USA > Kentucky > The history of Kentucky, from its earliest discovery and settlement, to the present date, V. 2 > Part 13
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Surveys and estimates were made for Rockcastle, upper and lower Cum- berland, Goose creek and North Fork of Kentucky river, Salt, Little and Big Sandy, Licking, and other rivers of lesser note.
In 1836, the total estimated cost of seventeen locks and dams, after a .survey from the mouth to Middle Fork of the Kentucky river, and on two hundred and fifty-seven miles of channel route, was $2,297,416, or an aver- age of $8,922 per mile. But five of the locks and dams were completed, from the mouth of the river to Steele's ripple, above Frankfort. The gross receipts on Kentucky river navigation from 1843 to 1865, twenty-three years. were $461,781, against a total of expenditures of $303, 707, leaving a net revenue of $158,074, making an average annual dividend of three-fourths of one per cent. on the invested capital.
Another enterprise of national importance quite early commanded the attention of the Kentucky Legislature. In December, 1804, an act was passed incorporating the Ohio Canal Company, designed to construct a canal from Louisville to Portland, with capacity to pass all boats by the Falls. The charter was afterward amended, requiring the canal to be cut on the Kentucky side of the river, making it real estate, and exempting it from all taxation forever. The governor was directed to subscribe for fifty thousand dollars of the five hundred thousand dollars stock capital, with an option for fifty thousand more. Other options were given for the United States to subscribe sixty thousand dollars ; Pennsylvania and Virginia, thirty thousand dollars, each; and Maryland, New York, and Ohio twenty thousand dollars. each. Subsequent legislation provided similarly for this work, without prac-
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
tical results, until 1826, Governor Desha, in his message to the Legislature, in December, called special attention to the urgent necessity and value of this work, both for its pressing utility and the value of the investment as a pecuniary resource. In this same year Congress ordered the purchase of one hundred thousand dollars of the forfeited stock. As many as one thou- sand men were employed during the summer and fall of 1826. Various interruptions and changes retarded the completion of the canal, until it was finally opened for navigation in 1831. The entire cost of construction to January, 1832, was $742,869.
Until January, 1840, the reports of dividends showed that the investment was richly remunerative to the stockholders. In 1838 and 1839, the divi- dends reached fourteen and seventeen per cent., and in the interim stock sold as high as one hundred and twenty and one hundred and thirty dollars per share. The United States Government, in 1842, owned twenty-nine hundred and two shares of the stock. of the par value of $290.200. After this year, no dividends were declared, the net earnings up to 1859 being appropriated to the purchase of stock owned by private individuals, which was held in trust by the directors. After 1859, the income was ex- pended in the enlargement and improvement of the canal, or held to create a sinking fund to pay off the bonds issued in aid of enlargement. In 1866. this extension work stopped for want of funds, after $1,825,403 had been expended, making the total cost to February, 1868, $2,823.403. The cost of completing the enlargement on the scale projected was estimated by the engineer in charge to be $1, 178,oco. The city of Louisville and the State having declined to embark more funds in the enterprise, the ownership and control gradually fell to the General Government, which, from 1868 to 1872. appropriated $1,300,000 toward the proposed completion. In 1874, it took final action toward assuming the payment of $1, 172,000 of bonds outstand- ing, and then assumed possession of this great and important public work, making it henceforth a free canal, excepting small charges to meet repairs and provide proper attention.
The Falls of Ohio around the canal, and in the river channel, have a length of about three miles, while the canal is about two miles long. The fall of water in this distance is twenty-five and a quarter feet, sufficient to furnish motive power, if utilized, to run three hundred factories and mills, and to thus support fifty thousand people, and which, in a great manufact- uring section, would doubtless have been utilized years ago, and made a source of vast industry and wealth.
We have noted the fact that the Baltimore & Ohio railroad was chartered in 1827, and the first built in the United States. It was completed from Bal- timore to Cumberland long before 1848, and then to the Ohio by 1853. In March. 1830, Joseph Bruen. of Lexington, exhibited the model of a rail- road, locomotive steam-engine, and car, creating the belief that carriages and heavy freights could be as easily and certainly drawn by steam power
525
FIRST TRAIN OF CARS ARRIVES AT FRANKFORT.
as boats could be propelled. In April, a survey of a route showed the altitude of Lexington to be four hundred and thirty feet above that of Frank- fort. October 22, 1831, the first sill for the Lexington and Frankfort R. R. was placed, in the presence of a large concourse of citizens and strangers attracted. The model for this plan was the result of the investigations of a committee appointed to travel East and ascertain the method of construct- ing a railroad. By their report, stone was quarried and dressed with one straight edge, to be set upward and closely together, forming exact parallel double lines of curbing. On the face of this curbing the flat rails were laid horizontally, and fastened down by spikes driven through corresponding mortises in the rail and rock. Of course, all this roadbed machinery went to pieces before an experimental trial could be effected. After persevering efforts for a few years, on the 25th of January, 1835, the first locomotive and train of cars from Lexington arrived at the head of the inclined plane at Frankfort, in two hours and twenty-nine minutes, amid the enthusiasm of the gratified populace. The railroads from Louisville to Frankfort, from Lexington to Covington, from Paris to Maysville, and from Louisville to Nashville followed after the first experiment. The subsequent history of the remaining lines of the State system of railways is familiar to the most of our readers of to-day.
We turn again to note with profound interest the religious phenomena and progress during the first half of the present century, a period as marked for the waning power of the old and effete idiosyncracies of ecclesiastic dog- matisms and polities, and the restoration of the simplicity and majesty of apostolic truth and practice. as any within the Christian era. The anima- ting inspiration of civil and personal liberty pervading our political life, itself the divine fruitage and outg owth of the universal equality of the rights of manhood to each personality divinely taught in the infallible text-book of Christianity, incited a degree of intellectual activity and progressive in- vestigation which was not less reformatory in religion than in politics, in science, in art, and in invention. The conservatism of Europe still held, bound in fetters, the liberty of thought, as well as the liberty of person and action. We need not wonder. then, that the world owes more to America in the first century of its political life, for all important inventions and re- forms which exercise a potential influence over the affairs of mankind, than to all Europe for the past twenty centuries. If this is true with reference to the discoveries of steam as a practical motor, of the cotton-gin, of the sewing-machine, of the electric telegraph, of the telephone, of agricultural machinery, and other useful inventions. it is not less true of progressive de- velopment toward primitive truth in politics and in religion. In practical inventions of steam as a motive power, and in other useful arts and sciences, to the citizenship of Kentucky belongs the claims of rivalry, while in the doctrines of republican government which aim at personal and civil liberty, and in the reforms looking to a restoration of religion to its original integrity
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
and purity, as taught by its divine author and His apostles, she may well claim equal honors with any other country of like population in the world.
The Baptist Church suffered a schism of no great material importance, but showing the effervescence of agitated sentiment, in 1804, by the with- drawal of Tarrant, Barrow. and a number of other ministers, with some lay following, on account of their implacable hostility to slavery. They intruded these sentiments upon their associations, and demanded open discussion and endorsement. These bodies generally declared it improper for ministers, churches, or associations to meddle with this or any other political subject. The abolition element, styling themselves " Friends of Humanity," with- drew from the General Union of the Baptists, and in 1807 formed an as- sociation of their own. called " The Baptist Licking-Locust Association." Their numbers soon dwindled and the body wasted to nothing.
1 In 1809, a local schism was effected by an element of considerable in- fluence in the churches of the Elkhorn Association, originating in aliena- tions and dissensions between Jacob Creath and friends of the one party and Thomas Lewis and friends of the other. Yet the progressive growth of the Baptist Church continued uniformly, and in 1812, the statistics show that they had thirteen associations, two hundred and eighty-five churches. one hundred and eighty-three ministers, and over twenty-two thousand six hundred members. No serious disturbance interrupted the steady growth of the church for the succeeding twenty years. About the year 1829 and after. the noted religious reformation, led by Alexander Campbell and Bar- ton W. Stone mainly, divided associations and churches, and carried off thousands from this and other denominational bodies. While this great movement depleted its numbers and strength for some years, the Baptist Church has maintained a steady and vigorous growth throughout the subse- quent years and to date.
In the statistical tables of the minutes of the General Association of 1890, but representing the figures of 1891. the exhibits show totals of 1,441 churches and 143,288 members reported ; also 618 Sunday-schools and 36.991 scholars; contributions to State and district missions, $11, 811; to home missions, $6,347 ; to foreign missions, $8.427; and for all church purposes, $309,900. Statistics of the same year show the colored. Baptists of Kentucky to have 509 churches, 615 ministers, 68, 137 members, 14.000 Sunday-school pupils and 2,875 teachers, 5 academies and universities, 3 journals, and church property valued at $275,000.
Under care of the Baptist Church, institutions of learning have been established. Chief among these in general education stands Georgetown College, an institution which may claim precedence over all others of like importance. for long-continued and uniform usefulness in Kentucky, except- ing, perhaps. Centre College. Indeed, it is the fifth Baptist college or uni- versity, in the order of time, on the Western Continent. and the first south
I Benedict, Vol. II., p. 233.
PAWLING HALL.
MAIN BUILDING.
ACADEMY.
GEORGETOWN COLLEGE.
---------
CENTRE COLLEGE, DANVILLE, KY.
527
PRESIDENTS OF GEORGETOWN COLLEGE.
of the Potomac and west of the Alleghanies. It was chartered in 1829, and in June, 1830, Dr. Joel S. Bacon was the first president installed. In 1838, Rev. Rockwood Giddings succeeded to the same position, and in a brief time put the institution in prime condition, and increased the sub- scription to the endowment fund to eighty thousand dollars. His death was lamented after a brief service of two years. In 1840, Rev. Howard Malcolm, D. D., assumed the presidency, and for ten years discharged the duties of the office with uniform success. This pros- perity was continued for twelve years under the presidential administration of Rev. Duncan R. Campbell, D. D., LL. D. In 1852, he was elected president of Georgetown College, filling the posi- tion until his death, August 16, 1865.
In 1871, Rev. Basil Manly, D. D., was made president, and during his eight REV. DUNCAN R. CAMPBELL. years' administration the college was prosperous. In June, 1879, Dr. Manly having resigned, Rev. R. M. Dudley, D. D., was elected president, and served until his death in 1893. In 1893, Dr. A. C. Davidson, of Cov- ington, Ky., was appointed to the presidency so recently made vacant by death.
In addition, Bethel College, James H. Fuqua, A. M., president, repre- sents the educational interest in West Kentucky, under the auspices of the Baptist Church, and ranks high in the excellence of its training of young men for the varied callings of life. The "Enlow fund " furnishes aid to any ministerial student who may enter this college.
The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, after long discussion, was finally removed from Greenville, S. C., and located a few years ago at Louisville, and is now in a highly prosperous condition, with an able faculty composed of President W. H. Whitsitt and Professors Sampey, Kerfoot, Robertson, Dargan, Harris and McGlothlin. The Baptists of Kentucky pledged $300,000 for its location, and $200,000 was to be
ELDER THOMAS P. DUDLEY.
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
raised outside of the State. In 1885, the eligible and spacious grounds on Broadway, between Fourth and Fifth streets, were purchased as a site for the early construction of suitable buildings for the Theological Seminary. Two hundred and sixty-seven students, mainly from the Southern States, were in attendance for the session 1894-95.
Of the ministers of the " Particular " Baptist Church who have adhered with greatest firmness and consistency during the present century to the faith and doctrines of extremest Calvinism as embodied in the Philadelphia confession of faith, no man stands forth more con- spicuously in the religious history of Kentucky than Rev. Thomas P. Dudley, who, at his home in Lexington, at the advanced age of ninety-four years, died July 10, 1886.
Rev. William Vaughn, who began and ended his ministry in the intermediate period of Kentucky history, was born in Pennsylvania, February 22, 1785. He was ordained to the ministry in 1812, and was held in high esteem by the brotherhood of the Baptist Church dur- ing the long period of his labors. By REV. WILLIAM VAUGHN. his devotion to study, he became not only a good English scholar, but possessed considerable attainments in the Greek language and literature. In 1831-33, as agent for the American Sunday-school Union, he accomplished a great work in establishing about one hundred schools. In 1836, he became pastor of the Baptist Church at Bloomfield, to which he preached for thirty-two years.
In 1868, in consequence of an injury received by a fall, he resigned his pastoral charge, in his eighty-fourth year, but continued to be a close stu- dent, and to preach as his strength would serve him, until he was over ninety-two years of age. It is probable that no minister in Kentucky was ever more universally loved and respected. He died March 31, 1877, at the advanced age mentioned above.
The status of the Christian Church assumed proportions in Kentucky, such as demand our attention here. The movement resulting in its sepa- rate existence began in Western Pennsylvania in 1809, and in Kentucky and Ohio as far back as 1801, the nuclei of its extension in America and abroad.
Thomas Campbell, born in Ireland, February 1, 1763, was the first to break away from the prevalent ideas of the church. He was educated in the University of Glasgow, Scotland, and became a minister of the Scotch Seceder (Presbyterian) Church. His labors as preacher and teacher im- paired his health. April 8, 1807, under advice from his physician, he
529
ALEXANDER CAMPBELL.
made a voyage to this country, leaving his son, Alexander, in charge of his school and family. In thirty-five days he landed in Philadelphia, and soon afterward in Washington county, Pennsylvania. Finding here, as in Europe, a multiplicity of religious sects, and impressed with the resultant evils he determined upon an effort to unite the people. His broad, tolerant spirit soon drew many godly persons from variant parties into the movement. August 7, 1807, the " Christian Association " of Washington county, Pennsylvania, was formed. From this was issued the " Declara- tion and Address" written by Thomas Campbell, and published in 1809. "It was a remarkable production - for its catholicity, its supreme exaltation of the word of God, its clear, unequivocal statement of the only apparent practi- cal ground of union, and its enuncia- tion of all the principles of the rising religious movement." The same fall his family joined him. Alexander read the proof-sheets of the address, and heartily approved.
He was born September 12, 1788. in the county of Antrim, Ireland. His ALEXANDER CAMPBELL. ancestors were, one side, Scotch, and on the other, Huguenots. The son, like the father, was deeply impressed with the evils of sectism, and was im- bued with a profound reverence for the word of God. The two became inseparable in a common purpose, in full accord with the principles of the address; but the application of them to the solution of questions of faith and practice was the work of years.
Earnest study of the Bible led both, with others, to substitute immersion for affusion ; and June 12, 1812, they were immersed by a Baptist minister. Having discarded infant baptism, they became identified with the Redstone (Baptist) Association, stipulating, however, that they should be bound by no human creed In this connection they would have continued to labor as ministers, but some of its members, intolerant of innovations, annoyed them much by proscriptiveness, and they withdrew, uniting with the Ma- honing Association, where they had greater freedom of utterance. This step inaugurated the new movement in the great Ohio river valley, where, ever since, a strong center has been maintained. Walter Scott, born in Scotland, October 31, 1797, a young man of fine culture and genius, be- came a most helpful coadjutor. Likewise, the Creaths, Bosworths, John- sons, and others pushed forward the work, bringing over whole churches, mostly Baptist.
From necessity Alexander Campbell entered the field of controversy.
34
53
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
His first debate was held at Mount Pleasant, Ohio, with Rev. John Walker, a Presbyterian, in 1820. It was published in 1821, and attracted so much attention that it seems to have led to another discussion at Washington, Kentucky, with Rev. W. L. McCalla, a Presbyterian, in 1823. This was published in 1824. A third discussion, on the Evidences of Christianity, was held with Robert Owen, in 1829; one on Romanism, with the late Archbishop Purcell, in 1837, and one with Dr. N. L. Rice, in 1843, at Lexington, Kentucky. Meantime, he was publishing from 1823- a monthly called the Christian Baptist until 1830 when the title became the Millen- nial Harbinger. His oral debates and writings, freely circulated in Kentucky, brought over many Baptists and Presbyterians, with others, to the cause he so ably pleaded. And Kentucky thus became an important center of in- fluence and a stronghold. The way had already been paved in this State, and this was brought about by the labors mainly of Barton W. Stone, once a minister of the Presbyterian Church, but who, with a number of brethren, had been preaching much the same tenor with the Campbells since I801. He was the founder and leader in Kentucky of the " Christian Connection," invidiously named "New Lights." From the early part of the century, he had been contending, in advance even of the Campbells, with some as- sociates gathered around him, in Kentucky and Ohio, for the union of Christians on broader Bible grounds. Mr. Stone had suffered much asper- sion, however, from imaginary unsoundness on the doctrines of the Trinity and the atonement. But a harmonious understanding having been reached by these two great leaders, the churches respectively represented by them were practically united in 1832. John T. Johnson, John Smith, the Rogers, and others were efficient agents in securing the union upon the word of God alone, all agreeing that, although there is but one faith, there are, and must be, many opinions, which, as such, should not be made tests of fellowship. Speculations on the unrevealed are not to be made bonds of union.
The Disciples originally, as now, professed to aim at the restoration of Christianity in everything simply taught in its apostolic deliverance and embodiment. Hence, their only creed : Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God. They hold that no other confession of faith was required by the Apostles, nor any rule of faith and practice other than the Holy Scrip- tures, authoritative because given by inspiration of the Holy Spirit. They reject all human creeds as authoritative, believing them to be divisive and destructive of the unity of the Church of God in Christ. The simple con- gregational organization they hold to be the highest jurisdiction within the Church, ordained of God for men.
They baptize-immerse-the penitent believer only for (in order to) re- mission of past sins, receiving only such baptized persons into fellowship, who, if they continue loyal to Christ until death, are assured of eternal life.
They consider the Lord's day worship not wholly and scripturally fulfilled without the observance of the Lord's Supper, as was the ancient custom.
531
THE TEACHINGS OF THE "CHRISTIANS."
In organization, they are congregational for the functions of govern- ment, yet they confer together for purposes of co-operation in good works. But no conference or council has legislative or judicial power over congregations.
As individuals or as churches, they acknowledge no distinctive religious - names other than those that are scriptural. Hence, they repudiate the name "Campbellite," as also did Mr. Campbell himself. They respond to any scriptural name, as Disciples, Disciples of Christ, Christians, Churches of Christ, etc. The whole body of believers, or Christians, in all the world, and, for that matter, in all time, they speak of as the body of Christ, the Church of Christ, or the Church of God. By custom of law courts, they are known in some districts as Christian Churches, or, all considered to- gether, as the "Christian Church," and many congregations call themselves Christian Churches, as the equivalent of Churches of Christians.
They firmly hold and teach the tri-personality of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The pervading sentiment resulting from Bible study is Trinitarian and Arminian ; but they ignore all speculative systems of theol- ogy as tests of fellowship, requiring faith in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, and sincere obedience to all Divine commands, as the decisive tests of Christian character. A generally accepted motto is, "Unity in faith, diversity in opinions, charity in all things."
From the first the Disciples of Kentucky have been aggressive, as is always the case of those who have strong convictions. They have also been noted for Bible intelligence and educational enterprise.
The number of ministers in the State is over five hundred; the number of communicants is about ninety-two thousand, in some nine hundred churches.
John T. Johnson, who, in 1829-30, became deeply interested in the views presented in the writings and teachings of Alexander Campbell, be- gan the work of the ministry, and, severing his connection with the Baptist Church in 1831, he organized a church upon the basis of the Bible alone. From that time forth he gave his life service in the cause to which he had consecrated himself. Associ- ating himself with Stone in the effort, they were mainly instrumental in effecting the union of 1832-34 be- tween the Christians and Reformers, those of views in harmony with Mr. Campbell being called by the latter name. His call to the ministry was the more remarkable, as his life hith- REV. JOHN T. JOHNSON.
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
erto had been prominent and eventful. He was born at the Great Cross- ings, in. Scott county, October 5, 1788, the eighth child of Colonel Robert Johnson, and a brother of Richard M. Johnson, afterward vice-president of the United States. His education was fair for the times. He chose the profession of law and practiced for awhile. He was a volunteer in the war of 1812-15, and performed gallant services throughout, acting for some time as aid to General Harrison, and had his horse shot under him at Fort Meigs. On his return home, he was five times elected to serve his constituency in the Legislature, and twice to Congress. For nine months he was judge of the " new" Court of Appeals, pending the excited discussion of the old and new court questions. His political future was bright and promising, when he gave up all secular callings to devote himself to the service of the Christian religion. From 1829 until the date of his death, at Lexington, Mo., December 17, 1856, no man ever more faithfully and singly devoted his entire energies of mind and body to a loved cause than did John T. Johnson, not less a hero in the field of the ministry than he and his gallant brothers were upon the field of battle. In preaching the Gospel, in advancing the educational enterprises of his church, in founding and promoting benevolent institutions, and in fostering mission work at home and abroad, no brother or comrade of the ministry ever threw his soul into his calling more than did this noble man of God.
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