"Kentucky, You are the Dearest Place Outside of Heaven to Me...."
The comment below mine is taken and moved up here to the front of the blog...
The problems with strict congregationalism is that when a church begins to decline, there is no one to fix it but themselves. In the old days, you could count on traveling Universalist preachers who preached because they had too, and had other occupations because they had too.
I have lots of reasons for not wanting to include Kentucky in my dealing with Universalist history - in the days of Enoch Pingree, Universalism swept like fire through Kentucky - with the Restorationist Brethren in the rural areas preaching their verson of the goodnews --- there were probably more Universalist or universalist Churches in Kentucky than in the entire rest of the south.
By the Civil War, the Brethren Restorationists had gone from Kentucky to Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa and other parts of the (back then) wild west. Pingree died young, Imagine how much he could have built, if he had lived double his lifespan, until his 60s - and able to do twice the work he had done in Kentucky.
To do right by Kentucky, means that someone should know Kentucky history and Kentucky geography. I'm still struggling to learn about those semi-foreign lands Mississippi and Alabama.
while I feel sure that someone will eventually cover Kentucky Universalist history better than I ever could, right now however is the time we have. and if not me, then yeah......
(so about those pictures...............)
KY Universalist Convention: Rasnake, 1907-09; Chapman, 1916-1922, Bodell, 1935-1941.
KY is sort of an "Orphan State", isn't it?
There's 3 buildings still standing that Rasnake, Chapman and Bodell waxed eloquent in, 2 abandoned, Beulah and Good Hope, and I fear Hopkinsville will soon join them. It is 45 miles from my house, and after 15 years of attendance, I've slowly withdrawn, and it's wobbling along!
There's no Ohio Valley Universalist History interest, and if your blog abandons KY, it will certainly continue it's slide into oblivion! There are fourteen photos of Universalist ministers who served the KY Convention on display in the Hopkinsville church, but how long they'll survive is problematical. I have photocopies, but the originals are there in a broken frame as of last year.
Clio