Revival Meetings

Revival Meetings

Some time ago while doing research in the Carl Elliot Regional Library in Jasper, Al. I ran across the following article which I copied.  I failed to record the name of the book or author but it seems that I recall that it was a husband and wife who wrote the book and it was an early history of the Methodist church in Alabama.                                                                                                              

 

The revival meeting, like the camp meeting, was a common occurrence on the frontier in early days.  A pioneer in the revival movement was the Cumberland Presbyterian Church organized in 1810 when it broke away from the Presbyterian Church in Cumberland County Kentucky.  The leaders of the revivalistic movement, being concerned for the vast numbers of pastorless people on the frontier, were ordaining men who did not meet the traditional educational standards of the parent church.

               In 1809 Rev. Robert Donnell was sent into the locality of Huntsville and, within six weeks after the Cumberland Church was organized, he was received into the Presbytery.  He organized the church in Huntsville and apparently others.  By April, 1812, a delegate to a church meeting represented the Huntsville, Hermon, and Kelly Creek Churches.  Thereafter, the Presbyterianism spread rapidly in North Alabama and in the 1820’s had missionaries in the Jones Valley and Cahaba Districts.

               Mrs. Anne Royall (1769-1864), who wrote the description of the revival meeting in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church at Moulton, was born in Maryland, but lived her young adult life in Virginia.  After the death of her husband, a prominent Virginian, she traveled extensively in the South, spending about five years in the Tennessee Valley of Alabama.  Having used the bulk of the fortune her husband left her (and his other relatives getting the rest), she was forced to work for a living.  She established an independent newspaper in Washington and spoke out sharply on public issues; she was an early “muckracker.”  She wrote several volumes, including Letters from Alabama (Washington, 1830), 123-125 from which the revival account is taken. 

               Mrs. Royal had very strong likes and dislikes, but her biographer called her “a tireless traveler, a shrewd observer, a careful verifier of fact, and a strictly honest writer.”  Unlike most accounts of revivals, Mrs. Royall’s is factual.  She did not approve of much she saw but she described the revival without making light of it.     

                                                                                                         Moulton, April 30^th 1821

               I placed myself in front of the preacher (a great rough looking man) and the congregation sat some on fallen timber, some on benches carried there for the purpose, some sat flat on the ground, and many stood up—about 500 in all.  His text was, “he that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”  The people must have been deaf indeed that could not hear him. . . .He is one of the Cumberland Presbyterians.  They are Calvinist, it is said, but do not deem education a necessary qualification to preach the Gospel.  But to the sermon.  He began low, but soon bawled to deafening.  He spit in his hands, rubbed them against each other, and then would smite them together, till he made the woods ring.  The people now began to covault, and dance, and shout, till they fairly drowned the speaker.  Many of the people, however, burst out into a laugh.  Seeing this, the preacher cried out, pointing to them with his finger, “now look at them sinners there—You’ll see how they will come tumbling down presently.—I’ll bring them down.”  He now redoubled his strength; spit in his hands, and smote them together, till he made the forest resound,  and took a fresh start; and sure enough the sinners came tumbling down.      The scene that succeeded baffles description.  Principally [it was] confined to women and children.  The young women had carefully taken out their combs from their hair and laid them and their bonnets in a place of safety as though they were going to set in for a fight, and it was much like a battle.  After tumbling on the ground, and kicking sometimes, the old women were employed in keeping their clothes civil, and the young men (never saw an old man go near them) would help them up, and taking them by the hand, by their assistance, and their own agility, they would spring nearly a yard from the ground at every jump, one after another, crying out glory, glory, as loud as their strength would admit; others would be singing a lively tune to which they kept time—hundreds might be seen and heard going on in this manner at once.  Others, again, exhausted by this jumping, would fall down, and here they lay cross and pile, heads and points, yelling and screaming like the wild beast in the forest, rolling on the ground, like hogs in a mire—very much like they do at camp meetings in our country, but more shameless; their clothes were the color of dirt; and like those who attended the camp meetings, they were all of the lower class of people.  I saw no genteel person among them. . . .I am very sure a dozen words of common sense, well applied, would convince those infatuated young women that they were acting like fools.  In fact, a fool is more rational.  Not one of those but would think it a crying shame to dance.

                              The noise of the preacher was effectually drowned at length, and a universal uproar succeeded louder than ever. Whilst this was going on, I observed an old woman near me, sniveling and turning up the whites of her eyes (she was a widow—all widows, old and young covaulted) and often applying her handkerchief to her eyes, and throwing herself into contortions, but it would not do, she could not raise the steam.

                              I pointed to one young woman, with a red scarf, who had tired down several young men, and was still covaulting, and seeing she jumped higher than the rest, I asked who she might be.  One of the gentlemen. . . .gave such an account of her (men know these things) as would shock the modest ear.  D—m her, she gets converted every meeting she goes to. . ..”   

                              The preacher having spent all his ammunition, made a pause, and then called upon all the sinners to approach and be prayed for.  Numbers went forward, all women and children (children of ten years old get religion) and the priest began to pray; when a decent looking man approached the stand, and took a female by the arm, and led her away.  As he walked along, the preacher pointed to him and said, “God strike that sinner down!”  The man turned around and in an angry tone said, “God has more sense than to mind such a d—d fool as you are” and resumed his course. . . .The lady was his wife.

                              Being tired of such an abominable scene, I proposed returning home, and taking a near cut through a slip of woodland, we surprised the red scarfed lady in a manner that gave us no favorable opinion of her piety.                                    

Cherokee-Centers of Government (Eastern)

     The first recorded site of government was associated with the Overhill band of Cherokee Indians in Eastern Tennessee. They located their unofficial capital in what is now Monroe County, Tennessee. The Historic town of Tanasi was located on Cherokee,the Little Tennessee River in the Southern Appalachian Mountains. Near this site another settlement was established which was called Chote, Chota, or Echota. It is not known how the town received this name but is speculated that it was originally established by the Muskogee people and was later occupied by the Cherokee. Chota is the Hitchiti-Creek and Muskogee-Creek word for “Frog.”

      From the late 1740’s to 1788 Chota was the center of government of the Cherokee. The town began to be endangered as the developing government of the United States expanded their territory at the expense of the Indians. With the development of hostilities between Native Americans and the European Settlers, a systematic destruction of Indian settlements was under way. In 1776 the Cherokee towns of Great Tellico, Citico, Misloguo, Chithowoes, and Toqua were destroyed by Colonel William Christian but he spared Chota. John Seiver later returned and destroyed most of the “Overhill” towns including Chota. Following this the Cherokee Capital was relocated to Ustanali which is near present day Calhoun, Georgia. Both sites of the ancient towns of Tanasi and Chota (Echota) are now submerged by the Tellico Lake impoundment of the Little Tennessee River. The Chota Townhouse site was raised above the operating water level and was connected to the mainland via causeway. Chota does not appear in the historical records until 1745 but Tanasi is mentioned much earlier than that.

     Beginning in 1788, Ustanali, on the Coosawattee River, served as the seat of the Cherokee people. Little Turkey had been elected chief of the Cherokee and he abandoned Chota and moved to Ustanali. In 1823, a site nearby would be chosen by Major Ridge, who was then the chief of the Cherokee, to be the permanent location of their new Capital. Located at the confluence of the Coosawatte and Oosanaula Rivers, near Town Creek, was a Cherokee town called Gansagiyi (Gansagi). This location was chosen to be the site of the new capital. The name was changed to "New Echota.”

     Major Ridge had chosen a prime piece of property on which to build the new capital town. Hoping to establish a permanent seat of government, Major Ridge and Charles Hicks envisioned a modern, thriving town for their people. They had farms only four miles away and the site were in the middle of the lands claimed by the Cherokee. There could be no dispute at that time regarding the ownership of the land.
 
     At a council meeting in 1825, Major Ridge suggested plans for the new capital. One of the ways that he devised to secure approval was to make the recommendation that its name be Echota as that was the name of the ancient capital which had been located on the Little Tennessee River; suggesting that this one should be called “New Echota.”

     John Ross was elected Principal Chief at a convention in New Echota in 1827. A Republican system of government was established at that time. The plot of land on which the town was to rise was said to be as level and smooth as the floor of a house. The town was sectioned off with a two acre central square, a sixty foot wide main street, which was surrounded by one hundred-one acre lots, laid out in city style, to be sold for house places. Water was available from a large spring which was located near the center of town.

     Work was started on buildings which would be required to house the government and commercial businesses that were needed. There were also framed dwelling houses constructed. A two story council house was built to conduct the operations of the tribe. Also built was a courthouse for the Supreme Court, a printing shop in which the newspaper, The Cherokee Phoenix, was printed, stores and shops needed by the community.

     Business was conducted by the tribal leaders in this setting for only a short time but their presence in the Eastern United States was waning. By 1835 the removal of the Cherokee nation from their ancestral lands had begun and Georgia ordered that they abandon the location, seized their printing press, and proceeded in earnest to rid the territory of all Native Americans. Being forced from Georgia, the Cherokee leaders conducted their affairs briefly from Red Clay, Tennessee, but three years later (1838) the Trail of Tears would be in full march to Oklahoma. The government of the Cherokee would then be conducted by the Western Band of the tribe.