Church History Trip - Part 9

Here is the final installment of Church History Trip.



After leaving the Campbell mansion, we travelled up the road to the Bethany Church of Christ, the church that Alexander and Thomas began after they left the Wellsburg Church.







This is a shot of the church from the outside. Notice the two doors: one for men and one for women.












This house is down the street from the Bethany Church of Christ. It is the house where all of the Millenial Harbingers were published during it's run of close to 30 years.












This is a photo of the stage, pulpit and communion table inside the Bethany Church of Christ.













Before the Campbell family began the Bethany Church, they attended the Wellsburg church in Wellsburg. While attending there, Alexander Campbell preached behind this pulpit on a regular basis.









Following our stop at Bethany, the trip began to slow down. Our final stop on Thursday was the site, pictured, of the Cross Creek Church where Alexander Campbell presented the "Sermon on the Law." The Church is obviously no longer there, but this was the site. There is also a cemetary here.










The final site of our tour was on Friday morning, before making the long drive back to Lincoln, was the Seceder Cemetery. Here, at a church that no longer exists, Alexander Campbell debated. It was a massive debate that was heard by close to 5000 people.






Overall, the trip was amazing. I wished, even though I was tired as we pulled back into Lincoln's campus, that the trip was longer and there was more to see. But alas, all good things come to an end. And in the midst of a light rain, we pulled back onto Lincoln's campus only to leave Jackie and I wish a 3 hour drive home.

It was a great trip!

Jim

Church History Trip - part 8 (Bethany)

After visiting God's acre, we toured the Campbell mansion... also known as Bethany. Here is a photo of the house as we walked down the path.

The house itself was built in 3 sections. The first section was given to the Campbell's by Margaret's father, John Brown, to keep them from moving to Zanesville, Ohio. The second section was built to house the school started by Alexander. The third section is called "Stranger Hall" and was built to host the various visiters to the Campbell mansion.




This is a shot of the main room in the first section, usually known as the parlor. The footstools in front of the couch were used by Alexander and Margaret when they married. They kneeled on them.









This is Thomas Campbell's bed. It is in the room off the parlor. This is the bed that Thomas passed in.












This is Alexander's favorite chair in his room. He would often sit by this chair and read or rock the cradle that is just to the left of this chair in the picture.












This is Alexander's bed in his room on the first floor. Alexander died in this bed. Jackie took a second to pose for this picture. On the dresser in the back, you can see the famous "death mask" of Alexander. According to tradition, as soon as Alexander died, some of his attendants took some plaster-of-paris and laid it on this face and an artist fashioned it together as an impression of him shortly after passing.





Here is a picture taken inside "Stranger Hall." This was the guest house of the Campbell's that was attached to their mansion. Many famous people stayed here... including James A. Garfield (President of the United States), Henry Clay and Jefferson Davis just to name a few.










Here's a picture of Jackie in Margaret Campbell's kitchen. (She loved it by the way...)














Upstairs in the Campbell mansion, you would find Thomas' original gravestone. It was stolen and thrown in a field, later to be returned by a teenager.












As both groups wrapped up their tours of the house, we paused to pose for a picture on the porch of the Campbell mansion. It was a great tour. Very insightful and an incredible house.















Following the tour of the mansion, we visited Alexander Campbell's personal, detached study. Some have called it the "iglue" because it does resemble such from the outside. But it was, by far the coolest place on the mansion grounds. Campbell would sit here often and write and study from very early in the morning until very late at night.

Some day, when we have land, I will have a similar study.






Here is a picture of the outside of Campbell's study. If you follow the link from the writing above about the study, there is a very awesome picture of Campbell in his study taken in the 1850's. I purchased a copy of that picture and it sits in my office.







This concludes this post. I've got one more post to make. This is will cover the Bethany Church and a couple of cemetaries.


Jim

Church History Trip - part 7 (Brush Run and God's Acre)

Well, we're back home. We just off the bus last night around 7 pm and jumped in the Cruiser. After a good night's rest and some sleeping in, we're back in business on Saturday afternoon. I wanted to grab a few minutes and get the rest of the pictures from the trip up and on my blog for those of you who are faithfully checking back the rest of the pics...

Here there are:


We started off Thursday morning with some time in Washington, PA. Downtown in a company that has now become part of the "Observer Reporter," we found a printing press similar to the one used by Thomas Campbell to print the "Declaration and Address." In fact, it was printed and distributed by the company that merged with the "Observer Reported" and was printed behind where I was standing.





This is a picture of that style of printing press. This is NOT the press contrary to what Bethany College says. But it is similiar.













This is the house, at least the right hand side of the house, that Thomas Campbell was living in when he wrote the "Declaration and Address." In fact, the original fireplace that was in the house when Thomas lived here is still in the house. We were supposed to go inside, but the lady who lives here wasn't home.









We moved on from Thomas' house and visited several other sites.

On our way to the Brush Run Church site, we stopped by a site that "may" have been the baptismal site for the Brush Run Church. No one from our group was willing to journey into the water... there was some ice on the water... for a baptism.







Brush Run Church was organized by Thomas and Alexander Campbell in 1811. It was one of the first churches organized under the Restoration movement.









This is a picture of the site of the Upper Buffalo Presbyterian Church. The current building is off to the left. This was the site where Thomas Campbell was placed on "trial" by the Presbyterian Church and officially asked to stop preaching restoration ideals. Thomas... thankfully for us... refused and continued to preach.







We moved on from there and traveled for quite some time and arrived in Bethany, WV. Bethany was the home of Alexander Campbell, after his father-in-law John Smith gave him and his wife Margaret 3000 acres to keep them from moving to Zanesville, OH.

After lunch, we visited "God's Acre." "God's Acre" is the site of all of the Campbells graves and all of those directly related to the Campbells.

The first marker that we viewed was Thomas'. This isn't his original... the original will be later. It was stolen and thrown in a field in Ohio... Only to be recovered by a teenager and returned to Bethany.


We viewed the site of Alexander Campbell's grave. A.C. doesn't have a head stone... only a small foot marker and head marker.

This is A. Campbell's foot marker.










This marker is also located in God's Acre. This is the marker of Archibald McLean. Archibald was the fourth president of Bethany College, the college that Alexander Campbell started.













We moved over a couple of feet and found the marker for W.K. Pendleton. W.K. was an influential leader of the second generation.













A few feet over was the final resting place of Robert Richardson. Richardson was asked by Alexander's second wife to write down the story of Alexander after his passing. He wrote 2 volumes that were extremely influential in informing us about Alexander's life and history.










This picture was the final picture taken of God's Acre. It shows the final resting place of the Campbell family... Thomas, Alexander, Margaret, and the remainer of the family.









Moving on from God's acre, we returned to Bethany (the Campbell mansion) for an extensive tour. The next post will contain those photos.

Jim

Church History Trip - part 7 (Coming Soon!)

Some of you are regularly reading and checking out pictures from my current Church History/Restoration Trip. That's awesome!! Keep coming back and checking them out.

Today, I took about 90 pictures from Bethany (Alexander Campbell's home) in West Virginia. But at this point, it's 11:00 pm, I've been running everywhere today and frankly, I'm just too tired to sort them out and post them.

But they will be up very soon. Today is Thursday. Tomorrow, we make the long drive back to Lincoln and then home. My hope is to get the final 2 days up (Parts 7, 8 (Bethany) and 9) up on Saturday. So, if you're checking back and disappointed that there aren't any new pictures or tales of new adventures, don't give up. They will appear here. Just not tonight...

Jim

Church History Trip - part 6

After leaving the Lexington Cementary and making a stop at what may have been Moses Lard's house... we headed out to Midway College. Midway holds a very important instrument. This melodeon is "the" instrument that may have begun the argument among some of the Restoration movement churches over musical instruments. Eventually, it would lead to a split between the Disciples of Christ and the Churches of Christ (non-instrumentals). Click HERE for more information on this incident.





That small instrument was removed from the Midway church... which sat on the site of the current Midway Christian Church. When it was removed by Adam Hibler and hidden in his barn for awhile before it was finally returned.


But this argument was instrumental (pun intended) in a future division between the Disciples' churches.






Following Midway, we stopped by Georgetown College where we viewed an original painting of Georgetown College, which Barton W. Stone was involved in starting.











After leaving Midway, we visited one of the homes of Barton W. Stone.

This is a long range photo of this house as the people who own it and live it are snowbirds and happen to be out of town. So, we looked on from a distance and took a few photos.










After a few minutes in the bus, we stopped by the house that "Raccoon" Smith lived in. This, however, is not the original front of the house. The original front was around to the left from this picture, but the picture of my wife sitting on the porch was too good not to post...








Following the visit to "Raccoon's" house, we stopped by the church where he used to preach. Here is a little story with a couple of pics from inside.

When we visited this church, no one was around to let us in. It would have been great to visit it, because the pulpit that Smith used is inside and they still use it today. That webpage will show it to you.





After leaving Smith's church, we began our long trek to where we are tonight... Morgantown, WV. But along the way, we stopped at my sister's Alma Mater, Kentucky Christian University.








That wraps up Wednesday. We grabbed some "Golden Corral" for dinner and hit the sack. More pics and stories tomorrow!!!


Jim

Church History Trip - part 5

Wednesday brought many different sites and lots of driving.


After breakfast at the hotel, we headed to the Lexington Cemetery. Our first stop was the marker for J.W. McGarvey. Click here for info about J.W. McGarvey was a great second generation leader among the Resto movement.








Following McGarvey's tomb, we visited the massive 6 story monument to Henry Clay. Besides being a great politician, Henry also moderated one of Alexander Campbell's debates in Nashville.









After visiting Clay, we returned to the Restoration trail and visited the grave of John T. Johnson. JT. Johnson was instrumental in the merger between the Stone's "Christians" and Campbell's "Disciples" in 1831/32. Click here for more information about JT Johnson.


(I just noticed that many of the information links for these reformers have similar grave stone markers to the pics that I am posting...)



This marker belongs to "Raccoon" John Smith. Which we found out today is because he often wore a "Coon-skin cap." He also had dark bags under his eyes that looked similar to a raccoon's face. More information about Smith can be read HERE.

Raccoon Smith was influential in the merger between the two groups. Smith was also very close to Scott and the Christians.






This next marker was of particular importance to me. This marker is for Robert Milligan. (Click here for more Milligan info.) Milligan was whom The Buffalo Christian Men's and Women's Institute was renamed after when it became Milligan College... my Alma Mater.

Robert is got some pretty crazy hair going on...






Following Milligan's marker, we visited several other locations in the cementary before heading on to other adventures. Check out part 6 for more adventures!

Jim

Church History Trip - part 4 (Cane Ridge)

After we left Walter Scott's home, we took a trip down Barton W. Stone lane... Click Here for some information on BW Stone.

We viewed both sites of BW Stone's Concord Churches. The only thing to really view were some foundation stones at the second site of the Concord Church... neither building remains.

This is a long distance photo from our bus window of BW Stone's house... It was the small porton on the left hand side...





Following Stone's house, we headed to Cane Ridge. This marker is the final resting place of BW Stone. Stone was the leader of the "Christians" in Kentucky who united with the Campbells and the "Disciples" in Pennsylvania in 1831/32 to create the Disciples of Christ Churches.

I say 'final' because Stone's bones where actually moved three times. This is his final, and permanent until resurrection resting place.




The meeting house at Cane Ridge, is actually housed inside a larger "shrine" to protect it from the elements.

This is the actual Cane Ridge meeting house where the Cane Ridge Church met for years.

This was also the site of a great revival that began the wheels of Reformation for BW Stone that eventually led to the Disciples of Christ and Christian Churches.






This is a photo that I took from the balcony level of the Cane Ridge meeting house.

I sat up there for about a half an hour while Dr. Rea and others talked about the meeting house. It was an incredible place to sit and breathe it all in. In fact, I could have sat up there all day if they would have let me... But we needed to move on.







But before we did, I climbed into the pulpit at Cane Ridge and had Jackie take my picture.

If I could do anthing, I would have loved to have gone back and spent some time with BW Stone and seen some of the events at Cane Ridge. What an incredible time!








Following Cane Ridge, we grabbed some great Chinese food for lunch before heading over to the Lexington Theological Seminary, just off the campus of UK in Lexington.
The stop was a great one. The Seminary there holds several orginial paintings. This one is an orginal oil painting of Alexander Campbell (that's not dirt above his head, the paint is flaking off). They also hold paintings of Stone, John "Raccoon" Smith and others.




After the stop, we headed back to the Best Western where we grabbed some R&R and I posted these blogs...

More to come from tomorrow!!! Wednesday!!!

Jim

Church History Trip - part 3

Tuesday morning, we were up bright and early and out to one of the coolest places on the trip... Cane Ridge... but before we got there, we made a couple of other stops...

Here's what happened on Tuesday...



We started out a May'slick Christian Church. This church was one of the locations that Walter Scott, one of the movement's founders, preached for 3 years. Click here for W. Scott info.






A church continues to meet in this building. It was a very neat building to walk around inside, but like many country churches, very few folks still attend here.

In fact, the board stated that last weekend, 22 people worshipped here.








After leaving the church, we drove about 2 miles up the road to where Walter Scott was buried after dying in 1861.














Across the street, literally, from where Walter Scott is buried is where he lived before he died. This is his house (minus the garage). We were scheduled to go in and look around, but the guy who owned it didn't seem to be home.







That concluded about half of Tuesday... but definately not the coolest part. You'll find that in part 4... Cane Ridge!!!


Jim