Ben Greer Gives Another Hint!
But this time, the hint is to his local Baptist Church, the Three Forks Baptist Church, still ministering today along side Highway 321, a few miles west of Boone, North Carolina.
This is a 19th Century photo of what Three Forks Baptist Church looked like in that day. Today a 1960s brick building stands along side Highway
In the early 1800s a religious Great Awakening was sweeping the frontier and rural areas of America. The new nation had not a 'national church' although many of the first colonialists had been Puritans in New England and Anglicans in the southern colonies. By the middle 1700s, a new evangelical, dynamic Protestant church was gathering more and more converts. Unlike their Episcopal and more established denominational counterparts, many Baptist pastors had only as much education as their congregations; that is to say, they had little. But they had enthusiasm, an emotional message and an audience on the edge of a wilderness seeking all the spiritual comfort possible. The Baptist Church and later the Methodist Church filled that emotional void.
Along with the theology of bibilical literalism came some rules, and these codes of conduct helped settle a violent, hard drinking, rough-necked peoples. Not everyone who was accepted into the Baptist Church stayed. One being Benjamin Greer!
In April 1800, the hero of King's Mountain received a 'hint' that he was going to be called before the Three Forks congregation on the next Sunday to answer the charge of drinking apple juice after it, well, was strongly fermented. These accusations, which may seem tame in the 21st Century, were deadly serious in rural 19th Century communities. Social ostacism could be the consequence if one was found in moral error by the church deacons.
Interesting, this bit of family history (which comes again from A History of Watauga County by John Preston Arthur) indicates there must have been a rupture in the family. Remember the Wilcoxsons - John and Sara Boone Wilcoxson who helped other Boones and Wilcoxson's found Kentucky?
The charge against Benjamin Greer was brought by 'Brother and Sister Wilcoxen'. Were these in-laws of Ben? They just might have been. How did Benjamin handle this situation?
He did not 'take the hint' and never showed up for the meeting, and in fact, he left this particular church. When next we hear of this dynamic character (who probably drank his apple juice until his dying day), he is living in Kentucky with a daughter.
Go to link http://www.fmoran.com/wilkes/threef.html and learn more about the trials and tribulations of this early frontier church and its people.
In our next post, we will study Ben's will...and consider his full life.
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