Mr. Bourne was a citizen of fine standing. He was the son of Ambrose Bourne, a prominent pioneer Baptist minister.
By strange coincidence, Rev. Ambrose Bourne helped organize Red River Church, 1791, within a few hundred yards of where Mount Zion now stands.
Red River is one of the oldest Baptist churches in Tennessee, and the Bourne Spring at that date, was called Prince’s Spring, and the little log church building was known as Prince’s meeting house. After its removal to Robertson county it took its name from its nearness to Red River. In the early days most of the churches took their names from the streams nearest which they were located, as Spring Creek, West Fork, Red River, etc. Rev. Horace Carr named the church he loved so well, from the New Testament. Hebrews 12: 22, in which Moses said, “But ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem,” etc.
[CHAPTER V.]
“THE MAN WHO SPEAKS, MAY, IF HIS MESSAGE IS GREAT ENOUGH, AND GREATLY DELIVERED, RANK ABOVE THE RULERS OF HIS TIME.”
It seems that a love for the ministry, was inherent in the Carr family, and it is also a noticeable fact, that few, if any of them, have departed from the Baptist faith; beginning with Uncle Horace, and descending to his two sons, Altheus and William, on down to his grandson, Rev. Thomas Carr, of Kansas, son of the late Calvin Carr, of Cheatham county.
Altheus, the fourth son of Uncle Horace, and Aunt Kitty, was born near Port Royal, Tenn., in the early 50’s. He was obedient to his parents from his early childhood.
While a day laborer on the farms around Port Royal, he manifested a thirst for knowledge, and while his plow team rested their noon hours rest, he was not idle. He could be seen lying around under the shade trees, either with a book in his hand or a pencil and paper.