Dropped stitches in Tennessee historyAllison, John
History
Dropped stitches in Tennessee history
Allison, John
Jackson, Andrew, 1767-1845 -- Homes and haunts -- Tennessee; Tennessee -- History
There can be no doubt that Elihu Embree was really the first abolition
editor. To settle definitely a matter which all of the histories
and biographical dictionaries (so far as I have examined, without
exception) misstate--they invariably call Benjamin Lundy the pioneer
in anti-slavery journalism--I quote here a passage from an extremely
rare book--Lundy’s Autobiography. After narrating his experiences in
St. Louis, in 1819, which caused his determination to return to his
home in Ohio, Lundy says: “Before I left St. Louis I heard that Elihu
Embree had commenced the publication of an anti-slavery paper called
‘The Emancipator’ at Jonesborough, in Tennessee; but on my way home I
was informed of the death of Embree, and I determined immediately to
establish a periodical of my own. I therefore removed to Mount Pleasant
[Ohio] and commenced the publication of ‘The Genius of Universal
Emancipation,’ in January, 1821.... When the friends of the deceased
Embree heard of my paper they urged me to remove to Tennessee and use
the press on which his had been printed. I assented, and after having
issued eight monthly numbers of the ‘Genius’ I started for Tennessee.
On my arrival I rented the printing office and immediately went to work
with the paper.”
Careless reading of Ramsey has led astray a large number of people with
regard to the minister referred to in 49. Speaking of the expedition
of Col. Christian for the relief of the Watauga settlers in 1772,
Ramsey says: “The Rev. Charles Cummings accompanied the expedition as
chaplain, and was thus the first Christian minister that ever preached
in Tennessee.” Granted--but while this is doubtless true, the question
is not who “first preached in Tennessee,” but who first “preached
regularly to a Tennessee congregation,” and that this was Tidence
Lane, in 1779, is clearly demonstrated elsewhere by Ramsey. Goodspeed,
indeed, using Ramsey’s facts, but changing his language, asserts in
terms that Cummings had charge of a congregation “within the limits of
the state”; but Goodspeed is in error in this, as he is in very many
other statements. In Park’s “Historical Discourse,” a work which is
the result of the most careful and painstaking original research, the
statement is explicitly made that the congregation to which Goodspeed
refers as having enjoyed the ministrations of Cummings “in the Holston
valley as early as 1772,” was really not located in Tennessee at all.
It was “in Virginia, near the site of the present town of Abingdon.”
Dr. Park, himself a Presbyterian, would not be likely to fail to claim
for a minister of his own denomination any credit justly due him.
In order to be absolutely frank, I desire to correct an error--the only
one, I believe, in the “Dream,” and one fortunately of little moment.
The man who “founded the first academy for females in Tennessee”
(52) was not a classmate of Daniel Webster, as stated; although the
misstatement was made on what I considered good authority.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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