BIO: Rev. David YOUNG, Unknown Co., KY ------------------------------------------------------- Contributed for use in USGENWEB Archives by: Judy Landauer Date: July 10, 2001 8:18 PM -------------------------------------------------------- **************************************************************************** USGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free genealogical information on the Internet, data may be freely used for personal research and by non-commercial entities as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages may not be reproduced in any format or presentation by other organizations or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for profit or any form of presentation, must obtain the written consent of the file submitter, or his legal representative and then contact the listed USGENWEB archivist with proof of this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgwarchives.net. ***************************************************************************** BIO: Rev. David YOUNG, Unknown Co., KY (The biography that follows is excerpted from the book "Autobiography of Rev. James B. Finley; Pioneer Life in the West. Edited by W. P. Strickland, D. D. Cincinnati: Printed at the Methodist Book Concern, for the Author. R. P. Thompson, Printer. 1854. Pages 407-418) (transcriber's note: "the West" that is referred to in the title, applies to Kentucky and parts of Tennessee.) Sketch of The father and mother of the Rev. David YOUNG were both of Scotch descent. The ancestors of his father belonged to the clan of the CAMPBELLS, and tradition says it was not for convenience but for safety that they went over to the north of Ireland; and some century and a half since some of them suffered extremely in the celebrated siege of Derry. His grandfather came to North America, and landed at Newcastle, Delaware, in 1742, his father then being one year old, and moved westward into the neighborhood of Havre de Grace, perhaps on the place where Hughes's Iron Works were afterward erected, and which were burned by the British in the last war. His father settled in Bedford county, Virginia, where young David was born, March 7, 1779, and the next year he removed to Washington county, in the same state, where David was raised, in a place and at a time where and when religious privileges and experience were very little known or prized. His father belonged to High Kirk, and his mother thought there was nothing like the Erskines and their secession. They both were firm believers in the Westminster Confession of Faith and Fisher's Catechism. The old gentleman had a good library for the times, where the son could at least examine one side of the question between Churchmen and Dissenters, and Calvinists and Arminians, and this he was careful to do, as the sequel will show. He was taught the Lord's Prayer, and the Creed, and Catechisms, both "shorter" and "longer", and he could repeat them with great fluency when quite a small boy. This was thought too wonderful, and the way he was praised might inspire any thing but humility. He says in a communication to me, "Among the earliest recollections of my life the thoughts of invisible beings and agencies were the most common and important. The beings called God and devil, the places called heaven and hell, the things called death, judgment, and eternity. were the subjects of my childish meditations, thousands of times before I was five years old." In the summer of 1786 he went to meeting with some of the family, and during the first prayer was so deeply convicted that he had sinned against God, his King and Savior, that his heart was melted, and he wept in bitterness of soul. But shame quenched his feelings and tears, and he relapsed into indifference. From this time till the fall of 1790 there was nothing very uncommon in the exercises of his mind. At that time, however, he was powerfully awakened by the Holy Spirit; and though there was nobody that he knew who prayed in secret, yet it was his constant practice for nearly a year. Those were dark times in religion. Possibly, if he had been blessed with the company of some one to have taken him by the hand and directed him in the right way, he might have been kept from falling away. Many a child no older have I seen happy in God's love, and there is nothing to prevent all young children from being truly pious. He broke through the restraints his parents imposed, particularly by desecrating the Sabbath day, and made continuous efforts to throw off the influences of the Holy Spirit. He did not, however, succeed in his rebellion. In February, 1796, being sent one evening, with some other boys, to fix the boiling apparatus for making maple sugar, they had a brand of fire with them, and, passing by an exceedingly large poplar-tree, whose roots projected far out above the ground, one of them being hollow, they put the fire-brand to an aperture seven or eight feet from the trunk, and discovered a very strong draught of air ascending up the hollow tree. It suddenly caught fire, and in a few minutes blazed out sixty or seventy feet high, where one of the forks had fallen off and left free vent to the air. In a short space of time brother YOUNG lay down on the ground to peep in the hole, and saw the lava running down in a stream as thick as his arm. The heat was so intense that the light partly blinded him. At that juncture the remaining fork of the tree, weakened by the fire, snapped off with a great noise. He sprung to his feet, and ran with all the speed that fear could inspire. By the time the great branch of the tree struck the ground he was sixty-three feet from the stump of the poplar, having providentially passed under this great half-tree beyond where its fork fell on the ground. Nothing struck him except the burning bark, which flew off and crushed him down to the earth amidst its fiery coals. If he had lain still at the root of the tree no evil would have befallen him. The other boys found him by his groans, with his clothes some burnt, and his hat cut through in two or three places, and he head all in a gore of blood, together with his collar-bone broken. Unprepared for death, how narrowly did he escape! His father was a farmer in easy circumstances, and attended to the education of his children; and so well had David improved his opportunities, that when time had legally made him his own master, he taught a grammar school two years in Hawkins and Sullivan counties, Tenn. On the 27th of June, 1803, he left his father's, in Virginia, and went to what was then called the "far west", now middle Tennessee. Sunday, August 14th, the Methodists had a quarterly meeting on Mill Creek, near Green Hills, where were assembled a strange mixture of people. Among the rest were what have since been called the "Cumberland Presbyterians", who seemed to be as numerous and as busy as the others. It was impossible to tell who had the direction of the meeting; but they preached and prayed very well. David, however, left on Tuesday, and went to a dance. Afterward, while riding all alone, thinking about the late quarterly meeting, he meditated on some of the awkward expressions in the prayers of the new converts. His pride said, or the devil told him, that he could pray better himself. So he made a form of prayer for them, and succeeded in putting his form into words. At that moment this query rushed into his mind, "What are you doing?" This query turned a pleasant evening into gloomy horror, and, in lieu of making prayers for others, he began to pray for himself with all the faith and earnestness in his power, accompanied with a flood of tears. From this time he prayed morning and evening, with strange and indescribable feelings and opposition. A stranger in a strange land, he was afraid to pray near the people's houses, lest he should be seen; he dare not go far off, lest the snakes in the cane-brake would bite him; and when he went out into the lanes the devil made use of the horned cattle to drive him from his devotions. Previously the Lord had converted some of his relations who dwelt in Western Tennessee. When he got among them he was encouraged. Attending their meetings, when called on he prayed with and for them, though his own sins were not yet forgiven. His poor soul was in great distress, and his constant cry was, "What shall I do to be saved?" He strove about twenty-seven days to "enter in at the strait gate". His heart condemned him, and he knew that "God was greater than his heart," and would also condemn him. With these views and feelings, he went to another "big meeting", as they were then called, Friday, September 16th, and Sunday, 18th. there was a mighty shaking among the people, while he stood condemned, distressed, and in the agonies of indescribable anguish, not to say distraction. He could neither sleep nor eat, under an impression, right or wrong, that unless he obtained peace with God before the meeting closed, he must perish, eternally. God, who pities the distressed, pitied him, and enabled him, by faith in Jesus Christ, to trust in his blood. He was astonished at the effects of simple faith, and was transported with the joys of believing. On the 19th of September, 1803, between nine and ten o'clock, A.M., the Lord spoke peace to his soul. He walked out in the woods, and the trees reminded him of this injunction, "Clap your hands!" All nature seemed joyous, and, as grace had brought peace and harmony to his heart, so all visible objects seemed to partake of the blissful change. Christians need not expect, however, to be exactly alike in their experience. Luther and Bunyan in this respect differed widely from most of their followers who were real Christians. Being desirous to see his parents, he returned to his father's in Virginia, on the last day of October, 1803, ripped off his ruffles, and cut his long hair, and remained in that vicinity a few weeks, an astonishment and a by-word to all his former acquaintance. He returned to Tennessee, and resumed his occupation, April 1, 1804, and pursued the business of teaching till admitted into the traveling connection. But during this period his mental exercises were powerful, mostly with respect to his call to preach the Gospel. Many an anxious day and sleepless night did he pass through. These conflicts were mostly like other men's, perhaps, except that he was more unyielding than common; for it is certain he never would have been a Methodist preacher if he had not believed that his soul would be lost unless he became one. His understanding and conscience forbade him being any thing else. His mother, sister, and brother Willam were all happily converted to God during the summer of 1804, which served as an incentive to his piety. In this year that strange disorder "the jerks" overran all Western Tennessee. It attacked the righteous and the wicked-an involuntary muscle exercise, which drew the subjects affected backward and forward with a force and quickness perhaps previously unknown to the human family. Five hundred of these subjects might sometimes be seen in one congregation, all in various motion, from twitching the head up to bending the whole body-first backward, and then forward, the head nearly touching the ground forward and backward alternately. Some people thought it belonged to, if it did not make a part of, the Christian religion, others that it was the work of the devil; and brother YOUNG thought that the devil had a hand therein, to bring religion into disrepute. The wildness which seems to have been generated about Cane Ridge, Kentucky, spread down south in company with the jerks, having first made Newlights, as STONE and PERVIANCE, and Shakers, as DUNLEVY and M'NEMAR. At the same time the Methodists and Presbyterians had a kind of union, based in the opinion, it would seem, that every body would suddenly be good, and Diciplines and Creeds would be need no more. The Methodists revived their Disciline, and saved most of their people. The Newlights and Shakers made havoc with the Presbyterians, and what is now called the "Cumberland Presbyterians" made a great breach in the Church. Rutherford county, where he resided, was a frontier settlement at that time; so he was graciously almost out of the noise and hearing of all religious tumults. their misfortune was, to have almost no kind of religion in their neighborhood; so they tried to preach, exhort, and pray, James RUCKER and himself. God owned their endeavors, and there were about one hundred and fifty who professed religion on Stone's river and Smith's Fork during the summer of 1805; but they were not in the Church; so they got one of the Nashville circuit preachers to come out and form them into classes, pledging himself to take them into the circuit next year. Being recommended by one of these classes, without quarterly meeting, circuit, or station, brother YOUNG was admitted in trial in the travelling connection by the following document; namely: "To David YOUNG,-- You think it your duty to call sinners to repentance. Make full proof hereof, and we shall rejoice to receive you as a fellow laborer." "September 7, 1805 " "Lewis GARRET" This may be a literary curiosity to some of the boys of the present day, who think the Methodist Episcopal Church can not make a traveling preacher unless they first localize him. The next Western conference sat in Scott county, Kentucky, October 2, 1805, at which he was appointed to Salt River and Shelby circuit. but Wayne circuit having but one preacher on it, brother YOUNG was changed to Wayne circuit, in the south side of Kentucky. This was done by the concurrence of William BURKE and William M'KENDREE, as the case seemed absolutely to require it. On the last week in October, a sacramental meeting was held at the Beach meeting house, near William M'GEE's, Western Tennessee, where he first saw that great and good man, William M'KENDREE, whose equal in every respect has not yet adorned the Methodist Episcopal Church; and yet,by some fatality, no man furnishes us with his memoirs. He gave him the plan of his circuit, and on his first Thursday in November, 1805, he met his first appointment, as a traveling preacher, at Manoah LASSLEY's on Green River, Kentucky. His colleague, William ELLINGTON, was a very good-natured, easy kind of a man. Their circuit swarmed with Newlights and Freewill Baptists. ELLINGTON let them all stay in class meeting, but brother YOUNG turned them all out, and this made brother ELLINGTON popular, and they ran to him with their complaints, and even carried them up to M'KENDREE, their presiding elder. On examination of the circumstances, the presiding elder ordered brother YOUNG to take charge of the circuit, despite of all remonstrance. ELLINGTON was delighted, but brother YOUNG was alarmed at having the charge of a circuit. There were a great number dropped and expelled on the circuit this year, but the Lord made up all their losses with a small increase of numbers. His health was not very good, but his appointments were all filled, averaging thirty each and every four weeks throughout the year. During this appointment the following persons were licensed to exhort: Lewis ANDERSON, J. T. WILLIAMS, William LEWIS, and Isaac M'KOWEN, all of whom were afterward traveling preachers. Isaac M'KOWEN's mother was a widow, and her house a preaching-place, at which brother YOUNG had an appointment on the day of the total eclipse, in 1806. When it began to grow dark, the ignorant Dutch and Irish inhabitants of the neighborhood ran to meeting, some for the first time, not waiting to change clothes, or put on their shoes; and before preaching closed, the house and the yard were filled with the worst-frightened congregation that ever was seen. the preacher exhorted them to be religious, and escape the "blackness of darkness forever". He visited his parents in Virginia, and returned to the annual conference, which assembled at Ebenezer NOLICHUCKY's, East Tennessee, September 15, 1806. It was at this conference the celebrated propositions and services of Dr. COKE, as bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, were rejected. His next appointment was to Levingston circuit, Kentucky, extending from Hopkinsville to Tennessee river, and from the Ohio river south to Clarksburg, Tennessee, a district too large for a modern presiding elder, and a distance to reach it of seven degrees of longitude-- at least five hundred miles. Crazy Kate said, "The Lord tempers the wind to the shorn lamb;" it must be so, for where are the men and horses now that would perform such journeys? Before getting once round his circuit, he was taken with severe chills every day, alternated with violent fevers. The chills ceased, and the fever increased for two weeks, when he fell into a kind of stupor, partly senseless, unless roused up; and then he lay four weeks longer, neither doctor nor friends expecting him to live. For nine weeks he never saw the sun. When he began to mend to blood had ceased to circulate in his feet and ankles; and when it again began to circulate, such twinging, prickling, and excessive pain he says he never felt before or since. This was the first time he ever had the ague, but he had it more or less every one of the next nine years. It was a kind providence toward him that he fell sick at old brother MEANLY's. It was a very kind family of pious people. They took care of him as though he had been one of themselves, for which may God reward them in time and eternity! The old gentleman's son John was afterward a traveling preacher. While he lay at MEANLY's, M'KENDREE, his presiding elder, came to see him. He asked him to write his will. Having told him what disposition was to be made of his farms and personal property, he began talking wild, and told him what he wished done with a boat load of ingots of silver, which he imagined was coming from South America by way of New Orleans. At the mention of this last subject M'KENDREE threw down the pen and burst into tears, which roused him up. The good man was not only sorry because he was sick, but he was exceedingly grieved at his being delirious. Near MEANLY's and in the vicinity of the town of Dover, only across the Cumberland river, on the highest eastern bluff, there was a curious Indian burying-ground, with only six graves in it. Each of these graves was lined with four stones-- a head and foot, and two long side-stones, measuring from seven and a half to eight feet for each grave. The edges of these gravestones seemed as if they had been placed even with the surface, and subsequent winds had blown away six inches of the upper soil. Each stone was cut at right angles, and was well dressed with some kind of tools. There were no rocks of the same quality known to be in all that region of country. Here brother YOUNG would wander to meditate. He was in tolerable health through the summer, and had some prosperity in his own soul, and some increase in his circuit. In that place lived the father of Peter CARTWRIGHT, and the mother of E. WILCOX, his half-brother. In one of the most populous settlements in this circuit, there were two classes, and, of course, two leaders. The classes were not very religious, except when they were at meeting; then they were exceedingly noisy. The leaders were both drunken; so when S. got drunk, he posted away to to M'C's, confessed, and got forgiven; and when M'C got drunk, he hastened to S., and he forgave him. They quoted Scripture for all--claimed rights seventy times seven. He could not begin to administer discipline without removing these leaders; and it was like leaders, like members; so they did not want new leaders, and would not turn out the old ones for getting drunk; but referring their cases to quarterly meeting conference, they got rid of the principal inebriates, and the few good members rejoiced and increased greatly, not only in that society, but generally on the circuit. They excluded over one hundred, yet they had a net increase of more than fifty. This fall, conference was appointed at Chilicothe, Ohio, September 14, 1807. On his way thither he fell sick in Lexington. The preachers left him, and in a fews days he rode out to brother H-----'s, twelve miles, where his fever increased, till he believed the family thought he must die. They were afraid, as it got spread through the neighborhood, that his disease was contagious; and had it not been for a good old sister G., who came to see him, he might have died; but she went home and got her husband to bring a two-horse hack, with a bed in it, and take him home with him, where he was very kindly nursed a whole month, till able to ride. Thus far my old friend and brother has furnished me with a sketch of his past history. His subsequent history is the history of the Church in the west, for he has been identified with all her movements. His mature judgement and well-cultivated mind enabled him to render good service to the Church in all her ecclesiastical councils. Brother YOUNG is still living, although much advanced, and quite feeble, being in his seventy-fifth year. The personal appearance of brother YOUNG is somewhat peculiar, and would strike a stranger with a little surprise as he would gaze upon his tall, slender, and perfectly-erect form, his sharp and expressive features, a keen and piercing eye, rather deeply seated in his forehead, and the luxuriant folds of hair of snowy whiteness, which fall down over his shoulders. As a minister he always ranked far above mediocrity. When in his prime few had greater power in the pulpit. His mind possessed great vigor and reach of thought; and had he devoted himself to writing, his productions would have exhibited great terseness and power. For many years he filled the office of presiding elder, always attending his appointments with the precision of clock-work. He has for a long time been one of the trustees of the Ohio University, at Athens, and his wise councils in that board have always been appreciated by his contemporaries. As it regards his habits, it may be said, no minister ever had better, and none ever observed them more closely. But few of the old pioneer fathers remain. One by one they are falling around us; and here and there we find them standing in our midst, like the few ancient trees of the forest, to tell what was its ancient glory. Submitted by: Richard & Judy Landauer