When the War for Independence was finally over, many
Americans became very interested in the lands on the other side of the
mountains, and Robert and Mary Dickey were among them. After his father’s
death, his brother David inherited their father’s lands and homeplace, and he
had little appetite to stay there and fight over the meager scraps that
remained. There was a new Promised Land awaiting them in Logan County,
Kentucky; and Robert and Mary were eager to stake their claim to a piece of it.
2 They arrived there in time for the birth of their
last child, a daughter they named Eliza. Although the work was hard, they had a
large family to assist with those burdens. It also helped that there was a
large community of like-minded Presbyterians who had settled in the area.
3 As in South Carolina, almost all the initial
buildings were constructed out of logs. After they had completed their homes,
the first order of business was to erect meeting houses so that they could
gather together for worship. And, there were sufficient numbers of them, that
several such meeting houses were erected within a short period of time.
4 Now necessity and availability dictated the building
materials which they used, but there was something about the stark simplicity
of logs that especially suited a Presbyterian meeting place. There was nothing
to distract the eye from the preaching – no decorations or embellishments of
any kind. Indeed, the only thing that really distinguished them from the
surrounding homes was the fact that people gathered there for worship each
Sabbath.
5 As an elder, folks naturally turned to Robert for
guidance and advice, and he was often called upon to give them a word of
encouragement as there weren’t many other elders or ministers available for
that task. Robert didn’t mind. He had a heart for service to God and others,
and life quickly settled into a comfortable and predictable routine of farm
work and ministerial duties.
6 In 1797, however, all that abruptly changed. Like
one of the prophets of old, the Reverend James McGready came amongst them and
nothing was ever the same again. He was possessed of a missionary’s zeal, and
he had the heart of an evangelist. After visiting the meeting places at Gasper
River, Red River and Muddy River, he was appalled by the lethargy and
wantonness he observed there.
7 “These people are dead!” he declared. “Wake up, the time is at hand! Repent ye and believe
the gospel!”
8 With that, several people dropped down to the floor
of the meeting house and laid there as if they were dead. Robert was
astonished. He had never seen anything like this in his life, and things were
about to get even stranger.
9 One of the prostrate people suddenly sprang to her
feet and began shouting, “Christ has come, Christ has come!” “Sweet and
precious Jesus!” she continued as tears of joy fell down her face. The woman
looked as if she had been transported instantly to heaven. “Why was I so
blinded to him before?” she demanded. “Why couldn’t I see how willing he was to
save me?”
10 The service lasted for almost three hours, and
Robert felt exhausted when it was all over. He and Mary quietly slipped out of
the meeting house and loaded into their wagon for the trip home.
11 When they had traveled about a mile, he had finally
recovered enough from the experience to speak. “I’ve never seen people act like
that before!” he confided to his wife. “Nor have I,” she agreed.
12 For Reverend McGready, the Lord had “graciously
poured out his Spirit” on the place and a “general awakening” had ensued.
Nevertheless, for many of the lifelong Presbyterians sitting in his pews, the
whole service had been a spectacle. A worship service that exhibited so much
emotion and participation from the audience was wholly foreign and repugnant to
many of them.
13 And, although the revivals continued, more than a
few families objected to Reverend McGready’s methods and began to boycott
attending his services. “It’s not so much that he’s preaching heresy as it is
the way he’s preaching,” Robert tried to explain to one of the other elders.
14 Even so, the revival had elicited an interest in
the Presbyterian Church that Robert could not gainsay. In fact, two of his sons
had declared their intention to join the ministry of their father’s church.
15 To say that Robert was pleased that William and
James had expressed an interest in becoming ministers would be the
understatement of the century. Nevertheless, the struggle within the
Presbyterian Church over the issue of slavery made him worry about their future
within the slave state of Kentucky.
16 “We’ve earned our bread with our own hands, not
with the hands of others,” he had often reminded them over the years. Indeed,
the Dickey family was proud of the fact that they had made their homes in the
wilderness and sustained themselves without the aid or assistance of any slave
labor.
17 However, some of their brethren within the
Presbyterian Church did own slaves, and the leaders of the church had been
grappling with how to handle the issue for years. The Reverend David Rice
lobbied the Presbytery of Transylvania to take a strong stand against slavery,
but church leaders were reluctant to alienate their slave holding members.
18 Nevertheless, the Presbytery did finally issue a
strong statement on the subject in 1796. They said: “We are fully convinced of
the great evil of slavery, but we find that the remedy belongs solely to the
civil powers.” They also decided that they did not have “sufficient authority
from the word of God” to exclude slave owners from church communion. Still,
they did go on to urge them to emancipate their slaves and “prepare them for
the enjoyment of liberty.”
19 “There are too many people with an interest in
preserving this vile institution for the civil authority in Kentucky to ever do
away with it,” William told his father and younger brother. “Yes, I don’t see
some of these folks ever being willing to emancipate their slaves,” James
agreed.
20 In 1802, the presbytery issued William a license to
preach the gospel. A few years later, they also issued a license to his younger
brother, James. “I am so proud of you,” Robert told them both. And, as with
many of their ordained brethren, the brothers began their missionary work
across northwestern Kentucky and southwestern Ohio almost immediately.
21 In the meantime, three of Robert’s children had
married children of his best friend, James Ross. John Dickey had married first
to Margaret Ross. A few years later, William Dickey married Rebecca Ross. And,
lastly, Mary Dickey had married young Robert Ross in August of 1803. John and
Mary, along with their spouses, eventually followed James Ross south to
establish a new life for themselves in what was shortly to become Giles County,
Tennessee. William’s and Rebecca’s destiny, however, lay north of the Ohio
River.
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