Parks to Preble ~ All in the Family

Samuel Parks and his wife Charity Runyon undoubtedly were aware of, and may even have attended, the revival meetings at Cane Ridge in their home county in 1801.  What planted a seed for the Shaker movement likely also contributed to their family's migration north into Ohio, to Preble County.

Samuel and Nancy had both been born in Hunterdon County, New Jersey and were brought by their parents to North Carolina. The two married there in 1792 and soon after headed into Kentucky, settling in Bourbon County. Samuel's sister Nancy Ann Parks married Charity's brother Bafford "Barefoot" Runyon in North Carolina and eventually they too made their way into Kentucky, choosing Barren County, about 100 miles southwest of Lexington.

After the revival meetings at Cane Ridge in Bourbon County, Samuel and Charity with family and neighbors migrated yet again, spreading their own religious beliefs and traditions farther into the frontier. This time it was north, into Ohio, which was admitted to the Union on February 19, 1803.

Six years after the Cane Ridge revival was held near the town of Paris, Kentucky, a preacher by the name of David Purviance, raised a Presbyterian and having embraced the New Light, or Christian faith while in Kentucky, was establishing a church at New Paris, Preble County, Ohio. A great proportion of Ohio's new arrivals were coming in from Kentucky.

Robert Runyon (son of Bafford and Nancy) was among the earliest settlers of Gaspar Township, near Sugar Valley, arriving 1808.  Over the next seven years Samuel and Charity Parks, Bafford and Nancy Runyon, Josiah Conger and his wife Catherine Runyon (Robert's sister), William Gray, and the Rhea family were among the incoming settlers to the area. Most seem to have laid down roots southeast of the county seat of Eaton, in either Gasper or Dixon Townships. Also included was Revolutionary War veteran John William Runyon, another son of Phineas and Charity Runyon, brother of Bafford and Charity Parks. He arrived from Madison County, Kentucky.

The original family members who settled in Preble County are buried in Friendship Cemetery and Gard Cemetery.

Eighty years later when this land ownership map of Preble County was drawn, the impact of their settlement can still be seen in the landowner names, which include Parks, Runyon, Conger, Railsback, Lewellen, Thomas, Huffman, Wilkinson, and Gray.

1887 Preble County, Ohio land owner map

Two sources referenced include:

History of Preble County Ohio: Her People, Industries and Institutions by R. E. Lowry, 1915

History of Preble County, Ohio, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches by H. Z. Williams & Brothers, 1881

Cane Ridge Meeting House ~ Sowing the Seeds

August 1801 - Bourbon County, Kentucky

The 'Second Great Awakening,' a series of religious revival meetings was punctuated by one particularly large and exuberant meeting that took place in early August 1801. The location was the Cane Ridge Meeting House in Bourbon County, about twenty-five miles northeast of Lexington. It must have been a well-planned and well-advertised event to have drawn such a large crowd from the sparsely populated surrounding frontier. Two hundred years later, the site remains rural and agricultural.

The organizer was Presbyterian preacher Barton W. Stone.  During the event, which lasted several days, an estimated ten to twenty thousand people converged on Cane Ridge. Stone had arranged for dozens of Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist preachers to speak. Rousing sermons are said to have induced shrieks, cries, dancing and jerking, trance-like states, barking, speaking in tongues, and visions among the huge crowds. Communion was given, confessions were heard, and hundreds, if not thousands, were saved.

Cane Ridge Meeting House - LOC collection

In less than a decade, Pleasant Hill would be one of several established frontier outposts of Shakerism. All the pieces were falling into place at just the right time.

Bourbon County is the very county that Charity Runyon and her husband Samuel Parks had migrated to from North Carolina seven or eight years before the Cane Ridge event. Mercy Runyon and her husband John Badgett had also made the trek from North Carolina about 1787, settling in nearby Fayette County. By the turn of the century, family patriarch Phineas Runyon and his wife Charity had settled along Otter Creek in Madison County.

We can only speculate about whether any Parks, Badgett, or Runyon family members attended the revival meetings at Cane Ridge. They were certainly influenced by them and the change they sparked over the coming years. As congregations and churches sprang up as a result of the revivals, so did Shakerism.

The Parks family would move on to Preble County Ohio while the Badgett and Runyon families stayed put and would soon make the pivotal decision that would change their lives and the lives of their children forever.