How and when did the now familiar camp meeting originate? Very few among us can answer that question. Very few know that this unique means of attracting the masses, especially those who, from necessity or choice, rarely enter a church door, took its rise in this country in the year 1799. Those were early days, and primitive customs, and quiet, rural simplicity were the rule, for the population of the young republic was still small and scattered, but for the most part, that very simplicity made the people all the more susceptible to any unusual religious influences.
In the eastern part of the country, in the last year of the eighteenth century, a remarkable revival spread from hamlet to hamlet, from town to town, but the tidal wave of religion was not long confined to that section. It quickly flowed westward and southward. Kentucky and Tennessee, which were then attracting many home seekers, were especially affected by the wave of religious enthusiasm that swept with resistless power all over the United States. Veritable cyclonic centers of religious forces appeared at the same time in many parts of the country, north, south, east and west. Everywhere the power was seen and felt. Escape from its overwhelming presence was impossible. “The great revival” was the universal subject of conversation, and of wonder. Wherever a few houses were clustered together, wherever a single pioneer’s hut arose in the wilderness, there would soon be tethered the horse of the itinerant preacher.
An apt illustration of this truth is given in an anecdote related by Dr. Abel Stevens, the historian of Methodism. An itinerant preacher once hailed one of these solitary pioneers, and asked permission to preach in his cabin.
“What,” exclaimed the astonished pioneer, “are you here, too? I lived in Virginia and a Methodist preacher came along and my wife got converted. I fled into North Carolina, where I had hardly got settled before another preacher came along and part of my family were converted. I went to Kentucky, and they followed me there, but I thought this time I would get beyond their reach. And now I have hardly got to this settlement till here comes another preacher, wanting to preach right in my cabin.”
“My friend,” said the itinerant, “I advise you to make terms of peace with the Methodist preachers, for you will find them everywhere you go in this world. And when you die, if you go to Heaven, you will find plenty of them there, and if you go to hell, as you will if you don’t repent, I fear you will find some of them there, too!”
The pioneer thought it best to surrender.
In this great religious outburst, strict denominationalism was swallowed up, and lost to sight. The discussion of mere creeds was forgotten in the deeper demonstration of true Christianity. In the Southern States, more particularly in Kentucky and Tennessee, the movement was particularly strong. The sturdy Scotch-Irish element which was there in force, came together at the meetings with skeptics, and non-professors of all shades and degrees. All-day services were held on week days as well as on Sundays. Throngs gathered from far and near, until their numbers became so great that no building could shelter them. Still there was no thought of camping on the spot. After the conclusion of each service, the people sought their respective stopping places remaining there until time for the next meeting.
It was late in the year 1799 that two brothers, John and William McGee, the first a local Methodist preacher, the other a Presbyterian, started on an evangelistic tour from Tennessee into Kentucky. On their way they attended a sacramental service held by a Presbyterian minister named McGreechy, on the Red river. The events that followed were a new experience to the brothers, and were never forgotten. William McGee, who was a personal friend of McGreechy’s, and, also, as we have noted, a Presbyterian, introduced his brother, John, and the latter was invited to “address the congregation from the pulpit.” He accepted the invitation.
“I do not know,” he writes of this incident, “that God ever favored me with more light and liberty than He did each day while I endeavored to convince the people that they were sinners, and urged the necessity of repentance, of a change of nature to one of grace, and held up to their view the greatness, freedom, and fullness of salvation which was in Christ Jesus, for lost, guilty, condemned sinners.”