Cane Ridge Meeting House Memorial Building

Cane Ridge was the site, in 1801, of a huge

camp meeting The camp meeting is a form of Protestant Christian religious service originating in England and Scotland as an evangelical event in association with the communion season. It was held for worship, preaching and communion on the American frontier ...

that drew thousands of people and had a lasting influence as one of the landmark events of the

Second Great Awakening The Second Great Awakening was a Protestant religious revival during the early 19th century in the United States. The Second Great Awakening, which spread religion through revivals and emotional preaching, sparked a number of reform movements. R ...

, which took place largely in frontier areas of the United States. The event was led by eighteen Presbyterian ministers, but numerous

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's ...

and

Baptist Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only ( believer's baptism), and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul c ...

preachers also spoke and assisted. Many of the "spiritual exercises", such as

glossolalia Speaking in tongues, also known as glossolalia, is a practice in which people utter words or speech-like sounds, often thought by believers to be languages unknown to the speaker. One definition used by linguists is the fluid vocalizing of sp ...

and ecstatic attendees, were exhibited that in the 20th century became more associated with the

Pentecostal Pentecostalism or classical Pentecostalism is a Protestantism, Protestant Charismatic Christianity, Charismatic Christian movement Bourbon County, Kentucky Bourbon County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2020 census, the population was 20,252. Its county seat is Paris. Bourbon County is part of the Lexington–Fayette, KY Metropolitan Statistical Area. It is one of Ken ...

, near

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

. The ridge was named by the explorer

Daniel Boone Daniel Boone (September 26, 1820) was an American pioneer and frontiersman whose exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. He became famous for his exploration and settlement of Kentucky, which was then beyond the we ...

, who had noticed a form of

bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of evergreen perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. The origin of the word "bamboo" is uncertain, ...

growing there. The Cane Ridge building and grounds had many unusual aspects. The 1791

Cane Ridge Meeting House Cane Ridge Meeting House is a historic church building on Cane Ridge near Paris, Kentucky built in 1791. It is one of the oldest church buildings in Kentucky and the largest one room log structure. The church was the site of a large frontier Chr ...

is believed to be the largest single-room log structure in North America. The burial ground contains an unmarked section that is among the largest in the country. A Christian church congregation met on the site for many years after the 1801 revival meeting, and the congregation's leaving the Presbyterian Church in 1804.

Barton W. Stone Barton Warren Stone (December 24, 1772 – November 9, 1844) was an American evangelist during the early 19th-century Second Great Awakening in the United States. First ordained a Presbyterian minister, he and four other ministers of the Washingt ...

was its minister and one of the leading ministers of the Christian Church. This place was so dear to him that at his request, several years after his death, his remains were reinterred there. Led by Barton Stone, the Cane Ridge Revival is associated with the development of what became known as the

Restoration Movement The Restoration Movement (also known as the American Restoration Movement or the Stone–Campbell Movement, and pejoratively as Campbellism) is a Christian movement that began on the United States frontier during the Second Great Awakening (17 ...

. Stone and several other ministers left the Presbyterian Church in 1804 and established the

Christian Church In ecclesiology, the Christian Church is what different Christian denominations conceive of as being the true body of Christians or the original institution established by Jesus. "Christian Church" has also been used in academia as a synonym fo ...

. Another element of the Restoration Movement was Alexander Campbell's

Disciples of Christ The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination in the United States and Canada. The denomination started with the Restoration Movement during the Second Great Awakening, first existing during the 19th ...

. In 1832, Stone and Campbell agreed to combine their efforts in the Restoration Movement. Later groups developed as the

Churches of Christ The Churches of Christ is a loose association of autonomous Christian congregations based on the '' sola scriptura'' doctrine. Their practices are based on Bible texts and draw on the early Christian church as described in the New Testament. ...

and the

Evangelical Christian Church in Canada The Evangelical Christian Church (Christian Disciples) as an evangelical Protestant Canadian church body. The Evangelical Christian Church's national office in Canada is in Waterloo, Ontario. History The church has its origins in the formal ...

,Melton's Encyclopedia of American Religions (2009) and several smaller groups.

Meetinghouse

The Christian Church used a log building as their

meeting house A meeting house (meetinghouse, meeting-house) is a building where religious and sometimes public meetings take place. Terminology Nonconformist Protestant denominations distinguish between a * church, which is a body of people who believe in Ch ...

; it was modernized many times. When the congregation ceased to meet there regularly in the 1920s, the building fell into disuse. Later, historically minded persons, predominantly from the Disciples, restored the building and preserved it by building a stone shrine to surround and protect it. The restoration of the original

slave Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

gallery in the meetinghouse was the oldest documented such restoration in the United States. In the 1820s, the congregation had removed the slave gallery, because they supported

abolitionism Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people. The Britis ...

. When preservationists began restoration work in the 1930s, they re-installed the original cherry-railed gallery. It was found and returned from a local barn, where it had served as a hay loft for more than a century. File:Cane Ridge Meeting House Interior.JPG, Interior of the original meeting house at Cane Ridge, Kentucky File:Historic Cane Ridge Meeting House Interior.JPG, The original

within the Stone Memorial Building File:Barton Stone Grave 46.JPG , Grave of Barton Stone The meeting house continues to be used as a living church. A curator is available for guided tours by appointment. The Barton Warren Stone Museum contains artifacts of the congregation, Barton W. Stone and his family, the

Stone-Campbell movement The Restoration Movement (also known as the American Restoration Movement or the Stone–Campbell Movement, and pejoratively as Campbellism) is a Christian movement that began on the United States frontier during the Second Great Awakening (179 ...

, and antique farm and household equipment. The museum is open only in the summer. It also houses the office of the Cane Ridge Preservation Projects and a book shop.

References

External links

{{commons, Cane Ridge Meeting House
The official website of Cane Ridge
Christian revivals Restoration Movement Religious museums in Kentucky Museums in Bourbon County, Kentucky History museums in Kentucky Presbyterianism in Kentucky 1801 in Kentucky

Meetinghouse

Further reading

References

External links