USA > Virginia > Virginia Baptist ministers. 5th series, 1902-1914, with supplement > Part 24
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With the end of the War he took up the work of life in the twofold capacity of teacher and preacher. At Mt. Salem Church, on Saturday before the first Sunday in February, 1868, he was ordained to the full work of the gospel ministry. In the course of the years, he served
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as pastor, his field of activity being the counties of Madison, Greene, Culpeper, and Rappahannock, these churches : Liberty, Swift Run, Mt. Zion, Shiloh, Slate Mills, Flint Hill, Graves' Chapel, Pleasant Grove, and Bethel. To this last organization he preached more than thirty-seven years. After his marriage, November 29, 1869, to Miss Elizabeth M. Carpenter, of Madison County, he made his home, for the years of his active ministry, at Madison Court House. Here he established a school for young ladies, which he conducted success- fully until the demands of his churches made the closing of the school necessary.
While as a preacher Mr. Grimsley did not have the ringing voice and impressive delivery of his father, as a thinker he was his father's equal, if not his superior. "His sermons were clear in conception, accurate in state- ment, and always instructive and helpful." A man of strong convictions, he was amiable, generous, and frank, with agreeable and winning manners. As a pastor he visited rich and poor alike, and took an interest in the material, as well as the spiritual, welfare of his people. Several men whom he baptized afterwards became ministers of the gospel.
Mr. Grimsley died at the home of his son-in-law, Mr. Barnett Miller, of Culpeper, Va., March 6, 1913. On the thirtieth day of the same month, at a Fifth Sun- day Meeting in the Culpeper Baptist Church, when a Memorial Service in honor of Mr. Grimsley was held, a paper was read by Rev. Thomas P. Brown. This sketch is based upon this paper and upon the obituary, also by Mr. Brown, which appeared in the Minutes of the Gen- eral Association for 1913.
ISAAC NEWTON MAY 1841-1913
A number of Virginia Baptist preachers have had, as a part of their life work, the opportunities and the responsibilities of the teacher, some in public schools, some in academies, and some in colleges and universities. In many cases, as was true of Rev. I. N. May, the years given to the classroom were also those through which they preached. In not a few instances financial needs have made it necessary for the preacher to supplement his salary from his church or churches. And often it has been true that the talent for teaching equaled, if it did not surpass, that for the pulpit. Mr. May, either as student or as teacher, in the course of his life, was con- nected with two universities and several secondary schools. A student of the University of Virginia the ses- sion of 1860-61, he left his alma mater to enter the Confederate Army, and after the War, having gone to Texas, he was Professor in Baylor University. He was also Principal of Bryan Female College. Upon his return to Virginia he was pastor, first, at Gordonsville, then at Luray, and then at Flint Hill, Rappahannock County. From Flint Hill he moved to Louisa County to the estate he had inherited from his father. This place, known as "Oakland," was to be his home until his death. After teaching for several sessions, beginning in 1882, first at Green Level Academy and then at Locust Dale Academy, he established at his home a school for boys, known as "Oakland Academy," where he labored with enthusiasm and success to the end of his life. He had a bright mind, loved to teach, and was especially devoted to mathematics.
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Prof. J. B. Loving, who was a student under him at Locust Dale, wrote of his influence over his scholars, and quoted a remark of Prof. John Hart about one of Mr. May's sermons at Locust Dale; he said that neither Dr. Hawthorne nor any of the "D. D.'s" could have preached a finer sermon.
Mr. May's work as a preacher was in the Shiloh and Goshen Associations. While teaching in Rappahannock County he was pastor of Flint Hill and Luray Churches. After moving to Louisa he was pastor, before his active work as a preacher closed, of the following churches: Oakland, Lower Gold Mine, Cedar Run, Perkins, Forest Hill, Mt. Gilead. Some of these places were at con- siderable distances from his home, so there is the picture before our eyes of this man of God, with his double work, turning away from the schoolroom to drive or ride to his distant "appointment." Professor Loving says of him: "As a sermonizer Brother May was far above the average. He possessed a logical mind, analyzed well his subject, and always gave his hearers something they could take with them to their homes." While in Texas, in August, 1867, Mr. May was married to Miss Jane D. Goodwin, a native Virginian, who, with a son, survived him. In the home which she helped to make, cordial hospitality abounded. His fatal illness lasted but a week, and on March 17, 1913, he passed away, in his seventy- second year, for he was born September 28, 1841.
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REUBEN BAKER BOATWRIGHT 1831-1913
From the Religious Herald for February 8, 1906, the genial and kind face of Reuben Baker Boatwright looked forth upon the reader. The occasion for the presenta- tion of this picture in the Herald was Mr. Boatwright's arrival at the age of threescore and fifteen years. The picture was accompanied by an article from the pen of Dr. A. E. Dickinson, descriptive of the work and charac- ter of Mr. Boatwright. This article expressed the opinion that perhaps the best service he had rendered was the giving of his son, Dr. F. W. Boatwright, to Rich- mond College and to the world, and closed with these words: "His life has been a benediction, and I trust he may yet be spared for years to the hundreds and thousands who know and love him." It was in the same year that Mr. Boatwright sent a brief letter to the Herald pleading for more "spiritual uplift" in its columns for the old men and women, declaring that it is "highly necessary to keep the fires burning on the altars of our hearts." Mr. Boatwright had known Mr. Sands, the first editor of the Herald, and had paid $4 a year subscription for the paper.
Mr. Boatwright will be remembered as a country and village preacher, and his college and seminary friend, Dr. Charles H. Ryland, whose friendship ran out through sixty years, thinks that the following lines of Goldsmith well described his character and career :
"Remote from towns he ran his godly race, Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change, his place ; Unpracticed he to fawn, or seek for power, By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour ; Far other aims his heart had learned to prize,- More bent to raise the wretched than to rise."
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Buckingham County, where he spent much of his life, and beneath whose sod his ashes rest, gave him birth. Near Mt. Zion Church, January 23, 1831, he first saw the light, his parents being Reuben Boatwright and Mary Bryant. His grandfather, Reuben Boatwright, a soldier of the Revolution, coming from Prince Edward County to Buckingham County in 1788, had built his home, "Travelers' Rest," near Mt. Zion Church. The son of this Revolutionary soldier and the father of Reuben Baber Boatwright was an ordained minister, but he
declined calls from Mt. Zion and other churches, choos- ing rather to look after his farm and to preach as occasion invited. The other children of the family were two daughters, who died when young, and two brothers, Charles P. and Thomas Frederick, and three half-sisters and one half-brother, P. P. Boatwright, offspring of the father's second marriage. In 1847, when sixteen years old, he made a profession of religion and was baptized, near Mt. Zion and into her fellowship, by Rev. Wm. H. Taylor.
After having begun his education at Berryman's Academy he entered Richmond College in the fall of 1856, Charles H. Ryland being one of his fellow- students. Before his course of two years at the college was over he was licensed by his mother church to preach, and before he became a student at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary at Greenville, S. C., he did some preaching and was ordained at Mt. Zion, Rev. P. S. Hen- son and Rev. W. H. Taylor forming the presbytery. His year at Greenville was the first in the history of the Seminary, and he was one of the ten Virginia sent that session. His fellow-student, Charles H. Ryland, says that he was "the best theologian of his class." From the Seminary it was not long before he took his place in the army, becoming chaplain of the 46th Virginia Regiment.
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Before the War ended he was pastor of Enon and Brown's, in the James River Association, and Scottsville, in the Albemarle, and, having been married on Septem- ber 5, 1865, in Cumberland County, to Miss Maria Eliza- beth Woodruff, Rev. Wm. H. Taylor performing the ceremony, in 1866 he took charge of Lewisburg and other churches in Greenbrier County, West Virginia. The children of this union were F. W., Martha Susan (now Mrs. J. A. Clark), Mary Elizabeth (now Mrs. R. M. Booth ), Sarah Look (now Mrs. Sands Gayle), and John B. During his pastorate of some three years there he com- pleted the repairs on the Lewisburg Meeting-House and "secured a deed of gift to the house of worship at the Sweet Springs." One of his members at Sweet Springs was a Mr. Moss, who had been a very wicked man, and who, at the age of eighty, was converted. As soon as he was converted he became most anxious to know more about Jesus. Upon his wife's death, years before, he had put her Bible away in the bottom of the trunk, but now he took it out, kissed it and wept over it, deploring the fact that he could not read a line of it. But, wonderful to tell, without a teacher he taught himself, and spelled and read his way through the New Testament and through much of the Old Testament. He never would read to any one, but Mr. Boatwright, interested in his remarkable and highly praiseworthy achievements, went up to his room, prevailed on him to read to him, and found that he could read, and that he understood what he read. While in West Virginia, Mr. Boatwright knew Wm. G. Margrave, whom he considered "the greatest man that ever lived in West Virginia, for he served most." Mar- grave led a wicked career for forty-five years, but the remainder of his life he was a zealous worker for God. Although an ordained minister, he never served as a pastor save as a supply or till the church could get some one else. In the destitute sections he was ever busy,
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preaching in private homes and distributing far and wide tracts and good books. Mr. Boatwright tells how once Margrave was overtaken by night in a section where settlers were few and where rattlesnakes were numerous. As the cabin to which he had come was small, and the family large, they could give him food but not a bed. So he ate his supper, and then raking up chips into a circle, set them on fire, got into the circle, went to sleep, and had a good night's rest.
Marion, in the Lebanon Association, was Mr. Boat- wright's next field of labor. Here was his home and his church for three different pastorates, and, all told, for seventeen years, a longer period than he spent as pastor anywhere else. While at Marion he also preached, dur- ing his first pastorate, for the South Fork, Chatham Hill, and Sugar Grove Churches, and during his second term for Friendship and Greenfield Churches. Mr. Boatwright always retained "the impress of his alma mater," was ever interested in education, and while at Marion taught in the Marion Academy and the Marion Female College. He was one of the first trustees of the Southwest Vir- ginia Institute (now Intermont College), and later of the Jeter Female Institute, Bedford City. In writing once for the Herald on the question of ordination, he said, referring to the Marion period of his life, that he had had "some bitter experience in trying, as one of a presby- tery, to keep out men whom I thought unqualified for the ministry." Dr. Ryland is doubtless right when he says : "At this place the best work of his life was done. He not only built up the Marion Church but strengthened other churches in Smyth and Washington Counties." It was while he lived in Southwest Virginia that once at a meeting of the New River Association, in company with Hon. J. Taylor Ellyson and Dr. W. R. L. Smith, the following incident occurred. At the home to which the trio went to spend the night there were not less than
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thirty or forty guests. After a long trip of a score and a half miles over the mountains they were very tired, and so no little interested as to where they were to sleep. About ten o'clock their host led them to a large room furnished with two good beds. There was a fire burning on the hearth, but, much to the dismay of the trio, before the fire there sat two women wearing long-eared bonnets and busy cooking. The women looked neither to the right nor to the left, and were silent. It was evident that they. were going to stay until the victuals were cooked, no matter how long that took. After much hesitation Mr. Boatwright, feeling that the long-eared bonnets gave him a large degree of protection from observation, undressed and got into bed. His companions after a season left the room, but finally .returned, when the women, seeing that they were "uncommonly modest young men," gathered up the next day's dinner and departed.
After leaving Marion the last time, and before his active work as a pastor ceased, Mr. Boatwright served the following churches, all of them in that general section of Eastern Virginia of which Buckingham forms a part : Peterville and Fine Creek (Middle District Association) ; Lyles ( Albemarle Association) ; Carters- ville, Enon, Cedar, Buckingham, Cumberland (James River Association) ; Mt. Hermon, Big Spring, Ivey Chapel, Morgan's, Diamond Hill, Flint Hill (Strawberry Association ). Before this he had been pastor for a year at the First Church, Bristol.
During the closing years of his life he was an invalid, and at times a great sufferer. When the end came, April 19, 1913, his wife and five children were with him, and there was peace. On a bright Sunday afternoon his body was laid to rest under the old oaks in the Buckingham churchyard, the funeral being conducted by Rev. R. W. Bagwell, who was assisted in the services by Rev. W. H. Street and Rev. C. H. Ryland.
JOSEPH B. KENDRICK 1837-1913
Within the bounds of the New Lebanon Association the main work of Rev. Joseph B. Kendrick was done. Before the organization of this body he was one of the original members of Independence Church, which was organized in 1861. For many years he was pastor of this church. The other churches of the New Lebanon Association that he served as pastor were Bethany, Salem, Russell's Fork, Corinth, Finney, and Oak Grove. He was a member of a family remarkable for its size, there being twenty-one children. He was the youngest of the twenty-one, and outlived them all. From July 7, 1837, to April 22, 1913, was the period covered by his life, being nearly seventy-six years. On April 27, 1859, he was married to Charity Hart, who bore him five sons and six daughters and survived him. In March, 1861, he was licensed to the gospel ministry, but when a few weeks later the War broke out he enlisted and served until the battle of Sharpsburg, September 16-17, 1862, when he received such wounds that he was exempted from further service. While in the army he was in the battles of Ball's Bluff, First and Second Winchester, Hanover Court House, Fair Oaks, Cross Keys, Port Republic, Chickahominy, Gaines' Mill, Malvern Hill, Cedar Mountain, Kettle Run, Groveton, Second Manas- sas, Chantilly, and Harper's Ferry. He was a regular at- tendant at the sessions of the New Lebanon Association. He was sound in his theology and faithful in his procla- mation of the gospel. As an evidence of how customs have changed, it is interesting to know that at one time,
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many years ago, Mr. Kendrick was a distiller as well as a preacher. There is a man now living who tells this incident : "When I was a young fellow I went to Mr. Kendrick's, in company with a young man, and we bought a quart of good liquor from him." During his last illness Mr. Kendrick realized that his end was near, but no fear oppressed him, and he spoke with joy of his departure.
WILSON V. SELFE 1842-1913
Within the bounds of the New Lebanon Association, Rev. Wilson V. Selfe lived and did his work. He was a prophet with honor among his own people. "The fact that for forty years he was able to command the respect and esteem of the people among whom he lived, and lead them in spiritual things, gives abundant proof of his excellent character and his consecration to the work." He was born October 2, 1842, and his second birth took place in 1869. About three years after his conversion he entered the ministry, and in the long course of his service he was pastor of the following churches, all of them in the New Lebanon Association: Springfield, Mt. Zion, Grassy Creek, Cleveland, Liberty, Ring's Chapel. He was with the Springfield Church longer than with any other. "He was a pioneer, laying the founda- tion upon which another generation is now building." On January 11, 1865, he was married to Elizabeth Kiser, and of this union eleven children were born, and all of them are still living. He passed to his reward May 21, 1913.
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THOMAS BRECKENRIDGE GATEWOOD 1826-1913
On the night of March 4, 1876, a great calamity befell Rev. Thomas Breckenridge Gatewood. His home, in the northern part of Amherst County, was consumed by fire, his youngest son, Boyd Elbert Gatewood, who was eleven years old, perishing in the flames. At the time of this catastrophe Mr. Gatewood, with his wife, was away from home and at one of his churches. With the house were destroyed all the family records, so that some of the dates given in this sketch are approximate only. He was born in Amherst County, Virginia, October 6, 1826, and about 1860 was ordained to the gospel ministry, the pres- bytery being composed of Rev. John W. Hopkins and Rev. Armistead H. Ogden. He organized the Oak Grove Baptist Church, in the Albemarle Association, and served them as pastor for some fifteen years. He was also pastor for a number of years of the New Prospect, Piney Mount, and Corner Stone Churches. Later he served the Neriah and Mountain Branch Churches, in Rockbridge County. It is said that he married more couples than any preacher in his county, nor did county lines limit his activity in this sphere, for he was often called to Bedford and Rockbridge to perform this ceremony. It is also estimated that under his ministry more people were led to make profession of their faith in Christ than under any other minister of his day in Amherst County. The larger part of his service was near the place of his nativity. He was a great reader and a subscriber to the Religious Herald for forty years. He was fond of horseback riding, and took great interest in his home,
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a farm of some 85 acres. Here he entertained many guests with genial cordiality. Vigorous still at the great age of eighty, he was serving churches with real zeal, though with small material compensation. Rev. P. H. Cowherd, who was his pastor for the last five years of the life of the venerable man of God, testifies to the attractiveness of this old soldier of Christ, who was always present at every service of his church, unless providentially hindered. He says of him: "He stood for truth and righteousness and was uncompromisingly opposed to everything that seemed wrong. He knew how to rebuke with all long-suffering and love. I have often heard him say: 'I want to be missed for the good I have done when I am gone !' " He was married, about 1853, to Miss Editha Jane Christian, who bore him three daughters and two sons; of these children three are still living, namely: Mrs. V. S. Thornton, Covington, Va., Mrs. A. M. Watts, Amherst, and Mr. Marshall P. Gate- wood, Pleasant View, Va. His second marriage was about November 8, 1879, and this wife, who was Miss Nannie Jane Thornton, and their daughter, Mrs. T. E. Lacy, Covington, Va., survive him. He died, after a month's illness, on June 2, 1913, and was buried in the cemetery, on the hill, near his home. The funeral service was conducted by Rev. E. W. Robertson.
RANSDELL WHITE CRIDLIN 1840-1913
The seventh in a family of ten children, Ransdell White Cridlin was born in Westmoreland County, Vir- ginia, July 18, 1840, his parents being William White Cridlin and Alice Peed Cridlin. The parents and this child were natives of the same county, the stock being English. In Essex County, whither his father moved when he was five years old, young Cridlin attended, at Vawter's Episcopal Church, his first Sunday school, where, without any musical instrument save a tuning fork, they sang, among other hymns, "I Want to Be An Angel," and "There Is a Happy Land Far, Far Away." In this Sunday school one teacher, a Mr. Mathews, who had a class of the larger boys, was remarkably popular, and finally young Cridlin, finding out that the cause of this popularity was a package of homemade ginger cakes that Mr. Mathews brought each Sunday under his cloak, at once longed to be big enough to enter that class. His parents dying when he was quite young, the boy went to live with a cousin, where, working on a farm, he soon forgot the little learning that the old-field school had given him. The family of Whites with whom he lived were not churchgoers, and his religious opportunities were few. He did, however, go once to a camp meeting, and, left outside, heard, from behind the pulpit, a sermon that greatly touched his heart. Upon returning home he asked his cousin's wife to teach him to pray, and, although not a praying woman, she told him the publican's prayer, "God be merciful to me a sinner." Not only then, in the field, in the stable, in the woods, did the
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boy make this prayer, but even through life this soul-cry was his. Mr. Cridlin always believed that this call of his child heart was heard, and that then he was converted. Before long he went to Richmond to live with an older brother, and was there put with Mr. George Ainslie, coach maker, to learn this business, and here he remained until 1858. He now went to a night school, so anxious was he to advance in his studies, and a good woman took him to the Pine Apple Episcopal Church Sunday School, a church standing on the corner of Franklin and Eighteenth Streets. Here he became fond of his teacher and of the pastor. This church was burned and he went for a time to St. John's Episcopal Church. He became careless, however, about going to Sunday school, and one Sunday, as he was setting out for a stroll, he was passing the Second Baptist Church, on Main Street, when a boy asked him to go into his Sunday school. He accepted, and was put into the class of Mr. Hooper, Mr. H. K. Ellyson being the superintendent of the school. Later he was in the class of Mr. John McCarthy at the First Baptist Church. During a protracted meeting at the Leigh Street Baptist Church, whose pastor was Rev. E. J. Willis, Mr. Cridlin was induced by his friend and shop- mate, W. B. Johnson, to attend these services. He made a profession of religion and was baptized by the pastor. At once the young man began to take an active part in religious work, and one night, as they walked home from prayer-meeting together, Deacon A. B. Clarke stopped him just as they were at St. John's Church and asked him if he had ever thought whether it was his duty to preach. About this time there was a group of young men in the Leigh Street Church who were thinking about the ministry, A. B. and A. P. Woodfin, George B. Smith, and Royal Figg being among the number. By the help of the Ladies' Society of the church, who paid all of his
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expenses, Mr. Cridlin was enabled to go to the Green Plain Academy, Southampton County, to begin his preparation for the ministry. Since he was the only stu- dent in the school who was a Christian he felt doubly that he must let his light shine, so he studied with zeal, organized a Sunday school in the Academy, and finally preached before the students and teachers his first sermon, his text being John 3:16. A revival followed, and fifteen of the young men accepted Christ, but never again, to the end of his life, did he preach from this text. During his vacations he did colporteur work in South- ampton, Sussex, and Amelia Counties, and after the revival, while going on with his studies, supplied Hebron and Zion Churches. At the close of the session the stu- dents presented him with six volumes of Olshausen's Commentary as a token of their appreciation of his services for them. The War interrupted his course at Richmond College, begun in 1860, and he became a missionary among the soldiers, doing work in the camps and hospitals on the Potomac River, at Mathias Point,
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