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Frontier Missionary Life

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Charles T. Thrift Jr
Charles T. Thrift Jr
Affiliation:
Southwestern University, Georgetown, Texas
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Extract

Most of the people to whom the missionaries of the American Home Missionary Society ministered in the South were leading the rugged lives of frontiersmen, and frontier life is never easy. The missionaries themselves, though usually far above the average frontiersman in educational achievements, were not exempt from the hardships and privations of the frontier. Indeed the very nature of their tasks often made them feel the harshness of their environment even more keenly than did the average settler. In the maze of theological problems, interdenominational conflicts, slavery agitation, and the routine duties of a missionary, one easily loses sight of the fact that the principals involved in all these enterprises were self-sacrificing men of high ambition. Frequently they were men with families, from the more thickly settled North. The purpose of this essay is to call attention to the human side of the missionary enterprise, the suffering entailed by the lack of material possessions, by the lack of books, by sickness, and sometimes by physical violence at the hands of fellow-men. The hardships to which the missionaries were subjected changed progressively with the shifting Southern frontiers.

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Church History , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , June 1937, pp. 113 - 126
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1937

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References

1 This essay deals exclusively with missionaries of the American Home Missionary Society laboring in the South between 1826 and 1861. All letters referred to are found in the American Home Missionary Society Collection in the Hammond Library of the Chicago Theological Seminary, Chicago. The letters from missionaries in the South, as well as in the whole area served by the Society, are filled with “human, interest stories.”

2 Painter, George, Drapers Valley, Virginia, 04 22, 1833, to Absalom Peters.Google Scholar

3 Grigsby, Aaron, Knoxville, Tennessee, 07 1, 1849, to Milton Badger.Google Scholar

4 White, G. S., New Market, Tennessee, 10 9, 1841, to Milton Badger.Google Scholar

5 Snoddy, R. H., Knox County, Tennessee, 11 13, 1841, to Milton Badger.Google Scholar

6 Washburn, Cephas, Bentonville, Arkansas, 01 22, 1842, to Milton Badger.Google Scholar

7 Brown, L. C., Wytheville, Virginia, 01 8, 1849, to Milton Badger.Google Scholar

8 Anderson, Isaac, Maryville, Tennessee, 01 25, 1842, to Milton Badger.Google Scholar

9 Washburn, Cephas, Bentonville, Arkansas, 04 1, 1843, to Milton Badger.Google Scholar

10 Graham, J. M., Edinburg, Virginia, 09 24, 1851, to Charles Hall and Milton Badger.Google Scholar

11 Isaac N. Naff, Jeffersonville, Virginia, to Milton Badger.

12 Brooks, Asa, French Creek, Virginia, 12 9, 1828, to the American Home Missionary Society.Google Scholar

13 Taylor, H. F., Mills River, North Carolina, 02 27, 1844, to the Secretaries of the American Home Missionary Society.Google Scholar

14 Salisbury, Simeon, Franklin County, Kentucky, 12 12, 1832, to Absalom Peters.Google Scholar

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20 Bradshaw, Amzi, Bhelbyville, Tennessee, 08 1, 1846, to Milton Badger.Google Scholar

21 Mills, Benjamin, Cynthiana, Kentucky, 01 1, 1848, to Milton Badger.Google Scholar

22 Gray, Robert, Rocky Mount, Virginia, 04 10, 1848, to Milton Badger.Google Scholar

23 Lestrade, J. P., Liberty, Virginia, 12 28, 1848, to Milton Badger.Google Scholar

24 Foster, Aaron, Wellington, South Carolina, 11 10, 1828, to Edward Beecher.Google Scholar

25 Locke, N. C., Eastville, Virginia, 08 6, 1846 and 10 9, 1847Google Scholar, to Charles Hall; and Atkinson, John, Baltimore, Maryland, 10 1, 1851, to Charles Hall.Google Scholar

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29 August 1, 1844.

30 McCampbell, William A., Scottsville, Kentucky, 02 28, 1851, to Milton Badger.Google Scholar

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32 Atkinson, John, Eastville, Virginia, 03 1, 1851, to Milton Badger.Google Scholar

33 Graham, J. M., Edinburg, Virginia, 03 20, 1851, to Milton Badger and Charlea Hall.Google Scholar

34 Caldwell, W. E., Cleveland, Tennessee, 02 28, 1854, to the Secretary of the American Home Missionary Society.Google Scholar

35 Washburn, Cephas, Bentonville, Arkansas, 12 8, 1843, to Milton Badger.Google Scholar

36 Brown, W. B., Spring Place, Georgia, 03 1, 1851, to Milton Badger.Google Scholar

37 Taylor, William A., Jonesville, Virginia, 03 5, 1851, to Charles Hall.Google Scholar

38 Morrison, Levi R., Glade Spring, Virginia, 03 1, 1851, to Milton Badger.Google Scholar

39 Fee, John G., Cabin Creek, Kentucky, 01 1, 1848, to Milton Badger and Charles Hall.Google Scholar

40 Sides, William, Winchester, Virginia, 12 3, 1827, to Charles Hall.Google Scholar

41 Gould, Daniel, Tabor, North Carolina, 06 23, 1828, to Absalom Peters.Google Scholar

42 Benedict, Alanson, Quincy, Florida, 02 23, 1829, to Absalom Peters.Google Scholar

43 Woods, Hervey, Litehfield, Arkansas, 05 19, 1835, to Absalom Peters.Google Scholar

44 Brown, Lee C., Dug Spur, Virginia, 01 7, 1854, to the American Home Missionary Society.Google Scholar