Thanks to an edit request on one of my memorials on FindaGrave I recently became aware of a publication called The Biographical Encyclopaedia of Kentucky of the Dead and Living Men of the Nineteenth Century. It was published in Cincinnati in 1878 by J.M. Armstrong & Company and was digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016.
In addition to 788 pages of biographical details, the book contains dozens of portraits, the publishers having gone "to great expense in inserting steel engravings" of the likenesses of many of the men included.
................... Our Shaker Heritage ~ research on the Runyon family at Pleasant Hill, Kentucky ... and more!
Showing posts with label migration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label migration. Show all posts
8/03/2019
3/29/2018
A Field Ripe for Harvest ~ Shaker Missionaries to Kentucky
What caused the Ministry in New York to set their sights on establishing new communities of Believers out west? News of the "Second Great Awakening" camp revival meetings held in 1801 at Cane Run, Kentucky, made its way north to the Shakers in New Lebanon, New York via The Albany Gazette. "No doubt, the Shakers in New England saw the phenomena as a fulfillment of Mother Ann's prophesy that 'the next opening of the gospel will be in America's 'southwest'," writes Carol Medlicott in her book Issachar Bates, A Shaker's Journey. By this time, Ann Lee had been dead for twenty-five years. Mother Lucy Wright, now head of the Ministry, decided the timing was right to send a small reconnaissance group to the area. Three Shaker men - two unmarried elders, John Meacham, Benjamin Seth Youngs, and one new convert, a married father of nine, Issachar Bates set out with only a vague idea of where to go.
The three men, with their one horse, left early on New Year's Day, 1805 during what was to be a particularly harsh winter. Although his wife Lovina and he were living a Shaker life of celibacy by this point, Issachar would continue to show affection for both her and his children, despite their great distance during the decades that followed.
The believers slowly made their way south, covering sometimes thirty miles in one day. As they traveled through the Shenandoah Valley, they began looking for signs of people who might be receptive to their message but were disappointed by those who were "lost in sin" and "the same carnal creatures in all their conversation and conduct."
After passing through the Cumberland Gap into Tennessee they were shown a new map of the United States and decided to turn northwest into Kentucky. Here, they undoubtedly were following in the footsteps of the Runyon, Badgett, Parks, and other settlers who entered Kentucky from North Carolina and Virginia along the Wilderness Road, famously pioneered by Daniel Boone.
The group was welcomed at Crab Orchard and later Paint Lick in Garrard County by preacher Matthew Houston. Houston introduced them to Barton Stone, the famed Cane Ridge preacher. They went on to Turtle Creek (what would become Union Village) across the river in Ohio and by then had walked over 1,200 miles in two months and twenty-two days.
In the spring of 1805 Barton Stone was still organizing revivals and Issachar Bates returned to Bourbon County to speak at his invitation. He proved outspoken, openly challenging Stone's preaching about Christ's second coming. Cleverly, Issachar put an emphasis on spiritual value rather than doctrine. Medlicott explains: "He was harking back to the first followers of Christ, who had used the inspired teachings of Jesus to free them from adherence to hidebound Jewish law. This would have been a potent argument for a frontier revival crowd ... a needed correction to the doctrinal strictures of America's large, established church institutions." My hunch is that these arguments must have been quite appealing to Joseph Runyon and others in the family who were the first in the family to convert.
Additional eastern Shakers arrived the following year, including six women. Issachar wisely requested that the Ministry send women specifically to counsel the female frontier converts not only in spiritual matters but in the ways of collective childcare and in appropriate dress. For many potential converts the sticking point was celibacy. A majority of the newly-converted believers were husband and wife still living in close quarters. Issachar once again had the wisdom and experience to counsel in these matters. Over the coming years he would become somewhat of a father figure to new converts (the "young believers") throughout the west.
In November 1806 a large group of Kentucky converts, including Henry Banta, visited Turtle Creek, bringing gifts of food, wool, and cotton. By 1810 a settlement along Shawnee Run in Mercer County had been launched by sending a team of old believers (Shakers from the east) to serve as elders. This settlement would come to be called Pleasant Hill.
The three men, with their one horse, left early on New Year's Day, 1805 during what was to be a particularly harsh winter. Although his wife Lovina and he were living a Shaker life of celibacy by this point, Issachar would continue to show affection for both her and his children, despite their great distance during the decades that followed.
The believers slowly made their way south, covering sometimes thirty miles in one day. As they traveled through the Shenandoah Valley, they began looking for signs of people who might be receptive to their message but were disappointed by those who were "lost in sin" and "the same carnal creatures in all their conversation and conduct."
After passing through the Cumberland Gap into Tennessee they were shown a new map of the United States and decided to turn northwest into Kentucky. Here, they undoubtedly were following in the footsteps of the Runyon, Badgett, Parks, and other settlers who entered Kentucky from North Carolina and Virginia along the Wilderness Road, famously pioneered by Daniel Boone.
The group was welcomed at Crab Orchard and later Paint Lick in Garrard County by preacher Matthew Houston. Houston introduced them to Barton Stone, the famed Cane Ridge preacher. They went on to Turtle Creek (what would become Union Village) across the river in Ohio and by then had walked over 1,200 miles in two months and twenty-two days.
In the spring of 1805 Barton Stone was still organizing revivals and Issachar Bates returned to Bourbon County to speak at his invitation. He proved outspoken, openly challenging Stone's preaching about Christ's second coming. Cleverly, Issachar put an emphasis on spiritual value rather than doctrine. Medlicott explains: "He was harking back to the first followers of Christ, who had used the inspired teachings of Jesus to free them from adherence to hidebound Jewish law. This would have been a potent argument for a frontier revival crowd ... a needed correction to the doctrinal strictures of America's large, established church institutions." My hunch is that these arguments must have been quite appealing to Joseph Runyon and others in the family who were the first in the family to convert.
Additional eastern Shakers arrived the following year, including six women. Issachar wisely requested that the Ministry send women specifically to counsel the female frontier converts not only in spiritual matters but in the ways of collective childcare and in appropriate dress. For many potential converts the sticking point was celibacy. A majority of the newly-converted believers were husband and wife still living in close quarters. Issachar once again had the wisdom and experience to counsel in these matters. Over the coming years he would become somewhat of a father figure to new converts (the "young believers") throughout the west.
In November 1806 a large group of Kentucky converts, including Henry Banta, visited Turtle Creek, bringing gifts of food, wool, and cotton. By 1810 a settlement along Shawnee Run in Mercer County had been launched by sending a team of old believers (Shakers from the east) to serve as elders. This settlement would come to be called Pleasant Hill.
3/25/2018
Two Brothers or Two Wives?
Not long ago, I wrote about one of the family immigrants to Preble County, Ohio, John William Runyon. He was the husband of Patricia Mary Bennett and they are both said to be buried in Friendship Cemetery, Sugar Valley, Preble County, Ohio. They appear to have been married in Kentucky before the move to Ohio.
There is also William Runyon who married Katherine Low, December 13, 1793, in Rowan County (now within Davidson County near Healing Springs) North Carolina. Are William and John William the same man? What became of Katherine Low Runyon? Was she the mother of Ellen Runyon Rice or Mary Runyon Hornbaker?
There is also William Runyon who married Katherine Low, December 13, 1793, in Rowan County (now within Davidson County near Healing Springs) North Carolina. Are William and John William the same man? What became of Katherine Low Runyon? Was she the mother of Ellen Runyon Rice or Mary Runyon Hornbaker?
3/21/2018
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.
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.
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| 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
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