor. Dr. Collins lived in the house
on the west end of the campus. Dr. Wiley
lived in two or three lower rooms in the
west end of the college. Professor Longley
lived over on the stage road, a mile away.

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Seventy Years in Dixie

Tutor Davis, unmarried, took his meals at
the common boarding house (the Crawford
home), of which his father, Major Joseph
Davis, was proprietor. Professor Longley
("Old Brit'') was postmaster and delivered
our letters to our rooms. Our literary halls
were in the garrets — the Calliopean in the
west end and the Hermesian in the east. We
paid six dollars per month for rooms, board,
and fuel, furnished ( ?) our own rooms, made
up ( ?) our beds, cut the wood and made our
fires, and carried water from the spring. Roll
call and prayers came morning and evening —
morning prayers at 5:30 (which was before
daylight in the winter) and no fire in the
chapel. I jumped out of bed many times,
hurriedly dressed ( ?), ran into the chapel to
answer "Present" and shiver while the Pro-
fessor read — by the light of a tallow candle
which he brought in with him — a few lines
from the morning lesson and repeated the
Lord's Prayer, the snow a foot deep and the
north wind howling through the hills and
whistling at the keyhole. Dr. Collins held
evening prayer, and Drs. Wiley and Longley
morning prayers. From morning prayers we
went immediately to recitation. There were

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Recollections of An Old Man

two recitations before breakfast, at six and six-
thirty, of thirty minutes each. That is the
way Emory and Henry professors and pupils
began the day sixty years ago, and we kept
it up at about that rate till nine at night.
Schoolmen and students of to-day would
perhaps rebel against such a schedule of
work — that it would grind the life out of
teachers and pupils. Well, it did grind,
but it ground out men all the same.

Let me think a moment and name a few of
my school fellows who were fitted for noble
service among men and have attained to great
honor and usefulness in their generation:
Dr. James S. Kennedy, of the Holston Con-
ference, a prince in Israel, every inch a Chris-
tian gentleman and scholar, wise in counsel
and safe in action, always loyal to God and
truth; Dr. W. M. Leftwich ("Little Left-
wich"), who for many years held posts of honor
among his brethren in the Tennessee Con-
ference and elsewhere; Gen. J. E. B. Stuart,
glorious "Jeb," that flower of cavaliers to
whose memory his fellow citizens are to-
day building a monument in the capital of
his native state; William E. Peters, LL.D., a
gallant colonel in the Confederate army, and

84

Seventy Years in Dixie

afterwards Professor of Latin in the great
University of Virginia till his death ; Hon.
H. D. Clayton, general in the army of the
Confederacy, and afterwards Governor of
Alabama and head of the Alabama University;
James L. Jones, LL.D., President of Columbia
College, S. C; Hon. J. J. Yeates, Congress-
man from North Carolina; Judge Monroe,
Supreme Judge of the State of South Carolina;
and others.

Among the living of my school fellows who
have wrought well and are still bringing forth
fruit in old age, I mention two who for fifty
and more years have been acknowledged
leaders in our Holston Conference — one a little
eccentric, the other a bit positive; both great
and good men, worthily wearing the well-
earned honors which the ministry and laity of
the church and their fellow-citizens at large
are gladly awarding them. Of these dear
men I have more to say later, but for the
present will leave the reader to guess at their
names. J. Preston White, my classmate, a
judge of the Supreme Court of the State of Tex-
as, and Hon. John Goode, of Virginia, states-
man, soldier, and author — a man who has served
his State and nation in public office for more

85

Recollections of An Old Man

than half a century with such ability as has
won for him continually increasing respect
and admiration — were also in this list. Others
no doubt, belong to the list whose names do
not occur to me at this moment. Let it be
remembered that this list is taken from the
students who were in Emory and Henry
College from 1847 to 1850, and does not in-
clude the many who were there in other years.
The college plant, all told, was not worth
fifty thousand dollars, perhaps, at that time.
The above facts furnish food for thought in
these days when the hearts of our people are
turned to the subject of education. We are
told that it takes millions of dollars for the
financial basis of a first-class college. That is
true when applied to the university, where
specialists are educated and a large numoer
of schools must be conducted. But, thank
God ! it is not true when applied to the schools
most needed for the education of the people.
My observation is that largely endowed schools
with splendid buildings and professors on fat
salaries, are not turning out a proportionately
large number of men who are blessing their
generation. Such schools usually grow to be
costly schools very soon, where only the rich

86

Seventy Years in Dixie

can pay the bills, and so they fail to get the
best material out of which to make men.
The boys, whom necessity has taught to work
and economize, to be content with few luxuries
and a little self-indulgence, with sound minds
in healthy bodies, are the boys who make men.
Emory and Henry, with an inferior outfit in
buildings, a small faculty of industrious,
Christian scholars who gave their personal
attention to the minds, manners, and morals
of the hundred and thirty or forty country boys
present, gave to the world such men as are
mentioned above, at a cost to pupil of about
one hundred dollars per year, or a little more.
Now that we have the subject before us,
let us mention another college here in our
hills — Hiwassee. Here Dr. John H. Brunner,
now the senior college man among us, with a
few coworkers, for the forty years last past
has educated the poor boys of the country.
As an outfit they had a mere crow's nest,
but they hatched out eagles. They had a
gimlet, but they bored auger holes with it.
They had the material out of which to make
men — boys who had not been spoiled by
indulgence in their childhood. Bent twigs
produce crooked trees.

87

Recollections of An Old Man

Now, Mr. Editor, if you and the reader will
pardon me for this digression, I will hereafter
write recollections and let others make infer-
ences and comments. But I wanted to go on
record as favoring a multiplication of such
schools as Emory and Henry and Hiwassee
were fifty years ago. I am not to be counted
as opposing well-endowed universities, and a
few first-class colleges as they are now defined,
but I want to see the country sowed down in
such schools as are mentioned above. Amen.

My school days ended, I began to look to
my life work. Thank God, I did not have
the trouble of determining what that work
should be. That had been settled for me and
by me while I was yet a little boy. When I
was converted in my twelfth year, if indeed
not before, I felt that I must and would be a
preacher some day. I read my Bible, went to
prayer meeting and to Sunday-school, and
prayed in the haymow when I went to feed
my colt, and finally went to college with that
fact ever present. I am not conscious of ever
having been tempted to give it up, thank God!
While in college we enjoyed several gracious
revivals, in which I gladly took part. One I
will tell you of. It was brought about in this

88

Seventy Years in Dixie

way: Four of we boys seemed to be moved
simultaneously to go to the woods and pray
for a larger measure of faith and deeper con-
secration of life. After a little talk together,
we agreed to slip off to the forest next evening
when school closed — Richard Childers, James
S. Kennedy, James Bailey, and I. We walked
down by Dr. Collin's and out toward the old
stage road. It was all woods then from the col-
lege southeast for a mile. Soon we left the road
and struck into a hollow where we thought
no one would see or hear us. There we found
the fallen trunk of a forked tree, and sat down
on its limbs, facing each other two and two.
Here we sang several songs and prayed —
all prayed with snatches of songs between
prayers — sang softly, fearing some one might
hear us. The Father of the woods did
hear us and gave delightful evidence of his
presence as we waited for Him in that great
forest temple. We got back to college just
at supper time. Some of our special friends
looked at us with a sort of inquiring gaze,
as much as to say, "Where have you been ?"
We told a few of the more religious boys.
So it got noised abroad. Next evening,
when we started, there came a dozen and

89

Recollections of An Old Man

more following after us. We were glad
and felt less afraid of being heard, so we
did not go more than half as far till we found
a good place to pray. The other boys came
up close about us and sat at the roots of the
trees and joined in the singing and prayers.
We sang louder that evening. The supper
horn called us before we got back. The next
evening we began to sing by the time we struck
the woods, and scores of boys were with us.
After a few songs and prayers, it was evident
that a great solemnity was resting on many
hearts. Kennedy, I think it was, made a short
talk and invited any who desired to be saved
and wished the counsel and prayers of their
fellow-students to come and kneel down about
a big stump in our midst. Ten or a dozen
came, weeping, and fell down on the leaves.
Now all hands had work, instructing, en-
couraging, and praying. Two or three were
converted, and we made the woods ring with
our praises.

We went to supper two and two with locked
arms. As we passed by the gate at Dr. Collin's,
I ran in and reported, and asked him if we
might not have a service in Dr. Wiley's recita-
tion room that night (that was the largest room

90

Seventy Years in Dixie

except the chapel). He was delighted and
said that he would come and worship with us.
The announcement was made at the supper
table. We arranged the room and carried our
tallow candles to light it. Soon we were sing-
ing at the top of our voices. The Doctor
joined us — not in the songs, for he could not
sing a bit, but with much emotion and great
earnestness he preached and called for peni-
tents. What an hour that was! As the boys
came he stood, his handsome face all aglow,
while he invited the "young gentlemen" (that
is what he always called us) to come to Jesus.
The appointment was made for the next night
for the chapel. The meeting had right of way
now, and for many nights we rallied, and many
boys were converted, who made leaders in
Israel's host for many years to come. Some
of the neighbors came in, and occasionally a
motherly hand was laid on a boy's head whose
mother was far away. It made me think and
sigh for home. Thank God for Christian
colleges!

91

XI

WHEN AND WHERE LICENSED

HEN'my college work was done,
I knew what came next. Ipiad
not asked for a license to preach.
Starting home I j; stopped at
Abingdon to visit my sister,
Hazy— Mrs.* J.*1 H. Cardwell. |W.i G. E.
Cunnyngham| was f preacher \ in charge and
T. K. Catlett presiding elder, jj It was quar-
terly! meeting. f;| Cunny ngham knewj JI £ ex-
pected to be a preacher, so he said to me:
"You have no license, and you may not find a
Quarterly Conference when you get home.
Deposit your Church letter with us, and I will
ask the Quarterly Conference to give you a
license to preach and recommend you to the
Annual Conference." It was done — June,
1850. I went home a young Methodist
preacher, but it was all new. I tried my first
service and sermon at old Cedar Springs, where
my father and mother worshipped. The sing-
ing, reading, and praying went along well
enough, and the first few sentences of the talk,

92

Seventy Years in Dixie

but the rest was made up of blundering and
crying. % I was ashamed.
P Conference is coming, and I must get ready.
Now I must go back to a little talk my father
and I had before he sent me to college. We
were on the way to town (Athens), I going to
mill, he to get a Dutch mowing blade — the
clover was about ready to cut. (This was
before my brother was stricken with paralysis.)
He said: "Your brother, Timothy, wants me
to send you to college, and I am willing to do
so if you want to go. But," he added, "if you
go to college, I will pay your bills, and that will
be all I can do for you. Your brothers and
sisters will have to have what will be left."
I told him I understood him and would go to
college with that understanding. So when
brother was taken sick at Abingdon, Va.,
ten miles only from college, my parents fitted
me up to go first to wait on him, as said
above, and then go on to school.

Now my college days were over and my bills
paid, and both my father and I remembered
the understanding we had before I started for
college, though neither of us had mentioned it
since. He called it up one day, and said:
"As you have decided to be a preacher, I must

93

Recollections of An Old Man

fit you out with a horse, etc." Then he added:
"Go to the barn and take your choice of all
the horses there." This I did, selecting a fine
chestnut-sorrel mare, Fannie, four years old.
He furnished me a good saddle, bridle,
blanket, and saddlebags, and mother added
a fine solid blue blanket, thick as felt. In the
middle of it she made a slit large enough for my
head to go through, and bound the slit with
ribbon. This was to go on my saddle in dry
and warm weather and over my shoulders in
wet and cold weather — my head through the
hole in the middle. I had no overcoat. This
blanket I kept and took into the army with me
in 1 86 1. While we were encamped at Mill
Springs, in Kentucky, I left it outside the door
one evening and some soldier appropriated it.
The snow was three or four inches deep, and I
did not blame him much, though I sorely
missed my old stand-by — mother's good
blanket. I never saw a better.

So equipped, I was ready to start off for
Conference, save that I did not have a cent of
money. The day before I was to start, my
father asked: "Have you any money to meet
expenses ?" He knew that I had none. He
was a born quiz, and, smiling, he handed me

fej

94

Seventy Years in Dixie

twelve dollars. He supposed that I would
travel as preachers traveled in those days —
without being charged, and that twelve dollars
would last a good while for "pin money." And
so it would; but I traveled alone and neither
looked nor felt like a preacher. I asked for
my bill each morning, and paid it — usually
one dollar for myself and horse. Confer-
ence met that year (1850) in Abingdon,
and it required six days to make the trip.
That took six of my dollars and left me six.
At the missionary collection during Conference
James Atkins, Sr. (father of Dr. James Atkins,
now bishop), said: "I will be one of twenty
to give five dollars." There were nineteen
responses, and then it "hung fire." Finally
I said, "I'll take the other five," and handed
him the money. That left me with one
dollar.

Well, I was admitted into the Conference
on trial, with nine others — among them R. N.
Price, who alone survives to this day. He and
I were Emory students together, and side by
side we have stood for these fifty-five years
members of the Holston Conference, M. E.
Church, South. May my God keep his hand
on this dear man and bring him and his safely

95

Recollections of An Old Man

home from the field when the sun goes down!
Was I concerned about my appointment ?
No. I knew nothing of the fields of work and
never once thought where I might be sent.
"Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be
wise." Bishop Capers read me out to Burns-
ville, N. C. (Holston then included Western
North Carolina.) William Hicks was pre-
siding elder; and, to my delight, James A.
Reagan and R. N. Price were appointed to the
adjoining work — Ream's Creek Circuit — and
George Alexander to Asheville Station. We
four (Alexander, Reagan, Price, and I) left
Abingdon Wednesday, took dinner at Wor-
ley's one mile east of Bristol, and then went
to Blountville and spent the night with J. J.
James. I tried to preach that night. Next
day we went to Jonesboro. Reagan and
Price stopped with Dr. Cossen; and Alexander
and I with J. H. Dosser. That night Alexan-
der told me that he and Miss Lizzie Smith
(daughter of Pleasant Smith, near Emory and
Henry College) were going to be married after
a few months and he wanted me to be his
"best man." Of course, I agreed to do so.
Miss Smith was his second wife. Next day
we took dinner at Brother Wilhoit's, and

96

Seventy Years in Dixie

went on to Garrett's, near Warm Springs, N.
C, for the night. This day we passed the
celebrated Paint Rock, on the French Broad
River, and our road and the river ran side by
side. Leaving Garrett's Saturday morning,
we went up this river road, one of the most
picturesque and interesting mountain roads
I ever saw — every foot of it bringing into view
a beautiful picture as we followed the tortuous,
headlong little stream hunting its way out of
the mountains into the great Tennessee
Valley.

Saturday night we got to the celebrated
stand, Alexander's, ten miles this side of Ashe-
ville. Here Brother Alexander left us and
went on to town to meet his first appointment.
Reagan and Price were now in their own work.
And here we found a charming Christian
family — the Alexanders — mostly daughters,
who were educated at the celebrated Mora-
vian School at Salem, N. C. Rev. J. S. Burnett,
of Holston, married one of them, and he and his
wife were here at her father's. Judge John
Baxter married two of them — a first and
second wife. During the lifetime of the
second wife he came from North Carolina to
Knoxville, Tenn. I was on the Knoxville

97

Recollections of An Old Man

Station at that time, and she was a member of
my Church. An acquaintance begun ten
years before was gladly renewed on my part,
and the renewal only increased my admiration
for her superior Christian character. The
Judge, a man of great intellect and strength
of character, was a doubter as to the reality
of the Christian religion — an honest doubter, I
think. His wife took sick and was sick unto
death. Wife and I were with her much of the
time, and when the end came it was such a
deathbed scene as shook the Judge, both
mind and body. She talked as quietly of
dying and going home as if she were going to
make a visit to her father's house in the hills of
old Buncombe, the home of her childhood.
The Judge would stand at her head and listen
as one amazed, and then walk the floor —
wrestling not only with a great sorrow, but
struggling with a fact for which he could not
account without admitting the deepest truths
of religion. We sang softly "Jesus, Lover of
My Soul." She joined us in the song and
smiled while she sang. I asked: "Are you
afraid to die?" She answered with a clear,
calm voice: "No sir; I am not afraid of any-
thing." Finally she fell on sleep. A more

98

Seventy Years in T)ixie

triumphant death I never witnessed. The
Judge came and looked for a moment on her
sweet, quiet face, and then walked the room
again. We buried her next day, and the day
following I met the Judge at his home. He
took me by the hand, and with the lines of his
face drawn tight as cords, he said : "There is
something in the triumphant death of my wife
inexplicable on any other ground than that
religion is true.,, "Why," he added, "she
was always timid as a frightened bird; but
when the grim monster came, she knew no
fear." Thank God for consistent Christian
living and triumphant Christian dying!

99

XII
A MEMORABLE DAY

UNDAY morning we all left the
river and went over to Ream's
Creek (now Weaverville). Here
was the district parsonage, and
Brother Hicks was at home,
as he had come through the near way.
Brother Reagan preached, and I concluded
for him. Bishop Janes once held our Con-
ference at this place. This was the home of
the large and influential family of Weavers;
hence the name, Weaverville. The Western
North Carolina Conference now has a school
there, Weaverville College. I was now some
twenty-five or thirty miles southeast of my
work, having gone around and passed it.
I might have reached it directly from Jones-
boro in half the distance by going a bridle
pathway through the mountains. Monday
morning I told the brethren good-bye and
started alone for Burnsville, and this Monday
was one of the most memorable days of my
life. This is true to this day — fifty-five years

ioo

Seventy Years in Dixie

later. Up to this point, since leaving Con-
ference, I had most congenial companions,
and two of them knew the road and the people
on the way. So I was easy as to the where
and when and how of our traveling. But now
I was to go alone. A strange feeling crept
upon me as I began to fully take in the
situation. But I was in the path of duty,
as I honestly believed. The validity of my
call to the ministry was never questioned,
and it had never occurred to me that I could
answer that call in any way but by being a
traveling preacher. I found solid comfort
here, and so I pulled up Fannie's bridle a
little and said: "All right, gal, move on;
this is the way for us." I am sorry for the
Methodist preacher who never talked to his
horse, or shared his apple or biscuit with him
at lunch time.

I was late starting that morning; somehow
did not want to say good-bye, and so had not
gone more than ten miles before I had an in-
ward admonition that it was nearing dinner
time; and with that I began to consider my
chances for something to eat for myself and
Fannie. Then for the first time I thought of
my money; but without feeling in my pocket

101

Recollections of An Old Man

for it, I began to count back where I had
spent a fourpence here and another there.
It was in the days of slavery, and I made it a
rule to give something to the boy who cared for
my horse and blacked my boots. We all wore
boots in those days. Then we had to pay at
two or three tollgates along the river. When I
counted it up as well as I could, I concluded
that I had spent seventy-five cents of the
dollar I had left at Conference, and so thought
there was still twenty-five cents in my pocket.
But when the pocket was searched, I found
only an old Spanish piece, worn perfectly
smooth and very thin, worth twenty cents.
This was my stock in trade among strangers,
hungry, and two hundred miles from mother.
Maybe a cloud passed over the sun just then,
for things looked a little blue, I thought.
However, Fannie and I were headed for the
Burnsville Circuit, and, looking ahead, I saw
a good-looking white house, apparently right
in the road. On approaching it I found the
road turned square to the right immediately in
front of the house. I made the turn, and had
gone a few yards past the gate when I heard a
lady's voice calling: "Mr. Sullins." I heard
only that, but that was enough. I stopped,

102

Seventy Years in Dixie

turned back, and made my best bow to a lady
standing in the door. How this came about,
I could not guess. In a moment she said:
"Stop and take dinner with us." Here was a
delightful surprise. No tired plowboy ever
heard the dinner horn in the long days in June
with more pleasure than that invitation gave
me. She called a servant from the wood
yard and said : "Take care of the gentleman's
horse." As I approached she extended her
hand, and explained thus: "I was at Ream's
Creek yesterday. You concluded the services,
and I learned your name and that you go to
the Burnsville Circuit this year. We are
Methodists, and are always glad to have the
preachers stop with us. My name is Black-
stock." This made all plain. I had an ex-
cellent dinner, and made the acquaintance of
a family whose friendship I appreciated.
When I was ready to leave, the family came
together for prayers. That was the custom in
those days. My friend, Miss Blackstock,
said as I was starting: "There is no house on
the road for many miles through the mountain
at which you can get lodging. You will have
to turn off the road some ten miles from here
and stay with Mr. Carter." She then said

103

Recollections of An Old Man

casually: "He's a Baptist, and may charge
you for staying all night." That last remark
impressed me seriously, and the reader can tell
why.

But Fannie and I were headed for the
Burnsville Circuit, and this was the road. So
after many thanks and "good-bye," I started,
grateful for such good providence as gave me
my dinner. The road ran along the foothills
of the big mountains that towered high above
me. The sand was deep, with loose rocks
among it. Soon I began to think thoughts.
Fannie clipped off the miles well. The
shadows of the tall pines began to stretch far
along the road. I must be near the bridle
way that turns off to Carter's. And what will
you do if when you ask for your bill in the
morning the old gentleman should say, "One
dollar ?" Ah, there was the trouble. I do not
think I was foolishly sensitive, but the thought
of having to tell my Baptist host that I was a
Methodist preacher and had but twenty cents
in the world made the pine shadows look
longer still. True, I could tell him, "My
circuit comes near you, and I will surely pay
you the other eighty cents soon," and maybe
he would believe me. Still I did not feel good

104

Seventy Years in Dixie

over it. In the mountains, among strangers,
with only twenty cents in my pocket, night
coming on, and mother two hundred miles
away! Well, if I cried a little there was no one
to see me. Just then I looked up, and coming
around a turn in the road I saw a large, well-
dressed man on a fine pacing bay horse, some
two hundred yards before me. This broke
the train of thought. As the gentleman ap-
proached I lifted my eyes and bowed, and, to
my surprise, he reined his horse up and stopped
suddenly. Then turning, he said: "Excuse
me, sir, but are you not the preacher going to
Burnsville Circuit?" I answered: "I am."
"Well," he said, "I am glad to see you, Brother
Sullins. My name is McElroy. You will see
on the plan of your work that I am the
secretary of the board of stewards." Without
giving me time to gather my thoughts together
and tell him how glad I was to see him, he
talked right on, saying: "I am glad to see
you. I live in Burnsville; am on my way to
Charleston, S. C, to lay in my winter stock of
goods. Go right to my house and feel at
home. I must hurry on, for I have to go to
Blackstock's to stay all night." And he
moved forward a step, perhaps, when suddenly

105

Recollections of An Old Man

the turned back and said: "Wait. Your
first quarterly meeting will be held on Jack's
Creek before I get back. Here, take this five
dollar bill and report it for me to the Quarterly
Conference. " Then, starting again, he looked
back and said : "A half mile up there you will
find a path to the right, which leads out to old
Mr. Carter's, where you can spend the night."
There now! Surely a cloud had gone off the
sun, it was so light on the hills. It was day-
break everywhere, all the birds were singing
at once.

Two minutes later you might have heard a
young preacher whistling along up the road,
keeping time as he patted Fannie's neck, or
now and then chuckling a little to himself
as he anticipated saying to Mr. Carter next
morning, if he charged for the night's lodg-
ing: "I will have to trouble you to break this
five, as I have not enough loose change by me
to pay my bill."

But here is the little byway, and soon I am
at Carter's, Fannie gone to the barn, and I
seated on the porch with a fine basket of
apples by my side. The sun is just going
down, and a bracing breeze comes down from
the Big Black Mountain, promising frost by

1 06 l'^

Seventy Years in Dixie

morning. So closed one of the most memor-
able days of my life. Its lessons on faith in
Him who said to me in my childhood, "Go/'
have lingered with me ever since. Awful first
day ! Blessed first day i Never to be forgot-
ten.

107

XIII
INTERESTING INCIDENTS

EATED on the porch of Mr.
Carter, as the eventful first day
of my ministry closed, I had a
favorable opportunity for a lit-
tle quiet. The evening breezes
from the Big Black came crisp and cold
out of the deep, dark forests of balsam,
which gave color and name to this great
monarch of the Alleghanies; and as they
fanned my brow, I caught the rich aromatic
odors they had gathered in their leafy dells,
where they had spent the day, and was re-
freshed. The coming of the lowing cows
from the field and the milkmaid, with pail in
hand, going out to the pen where the restless
calves were bleating, recalled Polly Shook
and the days of childhood. Such had been
the pleasing evidence of my Heavenly Father's
timely care in the experiences of the day that I
was really happy. I had learned as never before
how to "commit my way unto the Lord and
to trust also in Him." My meditations were
soon interrupted. A gentleman rode up to the

108

Seventy Years in Dixie

gate, hitched his horse, and came directly to
the house. A son of Mr. Carter, I guessed.
But I was wrong, for as soon as he came on the
porch he looked straight at me for a moment,
then, bowing, said: "Aren't you the preacher
going to the Burnsville Circuit ?" I had often
wondered how those "Tar Heels" could tell a
preacher at a glance. I answered: "Yes."
"Well," said he, "I thought so." Then he
added: "My name is Young. I live with Mr.
McElroy, in Burnsville. I am a Methodist
and glad to see you." He was a young man
about my age, and I was delighted to meet him.
We occupied the same room that night, and I
noticed that he bowed by his bed in prayer
before he lay down. He was a young man of
fine business sense, good character, and fair
culture. He told me that his business there
at that time was to buy cattle for the Southern
market. The neighbors thereabouts were
to bring their marketable cattle to that place
in the morning. The announcement had
been spread abroad. So when morning came,
bringing a white frost, Mr. Young was up
early to look after business, and very soon
heard the big cow bells coming in on the
different mountain roads and trails, ten,

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Recollections of An Old Man

fifteen, or twenty in a squad, the leader of each
herd usually wearing a large bell and an-
nouncing his approach by such bellowings
as almost shook the hills. I was up right
away, determined to see what was going on
and to show the neighbors that I was not
a "sleepy-head," but a wide-awake young
preacher, ready for anything honorable, work
or fun.

Mr. Young bought some forty or fifty out
of the different herds, and among them three
leaders, monster fellows, whose furious bel-
lowings were enough to satisfy any Spaniard
at a bullfight. The question of who is
master must be settled before they are started
on the road; otherwise, they will give trouble.
So it was agreed to turn them two at a time
into the little meadow nearby. First, the
largest and smallest were turned in, and, after
some pawing and bellowing, they locked horns
— not figuratively. But the smaller one soon
found that he was overmatched, and gave it
up. Next the second in size was turned in.
He was but a little less than the largest, and,
after much bellowing and swelling and maneu-
vering for positions, they set to with force
enough, it would seem, to burst their skulls.

no

Seventy Years in Dixie

And now the frost flew and the meadow sod
was torn up as by a plow. Round and round
they turned, trying for vantage ground, until
finally the larger one threw his horn under the
jaw or neck of his antagonist, and the fight was
over; and nobody hurt, no blood spilled.

Thus began my first day on the Burnsville
Circuit. Breakfast over, soon the cattle were
on their way to Burnsville. I must not forget
to tell you that Mr. Carter did not charge me
for my night's lodging, but gave me a hearty
invitation to return again. I joined Mr.
Young and made some reputation as a cattle
driver, and lost nothing by it.

We got to Burnsville that evening. My
appointments began there the next Sunday.
I spent the rest of the week there, visiting the
families of my people and getting acquainted
with the town. I found that there were
twenty-two preaching places on the circuit,
all to be filled every four weeks, with an
average travel of about ten miles per day.
I had no books but my Bible, hymn book,
Discipline, and Watson's Dictionary. There
were but few books in the homes I visited.
Occasionally I would borrow a good book from
a good brother and read it on horseback and

in

Recollections of An Old Man

return it on my next round. I was strong and
in fine health; had been brought up on a farm,
and knew how to mix with people. I could
sing, and would say to the young people:
"Next round I will stop with So-and-So.
Bring all your notebooks, and let us have a
'singing.' ' Thus I made their acquaintance
and got close to them.

The pay of a preacher was one hundred
dollars per year. This they paid in full.
We reported one hundred conversions and
additions that year. I left the work with
about forty dollars in my pocket. They paid
but little, but never allowed the preacher to
pay for anything he needed. A suit or two
of clothes, boots, hats, etc., were presents com-
mon in those days. I visited all I could;
organized Sunday-schools in the spring;
had two camp meetings on the work; was
called to but one funeral during the year.

A thousand things connected with this first
year of my ministry I must leave unwritten
here. The country was wild and mountain-
ous. The Big Black, the Roane, the Bald,
the Yellow and the Lynnville Mountains
were all in the circuit, the people simple and
hospitable in their manners.

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Seventy Years in Dixie

Conference met that fall (1851) at my old
home Athens, Tenn. Thus an opportunity
was afforded me of meeting father and
mother and other home folks. What a delight!
Bishop Andrew was in the chair, and D. R.
McAnally was secretary. I was read out to
Asheville Station, N. C. This made me
tremble, and I went with much humility to
undertake the unequal task. On my way
I spent a night with John Harle, near the
mouth of "Chucky," one of the best men I
ever knew. He went with me next morning
some two or three miles to show me how to ford
"Chucky River" safely at its mouth. He
stood on the bank and directed, "Up a little
now;" and then, "To the right carefully;"
now, "Down to the going out place." Safely
over, I waved him a good-bye and moved on.

Asheville was but a flourishing village then
(1851). I found a membership of about three
hundred in the town, and among them the
celebrated Vance family, Robert Vance, after-
wards a general in the Confederate army and
a member of Congress, was Sunday-school
superintendent and class leader. His wife was
Mary McElroy, of Burnsville. I had the
pleasure of being at their wedding a year

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Recollections of An Old Man

before, while I was on the Burnsville circuit.
His mother, the widow of David Vance,
resided here; and his brother, Zebulon, then
just grown up to manhood, afterwards the
world-renowned "Zeb Vance, of North Caro-
lina/' Congressman, General, Governor, Sen-
ator, etc. His sister, Ann (now the beloved
wife of Dr. R. N. Price), was then the bright,
attractive young leader of the social and
religious circles of the village. Here, with
their charming families, were Messrs. Nick
and John Woodfin, the head of a law firm;
and here "Old Uncle John Regnold,,, a super-
annuated member of the Holston Conference,
with his dear old motherly wife and some
hearty young sons. I boarded with them that
year in the Carolina House. Here, too, was the
Asheville Female College, then a Conference
school, Rev. E. Rowley, president. The
boarding pupils and faculty filled one-fourth
of the church on Sunday mornings, and often
embarrassed me by their presence. The
Robertses, Smiths, Beards, Rankins, Edneys,
etc., were there.

The year was in many respects a pleasant
and successful one. We had a gracious
revival during the year. Those were the

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Seventy Years in Dixie

days of camp meetings everywhere. I at-
tended three. One was out in Haywood
County, I think — at least out near the Indian
Reservation, at Shook's Camp Ground. Here
on Monday night occurred a singular incident.
Brother Hicks, presiding elder, had preached
a strong sermon, and many penitents came to
the front for prayer. After a lengthy altar
service, such of the congregation as desired to
do so were permitted to retire. I went to the
preacher's tent and to bed. But sleep did not
come — no pain, no trouble of any kind. All
was quiet, save two or three voices out under
the shed — sometimes a stanza of some old song
in a low tone, then again a prayer, then words
of exhortation. One of the voices was evi-
dently that of a woman. I listened, trying
to sleep, but sleep had fled. I conceived the
little group lingering there at the altar to be a
wife who had prayed long for a wicked hus-
band, and, finding that husband penitent,
she had enlisted the sympathy and help of a
local preacher or class leader to remain with
her to pray and encourage the poor sinner.
This exercise had lasted, it seemed to me,
till midnight. Somehow I felt like I ought to
go out there; and, getting up, I dressed and

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Recollections of An Old Man

went out, I knew not why. There, near to
the stand, under the dim light of a single tallow
candle, which was burning low in the wooden
sconce, I saw the three, much as I conceived
of before I came out. I did not go to them,
but took my seat twenty or twenty-five feet
away. Why, I did not know. Then there
came into mind an old song I used sometimes
to sing. It was a sort of dialogue between a
Christian and a sinner. Immediately I began
to sing it. It ran thus:

"Come, think on death and judgment,

Your time is almost spent;
You've been a wretched sinner,

'Tis time that you'd repent."

Here the sinner puts in some excuses. Finally
the Christian ends his pleadings with this:

"But what if you lie down to-night,

Supposing all is well,
And should your eyes be closed in death,

Your soul awake in hell?"

Sinner says:

"My case would then be awful,

I now begin to see ;
I pray the Lord have mercy !

Have mercy, Lord, on me!"

I sang these simple words, and, without
speaking to any one, went back to bed and to

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Seventy Years in Dixie

sleep. Often I wondered at the whole thing,
but could never understand it.

Seven years after this I was stationed in
Chattanooga, E. F. Sevier, presiding elder.
In midsummer he was in feeble health. My
wife had gone to her father's at Jonesboro,
with our first child, then about one year old.
Brother Sevier said: "I have three quarterly
meetings which I wish you would hold for me.
I will fill your pulpit here while you are gone.
He lived in Chattanooga then. Of course, I
consented. The meetings were to be at
Ducktown, Tenn., Murphy, N. C, and Coker's
Creek, Tenn. I held the meeting at Duck-
town, and spent most of the week there, inter-
ested in the copper works. Saturday I went
to the Murphy meeting. It was on the Mur-
phy Circuit, but not in the town of Murphy.
At the close of the morning services I assisted
the pastor in Quarterly Conference. When we
were through, a brother came and spoke to
me, and said: "You don't know me, but I
know you." When I inquired where I had
met him, he said: "Do you remember the
Monday night at Shook's Camp Ground,
when you came out of the preacher's tent about
midnight and sang a song about death and

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Recollections of An Old Man

judgment ?" "Yes," I said, "and I've never
known why." "Well," he replied, "I was
there and was restless that night, had walked
about till just before you came out, and then
took my seat against a post at the upper end of
the shed, in the dark, and was listening to the
three who lingered under the dim light near the
pulpit, when you came out and sang that song.
The last lines filled me with trembling, and as
you went back I resolved to be a better man
from that moment. I sought and found par-
don, joined the Church. To-day I am a local
preacher and on my way to glory, thankful
to God for that Monday night at Shook's
Camp Ground." "Well, well," I said, "here,
after seven years, I see in part the meaning
of that strange night." And so I conclude
that no man knows just when he is doing his
best work. Only to follow the promptings
of the Holy Spirit and leave results to him
is always safe. Strange things will often
occur. The explanation will come by and by.

118

XIV
CHEROKEE PREACHERS

HERE were five or six Cherokee
Indians at the meeting of which
I wrote in the last chapter at
Shook's Camp Ground. Among
them were two local preachers

of our Church, Old Charley and Black Fox.
I was very much interested in the company,
and often sought opportunity to talk with
them. They had an interpreter along, a
"half-breed. " Their grave and devout
manners in time of worship were very marked.
Indeed, they were at all times very serious,
not to say grum. They rarely ever smiled,
and never laughed a hearty, open laugh. When
they talked among themselves, I noticed they
did not move their lips, like other folks;
and on inquiry I found they had but few, if any,
labial sounds in their language. So I began to
try all the Indian names of rivers, mountains,
towns, etc., known to me, and found that I
could pronounce or sound them without putting
my lips together, thus: Chattanooga, Ocoee,

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Recollections of An Old Man

Tennessee, Coosa, Unaka, and so on for fifty or
more names. The accent was always on the
last syllable, and was a sort of grunt. I
wondered if their language had not been con-
structed, or grown, out of their characteristic
fondness for secrecy. Two of them ten feet
away from you might be talking, but you could
not see their mouths move. As Conference
was to be in Asheville that fall, I asked Old
Charley and Black Fox to come and see their
"big brothers. " They did. At an evening
service for preaching I told Old Charley
that I would call on him to pray after the
sermon. He prayed in his own language;
and while we could not understand what he
said, we felt sure that our common Father
understood him. His voice was very soft,
and even musical at the first, but grew loud
and almost vehement before he closed. We all
said "Amen," and were glad that our God
understood Cherokee.

This Asheville Conference was the first I
had to entertain, and I found plenty of work
locating and taking care of the preachers.
The Conference was not so large then, as there
were no lay delegates. Bishop Capers came
on a few days beforehand, and I had the

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Seventy Years in Dixie

pleasure of entertaining him. This year I
received deacon's orders. The sessions were
held in the college chapel. My appointment
this year was to the Jonesboro Station. I
took public conveyance (had no horse), and
got to Jonesboro Saturday evening, October
2, 1852. I stopped at the hotel. Next day
I preached twice, and had the pleasure of
meeting many of my people. Here I found a
good membership in a good, new church.
The colored membership was large, and I
usually preached for them at three in the after-
noon in the Sunday-school room, which was
the basement. Jonesbore was then the best
town between Knoxville and the State line,
Bristol. There was no Bristol then; it was
known as James King's big meadows, post
office, Sapling Grove. The legal profession
was very strong at Jonesboro: James W. Dead-
erick, T. A. R. Nelson, S. J. W. Luckey, John
Blair, Landon Haynes, William Maxwell,
T. D. Arnold, John Aiken, and others. A
historic old town was Jonesboro, once the
capital of the State of Franklin.

Here and hereabouts the Seviers and Tiptons
had their long and bitter struggle for political
supremacy. At this time Odd Fellowship

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Recollections of An Old Man

was very popular in East Tennessee. Many
of the best citizens were members of the order,
and they turned their attention to the cause
of education — very wisely, as I think — and
used their organization to establish and
maintain schools. The lodge at Rogersville
established the Odd Fellows' Female College
there, and conducted it for years. It is now
the synodical College of the Presbyterian
Church.

The lodge at Abingdon, Va., undertook a
very extensive school enterprise, and spent a
good deal of money on it; but a little later it
was turned over to our Church, and is now our
Martha Washington, the oldest of our Holston
female colleges. The lodge at Jonesboro,
made up of the best citizens of the town and
county, projected a similar enterprise and
established an Odd Fellows' Female College
there in 1853. Rufus P. Wells, pastor of the
Presbyterian Church, and I were elected
associate principals. I consented to the ar-
rangement as a temporary "supply," not
dreaming that I should ever become a school-
man. And yet four-fifths of the time since
that have I been a teacher. How little one
knows what his life shall be! I fully expected

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Seventy Years in Dixie

to be a regular field hand, but Providence put
me in the shop. I am sure it did not once
occur to me to be anything but a traveling
Methodist preacher. Nor did my accept-
ance of the position in this school involve a
change of purpose. The school prospered.
Our music teacher was Miss Chisom, from
Fort Smith, Ark. She was a Cherokee quad-
roon, and carried strong marks of her Indian
blood and was a good musician and a sensible,
practical woman. This was at a time when
the E. T. & V. R. R. was being graded. Mr*
R. L. Owen was chief engineer, and after-
wards became President of the road. He and
Miss Chisom and I boarded at the same hotel.
To make the story short, he courted and
married her. I had the pleasure of officiating
at the wedding, and Miss A. R. Blair, men-
tioned elsewhere, was bridesmaid. He took
his bride to Lynchburg, his native town.
To them were born two sons — Otway and
Robert L., manly young fellows who used to
visit us with their mother when they were but
lads. Otway, I think, died young. After the
death of Mr. Owen, she took her son, now
grown and educated in a Virginia college,
back to the Territory. I see stated in the papers

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Recollections of An Old Man

of this week that "Robert L. Owen, who is
one-eighth Cherokee, has been nominated by
the Democrats for a seat in the United States
Senate, at Muskogee, Ind. T." Bravo! Bravo!
Well, Robert is no milksop, I'll warrant you,
and his good tomahawk will be a match for Mr.
Tillman's pitchfork.

This year I attended a camp meeting at the
celebrated Brush Creek Camp Ground site,
now within the corporate limits of Johnson
City. Here, some years before, occurred a
fearful tragedy at a night service during a
thunderstorm, which resulted in the death
of two very popular young people by a stroke
of lightning. Rev. N. G. Taylor gave me an
account of it. The young people killed were

Mn Gillespie and his betrothed, Miss

Mary Taylor, sister of N. G. Taylor, then a
young man, and aunt of Hon. Robert L.
Taylor, of the United States Senate. Mr.
Gillespie and Miss Taylor were standing in
the door of a tent only a few feet back of the
preacher's stand, and Taylor said he was sitting
in the tent, near by, listening to William Mil-
burn preach on the judgment, and that a feel-
ing of awful solemnity seemed to burden the
air. This I can well believe; for when William

124

Seventy Years in Dixie

Milburn preached on the judgment it was
awful preaching, and I doubt not the sermon
and the lightning and thunder were in unison.
Taylor said there were three strokes of light-
ning in quick succession, the first some little
distance up the valley, the second much nearer.
The third did the fearful work, killing the two
and prostrating many others. Brother Taylor
said he was unconscious for a few minutes,
and when restored found that "the red-winged
messenger had taken my beautiful sister
almost right out of my arms." Then he gave a
graphic description of the awful scene. How
I wish I could produce the word-painted
picture which he drew of that midnight of
horrors — its blackness of darkness, the rain
coming down in floods, the bellowing thunder
literally shaking the earth as the vivid lightning
threatened to set the whole encampment on fire ;
the awe-struck assembly in the greatest terror
and confusion, some praying, some screaming,
and all rushing here and there in blind dis-
traction. The bodies of the two young lovers
were placed side by side on the straw under the
shed.

N. G. Taylor was perhaps a more eloquent
and graphic delineator of tragic scenes than

1*5

Recollections of An Old Man

either his honored sons, Robert L. or Alf A.
I stood with him on the very spot in the very
tent door where young Gillespie and Mary
Taylor stood when the bolt struck them, and
heard him tell .the gruesome story, his lips
quivering and his eyes half filled with tears.
I had the pleasure of preaching to him and his
wife and "Old Black Mammy" at three o'clock
Sunday evening at that meeting, Bob and Alf
being little chaps then. That Taylor family
is now on my list of long-time friends, and
my recollections of many tokens of love from
them is very pleasant. Mrs. Taylor was a
queenly person, a very brilliant woman, a fine
conversationalist, and a charming musician,
and, mark you, mother of "The Fiddle and
the Bow." She was a sister of Landon C.
Haynes, perhaps the most captivating orator
these East Tennessee hills ever gave to the
country. I seem to see her now, like Cornelia,
daughter of Scipio Africanus and mother of
the immortal Gracchi, standing between her
two sons, saying, "Haec ornamenta mea sunt"
("These are my jewels") — honored sons of a
noble ancestry, as worthy of immortality as
Tiberius and Caius of classic story!

126

XV
DEATH OF JAMES H. CARDWELL-

N the last chapter we were
at Jonesboro, Tenn. (1853),
and I was closing my third
year in the ministry at old Brush
I Creek Camp Meeting. The
most memorable occurrence of this year was
the death of my brother-in-law, James H.
Cardwell, of Abingdon, Va. My sister wrote
me of his sickness, and requested me to
come to them. She was in delicate health,
with a babe only a few weeks old in her
arms. I went at once, and found him very
low in the last stages of typhoid fever;
but his mind was clear and his faith tri-
umphant. He was a dear, good man.
I perhaps had not known a better — a class
leader and a Sunday-school superintendent, a
fine singer and mighty in prayer, a man of fine
social qualities, who loved and enjoyed life.
He had an interesting young family, a wife and
five children; and now the end was nigh, when
he must surrender all his cherished plans for

127

Recollections of An Old Man

life and leave his wife a widow and his children
fatherless. He had been an elder brother to
me when I was at Emory and Henry College,
ten miles away. I was almost crushed as I
stood by his bed, with his little family stunned
by the unutterable sorrow that fell like a bolt
upon their heads and hearts. That night I
persuaded sister to take the children to her
room and let me watch. We were alone —
Cardwell and I. A little fire flickered on the
hearth, and in the stillness the clock seemed to
tick unusually loud. We talked some of days
gone by, and some of his wife and children,
but most of the future. He did not believe
that he could get well, and then he spoke of
God's love in Christ Jesus and his promise to
be a husband to the widow and a father to his
children. His eyes filled with tears; and then,
restraining himself a moment, he said: "Broth-
er, they will not let me shout and praise my
God; and I wanted you to come, for I knew
you would." I said: "Brother, we are hop-
ing that you may get well, and we want you
to husband your strength." He was silent.
After a few moments, I took my seat before the
fire with my back toward him; and soon I
heard a whisper — a deep whisper — coming

128

Seventy Years in Dixie

from his bed. I stole a look back, and there
he was, with his face turned right up toward
heaven, and he was putting his hands together
and then separating them and bringing them
together again while in the act of clapping
them; and then he said, "Glory to God! glory
to God!" in a whisper. That midnight hour I
have never forgotten. I have never felt nearer
to God and heaven, perhaps, than at that
silent hour. The memory of it comes into
the recollections of an old man as he looks
back, like a traveler, to the high places he has
passed and sees the tops of the distant moun-
tains still bathed in the mellow sunlight of a
peaceful sunset.

Next morning it was apparent that he was
growing more and more feeble, and we felt that
the end was nigh. Sister said to me: "Watch,
and don't let him get away without speaking
to me and the children. Call us in time/'
The doctor came, and other friends; and soon
I went and told sister to come in. She brought
the children and the nurse with the baby.
As soon as they entered the room, he seemed
to understand what it meant and held out his
hands and took the babe first and then each
child in his arms and blessed it. And then.

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Recollections of An Old Man

looking at his wife, he waited with outstretched
arms for her to come; and with a short prayer
he released her with a good-bye kiss, the last
of earth. And from that moment he never
seemed to know that he had a wife or a child —
never spoke of them again. They had passed
out of his earthly life. The nurse took the
children into an adjoining room, where a
number of weeping women had assembled.
I took sister up in my arms, and half carried
her, limp, from the room. A heartbroken
sigh and a deep groan told how surely she felt
the stroke that left her a widow with a group
of orphan children. I could scarcely move
her along, she seemed so reluctant to go.
But to our astonishment, just as we passed
through the door into the next room, she
sprang from my arms and said: "Glory to
God! No, this is not all — heaven and eternity
are yet left!" And so she continued to walk
up and down the room shouting, while we
all wondered at the strange woman. The
neighbor v/omen looked at me with tear-filled
eyes and said plainly enough: "What does
all this mean ?" I guessed at some things, but
said nothing; for I could see only the outside.
Then I caught her in my arms and laid her

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Seventy Years in Dixie

on the bed, where she became quiet, with a
smile on her face, as with upturned gaze, she
seemed to be looking far away at beautiful
things. Next morning she said: "Brother,
you were all surprised at my conduct yesterday
when we came out of Henry's room. Well,
when we left his bedside, I could think of
nothing but good-bye forever. All was shut
up — black as midnight. This is the last save
sad memory and buried hope. But just as
we passed out of the room, there came back to
me all in a moment, like a burst of light, the
great truths he and I had so often talked of
and loved so much — that death was not the
end, that heaven and eternity were just on the
other side. And I believed it all and blessed
God for it." And she was ready to go to
shouting again. It was all plain enough now,
and we felt the joy of it. We buried the good
man there in the good old town of Abingdon,
among his friends, to await the trumpet that
shall call the sleepers in Jesus. His wife
joined him many years ago, going up with a
shout. Mother died that way too — O so long
ago! Dr. Daniel Trigg, the family physician,
went out on the street, and to inquiring friends
said that Cardwell was dead. And when he

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Seventy Years in Dixie

had told them of the deathbed scene, he added:
"Friends, when I die I want to die Cardwell's
way." And I have been saying, "Amen; me
too," ever since.

And now, Mr. Editor and kind reader, this
short chapter is to comply in part with the
promise made sometime ago to continue the
"Recollections of An Old Man." So I will,
as the good Lord shall give me strength and
guide my unskilled hand. I have written too
little and talked too much in my time. Indeed,
I think people talk too much; most men do, and
some women.

I am charmed as we follow Dr. Richardson
toward "sunset" with his war experience and
things that happened this side of it — aye, this
side of it! He and Price had a good time, I'll
warrant, in that Mills River country among
the Tarheels. There are no better people
known to me. Richardson got a good deal out
of that country in the love and friendship of
the people; but Price got more; he got his wife
there at Asheville, the sister of Genl. Bob and
Hon. Zeb Vance. That makes me think of
something. It was when he and I were
associated in the faculty of Emory and Henry
College. We had been drumming around the

132

■»■>■) S3 --,-,-

F. RICHARDSON D. SULLINS R N. PRICE

Seventy Years in Dixie

land for, say, two weeks together, when we
stopped for dinner one day; and while the
dinner was being prepared, Price said: "I
must write to my wife." When he had fin-
ished his letter and was ready to back it, he
had forgotten his wife's given name, and
turned to me with: "What is my wife's
given name?" I answered: "You married
Ann Vance." "Yes— pshaw — Ann," he said,
and so finished the letter. He was perhaps
thinking about an editorial for the Holston
Methodist (afterwards the Midland), of which
he was then editor. Well, I was to see them
the other day; and the old people are as cozy
as cats in the corner, having light at evening
time. And Richardson is their beloved pastor.
Think of that! Dick and Frank together at
Morristown, and Dave here at Cleveland,
thinking and writing about them. Well,
boys, we have worked in this field together
nearly sixty years. It must be getting late,
and nearly all our fellows have quit and gone
home. Only another row or two at most to
hoe. The whip-poor-will has begun his even-
ing song up in the shaded hollow; and mother
is coming down the hill to the well for milk and
butter for supper, singing: "O heaven, sweet
heaven, I long for thee!" Let's hurry up a little.

133

XVI

MY THIRD APPOINTMENT

ONFERENCE met this year
(1853) at Wytheville, Va.,
Bishop Paine in the chair and
W. C. Graves, secretary. When
my name was called in the ex-
amination of character, my presiding elder,
T. K. Catlett, rose and said in substance:
"There is a report abroad that he has
broken a marriage engagement, to his dis-
credit." That put a stop to the passage of
my character, and almost frightened me out
of breath. But my friends asked for a com-
mittee of investigation. And I learned that a
brother-in-law of the young lady went before
the committee in her name and exonerated me.
The committee so reported. I was never
called before the committee. My character
passed. And immediately the committee of
public worship announced that I would preach
at 3 p. m. This I did to a full house,
many of whom, no doubt, were curious
to see the young preacher who had a reputa-

134

Seventy Years in Dixie

tion for fondness for the ladies. Well, I was
humble and grateful and "had liberty;" and!
the dear old mothers helped the boy preach*
with many an "Amen" and "Glory to God."
We had a good time, and the congregation
took me fully into their confidence by an all-
round hand-shaking. And the Bishop and
the cabinet seemed to agree with the people,
for I was appointed to the presidency of
Strawberry Plains College, 1853-54. Another
clap of thunder in a clear sky! A word
about this school for the information of the
young people and to preserve historical fact
concerning our educational work in Holston.
Emory and Henry had been founded some
fifteen years before in the Virginia part of
our territory; and the old school at New
Market, under the presidency of Rev. Allen
H. Matthews, had gone down. So we had
no school in the southern part of our field,
where one was much needed. Rev. Thomas
Stringfield, one of our oldest and wisest
leaders, lived at the Plains and owned a.
fine farm on the banks of the Holston River
where the town of Straw Plains now stands.
Mr. Stringfield donated some sixteen acres,
on which was a grove of trees, for school

135

Recollections of An Old Man

purposes. Here were built some fairly good
houses on the hill just east of where the town
is situated, and for several years a school was
conducted there under the name of Strawberry
Plains College. Our now sainted James S.
Kennedy, who had just graduated from Emory
and Henry, was head master here for several
years. And it was during these years that he
courted and married Miss Stringfield, who
became the mother of a large family of superior
sons and daughters. Among them our hon-
ored missionary J. L. Kennedy, of Brazil.
Brother Kennedy had left the school at the
Plains, having accepted a professorship in the
faculty of Randolph and Macon in Virginia.
Mr. Stringfield was now an old man and no
longer able to give the school much attention,
and his family, which had been the strength of
the enterprise, were grown up and gone, save
Miss Mary (now Mrs. Ray, of Asheville, N.
C.) and James, then away at college, who
afterwards became a member of our Con-
ference and much beloved by his brethren, a
young man of great promise, but died young.
Mrs. Butler, editor of the Woman s Advocate,
another daughter, was then in Knoxville with
her husband, a merchant. And Maj. William,

136

Seventy Years in Dixie

another son, was, perhaps at Waynesville, N.
C. The friends of the college were scattered,
the school run down, the buildings out of
repair and grounds neglected; so Mr. String-
field asked and secured my appointment to it,
hoping that something could be done to revive
its fortunes. I went there after Conference,
and finding matters as stated above, concluded
that it was a hopeless job without money to
make repairs, etc. I went back to Jonesboro.
The buildings at Strawberry Plains were all
burned during the war, I believe. And there
is no trace of them left. Let me add another
word about our Holston schools. Soon after
the founding of Emory and Henry College, Rev
John H. Brunner (now Dr.) began his wonder-
working at Hiwassee College, which has
weathered the storm of half a century and still
flourishes. Success to Rev. Dr. Eugene Blake,
who now has charge of it. It has a worthy his-
tory and is now, as I believe, one of the best
schools for our young people in all our Holston
country; is better equipped for thorough work
to-day than ever before, in buildings and
outfit. It is co-educational. Write to Rev.
Dr. Eugene Blake for information, Hiwassee
College, Tenn.

137

Recollections of An Old Man

I still held the position of associate principal
in the college with Rev. R. P. Wells, of the Pres-
byterian Church. He and I found the double
work of pastor and teacher very heavy.
And so, by way of a little relief, we agreed that
he should bring his congregation to my church
on alternate Sunday nights and preach to both
congregations, and I go alternate Sunday
nights to his church with my people and
preach. In this way we had an off night
every other Sunday night. But his health
soon failed, and he gave up the work.
This greatly increased my work and responsi-
bility. But I was young and strong physically,
having developed bone and muscle on the
farm until I was eighteen years old. And I
have reason to this day, in my eighty-first year,
to thank God for a strong and healthy body.
So I shouldered the labors and cares of church
and school. And I am glad I did, for as I now
look back over the fifty-four intervening years
to those days and note results, I gravely doubt
if I have done five years of better work in
all my life. True, the board of management
of the school gave me superior assistants as
teachers, and the whole town was in sympathy
with the school. But that which now strikes

ij8

Seventy Years in T)ixie

me as most noteworthy during those years
was the superior character of the girls and
young women who attended school. No faculty
ever had better material out of which to
develop charming womanhood. Bear with
me and note I am not bragging on myself,
but on my pupils. The very best men of the
land sought them for wives. Let me mention
a few of them and the sensible men who
married them: Virginia Blair, wife of Rev.
Dr. W. E. Munsey; Eva Dulaney, wife of Rev.
Dr. John Bachman, Chattanooga, Tenn. ; Sallie
Cunningham, wife of Rev. Nathan Bachman,
Sweetwater, Tenn.; Jodie Burts, wife of Rev.
W. H. Bates, of Holston Conference for
twenty-nine years; Nannie Ripley, wife of Rev.
J. N. S. Huffaker, twenty years a member of
Holston; Eva Snapp, wife of Rev. A. A. Blair,
sometime professor in Tennessee University;
Sopha Hoss, wife of Rev. Dr. J. D. French,
of Holston Conference, and Dora Hoss, wife of
Judge S. J. Kirkpatrick, Johnson City, Tenn.
(sisters of the Bishop); Irene Blair, wife of
John E. Naff, of Holston; Ann Mary Deade-
rick, wife of the late W. T. Van Dyke, Esq.,
of Chattanooga; Laura Mitchell, wife of
Judge J. F. J. Lewis, of Knoxville; Kitty

139

Recollections of An Old Man

Wilds, wife of the late Judge A. J. Brown,
Greeneville, Tenn. ; Ella Luckey, wife of the
late Judge Jesse Gaut, of Cleveland, Tenn.;
Issadore Deaderick, wife of Hon. J. A. Moon,
Chattanooga, Tenn. (M. C); Sallie Luckey,
wife of the late Colonel Moore, of Dalton,
Ga.; Sallie Foster, wife of Rev. Samuel Rhea,
missionary to India; Eva Burts, wife of the late
Hon. Felix Ernest, Johnson City, Tenn.;
Mollie Dulaney, wife of M. M. Butler, M. D.,

Bristol, Tenn.; Dulaney, wife of Judge

C. J. St. John, Bristol, Tenn.; Ann Rebecca
Blair, wife of D. Sullins, of Holston Conference
for fifty-seven years; and others whose names
do not occur to me at this writing, now after the
lapse of fifty-four years. In addition to these,
there are half a score and more wives of the
most influential and successful merchants and
farmers in the State. These men and their
wives have had much to do in the shaping of
public sentiment in the State; and especially
in the religious life of this land for the last
fifty years. Look over the list and say if I may
not be a little proud of having had some humble
part in the education of such a class of wives
and mothers. This was my first four years as
a teacher. Am I become a fool for boasting ?

140

Seventy Years in Dixie

Well, Paul says he was once. But there is a
difference between Paul and me in this case,
as in many others. He was provoked to it —
I tempted. I hope the good women whose
names I have used above will pardon the
liberty I have taken.

141

XVII

REVIVAL IN SCHOOL

URING this year (1854) we had
a rather peculiar revival of
religion, which was largely con-
fined to the school. I say
peculiar, and so it was in its
origin and progress and otherwise. Read on
and see. After school closed one Indian
summer evening, we all came down from
the hill on which the school buildings
stood, the young ladies and smaller children
(say a hundred and fifty) chatting and laugh-
ing as usual, a happy group, I bringing up the
rear. I remember, as I looked over the long
line moving down the sidewalk, there came
suddenly and strangely a most tender solici-
tude for the salvation of the playful rompers.
Some of them were Christians, I knew; but
many were not. But why there should come
just at that moment such a sense — a burdening
sense — of responsibility and obligation upon
me touching those young souls, I could not tell.
I have always felt a strong desire for the salva-

142

Seventy Years in Dixie

tion of my pupils, and prayed and planned for
it; but here was something deeper and more
solemn, authoritative, and seemed to say:
"Now is the time." And with this there came
what amounted to an assurance that if I
would go right forward and hold a meeting
the Lord would graciously sanction and bless
the services. There was no special religious
interest in the town, and I had not thought of
such a meeting at that time; and yet this
impression was so definite and strong that,
without once thinking of what might be
necessary for the success of such a meeting,
or of the numerous difficulties in the way,
I determined to make the appointment.

Now, this all took place while I was walking
a hundred yards, perhaps. And so, going on
down the street, I met two or three of my most
active and helpful members; but I did not con-
sult them as to whether we would have the meet-
ing; that was settled. I simply told them there
would be services in our church to-morrow
night — come praying and trusting. I made the
announcement to the school next day, after a
few words of exhortation to the children,
and invited them and the teachers to be present.
The fight was now on, the responsibility as-

H3

Recollections of An Old Man

sumed. Mr. Wells, pastor of the Presby-
terian Church, was away from home. I had
no ministerial help, and not much lay help.
True, there was Uncle Jimmy Dillworth
(about first cousin to Dillworth's spelling
book, that was), the superintendent of the
Sunday-school and the class leader, and a
good right arm for any preacher. We had no
organ, large or small (an organ would have
frightened my people then), no choir and no
leader of singing, no song book but our
regular hymn book, and no preacher but me;
and I (a poor three-year-old) had been pastor
for a year, and had preached about all I knew
and perhaps a little more, and had the school
on my hands. A poor prospect, humanly
speaking; and from the standpoint of to-day,
should a pastor call his stewards to consider
the question of a protracted meeting under
such conditions, I think some would say:
"Brethren, I don't think this the time; let us
postpone till better weather and moonlight
nights." In those days we did not have so
many helpful external things to look to, so
we looked almost entirely to the great promise,
"Not by might, but by my Spirit," and God
did the work. Brothers, our God has not

144

Seventy Years in Dixie

yet lost the fine art of doing great things with
little instruments. One might preach a word
just here; but I am writing recollections, and
so I go on. Well, the appointment got abroad
in town, and when the time came for services
I found the church well filled. This did not
surprise me, for I thought it would be — why, I
don't know. The official and working mem-
bers of both congregations were present, and
the young people were there, thoughtful and
reverent. I did the little preaching; and by
way of giving the keynote to the meeting,
I sang a solo just before taking my text —
a not uncommon thing for a preacher then,
but much out of vogue jiow. The song was
not in the book, so the people had only ta
listen; and I sang:

"Brethren, we have met to worship

And adore the Lord our God.
Will you pray with all your power

While we try to preach the word ?
Brethren, see poor sinners round you

Trembling on the brink of woe,
Far from God and unconverted ;

Can you bear to let them go ?
Sisters, will you join and help us ?

Moses' sister aided him ;
Will you seek the trembling mourners

Who are laboring hard with sin ?
Tell them all about the Saviour,

145

Recollections of An Old Man

Tell them that he will be found;
Sisters, go exhort the mourners,
Speak the word to all around."

This I sang, and more. And I did not
mouth the words, nor sacrifice the sense and
sentiment of the song for the sake of a half
tone or crescendo in the melody. The people
knew what was said. And when I sang,
"Sisters, will you join and help us ?" I could
almost see the "Yes, we will" in their up-
turned faces, and it helped me. The meeting
moved right off at a good gait. Conversions
occurred in the church, in the homes, in the
school, at recess, and under the trees on the
campus. I preached at night, and taught
during the day. We did not suspend the
school. A word here: I am persuaded from
experience that it is a mistake to suspend a
school when the Lord sends a revival into it.
Two duties can never conflict. Let the pupils
know that it is religious to do their daily work;
religion and duty are one. It may be well
to modify the daily requirements some, but
don't pull the bridle off the colts; they may
caper beyond the fence, and "Satan will find
mischief for idle hands to do." Let him that
hath ears to hear listen.

146

Seventy Years in Dixie

I gave myself no concern as to when the
meeting should close. It was the Lord's
meeting. He had begun it; and I, with cheer-
ful submission, left it with Him to close it.
It continued for some ten days; and when the
time came to close it, I did so, satisfied that it
was according to His will. The closing night
was full of interest. After a genuine song
service and some few words of exhortation, I
opened the door of the Church (the first time
during the services), and in doing so said in
substance: "Those who want to join the
Methodist Church, come and take your places
here on these front seats to my left.^ Sixteen
came, nearly all grown young ladies. Then
I said: "I know that many of you who have
started the new life are members of Presby-
terian families and ought to go into the church
with your parents. But Brother Wells is not
here, and I want such of you as will go into
the Presbyterian Church at the first opportu-
nity to come to these seats at my right. I will
take your names and report them to him
when he gets home." And eight came. And
so it was done. That was the first time I
ever opened the door of the Presbyterian

147

Recollections of An Old Man

Church. The next time was when I broke
into it and got my wife out a year later.

Now, that was my peculiar revival. Does
some reader say: "I don't understand that
sort of a meeting. Can you explain it ?" I
don't have to, thank God! It is like prophecy
— interpreted by results. Let any man who
has known East Tennessee for the last fifty
years take the list of names of wives given in
the last chapter, most of whom were converted
in this revival, and note how much of the best
found in the Church and State is justly as-
cribed to them and their families, and he will
have an explanation that ought to be satis-
factory. Here's my guess: The Head of the
Church knew (yes, I believe in the fore-
knowledge of God) that these preachers and
judges and lawyers and doctors and merchants
and farmers would marry these women and
largely direct the affairs of Church and State;
and that it T was very necessary that these
girls should be converted, seeing that, like
their royal sister of Shushan, they had "come
to the kingdom for such a time" — aye, such
a time. And so he used this strange revival
to that end. And I thank Him for using me
in an humble way for such a service.

148

XVIII
MARRIAGE

FTER a pastorate of two years
at Jonesboro (1852-53 and
1853-54), the Conference con-
tinued to return me to the
school till the year 1857. Dur-
ing these years we had for our pastors T. J.
Pope, Coleman Campbell, and J. N. S.
Huffaker. Brother Pope did not fill out his
time, and so I supplied the work in part.
Coleman Campbell was a superior preach-
er, but had suffered with some paralysis
of the muscles of the face. He was a sweet-
spirited and charming companion. I used
to sit behind him in the pulpit and listen and
wonder at the grace and force of his utterances.
He used a large red bandanna handkerchief,
and occasionally flourished it about while
preaching. Well, I was sitting behind him
one day, and Campbell had put his red ban-
danna in his pocket, leaving one corner of it
hanging out. Just then a piece of mischief
crept into my head, and I had as well tell it,

149

Recollections of An Old Man

or Bishop Hoss will tell it on me. My hand-
kerchiefs were linen. I had not been married
long, and my wife kept mine with hers; so
when she gave me one, it filled the air with a
delightful perfume. All right. I slipped
Coleman's out of his pocket, and put mine in
its place. Soon he had occasion to use his,
and, as he thought, got it out and flourished
it before his face. He hesitated a moment,
looked at it, and passed it under his nose;
and it would have "made a dog laugh"
to see his face. Of course I was looking out
of the window just then. Campbell turned
half around to see me, and then rallied and
went on. Hoss was a wide-awake boy in the
congregation, and a piece of that sort of
mischief by a preacher in church was not al-
lowed to pass unnoticed or be forgotten.

In 1855 (May 3) I was married to Ann
Rebecca Blair, youngest daughter of Hon.
John Blair, who for some twelve years repre-
sented his district (the First) in Congress.
My brother, Timothy, officiated. The Blair
family was a large one. There were three
brothers of the old stock — William K., John,
and Robert. All came from Pennsylvania,
were Presbyterians, and had large families.

15°

Seventy Years in Dixie

So I was in a nest of bluestockings and akin
to nearly everybody in the community. Wife
and I had a home with her father for two
years after marriage. The Conference had so
readily consented to my appointment to the
school for so many years that all seemed to
think of nothing else but my return for another
year. We began to think of having a home of
our own in Jonesboro, maybe, for years.
Mr. Blair gave my wife a nice house and lot
adjoining his. We went to work, busy as a
pair of birds preparing a nest. We repainted
and papered, got carpets, furnished kitchen,
dining room, parlor, and bedrooms, bought a
cow, and filled the pantry. This was in the
fall of 1857, just before Conference at Marion.
Mr. Blair suggested that we should not make
a fire in the cooking stove, but leave all clean
and new for our use when we should return
from Conference. And so we did. The
school was flourishing. It had about one
hundred and seventy-five pupils, and the
Board had made the usual application to the
Conference for my return. Everything was
lovely. Our firstborn was six months old.
So we went to Conference in fine spirits, and
could hardly wait to go into our new home

IS1

Recollections of An Old Man

and go to keeping house by ourselves, like
other folks. Well, to get over a boggy place
as quickly as possible, let me take a running
start and jump and tell you at once: We
did not get back to live in our house, and
it was sixteen years before we ever had
another. We were read out to go to Chat-
tanooga, and our appointment almost came
last in the list. Wife and I sat together,
and she took my arm and we moved right
out of the house and started to our home;
neither spoke, as far as I know. We had
not walked perhaps twenty steps from the
church door when I felt some one touch
me on the back, and, turning, to my sur-
prise found it was Bishop Early, who said
hurriedly: "Brother Sullins, you will go?"
I answered without a moment's hesitation and
emphatically: "Certainly, Bishop, I will go."
He said no more, but "God bless you." Ten
thousand things rushed through my mind and
heart — thoughts flying to all points of the
compass. A cyclone and tornado and an
earthquake had all struck us at the same time.
My answer to the Bishop made all clear to
my wife. We were going to Chattanooga;
that at least was fixed, and it was well. Nothing

152

Seventy Years in Dixie

debatable, we had only to shape all our plans
to that end. Fortunately, she and I had talked
over the fact of my relations to the Conference
before we were married, and it was definitely
understood that I should always hold myself
ready to do any work as a Methodist preacher
the Church might require. I also had the
same understanding with the trustees of the
school; my staying with them depended on
the approval of my Conference. These facts
made matters much easier than they otherwise
would have been. But what a destruction of
plans and cherished hopes, especially for my
wife! As far as I now recollect, neither of us
ever went into that house or got anything out
of it. I told Mr. Blair to take the whole
thing, cow and all, and do as he liked with it;
we were going to Chattanooga. O, it was so
hard on wife! But I owe it to the devotion
and fidelity of the true, wifely woman (now in
heaven for six years) to say that she never said
a word to hinder or delay our movements,
nor did she allow others to do so.

Everything was put on the run to get us off,
and in less than ten days we were ready to
say good-bye. Conference met that year on
October 22. It was now the middle of

153

Recollections of An Old Man

November. We took the train, and ran to
Limestone, eleven miles. Limestone was then
the terminus of the road going west. There
was no railroad from there to Bull's Gap,
the terminus going east. This left a gap of
some forty miles. Fortunately for us, my
wife's oldest brother, William P. Blair, was
running a hack line over this gap. So,
when we got to Limestone, we took a hack
and went a mile or two to Mr. Miller's, where
we spent the night. Next morning, to our
surprise and great regret, the snow was five
or six inches deep. Nothing daunted us;
we bundled up and struck out. By supper, at
dark, we got to Blue Springs (now Mosheim).
This left us about fourteen or fifteen miles
of mud and slush to Bull's Gap. The night
was dark and cold. We got to the Gap at one
that night. There was no hotel, just a little
shack by the roadside. We ran in, but found
no room empty. So we got some mattresses
and made beds on the floor before the fire.
The train was to leave next morning a little
before daylight. This was Friday night;
and we must get to Chattanooga next day
to meet my first appointment on Sunday, and
we could not afford to miss that morning train.

154

Seventy Years in Dixie

A little uneasy sleep, fearing croup in the
baby, and then up and off at daylight for
Chattanooga. It was a new road, and the
train went at a dog trot and stopped every-
where. We got to Chattanooga at night, and
found the snow all gone. The train stopped
in the woods at the Crutchfield (now Read)
House. There were then, perhaps, not a dozen
houses from the Read to the foot of Missionary
Ridge. We had neither of us ever been to
Chattanooga. It was a rambling little town
of possibly less than two thousand inhabitants.
Indeed, it had but lately donned its big Indian
name, Chattanooga (Potato House), and begun
to put on town ways. It had been known as
"Ross' Landing." Here Jack Ross, the Cher-
okee chief, lived, where Rossville is; and here
supplies of all sorts came down the river to
this landing. Salt from King's Salt Works,
Saltville, Va., on the head of Clinch River,
found a good market here. We called it
King's salt to distinguish it from a coarser
salt we called Goose Creek, which came from
Goose Creek, Ky. Here the good Indians and
the mean white men, who were always poking
themselves in among them, got their supplies
in the thirties and before.

155

Recollections of An Old Man

Well, it was Saturday night when we arrived.
We knew but two families in the town. Mrs.
John W. White was a cousin of Mrs. Sullins;
Tom Crutchfield, proprietor of the hotel, and
his wife, Amanda King, were old friends of
mine. We were all brought up in McMinn
County. Tom and I read Caesar together
under Pat. Samuel at Forrest Hill Academy,
and hunted rabbits at recess. We went im-
mediately to his hotel, and here we were cor-
dially received and comfortably quartered.
Very tired and almost sick, wife and the baby
were soon asleep, while I tried to get myself
together and think of what I should say to
the people to-morrow. This was almost the
first really quiet hour I had had since we re-
ceived our appointment. Those three weeks
had been filled with turmoil for head, heart,
and hand. The appointment had distressed
me. There was little prospect of success in
the new railroad town. But I had promised
the Lord when I was but fifteen years old that
if He would give me peace of mind and grace
to do so, I would be a preacher. And that
meant be a traveling Methodist preacher;
I never thought of anything else. I now felt
like I was in the line and no mistake. I had a
good case of it well developed. So I said,
"Lord, help me;" and He did. More anon.

i56

XIX
TEAR AT CHATTANOOGA.

HE last chapter brought us to
Chattanooga Saturday night.
Sunday morning found us in
the Crutchfield House, strang-
ers, looking about and inquir-
ing for the location of the Methodist church
and time for Sunday-school, etc. We found
the church up on what is called High
Street, I believe — where the colored folks
now have a large brick church. I went to
Sunday-school and found the house to be a
small wooden structure, with a pepper-box
looking affair on the top. The bell was a
spice mortar which was kept in the wood-
house. This the sexton pounded with his pestle
to call us to worship. Mr. P. McMillin was
superintendent and class leader. He gave
us a cordial welcome, and answered my many
questions concerning the work, which he seem-
ed to have both on his head and heart. A
genuine right-hand man for the new preacher;
knew how to be helpful with wise counsel and

157

Recollections of An Old Man

sympathy. His earnest Christian wife was
the daughter of Robert Cravens and niece of
the late Dr. G. E. Cunnyngham. This ex-
cellent family came right up to us and put
sunshine into that first Sunday and became
our stand-bys throughout the year. What
a treasure such a family is for the preacher!
Lord, send us such laymen in all our Churches!
At the eleven o'clock hour there was a fair
congregation present. Among them were the
Cravens, the Ragsdales (William and Baxter),
the McMillins (P. and D. C), the Hodges,
the Van Epps, the Parhams, the Crutchfields,
the Lyles, and others, who came at the close
of the services and gave us a welcoming hand-
shake, which made us feel like we had a peo-
ple. The stewards had a meeting Monday,
and secured board for us with John W.
White, Esq., at forty dollars per month. Mrs.
White was cousin to Mrs. Sullins. They
had grown up together at Jonesboro. Never
mind about our salary; I really do not remem-
ber. In fact, I do not believe the question of
our support was discussed or mentioned.
We had no assessment plan in those days.
The old Methodist rule was about this: The
people needed a preacher; the Church sent

158

Seventy Years in T)ixie

them one: they were expected to take care of
him, and he was expected to take what the
people furnished him. If this fell short of
meeting his needs, he was to look for the
deficit when he got to heaven; it was never
made up here. The disciplinary rule of one
hundred dollars for a single man and two
hundred dollars for a married one was about
obsolete. With this sort of tacit under-
standing— of get what you can and live on it —
we went to work.

Rev. E. F. Sevier was presiding elder and
lived in the town. Perhaps Holston never
had a more cultured, charming, scholarly
preacher. His clearness in statements of
doctrine and lawyer-like probing into and
treatment of his text were more intellectual
than emotional, but always instructive and
pleasing. His rhetoric was almost faultless,
and his delivery captivating. He was princely
in person — straight and dignified, with traces
of his ancestral Huguenot blood, and as polite
as a Frenchman. He was akin to Nollichucky
Jack, the gallant leader of many an Indian
fight, and no whit his inferior. Our good
Bishop Hoss is a younger member of that old
game stock.

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Recollections of An Old Man

The health of Mrs. White failed, and we
had to look for new quarters. About this
time Tom Crutchfield sent me word (no
telephones then) to come and go squirrel
hunting with him. This I gladly did. It
seemed like old times, when we were boys
together. When we were ready to start,
he suggested that we go to Missionary Ridge
for fox squirrels, and we did so. That day
I killed on the top of the Ridge, a little
west of the tunnel, at Sherman Heights,
the last fox squirrel I ever saw in the woods.
On our way home, the hunt over, five or six
nice, fat fellows bagged and in the bottom of
the buggy, I began to think of home and work.
And by way of getting his help to find a board-
ing house, I told him that Mrs. White was in
feeble health and we had to move, and asked
him if he could tell us where we could find
a suitable home. He thought a moment,
and then said: "Come to the hotel. We will
let you have a nice suite of rooms, and you
can use the parlor to meet your friends."
I answered: "That would be delightful,
but the stewards will not pay but forty dollars
per month for our board — wife, nurse, baby,
and myself — and that is far below the price

1 60

Seventy Years in Dixie

you get for such board." He simply replied:
"I will take you at forty per month; come on."
That was Tom's big-hearted way of doing
generous things. When we got to the hotel,
we told his wife about it. She was pleased
and said: "Tell Mrs. Sullins to come at
once; her rooms will be ready." This we did,
and occupied a suite of delightful rooms.
The two ladies were much together, and Mrs.
Crutchfield often drove wife to return calls
and make special visits to the poor and sick.
This helped them both religiously, as well
as socially and physically. We were very
comfortable; but the year was getting away,
and there had been no revival, though there
were many sinners around. This troubled us.
I have always felt that something is wrong
when any people with a pastor and an organ-
ized church at his back can spend a whole year
and no revival, no souls saved. I think so
now. Well, there were three regular pastors
in town — Mr. Bradshaw (Presbyterian), Mr.
Templeton (Cumberland), and myself. There
were some good Baptists and a few Episco-
palians, but they had no pastors. So we three
got together and agreed to conduct a union ser-
vice. We were to spend a week in each of our

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Recollections of An Old Man

churches, beginning with Bradshaw's. This
we thought would end the meeting; but it
was a glorious mistake; for the "Lord was in
that place" and had large things for us. We
began in Bradshaw's church, which stood on
the east side of Market Street, between Seventh
and Eighth — the site long since occupied by
large commercial houses. We took it time
about in preaching, but had no choir or
organ. I had to start the tunes mostly and
carry on the singing till the spirit moved the
people to sing. By Friday night the people
filled the house, and many were at the "mourn-
er's bench" and several converted. Satur-
day we moved to my church. It was the time
of my third quarterly meeting. Brother Sevier,
the presiding elder, preached in the morning,
and Brother Templeton at night — a great day.
We were all to have regular services Sunday
in our own churches in the morning and come
together for the night services, and so we did.
And now for another week the Lord shook the
town, and sinners cried for mercy and found
it. When Saturday came, we moved to
Brother Templeton's church. The meeting
did not chill going from one church to another.
In fact, the whole town was getting religiously

162

Seventy Years in Dixie

hot, and you could carry a revival meeting
anywhere about in it. Well, we stayed that
week, with glorious results, in Templeton's
church. We had now made the round of the
churches, as we agreed to do at the beginning;
but such was the state of religious sentiment
that no one thought of closing the meeting.
So we went back to Brother Bradshaw's
church, starting on the second round. This,
the fourth Sunday night, was marked by
wonderful spiritual power. There was an
awe-inspiring sense of the divine presence
pervading the vast assembly. The church
was rallying everywhere with song and prayers
and exhortation, and sinners — old, hardened
sinners, trembled and fell down before God
and cried for mercy.

The meeting could now "stand alone,"
as we say — could run without a preacher.
The people gathered before the hour of service,
not to gossip, but to worship. Brother preach-
er, you have been along there. How delight-
ful it was as you hurried on to the church to
meet a great burst of song a hundred yards
before you got there! No one had been re-
quested to open or lead the services, and yet
the congregation was worshipping, and the

163

Recollections of An Old Man

great volume of music told you that all were
singing; and strong, jubilant voices, unheard
before, told you that new converts were among
the singers— Saul was among the prophets.
We had no collection of songs suited to revival
work then as we have now, nor were our
churches supplied with hymn books. This
was not perhaps wholly evil; for while it was a
drawback in one direction, it worked well
in another. It will be found true — as I have
had occasion again and again to note — that
the Spirit uses ten or a dozen out of the great
multitude of songs to do service through a
revival of weeks, repeating them at every
hour. Sometimes just one song takes the
lead through a great meeting; it may be an old
one fallen out of use for a time. I remember
having been called from Emory, Va., twenty-
five years ago to assist good Brother B.
W. S. Bishop in a revival at Kelley's Chapel.
At night the meeting was moving at a fair
gait when some one started the old hymn,
"When I Can Read my Title Clear/' etc.;
and instantly the atmosphere seemed charged
with spiritual power, everybody sang, and
many wept for joy. I couldn't understand
it, and asked later what it meant. "Why,

164

Seventy Years in Dixie

the revival started when we were singing that
old song, and we have repeated it at every
service since." A great variety of new songs
tends to divide the mind of the worshipper
rather than promote devotion. Fancy singing
is fatal to any revival. Familiarity with the
words and tunes is favorable to devout sing-
ing; the mind of the singer can then be given
to the one thing of "making melody in the
heart." Well, by repeating, the people became
familiar with some of our best old hymns — ■
words and tunes — and they all sang them again
and again with full hearts. I am not quite
sure but that this may in a measure account for
the fact that we Methodists were called a
singing people. (Note the tense of that verb
"were.") Our experimental religion filled our
hearts with joy and gladness, and our good
old hymns gave delightful expression to those
happy feelings; and so we sang them lustily
and often, book or no book.

In this way the children and most illiterate,
even the negroes, learned these oft-repeated
songs and made the welkin ring again in their
great meetings. O to hear and feel them as
I have heard and felt them in many a revival,
and not a book in the assembly! Let's all

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Recollections of An Old Man

sing, without the book, to the old tune of
Greenfield (now Nettleton) :

"Come thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing thy grace ;

Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise."

1 66

XX
GREAT REVIVAL

E had now reached the fourth
Monday in our great meeting.
The church was crowded at the
morning hour, and souls con-
verted. We felt that God had
victory; the town was ready
the revival had the right of
After a little consultation
to move up and sweep

given us the
to surrender;
way everywhere,
we determined
the field and demand an unconditional
surrender to God's cause. So we requested
that every house of business of every kind
be closed for the next day, and that the people
spend the day worshipping God. This met
universal approval. All houses closed, not
simply for the usual hour of worship, but shut
up, like Sunday, all day long. Many of the
business men fasted, did not go to their places
of business at all, and spent the day in church
mostly.

An incident will show how sacredly the
people observed that day: Uncle Antipas

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Recollections of An Old Man

Moore, who lived on Missionary Ridge, was
in the habit of furnishing beef to the town on
Tuesdays. So this morning, as usual, he
came in with his beef; but finding no house
open and no one on the streets, he drove on
down Market Street nearly to the river and
turned back, not knowing what it all meant
till a friend told him. Then he left for home.
A neighbor met him, and inquired: "What is
up, Uncle Antipas?,, "Well/' said the old
man, in no very pleasant mood in view of
losing his meat, "that town has gone crazy;
there is not a house open; nobody will talk
to you about business; it's just like Sunday
clean down to the river — I drove all the way
down. Just as well take your taters back;
you can't sell anything to-day." Antipas
Moore was the father of the brave Colonel B.
F. Moore, of the Nineteenth Tennessee Regi-
ment, who fell in the battle of Missionary
Ridge fighting around his old home. Well,
that Tuesday was a red-letter day in the
revival, and has been such in the religious
life of Chattanooga for fifty years now. It is
marked on some of the old business books
of that day in the town: "The Tuesday-
Sunday." There were thirty-four conversions

168

Seventy Years in Dixie

that day — many in the church, some in the
homes, and some on the streets. Among
them was the now sainted Rev. J. L. M.
French, who for thirty-two years cultivated
many fields in Holston, and then laid down
his tools and went home, fifteen years ago.
I was by his side with my hand on his head
when the Glory broke in. He was a superior
preacher, and a sweeter, better pastor no
people ever had. He was the father of the
Rev. Dr. J. Stewart French, of Atlanta,
Ga.— "a chip off the old block."

We had taken high ground now in the re-
vival, and were aggressive. Just at this stage
of the meeting there occurred what will be
found to be almost universally true; that when-
ever any great religious or moral movement
comes aggressively into any community, then
the devil bestirs himself and rallies all his forces
and uses all means and methods to oppose it.
And mark you, he always covers his real
design under the semblance of some good;
never attacks openly or at a strong point.
Just as it was when "Jesus was led up into
the wilderness/' After his forty days' fast,
he was hungry; then to the hungry Man the
tempter came, and in the most simple man-

169

Recollections of An Old Man

ner possible innocently suggested bread, na-
ture's remedy for hunger, to which all hungry
men have an unquestioned right; you need
bread and ought to have bread; it is the di-
vinely appointed duty of all men to provide
bread for themselves against the days of hunger
and so you should, if need be, even "command
those stones to be bread. " It was bread,
you see, good bread, innocent bread, that
never hurts any man, that the tempter kept
before the hungry eyes of the hungry Man,
purposely concealing all the while the devilish
design of leading the Master into a great sin.
And, again, as was the case of the adulter-
ous woman whom they brought to Jesus,
ostensibly desiring him to condemn a great
sin, the which he was forward to do; whereas
their real object was to get him to pronounce
sentence, as a civil officer, against an individual
sinner, "that they might have whereof to accuse
him." And to encourage him to walk into
their net, they quote Scripture: "Now Moses
commanded us to stone such. What sayest
thou ? Of course you will say so too." One
can hardly say, as he reads the story, which
moves him most, the calmness of the Man under
the cross-fire as he quietly writes in the sand,

170

Seventy Years in Dixie

"as though he did not hear them/' or the
villainous craft and hypocrisy of his enemies.
The trap was well set, calculated to "deceive
the very elect." But Jesus had met the de-
ceiver before in their bout in the wilderness, and
knew his wily ways. His answer was a bomb-
shell among them, "He that is without sin
among you, let him first cast a stone at her;"
as much as to say: "You want sin con-
demned; look at home, and you may find
something to do there." This turned their
thoughts from their evil purpose of entrapping
him to their personal sins. "And being con-
victed by their own conscience, they went out
one by one." Amen. He who reads his
Bible will not fail to see that this designing of
evil under the appearance of good is a favorite
device of Satan. There is nothing hardly so
utterly bad but that something commendable
may be found in it. To cry up that good
and thereby conceal the evil in any action
has the very essence of the enemy's trick in
it. See how this works in the great temper-
ance movement of to-day, February 14, 1908.
Distillers and saloonists, and indeed every-
body knows there is great money in the
whisky business. The Federal government

171

Recollections of An Old Man

(Congress) has found that out. And the
revenue from the dirty business is the only
thing they talk about — money for public
schools, corporation expenses, taxes, etc. And,
O, the sweet speeches they make for the dear
children in Dixie and the dear people who
have to pay the taxes, etc.! But never a word
about the wretchedness unutterable that does
and must follow. To ask for a license is to
ask for the privilege to make drunkards in
all our homes. But this is kept in the back-
ground, never mentioned. There is revenue
in it. Old Cloven Foot still at his old tricks.
From all such may the good Lord deliver us!
It is safe to say that there is not an honest,
thoughtful man in any corporation or state
who does not know that the cost of crime legiti-
mately traceable to alcohol far surpasses the
revenue derived from the license system.
And this is true, to say nothing of the unutter-
able ruin to the individual drinker, soul and
body, and to the family in all that makes the
home happy, and also to the peace and good
order of society. To make drunkards is es-
sential to the whisky business. If men do not
drink, then the saloon and distillery are out of
business. This was announced by one of the

172

Seventy Years in Dixie

speakers in a sort of love feast held by the
"State Liquor Dealers" in Ohio. He was
speaking on the question, "How to Build Up
the Saloon Business/' and said: "The success
of our business is dependent largely upon the

creation of appetite for drink The

open field for the creation of appetite is among
boys. It will be needful, therefore, that we do
missionary work among the boys; and I make
the suggestion gentlemen, that nickels spent in
treating boys now will return in dollars to
your tills after the appetite has been formed.
Above all things, create appetite." There is
the big toe of Cloven Foot. Such a fiendish
speech as that ought to drive every saloon and
distillery out of the land. May a merciful
God save our boys!

But these are reflections and not recollec-
tions. And so I dismiss them to return to our
revival, which was sorely threatened by this
Satanic trick. See next chapter.

l73

XXI

CHATTANOOGA REVIVAL
CONTINUED

UST at this time, when the meet-
ing was moving gloriously, the
enemy rallied his forces to
break us down. And if you
read on, you will see how devil-
ish and dangerous was the attack — dangerous
because it had all the appearance of being
innocent under the well-concealed design of
evil, the old Satanic trick. Here is the case:
Several judicious friends came to us (the
preachers), saying that the meeting was being
greatly crippled, and they feared for the re-
sults. Two lewd women of the town, had
been coming, in the "after services," for two
or three nights, and had crowded into the
seats designated for penitents, and by their
coarse and immodest conduct had disturbed
all about them. They, we were told, were
notoriously vile, and it was believed that they
were the cat's-paw of some bad men of the
town to disgrace the meeting by their brazen
deviltry. Here was a serious trouble, and to

174

Seventy Years in T)ixie

deal effectively with it a delicate matter —
it might prove a boomerang. These women
were sinners, no doubt of that, and we were
telling the people that Jesus died for sin-
ners and would save them if they would
repent and accept Christ; and these two had,
upon our general invitation, come to the seats
for instruction and prayer. This was all
regular and ostensibly very innocent and
right. But there was evidently a "cat in the
meal." Their conduct did not comport with
the character they assumed; they were not
humble and contrite before God, but brazen
and impudent. Our best women and men
believed they were emissaries of Satan to
disgrace our services and ruin the meeting if
possible. Well, the foul thing was on our
hands and must be dealt with, and the dis-
agreeable task fell to me. We all knew that
the moment we took hold to correct it the
enemies would raise the cry of hypocrisy
and say: "Yes, you have a salvation for the
rich and well-dressed, but a poor, ruined
woman you have nothing but a kick and a
curse." Deplorable as this issue would be,
it must be met, or the meeting ruined. So
that night before we called for mourners I

175

Recollections of An Old Man

told the audience just what we had heard,
and deplored the necessity forced upon us
to deal with such a delicate question. These
women knew that they had made a great
breach between themselves and good society,
and that their brazen conduct was hurtful
here. And then I said to them: "If you are
really penitent, you will not force yourselves in
here to the hurt of others, but will humbly go to
our good women, who will gladly sympathize
with you and instruct you and pray for you."
We therefore begged them to take this better
way; but assured them that if they persisted
in disturbing the exercises as they had been
doing we would be compelled to take further
steps to correct the evil.

Well, they did not come that night; but
two nights later they were right in the midst of
perhaps fifty penitents, with their bold, inso-
lent deportment, attracting attention, and in
other ways creating confusion. The much
dreaded crisis had come — a defiant challenge —
and by the grace of God I determined to meet
it, let come what might. So I worked my way
in among the mourners and took the two
women, who were side by side, each by the
arm(maybe a little rudely, I don't know), and

176

Seventy Years in Dixie

said: "Come with me." I brought them
out into the aisle and took them to the last seat
in the house and deposited them. A pretty
high-handed move, you say. True, it was
drastic treatment; but the case was acute, and
required it. And, it worked like a charm —
ended the trouble — while the religious senti-
ment of the public heartily approved the act,
and God carried on his work gloriously.
Amen. A word more here. Lest some young
preacher, who has no more sense than I had
then, may erroneously conclude that this is the
right way to manage such a trouble, let me say:
If such a thing should come up in a meeting of
mine to-day, I would take a different course.
I would try this: Get some good, sensible,
pious women to take the case off my hands,
and go in a body to the poor wretches, and talk
and pray with them and beg them to a better
course. In nine cases out of ten that will
succeed.

We had not opened the church for members
during the five weeks; our work was to get
men saved. So when we closed, the announce-
ment was made that each of our churches
would be opened next Sunday and an oppor-
tunity given to join the church. This was

177

Recollections of An Old Man

done, and I had the pleasure of receiving
forty-seven members, seven of them heads of
families. Others came later. The other
churches shared liberally in the increase of
members. A most glorious revival; and, as is
always the case, it settled all questions, reared
family altars, boomed the Sunday-school,
filled the church at every service with devout
worshippers, and even made finances easy.
A revival is the king cure-all.

Soon after the close of the meeting wife and I
were requested to meet some friends at the
home of Col. J. L. M. French, who lived
right where the courthouse now stands. This
we did, and found the object was, in the name
of many friends, to present us a purse con-
taining one hundred and eighty dollars. And
good Tom Crutchfield almost embarrassed
us by bringing the one hundred and twenty
dollars which the stewards paid him quarterly
for our board and giving it to my wife. I re-
fused to take it. Yes I did; you need not
shake your head! Conference was coming to
Chattanooga that fall (1858), and we were
ready for it.

And now I thought I could begin to see why
the Lord had broken up our cherished plans

178

Seventy Years in Dixie

at Jonesboro, and thrust us out, painfully,
from home and friends into a hard, unpromis-
ing field. It seemed all wrong and "for evil"
to us then; but He meant it "for good."
And so it turned out. This lesson I learned:
That the appointment which demands the
greatest amount of self-denial and hard work
is often the best in the end. This is Methodist-
preacher experience.

Among the other well remembered things
that took place during the year was the com-
pletion of the railroad between Limestone and
Bull's Gap. The East Tennessee and Georgia
road going east and the Virginia and Tennessee
going west met at Midway. The last spike
was to be driven by the President, Dr.
Cunningham, of Jonesboro, on a given day.
It was to be a great day; everybody was to
be there. The roads made liberal provisions
for passengers. This gave a through line to
Jonesboro. Mr. Blair, wife's father, who
was one of the directors, wrote her to come up
on that day and see her old Jonesboro friends
and go on home with him. This she did, taking
nurse and the baby, who was "getting a big
boy then." A great day for her and home
folks! This left me alone, but only a day or

179

,

Recollections of An Old Man

two, for my old friend, Robert Cravens,
mentioned elsewhere, who lived right under
the bluff on the point of Lookout, came down
and invited me up to spend the heated season
with him. There was no other house on the
mountain then. Of course, I went. We
walked the near way, and, passing the mouth
of Chattanooga Creek, which he owned and
where he had a net set for fish, we stopped to
get fish for dinner. He raised the net, in
which there were perhaps a dozen good fish,
and I began to grab for them. He said: "Hold
on; get that salmon there; he will be enough for
us to carry up the mountain." I managed to
capture him, a fine fellow sixteen or eighteen
inches long. Then he let the net down again.
The fish kept better there than up at the house.
I sometimes took my book and climbed up the
bluff in the morning to read and make sermons.
And you who know the place almost envy me
the privilege. Well, it was delightful; but it
was the poorest place I ever tried for reading
or making sermons. Too many things to look
at. That long sweep of river around "Mocca-
sin Bend;" the numerous railroads, with their
snaky looking trains running in and out around
the foot of the mountain; the town huddled up

180

Seventy Years in Dixie

about the foot of Cameron Hill; the mountain
stretching for many miles on all sides; the old
Cumberland on the north and west, heaved like
a troubled sea, stretching far away to the Ken-
tucky line; on the south and east the Great
Smokies piled up all the way back to the Blue
Ridge, with its many spurs, with pretty Indian
names, Chilhowie, Unaka, etc., and far in the
distance big Nantahalah, in North Carolina,
lifting his crest of hemlocks, like Saul, a head
and shoulders higher than the rest; just at your
feet the noisy crows and lazy buzzard floating
slowly as if smelling out some prey, and whip-
ping right over your head a cruel hawk, "with
his butcher's white apron stained with blood;"
the landscape all around covered with farms,
and from yonder cottage the blue smoke
curling upward, which says, "Dinner is getting
here for husband, who is plowing in that field
over there ;" and away off yonder a cloud
carrying a ship's load of water to the farmer's
fields — all this and a thousand other grand
and beautiful things invite and feast your eyes,
until you look down to the cottage, and Sister
Cravens has hung the towel on the railing of
the back porch. Dinner is ready, and nothing
done on the bluff. But enough of this.

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Recollections of An Old Man

Now, Mr. Editor, this is a long account of
our year at Chattanooga. It reminds me of
my boyhood. Mother used to give me a lump
of sugar when I was a good boy, which some-
times happened. I could have taken it all
at one mouthful, but I didn't. I would lick
it a little while, and then put it in my pocket a
bit, and then take it out and nibble some more;
by repeating this process a half dozen times
I made it last longer, because it was sweet and
I liked the taste of it. And so our good
Heavenly Father gave us this delightful year,
and I love to linger on the recollections of it;
they are a joy forever. And more : that revival
in the three churches had much to do in laying
the foundation of the greater Chattanooga of
to-day. But a sad thought comes up here.
Nearly all who took part in that meeting are
gone; some of their children and grand-
children are still there. My two associates,
Brothers Bradshaw and Templeton, have
been in heaven many years. I do not know
that Bradshaw had any children; but Temple-
ton had some little boys, one of whom at least
remains — Hon. Jerome Templeton, of Knox-
ville, a worthy son of a noble sire. God bless
him!

182

XXII

TEAR 1858-59

ONFERENCE met this year
(1858) at|Chattanooga. Bishop
Andrew presided and J. N. S.
Huffaker was secretary. I was
Conference host, and do not
recollect much about the session save that I
was very busy looking after outside matters
pertaining to the comfort of the preachers
and their wives. Our appointment was to
Knoxville. I did not say Church Street;
that was not necessary, as we had no other
church in the town, except a little mission
over about old Methodist Hill. We spent only
a part of the year here ; for Martha Washington
College wanted an agent to raise money for her,
and wanted the Knoxville preacher to do
that work. E. C. Wexler was stationed at
Abingdon that year. The friends of the
college got the presiding elders to exchange
the preachers, as they thought I would make
a better agent than Wexler. And so it was
done. I did some work as agent, raised

183

Recollections of An Old Man

a few hundred dollars, and preached some in
the station. The year's work was so broken
up that not much was done at Abingdon.
But Knoxville did well. Wexler, who was my
Conference classmate, was one of the best men
and the very best preacher of his age and
opportunities that I have ever heard. Physi-
cally he was a rough Dutchman, with a rather
robust body which had been developed in his
father's blacksmith shop in Sullivan County.
He had large hands and feet, which semed to
be in his way, and a large head and heart,
both baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire.
He was a systematic, close student, much given
to prayer. A text became luminous as he
opened it up and held it before the audience.
He was very modest and even timid, which
made him awkward often, especially in the
society of ladies; but after his first five minutes
in the pulpit he was absolutely graceful,
and soon glowed like a furnace. Altogether
he was more like Bishop Kavanaugh than
any other preacher I have known. Dear
fellow! When the war drove us out of Ten-
nessee, he drifted south into Georgia and I east
into Virginia. I never met him again, but I
hope to later.

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Seventy Years in Dixie

In 1859 the Conference met at Abingdon,
Bishop Early in the chair and J. N. S. Huff-
aker, secretary. Our second son was born
just before this Conference, and wife "went
not up; for she said unto her husband, I will
not go up until the child be weaned, and then I
will bring him." This year fell two of our
brethren, Thomas Stringfield and Charles
Mitchell. Brother Mitchell had been with us
only seven years; but Mr. Stringfield belonged
to our Methodist history before the organiza-
tion of the Holston Conference, in 1824.
He belonged to the pioneer days, and while
we were yet a part of the Western Confer-
ence (1823) ne was tne presiding elder of the
Knoxville district. He was the editor of our
first Methodist paper, and the promoter of many
enterprises for the betterment of the social and
religious life of the people. He "commanded
his household after him," so that for seventy-
five years his children and grandchildren have
been prominent in all that builds and betters
human life.

From this Conference we were returned to
Knoxville. Here we had a delightful year.
The old church stood where our present
commodious house now stands. It was old-

185

Recollections of An Old Man

style in architecture, with a gallery in the back
end. Here a few leading singers sat, and
George Jackson led them, sometimes using
his flute to get the proper pitch. Here was a
fine type of substantial Methodists, the ances-
tors and exemplars of the present beloved
Church Street congregation. Brethren of old
Church Street, your fathers were a little more
religiously demonstrative than you are. I
commend you not for the difference, the loss of
that feature of family likeness.

Among this people were three local preachers?
all of whom had been traveling preachers in
the Holston Conference — Isaac Lewis, W. G.
Brownlow, and C. W. Charlton. Isaac Lewis
was feeble from age, but still full of the sweet
spirit of the Master and a wise, ready counselor
for a young man. Some of his^ children and
grandchildren are still there. William G.
Brownlow was the editor of Brownlow' s
Whig, wide-awake, a great reader of current
literature, familiar with the live topics of the
day, a Whig in politics, neutral in nothing,
a positive man with well-defined ideas, a
ready speaker and popular preacher. His
widow, well up in years — about ninety, I
guess — is still living in the city and in the old

186

Seventy Years in Dixie

home. She is perhaps the only living member
who was old enough to take an active part in
church work then — a much-honored relic of the
sunny days of the fifties. May the peace of
God that passes all understanding keep the
mind and heart of this dear child of His,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. C. W.
Charlton was much the younger of the three,
strong and fearless, always thoughtful, a
good preacher and one of the best friends a
pastor ever had.

We had some very gracious meetings during
the year, but the most memorable occasion
was the camp meeting at old Fountain Head
(now Fountain City). This meeting was
largely supported and carried on by my people
from Knoxville. Here we rallied with some
of our country neighbors, and had a glorious
season of refreshing from the presence of the
Lord. The shed stood inside of the present
inclosure, about half way from the car plat-
form to the spring at the foot of the hill;
the tents occupied the level plat around the
shed. Here for many years the people from
the town and country around were accustomed
annually to gather for their religious feast.
How delightful and profitable with all were

i87

Recollections of An Old Man

those weeks of religious and social enjoyment!
This was in the fall of 1859, and was the last
camp meeting held there; and of those present
then many never attended another. The war
came, and our camp meetings went with the
loss of well nigh all else of material good.
As I try to recall the scenes and occurences of
that year in Knoxville, my heart grows sad;
for the dear men and women who constituted
my congregation, only one or two remain.
Of the young men just grown up then, I meet
some on the streets, gray-haired ; among them
are William A. Henderson, John B. Boyd,
William Rule, N. S. Woodward, the elder
Parham, etc. Of the boys, there are S. B.
and J. C. Luttrell, John Brownlow, Sam.
Boyd, Sam. Crawford, C. B. Atkins, Leon
Jeroulman, James and William Lyons, Henry
Ault, and some others, no doubt, not recalled
at this writing after the lapse of fifty years.
I write only of those who were connected with
my Sunday-school and congregation. What
a host of well-remembered faces have passed
before me as I have written these recollections
and have gone up and down the streets as
they were then! Knoxville then was on Main
and Cumberland Streets. The East Ten-

188 „aj

Seventy Years in Dixie

nessee, Virginia, and Georgia Railroad had a
little shack of a depot out at the end of Gay.
All north Knoxville was good hunting ground
for birds and rabbits. I know, for I tried it.

In i860 the Conference met at Asheville,
N. C. Two of our Holston districts were in
North Carolina then. Bishop Paine presided,
and I was secretary — a business to which I
was little suited and for which I had no taste.
I had been stationed there nine years before,
in the second year of my ministry. How
the town had grown in those years! Wife
and I had a home with my old friend, Ed
Aston, and his good wife, Delia Gilliland.
I met Ed some ten years before this as I was on
my way, a schoolboy, to Emory and Henry
College. I did not travel on Sunday, and
stopped off at Rogersville, Tenn., his home,
to spend the day. I went to the Methodist
Sunday-school; and Ed, seeing a stranger
present, came and ferreted me out and asked
me to dinner with him. His sister, Mary,
presented me a laundry pincushion with a
nice little note, which I still have here in a
drawer of souvenirs. She afterwards became
the wife of our Daniel Carter, of Holston for
many years.

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Recollections of An Old Man

Well, big-souled Ed Aston was long
a controlling factor in affairs of the growing
city, and his wife was a jewel worthy to grace
the crown of any king. After an absence of
eight years, I still found many familiar faces
and had many a hearty handshake. The
Woodfins, the Rankins, the Reynoldses, the
McDowells, the Smiths, the Beards, the
Atkinses, the Hilliards, the Sluders, the
Robertses, the Johnsons, and the Vances
were still here. It was a delightful sojourn
among old friends, never to be forgotten.

Our appointment from this Conference
was to the Blountville Circuit. This gave us
a pleasing variety and a fine field for work.
Here we had a parsonage and for the first
time tried our hand at housekeeping. What
a satisfaction it was to have our own things,
arrange them as we liked, to cook what we
wanted and as we wanted it and when !
I shall never forget the first time we tried to
make light bread. I brought all the chemistry
I knew to the work, and wife what she had learn-
ed from Aunt Tildy, the cook at home; and we
made the bread. Well, we ate it; but to be
frank about it, I had eaten better bread.
However, wife never gave it up till she could

190

Seventy Years in T)ixie

beat the best Virginia cook making light
bread. Mr. James H. Dosser, a friend from
Jonesboro, gave me a good horse, saddle,
and bridle, which he said I could have for
the horse's keep. This set me up for circuit
riding. All moved well for a while, but if
you will look at the date you will see that we
were in the fall of i860 and spring of 1861.
By far the greater part of those who may care
to read these recollections have no personal
knowledge of the stirring times we were in.
But, stirring times they were. The dark
cloud of war which had been gathering for
a quarter of a century now filled all the
horizon; and its thunder, which jarred
the nation for five dreadful years, could be
heard muttering at no great distance. I am
writing recollections, and shall say nothing
here of the long line of political and social
conditions which led up to the painful necessity
on the part of the Southern people to either
forfeit their own self-respect and the respeet
of all true men, or go to war. Those polit-
ical and social questions are dead, and so let
the dead bury the dead.
War recollections next.

191

XXIII

DAYS OF SECESSION

HEN the state voted on seces-
sion, I did not vote; but when
the majority elected to go out
of the Union, I accepted the
situation and went with them.
There were many strong, good men in East
Tennessee who opposed secession and did what
they could to prevent it by canvassing the
State. Sullivan County, which included the
Blountville Circuit, was for J secession by a
large majority, and at the first call of the
State began to enlist volunteers. These State
troops were later transferred to the Con-
federacy. Fort Sumter fell about this time.
The fight was on, and Southern blood was
getting hot. Messrs. Andrew Johnson and
T. A. R. Nelson, men of national reputation
and very popular — one an old Whig and the
other a Democrat — were canvassing the State
for "neutrality" — i. e., for Tennessee to take
no part in the strife. They had an appoint-
ment to speak at Blountville on a certain

192

Seventy Years in Dixie

day. The citizens of the town and country
around did not want them to come; so they
called a citizens' meeting in the courthouse
two days before the speaking was to be, and
decided to write the gentlemen not to come,
fearing trouble might grow out of it. This
was done, and the letter was sent to Union
(Bluff City), supposing the speakers would
come by rail from Jonesboro and get it.
Early on the morning of the day for the speak-
ing men began to come in from all around,
some with squirrel guns and some with shot
guns and a good deal of whisky. It was a
crowd that promised trouble. By about nine
it was reported that the speakers were not
coming by Union, but directly through from
Jonesboro by private conveyance, and would
not, therefore, get the letter. Here I became
connected with the affair. It was apparent
that there would be trouble, if the men came on
to speak, and that our town would be perhaps
disgraced and the speakers, who were my
friends, probably abused. All this must be
prevented if possible. So I went to Mr.
Samuel Rhea, who had been the chairman
of the town meeting, and told him my fears.
He was with me, and said: "How can we

193

Recollections of An Old Man

prevent it ?" I asked: "Have you a copy of
the letter sent?" "Yes," he replied. Then
said I: "Get a copy of it ready while I get
my horse, and I will meet the gentlemen with
it." And so it was done. The crowd saw
me start and knew for what I went, and some
of them were impatient with me for going. I
met the men some two miles out from the
town, both in the same buggy. They read the
letter and after a moment said, "We do not
want to speak if the people do not want us to,"
and then added, "But if a majority want us to
speak, we think we ought to be allowed to
do so without interruption. Can you guaran-
tee that ?" I then' told them frankly just how
I became connected with the unpleasant affair
and of the state of public feeling in town and
why I had come to meet them. Mr. Nelson's
son, David, and son-in-law, Mr. Samuel
Cunningham, both young friends of mine,
were with them. After a few words of con-
sultation they said: "Take the boys and go
on before us and get the wishes of the people
and bring us word. We will stop at Sturn's
Hotel, at this end of the town; and if the people
do not want us to speak, we will go on to Kings-
port." The young men and I hurried on;

194

Seventy Years in Dixie

and from the steps of the courthouse I told
the crowd, which came running, what the
gentlemen said. We took the vote, and only
four wanted them to speak. We reported,
and the speakers went on to Kingsport. Now,
if this matter had ended there, it never would
have been written here. But when the war
closed, five years after this, and the days of
reconstruction came, I was a refugee in
Virginia. But I was indicted in the court at
Blountville for treason, for heading a mob
who kept Andrew Johnson and Thomas
Nelson from speaking — the day and date
given. And I was kept out of my native
State for two years before the hateful thing
was dropped from the docket. This is a
part of an old man's recollections hard to
forget. It shows the condition of society
in East Tennessee in those days of reconstruc-
tion, so-called — days of relentless hate and
bitter cruelty and revenge and robbery, rapine
and murder. There were many good men who
were Union men in the country, but they were
almost powerless to prevent this state of
things. They might have done a little better
than they did, maybe, if they had tried hard.
But let it be written as history that it was not

195

Recollections of An Old Man

i

the men who wore the blue and the gray
and stood on the firing line in the day of
battle who did those dastardly things. No;
it was whelps from another kennel, who
cowardly came out after the killing was over,
with the instincts of a hyena to get what they
could out of the offal. I will not particularize
the numerous fiendish acts that characterized
and disgraced the times. Let them go un-
named and be forgotten.

I must mention an incident that made us
all smile when it was related to us. Aunt
Betsey Charlton, a dear, good old soul, came
to town the morning for the speaking, and was
at the parsonage. She was much troubled
over the situation, fearing somebody might do
wrong or get hurt and mischief befall us all.
So she watched the streets; and when the young
men and I came into town and went upon the
courthouse steps and all the crowd came
running, she was greatly excited. She kept
her eyes upon us, but could not hear what we
said. In taking the vote of the people I re-
quested all to squat down and vote by rising.
Well, when Aunt Betsey saw them all get down
in the street she almost shouted, saying:
"It is all right now; Brother Sullins has got

196

Seventy Years in Dixie

them all down at prayers." Prayer was Aunt
Betsey's cure for everything.

After the fall of Fort Sumter the enlisting
of volunteers went on more lively. I kept up
my appointments, and the enthusiastic enlist-
ers would sometimes make their appointments
to meet the people at the same time. After
preaching they would invite all out into the
churchyard, make brief talks, sing patriotic
songs, beat an old drum used at the militia
musters years before, and call for volunteers.
I heard "Dixie" now for the first time. Of
course, I caught the spirit and helped to rally.
Soon two companies were enrolled and organ-
ized. Of one A. L. Gammon was captain
and James A. Rhea, Robert L. Blair, and
James Charlton, lieutenants. Of the other,
James P. Snapp was qaptain; and Charles
St. John, George Hull, and John M. Jones,
lieutenants. These companies were soon
called to Knoxville. And now came the try-
ing time. I was asked to go along and preach
for and look after the boys. My stewards
said they would get the local preachers to take
care of the circuit; and wife, having a brother
and many friends going, said she would stay
with her father if I wanted to go. In fact,

197

Recollections of An Old Man

she was about the worst rebel among us,
and never got over it entirely. The companies
marched out of town about noon, wife and I,
with the two little boys, following in a buggy.
Many friends accompanied us a few miles,
then said good-bye and went back. O,
the heartache, the tears, the anxiety and
prayers of that hour! and how all this would
have been intensified many times could we
have known the fact, as it turned out, that
many of us would never come back! That
hour will always be a part of an old man's
recollections. We spent that night in Bluff
City (Union then). Having no tents, we slept
about in the houses and at the depot. Of
course our lunch baskets were well filled by
loved ones left behind; we had plenty to eat.
Next morning all took train for Knoxville.
Wife and I stopped with her parents at Jones-
boro. Here I remained a few days, and
then went on to Knoxville to join the boys.
I found them out on the old Fair Grounds,
east of the city, with eight other companies,
ready to be organized into a regiment. These
companies were all from East Tennessee — two
from Sullivan County, two from Hamilton, one
from Knox, one from Rhea, one from Wash-

198

Seventy Years in Dixie

ington, one from Polk, one from Hawkins,
one from McMinn. The regiment was organ-
ized in a few days and numbered Nineteenth
Tennessee. The following were the officers
elected: David H. Cummings, colonel; Frank
M. Walker, lieutenant-colonel; Abe Fulkerson,
major; V. Q. Johnson, adjutant; H. Mell
Doak, sergeant-major; Dr. Joe E. Dulany,
surgeon; A. D. Taylor, quartermaster; and
Rev. D. Sullins, chaplain. The number,
all told, in the regiment was one thousand and
sixty. Now we began camp-life in earnest.
The companies were formed into messes of
from four to six. Each mess had one tent, tin
plates, cups, and cooking utensils; each man
had a blanket, canteen, knapsack and haver-
sack.

199

XXIV

NINETEENTH TENNESSEE
REGIMENT

N the last chapter I was perhaps
tiresome in giving so minutely
the organization and outfit of
the regiment; but I thought that
jjgglj young readers might be inter-
ested in knowing how their fathers and grand-
fathers went to war. The regiment organized,
the business now was to drill day in and day
out. It was now the middle of June, and the
authorities thought there ought to be some
soldiers at Cumberland Gap to hold that
point and keep an eye on Kentucky and
see what was going on over there. Soon
two companies, one from Chattanooga and
the other from Knoxville, were ordered to the
Gap under the command of their captains,
Powell and Paxton. I went with them, as
there were plenty of preachers at Knoxville,
and none at the Gap. We went by rail to
Morristown, and by the old historic pioneer
road to Bean's Station, where Bishop Asbury
used to meet his guards and pilots from

200

Seventy Years in Dixie

Kentucky to accompany him over the Clinch
and through the Gap into the "dark and
bloody ground.'' At the station the boys had
quite an ovation. The neighbors had pre-
pared a barbecue, and gave them a hearty
reception. Of course the boys gave them
specimens of their soldierly marching, while
our little band gave them music. We spent
the night at the big sulphur spring at the foot
of the Clinch. Next day we went on to
the Gap. The boys stopped at the spring
at the foot; but I rode on into the Gap,
the first soldier there. Now we were put
under strict military regulations. My tent
was near the summit, where the pickets were
stationed. Many a sleepless night I listened
to the slow tread of the sentinel as he walked
his beat, and heard him call, "Post Number
One, twelve o'clock, all's well." Here we
began soldier life in earnest. The boys had
to go down to the level ground on the Ten-
nessee side to drill.

Soon after we left Knoxville, the other
companies belonging to the regiment were
sent, some to guard the bridge at Loudon,
others to Jamestown, and four to Big Creek
Gap (Lafollette). It v as not long before all

201

Recollections of An Old Man

these companies were ordered to join us
at the Gap. Now we had preaching every
Sunday morning, Sunday-school in the after-
noon, and prayer meeting at night. The
restless boys soon had a Confederate flag
flying from the highest point on the Virginia
side. Something stirring was occurring almost
daily now — the coming in of other regiments
from Tennessee and Mississippi and Rut-
ledge's Artillery and McClung's Battery and
others. I remember the first capture our
cavalry made. Union men from Tennessee
were constantly trying to cross the mountain
into Kentucky. A little squad of cavalry
brought into camp one day some fifteen or
twenty of these Union men, and among them
Mr. T. A. R. Nelson, mentioned elsewhere,
all trying to cross the mountain. Mr. Nelson
was our neighbor at Jonesboro; so I went to
the commander and asked the privilege of
having him as my guest. This was readily
granted. And then I remembered that his
son, Sandy, was a member of our regiment;
so I invited Sandy to spend the day and take
dinner with his father in the tent. I was pleas-
ed to see that there was no reserve or em-
barrassment when they met. Sandy was very

202

Seventy Years in Dixie

respectful, and Mr. Nelson very fatherly.
We talked of home and old friends there with
great frankness. Mr. Nelson was a strong,
honest, high-toned gentleman, and a superior
lawyer. It may be remembered that he was
called to Washington to defend President
Johnson in his impeachment trial. I am
sure he had nothing to do with indictment
against me for treason, mentioned elsewhere.
I was glad to have the opportunity to enter-
tain him at a plain soldier's dinner.

The other prisoners were put in the guard-
house, a rough log house with straw all over
the dirt floor. I went to see them. Of
course they were a little shy at first; but when
I told them who I was and that I had come
to serve them in any way I could, they were
more free and frank. After talking a little,
I suggested that as it was uncertain when
they might get home, I would gladly write
home for any of them if they wished me to do
so. This interested them, and we all sat down
in the straw, they close about me, and I wrote
as they dictated letters to several of their
wives and friends. These letters I mailed at
once. I wish now that I had kept a list of
their names, for I might find some member

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Recollections of An Old Man

of some families who would have knowledge
of the fact. I was glad to serve them. They
were plain countrymen, and no doubt believed
they were doing right. They were sent to
Knoxville and I never knew what became of
them. Mr. Nelson got through our lines
later, and went to Washington.

General Zollicoff er came and took command,
and on the next day moved the little army of
about six thousand out into Kentucky, to the
ford of the Cumberland River, some twenty
miles distant. Soon the report came that
Federals were establishing a camp at Bar-
boursville, and Zollicoffer sent out a detach-
ment under Colonel Battles to break it up.
The enemy was found in a cornfield near the
town. Company K, from Rogersville, was
thrown out as a skirmish line and engaged
them. It was a mere skirmish, but made
memorable by the fact that here we lost the
first man out of the regiment, Robert Powell,
first lieutenant of his company. He was our
first soldier killed in battle. We sent his
remains home — a sad business!

The next little expedition was to Goose
Creek Salt Works. Our Nineteenth Regi-
ment, accompanied by Colonel Carter's

204

Seventy Years in Dixie

Cavalry, was sent with wagons for salt.
I did not go. The boys reported a rough,
hard trip of forty miles right through the
mountains, with no fighting. They brought
back some two hundred bushels of salt, after
five days' absence.

Next we had a little spat with General
Schoeff, at Wild Cat, or Rock Castle, which
amounted to nothing but a drill in warlike
movements for the boys. We returned to the
camp at the ford of the Cumberland, and
that night there was a sad accident. General
A. E. Jackson was quartermaster; but, being
absent, his son, Alfred, had charge. Just
after we had all gone to bed a pistol shot
was heard, and soon one of the boys came to
my tent and said: "Alfred Jackson has
accidentally shot himself, and is dead in his
tent." Here was trouble. "What shall we do
with his remains ?" was the question. Gen-
eral Jackson, the father of the deceased,
was our near neighbor and close friend at
Jonesboro. So I said: "I must take him
home to his mother. Prepare the body as
well as you can, and be ready as soon as pos-
sible to start; I will get my horse and follow
the wagon." This was done, and we started

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Recollections of An Old Man

about eleven o'clock, I guess. My horse fol-
lowed close along behind the wagon. The
road, like all mountain roads, was full of
rocks; the night was dark, so dark that at
times in the deep gorges through which we
passed I could not see my horse's head.
Both horse and rider were tired; we had been
at it all day. I was exhausted, sometimes
nodding as I rode along, and would have
nodded more, I expect, if we had not been in
a bush-whacking country, which fact served
to keep me awake in a measure. I thought
the wagon made a great deal of noise, and
might wake up some folks we did not want
disturbed. We pulled into Cumberland just
after daylight. I was glad to see the day and
get on the Tennessee side of the mountain
again. That night trip will always be a part
of an old man's recollections of the war.
We plodded on, and sometime up in the day
stopped at the foot of Clinch for something
to eat — call it breakfast. Then we toiled
on to Morristown, much in the night. Here I
left my horse, the wagon went back, and I
took a train with the corpse, for Jonesboro,
where his broken hearted mother and sisters
met us. Of course, his mother wanted to

206

Seventy Years in T)ixie

look on the dear face of her soldier boy.
But after a good deal of pleading, I got her
consent for me to open the box, and, if I
thought best, either let her see it or close it up.
We had hauled the body in a wagon over
rough roads for nearly seventy miles, and I
did not think it could be in condition for her
to see it. And so I found it, and she allowed
us to put him away without seeing him. There
on the high eastern hill, with his ancestors,
we laid him to rest. Alfred Jackson, the
deceased, was the father of our Brother
Alfred N. Jackson, the presiding elder of
the Radford district, and a "soldier of the
cross."

The command was called out of Kentucky
in a few days, and I joined it at Big Creek Gap.
This was now in November, and there was
snow all along the Cumberland. We block-
aded the gap, and moved on to Jacksboro.
Here I called on General Jackson, the quarter-
master, and found him overworked and very
nervous. The death of his son was a great
shock to him. An order had been issued to
buy horses for the army, and a great many
were in the yard for sale. After a little talk,
the General asked me to come and help him.

207

Recollections of An Old Man .

I agreed to do so, and went out and bought
several horses, and took charge of much of
the outside business of the office. Soon we
moved down to Ross, near Clinton. Sunday
morning found us camped at the foot of the
mountain. I found a big rock, and used it
as a pulpit. The boys around took part
heartily in the services. We had a good day,
well remembered. Generals Zollicoffer and
Jackson went on to Knoxville, while we rested
here. Two days later General Zollicoffer
returned, and issued orders to "Capt. D.
Sullins" to move the army by Oliver Springs
to Wartburg and on to Montgomery. I
smiled when I got the order to "Capt. D.
Sullins ;" it was evident that the General did
not know some things. However, we put
things in motion, while I looked hourly for
the coming of General Jackson. But as he
did not come, I did the best I could.

We camped at Wartburg, where the boys
got a sort of sour Dutch wine, which tasted
like stump water with vinegar in it. Some of
the boys got drunk on it. Soon after we left
Wartburg we started up Cumberland Moun-
tain; and as General Jackson had not yet
come, I decided to have a conference with

208

Seventy Years in Dixie

General Zollicoffer, who had gone on before
us. I pushed on and overtook him at the
old Indian Tavern. I had not met him be-
fore; but as soon as I gave him my name>
he seemed to know me, and was very cordial,
and began to inquire how the wagons were
getting up the mountain. When I asked him
about General Jackson, he said: "Jackson
is in Knoxville, and will not be with us any
more; he is post quartermaster there." I
expressed surprise at this, and said: "What
are we to do ? We have no quartermaster."
He replied: "You are quartermaster, and
Jackson said you could do the work as well
as he." Then I began to talk. "General,
I am a Methodist preacher, and chaplain of
the Nineteenth Tennessee Regiment. Jack-
son is my neighbor at Jonesboro; and finding
him overworked and very nervous at Jacks-
boro, I agreed to help him. That is how I
became connected with this office. I am
willing to do all I can; but from our move-
ments the last two days, I take it we are going
to Kentucky, and we have no money to pay
for supplies." To this he replied with earnest-
ness: "Make a requisition and send to
Knoxville for money." "But, General, I

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