Untitled - the Digital Library of Georgia

426 GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS
dressing educated audiences. He left descendants who became promi
nent in education and politics in the state.
"The first completed Methodist Church in Georgia was in Wilkes
County, near Washington, and was known as Grant's meeting house.
Here in 1789, the second conference met, Asbury again presiding.
Thomas Grant was a Virginian of Scotch descent, whose people had be
longed to the Presbyterian Church. The family migrated to North
Carolina, and thence, in 1784, removed to Wilkes County in Georgia.
During a long and useful life, this liberal-minded and pious man was a
pillar of the church in Georgia, and the warm friend and benefactor of
every traveling preacher.
"At this conference Hope Hull was appointed to Savannah town,
where, nearly sixty years before, the W.esleys had labored, none too
successfully. The tradition of the 'meddling Methodists' unfortu
nately lingered about the place, and he met with a hostile reception. The
Calvinists, represented by able men in the Presbyterian and Baptist
churches, were strongly intrenched in the town, and Hull found that he
could not obtain a footing. It was not, indeed, until the year 1811 that
the town of Savannah could boast of a Methodist society or meeting
house. Methodism entered Georgia from the interior, and depended
for its support on families like that of the Grants, who had moved south
ward from Virginia or the Carolinas. The work in Georgia pretty much
resembled that in Kentucky and elsewhere along the Indian frontier.
There were no bridges and no turnpikes: in many counties not a pane
of. glass was to be found in any of the houses; nor were there many
saw mills to provide the material for frame houses. The men were hard
working pioneers, who, dressed in hunting-shirts, went barefoot or wore
Indian moccasins; the women dressed in the homeliest of homespun gar
ments. Ignorant they were, but honest and simple-hearted, and ready
to share their simple meals of lye hominy and venison with the travel
ing preachers. He received no salary, for money was a commodity that
was hardly existent in these remote parts. Some of the preachers,
indeed, had not as much as five dollars in cash to spend during a whole
" year. It was among the poorest of the Georgians that Methodism first
planted itself, and the results were very modest for many years.''
Kiokee Creek, a small tributary of the Savannah River, in the upper
part of Columbia County, furnished the sacramental waters in which the
earliest Georgia Baptists were immersed. On January 1, 1771, Daniel
Marshall, an ordained Baptist minister, sixty-five years of age, moved
from Horse Creek, South Carolina, and settled with his family on Kiokee
Creek, about twenty miles north of Augusta. He had organized two
churches in South Carolina, and while residing at Horse Creek he made
frequent evangelistic tours into Georgia, preaching with wonderful
fervor, chiefly in groves. Says a work of recognized authority: *
"We will gaze upon him as he conducts religious services. The scene
is a sylvan grove, and Daniel Marshall is on his knees, engaged in prayer.
While he beseeches the throne of grace, a hand is laid upon his shoulder
and he hears a voice say:
* '' History of the Baptist Denomination in Georgia.'' Compiled by the Chris
tian Index,