small church-edifice, occupied by the "Salem congregation." This literary institution—the first that was ever established in the Mississippi valley-was incorporated in 1785 as "Martin Academy," and in 1795 it became Washington College. Till 1818, Dr. Doak continued to preside over it. Few men in the history of the Church were better fitted, by wisdom, sagacity, energy, and learning, to lay the foundations of social and religious institutions than Dr. Doak.

Early in 1785 he was followed by a man of kindred spirit, who was destined to exert a vast influence upon this growing region. This was Hezekiah Balch, a graduate of New Jersey College in the class of 1762. After teaching for some years, he was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of New Castle, and labored for several years as a missionary within the bounds of Hanover Presbytery, his field reaching from the Potomac indefinitely toward the Pacific. After having labored thus in various localities, mainly as an itinerant missionary, he directed his course to East Tennessee. Here for more than twenty years his labors were abundant; and Greenville College owes its existence to his exertions. In May, 1785, he joined with Messrs. Cummings and Doak in a request to Synod that a Presbytery might be formed embracing the territories of the present States of Kentucky and Tennessee. The result was that the Abingdon Presbytery was erected,—soon, however, to be divided to compose the new Kentucky Presbytery of Transylvania. Along with Doak, Cummings, and Balch, the two new members Cossan and Houston constituted the Presbytery of Abington after the division. The last of these (Houston) had in 1783 accepted a call from the Providence congregation in Washington county; but he labored in the field for only about five years.

A valuable and efficient co-laborer in the pioneer mis

sionary work of East Tennessee was found in a young man by the name of Robert Henderson. He was one of Doak's pupils soon after Martin Academy, in Washington county, was opened. Here he pursued his course preparatory to entering the ministry. By Abingdon Presbytery he was licensed in or about 1788, and took charge of the two churches of Westminster and Hopewell, the latter the present county-seat of Jefferson county. Here he continued for more than twenty years; and few of his associates exerted a more extensive or permanent influence. His powers of address were great and varied. When, to use his own language, conscience said, "Robert Henderson, do your duty," it mattered not who composed his audience. No man was spared; and on one memorable occasion, when profanity was his subject, and most others would have been overawed by seeing some of the most notorious swearers in the State present, his delineations, lashings, and denunciations are said to have been absolutely terrific. When dealing with vice, he used a whip of scorpions. Yet his moods were various, now overwhelmingly solemn, now witty and humorous, and again most severe and scathing. With a matchless power of mimicry, and a perfect command of voice, countenance, attitude, and gesture, his flashes of wit or grotesquely humorous illustrations would break from him in spite of himself, convulsing with laughter an audience just trembling under his bold, passionate, and at times awfully grand appeals. He was aware of his own infirmity, and strove against it; but it gave him a popularity and influence with the masses such as few others have ever possessed. Thousands of hearers on a single occasion would be subdued and overwhelmed by his melting pathos. A crowd was sure to gather where it was known that he was to preach; and his indescribable earnestness, emphatic tones, and bold and striking gestures were "perfectly

irresistible." His longest sermons-and they were sometimes very long-were heard without impatience to their close. His influence was felt less upon a select few than upon the masses; and yet there were some whom he helped to train who occupy a distinguished place in the annals of the Presbyterian churches of the West. Among these was Gideon Blackburn.

In some respects the pupil surpassed his teacher. With less of the comic element in his nature, and holding it always under perfect control, Blackburn was none the less effective. He might be regarded as the best personification of backwoods eloquence. What he said to his pupils on the subject of rhetoric he seems to have practised himself:-" There is one rule, not laid down in the books, more important than all:-get your head, heart, soul, full of your subject, and then let nature have its own way, despising all rule." A better illustration of the application of the rule than he himself afforded could not be found. His words, tone, manner, were most solemn and impressive. Few men owed less to education or art. He was first a student under Doak at Martin's Academy, and afterward under the training of Henderson. Like the latter, he declined the use of notes in the pulpit, uniformly preferring the freedom and effect of extemporaneous effort.

Nurtured amid hardships, and early forced to selfreliance, he was exactly fitted to the sphere of life in which his lot was cast. He could preach in coat-sleeves or with his musket by his side, and with equal readiness in the pulpit or from the stump. Without a dollar in the world, and on the very outskirts of civilization, amid the alarms of savage invasions, forced to accept escorts of armed men from fort to fort, he began his work. But the young preacher was daunted by no fear, disheartened by no obstacle. In 1792, the Presbytery of Abingdon had granted him his license,

and within a few months he had charge of the two congregations of New Providence and Eusebia, and had organized several other neighboring churches. Shortly after this, with Carrick, Ramsey, and Henderson, he was associated in the first Presbytery formed in the part of the country in which he labored.

Carrick was a pupil of Graham, at Augusta, Va., and labored for several years in that State. In 1791, he was dismissed to the Abingdon Presbytery, and for several years had the joint charge of the Knoxville and New Lebanon Churches. In 1800, he was chosen by the Legislature President of Blount College. In some respects he presented a contrast to his associates. He was of the old Virginia school of ministers, urbane, even courtly, in his manners, and in the pulpit grave, dignified, and solemn. His views of divine truth were clear and definite; and they lost nothing by his mode of exhibiting them.

The description that is left us1 of his reception in the field which was thenceforth to be the scene of his active labors for many years, presents a graphic picture of the early settlements. Tradition reports that in the spring of 1789 a party of hunters and landmongers pitched their tent just where the Lebanon church-edifice now stands. The ancient forest still overhung the spot, in all its primitive beauty, undisturbed by the echoes of the woodman's axe. The oak, the poplar, and the elm lifted high above them. their lofty branches, "while the aroma of the walnut and the hickory diffused around the camp their delightful fragrance." Cedars and other evergreens were not wanting to add to the finished beauty of the scene. Grape-vines, springing from the virgin soil, and encir cling every trunk, spread themselves in lavish luxu

1 Presbyterian Herald, Feb. 14, 1861.

riance among the tree-tops, or, clustering together in beautiful festoons, formed a canopy and an arbor around the temporary abode of the backwoodsmen. The whole surrounding country was carpeted with verdure, and the woods were adorned with their richest foliage. With the "upland solitudes" and "the pensive beauty of the river-bottoms," "the scene was lovely in the extreme."

All west of the camp was one unbroken forest, in the midst of which the Father of Waters rolled his turbid tide. The pioneers had advanced beyond the last landmark of civilization, and before them lay the unbroken wilderness. Preparing to lay the foundation of stable and orderly government, their first step was the appropriation of lands. Schooled in the scenes of Revolutionary conflict, some of them active participants in the perils of the field, they yet retained on the outskirts of civilization their love of liberty regulated by law.

Here, then, they awaited the arrival of the surveyor. He lived in the older settlements, on Limestone, in Washington county. On his arrival, he received a cordial greeting and a hearty welcome to the civilities of the camp. He found the party all clad in domestic fabrics, the product of their own industry, each wearing the hunting-shirt and each armed with his trusty rifle. The first salutations over, inquiries were immediately made for the latest news from the older settlements, and, among others, what new settlers had come in. To the last inquiry the surveyor replied by enumerating the new emigrants, and among others mentioned the arrival on Limestone of a Presbyterian minister by the name of Samuel Carrick.

The little party were electrified by this intelligence, and clustered around their informant, manifesting by their demeanor the most exciting interest and intense