The Ladies are Packing Books

The Pack Horse Library Project 

From 1935 until 1943, women on horses delivered books to remote areas in the Appalachian Mountains because of a waning budget due to the Great Depression, The American Library Association figured at the time only one-third of Americans had decent access to public libraries. The Pack Horse Libraries were a great substitute.

Many living in the rural areas of Eastern Kentucky had no access to books at all and were illiterate, though many wanted to learn to read for the economic advantages. Enter the “Pack Horse librarians” or book ladies.

Besides getting reading materials into the boonies, the project employed two hundred—mostly women—when jobs were at a premium. Many of the Pack Horse librarians were the sole breadwinner in their homes.

A lady named May Stafford started the project in 1913 with the support of John C.C. Mayo who was a local coal baron, but he died the following year, ending it before it hardly got going.

But a lady who worked with the women’s and professional projects at the Works Progress Administration (WPA), Elizabeth Fullerton, decided to resurrect the idea when a minister of Lesley County offered the books from his community center to the project in 1934. on the condition that WPA would fund the ladies.

So the first “Pack Horse Library” was established in 1935 under FERA (Federal Emergency Relief Administration) then WPA took it over the next year, 1936. A year later, eight packhorse librarians were sending riders out on their routes.

Eventually, thirty Pack Horse Libraries served over one hundred thousand Appalachian Kentuckians. The Pack Horse riders earned twenty-eight dollars a month taking books to rural individuals and schools alike.

However, there was no funding allocated for the books they carried. All those had to be donated by the communities, and they also had to supply a place to store the books and all the supplies the riders and their supervisors needed.

Supervisors, or head librarians, improvised using what might be thrown away for their card catalog files or to repair damaged books. They bent old license plates to become bookends.

Each ‘library’ had four to ten book carriers who rode the horses into the mountains to deliver—and sometimes read—the stories to their public. The head librarians held “conferences” to meet with their riders monthly.

Carriers supplied their own horse or mule which they often had to lead over the rough, steep parts of their route. Some had deep rivers or creeks to cross and their feet would get wet. One lady said her feet froze to the stirrups. One lady hiked her eighteen-mile route on foot after her horse died.
Children love for the book ladies to come—usually twice in a month. Robinson Crusoe and Mark Twain’s stories were popular. Adults often requested the Bible and also read current events or historical stories as well as biographies.

Women liked books on health and parenting as well as illustrated home magazines. They would share recipes and quilt patterns, writing their own down in a binder to share with their neighbors, creating over two hundred books to be passed around.

The riding librarians might cover more than a hundred miles every week, carting around a hundred books in their packs. Their books were so popular and well-loved that patrons would walk long distances to meet the Park Horse librarians and exchange books.

Communities helped in the constant need for more books. Women’s Clubs school’s Parent Groups held fundraisers to buy books. One librarian promoted the Pack Horse Libraries and solicited books through The Courier Journal.

When funding ended in 1943, so did the Pack Horse Libraries. Communities tried to keep them going, but couldn’t make a go of it. In the 1950s, the bookmobiles started deliveries again.


Bio: Award-winning Author Caryl McAdoo prays her story brings God glory! And her best-selling novels are blessed with a lion’s share of 5-Star ratings! With forty-four-and-counting titles, she loves writing as well as singing the new songs the Lord gives her—listen to a few at YouTube. She and husband Ron share four children and eighteen grandsugars. The McAdoos live in the woods south of Clarksville, seat of Red River County, in far Northeast Texas, waiting expectantly for God to open the next door.

Links:  Amazon   BookBub   Website   Newsletter   Facebook   YouTube 
 

♪♫•*♥¨♪*•.♪♫✞ Give me Oil in My Lamp! Keep it Burning .♪♫✞♪♫•*♥¨♪♪

I often find myself singing this little chorus I learned when I was so little at Sunday School. I do not want to be like the five virgins with no oil in their lamps to keep them lit until the groom arrives!

From time immemorial, man has sought a way to light the night. Torches, candles, various kinds of oil, or melted fat with a wick worked, but not all that well. All had their drawbacks.

In 1780, Aime Argand invented a new type of lamp that glowed brighter than previous ones. It mostly burned whale or seal oil, but also other types of nut or vegetable oil worked also, and it put out a brighter, safer light.

Whale oil rendered from the poor beast’s blubber became the choice fuel for years, but it quickly increased in value in the 1840s as the goliaths' numbers had been decimated. From around fifty cents a gallon, it soared from a dollar-thirty all the way to two dollars and fifty cents per gallon by the mid-40s.

To save on their fuel costs, many families switched to camphine, a mixture of turpentine and alcohol. Isaiah Jennings first blended it in 1830. Going for only fifty cents per gallon, it quickly replaced the whale oil as the lamp oil of choice due to the savings. But it was also more volatile and dangerous.

Folks had become habitual users of their lamps and used to lighting their nights. Candles were a pain and not as bright. As Plato said, necessity is the mother of invention.
 
In 1846, a medical doctor and geologist Abraham Gesner distilled a clear liquid from coal. He called it kerosene from the Greek keroselaian meaning “wax oil.” Coming in at the same price as the camphine oils, only fifty cents a gallon, it captured a small piece of the market right away.

But it wasn’t until it was discovered that kerosene could be extracted from petroleum----eliminating the production problems Doctor Gesner experienced----that it proved to be a true competitor. The good doctor built a successful company lighting city streets with his wax oil. That idea expanded rapidly with a worldwide race for petroleum ensured.

George Bissell and Edwin L. Drake drilled the first well specifically looking for oil. At first, what was called Drake’s folly, the well soon proved the naysayers wrong. At sixty-nine and a half feet they hit liquid gold near Titusville, Pennsylvania.

While camphine with its higher flash point was more dangerous, it still dominated the market until Congress passed an excise tax on alcohol to help pay for the Civil War, thus making the kerosene cheaper. And people soon realized how safe kerosene, virtually eliminating the use of camphine altogether.

Enter John D. Rockefeller; we've all heard that name! At the age of thirty-one, he founded the Standard Oil Company in 1870 and became the richest American in the county’s history selling oil and lighting lamps across the country, from sea to shining sea!.

The majority of my historical Christian romance novels are set in the 1800s, so everyone mentions lighting their lamps, with wicking them up for more flame which meant more light or down until all the oxygen was stolen from the flame, dousing its fire when they’re ready for bed.

I have four oil lamps in my home. One sits on the fireplace mantle (green to the left), one on the dresser in my bedroom as decorations. One in the guest room and one on top the fridge.

Side note: My husband built the fireplace, his first, using barn wood from our previous horse and goat barn, bricks, and flagstone.

But when a bad storm rolls through and our electricity goes out for an hour or a day, we bring them down and turn the little dial that lifts the lamps' wicks enough to light so our house isn’t dark. Then we can still play Quirkle.

While today we take flipping a switch to light our homes for granted, once upon a time chasing the night’s darkness away proved not to be the easiest of maneuvers.

If you enjoy covered wagon journeys, living in a new small settlement, watching babies grow up, going to market and starting new businesses with a whole lot of romance thrown in to boot, you’ll love my Cross Timbers Romance Family Saga, four books strong now and number 5 launching in September!

There’s still plenty of time to catch up and enjoy some good reading this summer.
♪♫✞♪♫•*♥Happy Anniversary to me!✞♥¨♪♪♪♫✞  Ron and married 52 years ago today: June 22, 1968!


BIO: Award-winning Author Caryl McAdoo prays her story brings God glory! And her best-selling novels are blessed with a lion’s share of 5-Star ratings! With fifty-and-counting titles, she loves writing as well as singing the new songs the Lord gives her—listen to a few at YouTube. She and husband Ron share four children and nineteen grandsugars----soon to be twenty! The McAdoos live in the woods south of Clarksville, seat of Red River County, in far Northeast Texas, waiting expectantly for God to open the next door.

LINKS: Amazon - BookBub - Website -  Newsletter -  Reades’ Group -  YouTube 

   

Walking Over Two Thousand Miles

In the mid-1800s, Missouri counted among the states that formed the western boundary for our country. Many wagon trains were organized to go west from there.

Both Independence and Saint Joseph on the mighty Missouri River proved popular places to gather and let the settlers find a wagon train master they could trust.

Those traveling west had most likely scraped every penny together to buy their wagon and supplies. They’d acquired the oxen to pull it, and only lacked a leader.

Emigrants wanted to know the men organizing a wagon train had experience along with a good reputation for being wise, levelheaded, and on time. After all, they would be putting their very lives into the man’s hands.

As a woman. I have no doubt that the ladies who agreed to sell their home places and go on such a wild adventure and new beginning had not a clue they would be walking all the way to California or Oregon! I mean if my husband said we’d buy a covered wagon . . . wouldn’t that indicate I pretty much had a place and got to ride?

One would think so. But not the Truth of it. I’m guessing husbands failed to divulge that little piece of information—if they even knew themselves—until probably sometime during that first week.

All wagon owners knew the health and wellbeing of their animals were paramount. The beasts of burden had one purpose—to pull the wagons loaded with everything the pioneers figured they’d need for the journey and starting again in their new home.

I can hear it now.
“Sweetheart, I think it’d be best if you walked a while to save the animals from pulling the extra weight.”
“You want me to walk? To save the animals? All right then, honey. I’ll walk . . . for a WHILE.”

And if not to save the animals, many prairie roses chose to walk over bouncing across the rough terrain in those wagons with no springs or shocks to smooth out the bumpy ride. But whichever reason, over and again, day after day, week after week, and month after month, they walked.

Unless a person got sick and just couldn’t put one foot in front of another, all the sojourners—men, women, and children alike—ambled on foot from Missouri along the Oregon / California Trail to their destinations a little over two thousand miles away.

The hardy folks needed good shoes for all that walking! Those were mostly made of thick beef leather. Though women of society back East wore high heels made of delicate, colorful silk decorated with gold, silver, bows, and braids.

Their counterparts heading west in wagons wore a flat-heeled more substantial shoe that came up to cover and support her ankles.

Men on the Oregon Trail wore a thicker, tougher, taller boot.

An interesting fact I learned is prior to the mid-eighteen hundreds, shoes were formed on straight lasts—forms used to create the soles, called straights. These were all the same, no difference in the design for left or right foot, so they were uncomfortable.

Wearers often soaked their new shoes and wore them until dry to shape the leather to their feet. Others switched their shoes from one foot to another to reduce pain.

It was right about that time that the soles started being made specifically for the right or left feet, but as with any new inventions, those first few years, only the wealthy could afford those new-fangled fancy shoes that fit so much more comfortably! 

In LILAH, my May release, book five in the Prairie Roses Collection for Mother’s Day, my young heroine of the same name did just that, walking from Saint Jo all the way to the Pacific NorthWest, to Oregon then ever farther north.

The wagon train journey only fills about half the story as this tale follows more of the adventure after the families arrive!
It’s available now at Amazon:

Here's what one reviewer said: What a delightful novel this is! Caryl McAdoo has done it again, crafted a gripping tale of love and faith overcoming obstacles to grab the reader’s attention and keep them reading through to the very last page. This reviewer read it twice, it’s that good. –CW

I hope you’ll enjoy reading it and the two additional Prairie Roses titles, SUSAN by Patricia PacJac Carroll and KATE by Donna Schlachter.

Bio: Caryl McAdoo, praying her story gives God glory, loves God, her husband of fifty-plus years Ron, five sons and six daughters (birthed and in-loves), and nineteen grandsugars—then writing stories and singing the new songs God gives her. (Hear at YouTube.) Readers love her historical Christian romance family sagas with their characters who become like friends and family. She also writes contemporary romance, Biblical fiction, and for young adults and mid-grade booklovers. The McAdoos live in the woods south of Clarksville—seat of Red River County in Northeast Texas—waiting expectantly for God to open the next door.

Links: Amazon   BookBub   Website    Newsletter   YouTube (Hear Caryl sing her New Songs!)   Facebook 

Hunting Gators in the 1800s

Alligator hunting can be traced way back to the early days in Egypt. The American alligators didn’t gain any recognition until the mid-1800s.

They are found mostly in the swampy fresh-water lakes and marshes of southeastern United States, from Florida to Texas.

These cold-blooded reptiles grow to an average of ten to twelve feet in length and can weigh a thousand pounds, though some have been harvested almost double that size.

The life expectancy is akin to a dog’s, ten to twelve years.

To procreate, the female lays eggs in nests prepared on land (can be as much as ten feet wide and three feet tall) where she lays twenty to sixty eggs in June and July. Her eggs take sixty-five days to hatch.

As pioneers left the northeast and journeyed south and west to settle in the new lands, some found their way to Louisiana. It is there in the mid-1800s, settlers started diligently hunting gators for their meat, hides, and oil.

From the leather, they made boots, shoes, and saddles. The oil, extracted from the fatty tissues, greased their wagon wheels and axels, steam engines, and cotton mills alike. The gator meat provided sustenance and is reported to taste a lot like chicken.

The demand for gator hides proved sporadic, dwindling just before the 1860s, but then with the Civil War, it once again gained popularity—at least with the Confederates who supplied their troops with shoes and boots made from alligator hide.

By the late 1860s, alligator leather was the most favorite of all other leathers for high fashion because companies in New York, New Jersey, and Europe started tanning the Louisiana alligator hides commercially, making them softer, more flexible and durable. 

There are several methods of hunting—or fishing—for gators. Stout rope with a big hook is tied to a stout limb that overhangs the swampy waters. The hook can be baited with a spoiled chicken or duck quarter or a large fish.

The hunters set these hooks along a section of the swamp or river then go back later in the day to check their lines much like a fisherman and a trotline. Checking those lines, that’s when it can get tricky.

A taunt line indicates a gator has been snagged. Hooked, the reptile retreats as deep as the rope allows and must be pulled hand over hand up to the side of the boat where it's shot or bludgeoned. The kill zone is only about as big as a man’s fist.

Another method is snagging a swimming gator with a treble hook attached to a strong line, pulling it to the boat and repeat what needs to be done to get it into the boat with you (dead).

Hunting an alligator alone is an extremely challenging endeavor. In my novel BITTER HONEY (1855), my hero’s mentor was such a man. Fashioned after the rugged individualist of his day, in a shallow draft skiff, he would pull the gator to the side of the boat then dispatch them with a spiked club.

I cannot imagine doing something so dangerous for money, but there are men who have and still do hunt gator in that fashion. I wanted my young hero to have such a man as a mentor. I believe he matured into a strong man himself for it.

The alligator hunting in BITTER HONEY is a God-given means of provision and is, of course, not for sport or as graphic as in this post.

BITTER HONEY is my FIFTIETH title published and my newest release, book 22 in the Lockets and Lace Collection. Get your copy today! Only $2.99!

In fifty years, from the late 1800s into the twentieth century, hunters harvested over three and a half million Louisiana gators. Today, that number is in excess of three hundred thousand each year.


BIO: Award-winning Author Caryl McAdoo prays her story brings God glory! And her best-selling novels are blessed with a lion’s share of 5-Star ratings! With fifty-and-counting titles, she loves writing as well as singing the new songs the Lord gives her—listen to a few at YouTube.

She and Ron, her high school sweetheart, share four children and eighteen grandsugars. The McAdoos live in the woods south of Clarksville, seat of Red River County, in far Northeast Texas, waiting expectantly for God to open the next door.

LINKS: Amazon  /  BookBub  /  Website  /  Readers' Group  /  Facebook

Church History - The Baptists

I grew up going to a small Southern Baptist church, Northwest Baptist, on California Crossing Road in Dallas, Texas. J.W. Matoy, the pastor, was my mother's cousin from Oklahoma. I suppose I played in the nursery in the years before memory kicked in. 

I didn't know Baptists were the most well-known protestant denomination or about the many kinds of Baptists: American, Missionary (the pro-missionaries group that split away from the Primitive Baptists who were decidedly not). And the Independent Baptists that refrained from joining any of the hierarchy associations or governing authorities.

The first Baptists broke away from the Church of England with the belief that salvation should include a public profession of faith followed by being baptized, immersed in water, not being sprinkled as a baby--as symbolized by the disciples’ baptisms (John 3) and from Romans 6, especially the fourth verse.

“Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” Romans 6:4

Those first congregations were known as General Baptists. When the Calvanist Separatists accepted the belief of immersion, they became the Particular Baptists. 

The earliest Baptist church was founded in Amsterdam in 1609, but as more and more pilgrims arrived on the shores of the New World, it wasn't long before the Massachusetts Bay Colony banished John Clark for his belief of the separation between church and state. 

They followed Church of England practices, but Clark moved south to uncolonized Rhode Island and formed the first Baptist church in America in 1638.

By the late eighteenth century, the American Baptists recognized thirty-five 'associations' headed by over five hundred fifty preachers. 

During the nineteenth century, the movement grew to seven hundred fifty churches with more than sixty thousand Baptists spread across the states. All the associations were committed to a principle of autonomy but joining together for the benefit of spreading the Good News of Christ. 

The issue of slavery caused the Southern Baptists to separate from the Northern associations and their growth proved unrivaled. Some churches were more conservative than others and before long, we had the American Baptist Churches, the Baptist General Convention and of course Texas had its own convention. Plus the Independents. 

Strong believers in Biblical authority, Baptists take communion as an act of symbolic obedience with no particular schedule and believe all scripture is divinely God-breathed per these verses in Timothy.

“All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” 2 Timothy 3:16-17

Baptists strongly support evangelism and missionary work and stand up for religious freedoms. It is recognized they were instrumental in our Constitution’s First Amendment.

No longer affiliated with the Baptist church, I now consider myself a non-denominational. That happened in 1975 during the Charasmatic movement of Holy Spirit. 

I experienced the baptism of fire and that set me apart from the traditional doctrines. The Southern Baptist Association disfellowshipped our little Shady Grove Baptist Church, so we became simply Shady Grove Church. 

It's so exciting that my FIFTIETH TITLE published BITTER HONEY releases tomorrow! It's book 22 in the Lockets and Lace Collection and the story of Samantha Adam's romance.

Readers met Samantha in UNIQUELY COMMON (book 12 in the same collection) when she was only thirteen years old. Now, she'd eighteen and ready to get married and have babies . . . but should she settle?

From the vineyards of Napa Valley to the streets of New Orleans, there's another love story in BITTER HONEY, a more mature romance akin to Hosea's I think you'll enjoy!  

Bio: Award-winning Author Caryl McAdoo prays her story brings God glory! And her best-selling novels are blessed with a lion’s share of 5-Star ratings! With forty-four-and-counting titles, she loves writing as well as singing the new songs the Lord gives her—listen to a few at YouTube. She and husband Ron share four children and eighteen grandsugars. The McAdoos live in the woods south of Clarksville, seat of Red River County, in far Northeast Texas, waiting expectantly for God to open the next door.  

Contact Links :  Amazon -  BookBub -  Website -  Newsletter - Influencers’ Group

Church History - John Wesley and His Methods - Part Three

We’ve all heard that history repeats itself. Last month, I wrote about the first two “Great Awakenings” and specific to them, revivals.

This month, I’d like to look at the history of the Methodist, originally known as the Methodist Episcopal Church. The largest denomination of the nineteenth century, the men leading the movement and its circuit riders have fascinated me. 

John Wesley, renown as founder of Methodists

I think most people associate John Wesley with starting the movement to Methodism; his brother Charles played a part as well. 

One of eight living siblings, the Englishman received his education at Oxford and was ordained in the Anglican Church but began seeing the church didn’t call its parishioners to repentance.

John Wesley preaching to Native American Indians 

Because of his beliefs, he was forbidden to preach and accepted an invitation for him and his brother to go to America. 

They sailed in 1735 for Savannah in the Province of Georgia. On the way, he met and was very impressed by a group of Moravian settlers. He arrived but rather than evangelizing the indigenous native, he preached mostly to colonials.

Serving there as the parish priest two years, he fell in love but broke it off so as not to be distracted for serving God. The young woman married another soon then because Wesley refused her communion—because she hadn’t told him ahead of time, she would ask him for it—and was sued over it. He fled back to England feeling like a failure.

John Wesley preaching outside a church

Blocked from preaching in Bristol, he sought out the Moravians and went to Germany to study with them. On his return to England, he got together with George Whitfield, an old Oxford friend. Neither was allowed to preach in the churches, so Whitfield preached in the fields and encouraged Wesley to as well. He did but wrote in his journal:

I could scarce reconcile myself to this strange way of preaching in the fields, of which he [Whitefield] set me an example on Sunday; having been all my life till very lately so tenacious of every point relating to decency and order, that I should have thought the saving of souls almost a sin if it had not been done in a church.

Do you know what the Wesleys' ‘method’ was? In a nutshell, to be saved by faith. He proposed that all men were born dead in their sin and needed to be saved by God’s grace, justified only by their faith in God that brought about both inward and outward holiness.    

The Church of England decided who could preach and where, setting the boundaries of the parishes, but Wesley paid them little attention, setting up new societies (churches) all around England and placing a follower in charge though they were not ordained by the Anglicans. 

Those in charge considered him dangerous for his ‘methods’ and dissed him and his teachings in sermons and in print—sometimes mobs physically attacked Wesley and his followers, but the churches he established grew. Very quickly, his clergymen became popular, attracting large congregations. 

His friend George Whitfield crossed the ocean and preached up and down through the colonies of America in the 1740s, and in 1766, the England settlers who followed the Wesley brothers' teachings carried their newfound religion to America. 

By 1794, the new preachers founded the Methodist Episcopal Church in America, ordaining deacons, elders, and bishops. The new way, ‘methods’ brought a new passion to the church. People got involved and started Bible study groups, no longer sitting in the pews board and barely listening.

The Circuit Rider: A Tale of the Heroic Age
by Edward Eggleston 

As the churches sent out layman to go out, riding horses, and preach in the new communities popping up all over the west, more churches were established.

And these churches grew to spread Wesley’s methods and Whitfield’s more Calvinistic teachings across America.

They and their followers became known as Methodists.

In my Texas Romance Family Saga series---ten full-length novels and six 'Companion Books' strong, I love to mention my families' outings to church. They're Baptists, Methodists, Church of Christ, and Holiness, and they even attend tent revivals!

I hope you'll enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy the research to make sure I take you back to the 19th century! My motto is "Praying my story gives God glory!" BLESSINGS, Y'ALL!

Award-winning hybrid author Caryl McAdoo prays her story brings God glory. Her best-selling novels have garnered over 1000 5-Star reviews, attesting to the Father’s favor. 

Readers love her Historical Christian romance family sagas best, but she also writes Christian contemporary romance, Biblical fiction, and for young adults and mid-grade booklovers. They count Caryl’s characters as family or very close friends.

The prolific writer loves singing the new songs He gives her almost as much as penning tales—hear a few at YouTube! Married to Ron over fifty years, she shares four children and eighteen grandsugars. The McAdoos live in the woods south of Clarksville, seat of Red River County in far Northeast Texas, waiting expectantly for God to open the next door. 

Contact me! Follow, Like, and Subscribe, too!  Website   Amazon   BookBub   AllAuthor   Facebook   Twitter   Newsletter: The Caryler

  

Church History - Nineteenth Century Awakenings and Revivals - Part two

What causes revivals? What is their Purpose?

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines revival as an act or instance of reviving or the state of being revived such as a renewed attention to or interest in something, a new presentation or publication of something old, or a period of renewed religious interest—often highly emotional evangelistic meeting or series of meetings.

Second Great Awakening

Referred to as the Second Great Awakening, the period beginning in 1820s began in the Protestant churches—Baptist and Methodist preachers leading the charge. By the late 1840s it had peaked.

Those revivals brought in literally millions of folks to the existing congregations and new denominations began. Many reform movements to remove the evils in society were also established, getting everyone ready for the second coming of Christ.

Though hosted by different denominations, the revivals looked very much alike, embracing more enthusiasm and emotions, leaning toward the supernatural.

Revivals proved the most effective way to reach the people, especially across the western frontier.  

Third Great Awakening

The Third Awakening came in the 1850s and lasted into the 1900s. In the ten years between 1840 and 1850, church membership waned and morality took a hit. 

Steadily losing members, a Dutch Reformed congregation in lower Manhattan hired a missionary to reverse the trend with a hearty visitation program, but it failed. So, in 1857 he rented a hall on Fulton Street in New York City and advertised prayer meetings.

“For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil.” 1 Peter 3:12

Only six men showed up for the first prayer meeting on September 23, and the Bank of Philadelphia failed two days later. They began coming together daily to pray, and soon after the stock market crashed. 

“For who has despised the day of small things?” Zechariah 4:10a

That panic triggered a religious awakening, and the people began flocking to the prayer meetings. Within six months, ten thousand prayers assembled themselves together daily in New York City alone.

“In my trouble, I cried to the LORD, And He answered me.” Psalm 120:1

Ships carried news of the happenings to British ports and revival broke out there. Soon after Ireland experienced a prayer meeting revival, too, with crowds growing so in numbers, they met in the open air. 

When John Cairns preached in Belfast in the Spring of 1859, he’d never experienced such an eagerness for the Good News or lives so transformed. He said, "Nature does not contain any epidemic so like to Christian conversion."

Hearing about Ireland’s awakening, Andrew Bonar increased his petitions to God for revival in Scotland. His diary of July 3, 1859 reads:

"Again this night, in sorrow of heart over the terrible carelessness, indifference, deadness of this 'valley of dry bones.' O my God, come over to Scotland and help us!"

Two months later, he found himself in the midst of revival. On September 10th he noted: "This has been a remarkable week: every day I have heard of some soul saved among us..." 

Rich men, poor men, beggars, and thieves suddenly found interest in salvation. Backsliders returned, and conversions increased exponentially. Believers yearned to learn the deep things of God, longing for His spiritual truths. 

Families established daily devotions. Entire communities experienced a perceptible change in moralities. Similarly, the churches in Wales, England began praying and the revival spread. 

The names of great men connected to the revival proved absent. Rather, the prime instruments God used to awaken the people were simple lay folk, praying. The preaching—in many areas, dead and too intellectual—began concentrating on the truths of Christ’s gospel and His cross.

The ‘afterglow’ of the 1859 revival lasted for decades in the areas of evangelism, missions, and social action. That’s when many who’d been deeply touched became Christian leaders, during that second half of the nineteenth century.

Renowned men such as D.L. Moody, William Booth, Charles Spurgeon, and A.B. Simpson ministered around the world. James Buchanan of Scotland summarized the revival: "new spiritual life was imparted to the dead, and new spiritual health imparted to the living."

Perhaps the reason for revival is to get a people spiritually ready to face tragedy. So had the 1859 revival similarly affected America? Did it serve to prepare the North and the South spiritually to survive the horrors coming? 

The awakening continued into the Civil War period, a great revival occurring in the Southern armies in 1863-64.

By the mid-1860s, the Civil War was in full swing, pitching brothers against brothers, and revival broke out. 

During those awful days, hopelessness and despair fell on the citizens—North and South. Hardships, trials, and tribulations drive people to God Who hears their prayers and sends Holy Spirit to revive them.

The country was at a low point then, spiritually, politically, and financially. And what did they do? They went to their knees and beseeched God for a respite. Prayer meetings spread across the country. 

The answer came—at least in part—in the form of revival . . . instigated by prayer to prepare His people. We've answered our questions.

Have you ever been to a tent meeting?

My Texas Romance Family Saga series required lots of research as one of my main three families----the Nightingales----went the way of preaching tent revivals for several generations: MIGHTY TO SAVE (Nathaniel Nightingale, book nine), CHIEF OF SINNERS (Nathaniel and Buddy, book ten) then the Companion Books, The Revivalist Trilogy books one and two JOHN DAVID'S CALLING and HANNAH CLAIRE'S WILDERNESS (John David Nightingale).

Its ten novels cover from 1832 through to 1951 then the series' Companion Books carry on through 1972 (so far). There are six Companion Books of the families' ancestors and descendants.

I hope you have the opportunity to read them and experience the essence of nineteenth-century revivals and camp meetings through my characters' eyes. 

   

Bio:

Caryl McAdoo, a hybrid Christian author (published traditionally—including Simon and Schuster—and independently), nears fifty published titles in her series, praying her story gives God glory. The award-winning, best-selling author spends much of her non-writing time navigating the Indie marketplace! She and husband of fifty-plus-years share four children and eighteen grandsugars. They live in Clarksville, Texas, seat of Red River County, waiting expectantly for God to open the next door.

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Church History--Not all Revivals are the Same - with GIVEAWAY

Just as God moved the Children of Israel from place to place in the wilderness, His church embraced or rejected new revelations, shifting through the centuries. By the early 1900s, across the United States, it had divided into innumerable denominations—a new one formed every time a few folks didn’t want to go on with the next reformation.

Puritans, Quakers, Baptists, Mennonites, Methodists, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, the Disciples of Christ and more. Even the denominations splintered and fractions rose such as the Southern Baptists parting with the Northern Baptists over slavery pros and cons. And Catholicism kept a growing foothold in America as well.

Congregations led by men remained racially segregated. Though the Seventh Day Adventists met and worshiped on the seventh day—the one God named the Sabbath, and today is called Saturday—Sunday had become the more common meeting day. Pastors spoke from pulpits before congregations with singing, announcements, and offerings each having their allotted times. Most all churches advertised special times of revival.

One of the most famous American revivals just happened in the early spring of 1906 in Los Angeles, California at a home gathering. The meetings were led by a thirty-four-year-old son of freed slaves, William J. Seymour who’d traveled from Houston to minister at a Holiness Church in lieu of a call.

But he came preaching the baptism of Holy Spirit evidenced by speaking in tongues, a new and unpopular idea. Though he’d been invited to spend a month, the elders of the church (and its state association) rejected Seymor’s teaching and padlocked the doors the next Sunday.

However, not all the members sided with the church leaders and began meeting in a home on Bonnie Brae Street.

After five weeks of near round-the-clock preaching, praying, and fasting, Holy Spirit came with His promised power. So many people came and tried to squeeze into the modest home, the front porch collapsed under their weight.

Meetings then moved to a dilapidated two-story building on Azuza Street in an undesirable part of town.

Though originally built to house an African Methodist Church, after they left, it'd served many purposes: lumberyard, stockyard, warehouse, wholesale, making tombstones, most recently, a livery. 


They rented it on April 14, 1906, and immediately resumed meetings. Sitting on benches of planks on top nail kegs, the people had nothing fancy.

Bare floors covered only by sawdust, no pulpit or elevated platform; the eight-foot ceilings didn’t allow for one. Men and women spoke in strange tongues. They shouted, sang and moaned. People even coming close would fall out as if dead, slain in the Spirit.

Miracles happened, and the news spread quickly. Curious Christians flocked from all over in great numbers. Roads became clogged for blocks and blocks. Services consisted mostly of prayer that went on round the clock. Singing would be sporadic and acapella, sometimes in the tongues, praising and worshiping an altogether good God.

None were planned though. People often twirled and leaped. Some shared testimonies. Money was never asked for, but the faithful paid titles and offerings into a box at the back of the room. From its start, the unusual worship services attracted attention.
One newspaper reported:  “Colored people and a sprinkling of whites compose the congregation, and night is made hideous in the neighborhood by the howlings of the worshippers who spend hours swaying forth and back in a nerve-racking attitude of prayer and supplication.” Yet Seymour and his initial small group of worshippers persisted, and more people were attracted to the services.”

By mid-May, three to fifteen hundred folks came daily, trying to get in, get healed, get saved, or baptized by fire. The intermingling of folks from all walks of life and of all colors of skin, the rich and poor together came across denominations. They came to see what was happening there then fell under the Spirit’s power. Thousands accepted Christ as Savior.

One observer in an early meeting reported this: “No instruments of music are used. None are needed. No choir- the angels have been heard by some in the Spirit. No collections are taken. No bills have been posted to advertise the meetings. No church organization is back of it. All who are in touch with God realize as soon as they enter the meetings that the Holy Ghost is the leader.”

Firsthand accounts of the blind receiving sight or the lame coming in wheelchairs or on crutches and walking out were plentiful. Crutches no longer needed were left in droves. Diseases were healed.

One visiting Baptist pastor said, “The Holy Spirit fell upon me and filled me literally, as it seemed to lift me up, for indeed, I was in the air in an instant, shouting, 'Praise God,' and instantly I began to speak in another language. I could not have been more surprised if at the same moment someone had handed me a million dollars.”

News spread around the world as the Azuza Street Revival gained momentum; it was likened to the “latter rain” falling, and people came from all over to attend. A missionary, Bernt Bernsten traveled all the way from North China to investigate the happenings reported. 

Not all the reports were favorable though. Just as today Christians pray for a fair representation of the public media, the saints dealt with nay-sayers. An early-on front-page story in the Los Angeles Times titled “Weird Babel of Tongues” called the believers a sect.

It began: "the newest religious sect has started in Los Angeles" and reported: "Breathing strange utterances and mouthing a creed which it would seem no sane mortal could understand."

By that fall, papers were harsher, printing “disgraceful intermingling of the races...they cry and make howling noises all day and into the night. They run, jump, shake all over, shout to the top of their voice, spin around in circles, fall out on the sawdust blanketed floor jerking, kicking and rolling all over it.

“Some of them pass out and do not move for hours as though they were dead. These people appear to be mad, mentally deranged or under a spell. They claim to be filled with the spirit. They have a one-eyed, illiterate, Negro as their preacher who stays on his knees much of the time with his head hidden between the wooden milk crates.

“He doesn't talk very much but at times he can be heard shouting, "Repent," and he's supposed to be running the thing... They repeatedly sing the same song, "The Comforter Has Come." 

Attendees were called Holy Rollers and Tangled Tongues or Holy Ghosters as Christians from many traditional denominations criticized them for being too emotional, accusing the believers of misusing scriptures and losing the focus on Christ by overemphasizing the Holy Spirit. From pulpits across the country, pastors warned their congregations to stay away from the Azuza Street Mission.

Seymour’s wife Jennie, with a few others, started a paper called The Apostolic Faith distributed free that reported the following in September 1906, the same month as the publication of the harsh story:

“In a short time, God began to manifest His power and soon the building could not contain the people. Proud, well-dressed preachers come in to 'investigate.' Soon their high looks are replaced with wonder, then conviction comes, and very often you will find them in a short time wallowing on the dirty floor, asking God to forgive them and make them as little children.”
Five thousand copies came out as the first printing and by 1907, reached forty thousand souls. The revival went on for ten years with a plethora of new denominations who believed in the baptism of God's Holy Spirit. There are many reasons given for its ending . . . limiting the time for praise and worship or the length of the services, but few can deny the movement of God seen in 1906 on Azuza Street.

In book nine of my Texas Romance Family Saga, MIGHTY TO SAVE, my characters travel from San Francisco to Los Angeles and attend the famous revival. I have arranged for it to be FREE today and the next two at Amazon. You're welcomed to TELL YOUR FRIENDS! 
It’s always free in Kindle Unlimited. I hope you’ll enjoy attending yourself through the eyes of Nathaniel and Evelyn Nightingale. 

It's set during World War I times, and the visit to Azuza Street is written as a remembrance of how the revival change their family's lives. I know that in 1975 the experience certainly changed my and my husband's when we--a Southern Baptist girl and Church Of Christ fellow--were swept into the "Charismatic Renewal." In the series, ten novels, each is a stand-alone.

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GET YOUR COPY FREE of  MIGHTY TO SAVE today!

BIO:  Award-winning Author Caryl McAdoo prays her story brings God glory! And her best-selling novels are blessed with a lion’s share of 5-Star ratings! With forty-four-and-counting titles, she loves writing as well as singing the new songs the Lord gives her—listen to a few at YouTube. She and husband Ron share four children and eighteen grandsugars. The McAdoos live in the woods south of Clarksville, seat of Red River County, in far Northeast Texas, waiting expectantly for God to open the next door.   

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