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 Washington Presbytery resigned after arguments about doctrine and enforcement of policy by the Kentucky Synod. This was in 1803, after Stone had helped lead the mammoth Cane Ridge Revival, a several-day communion season attended by nearly 20,000 persons.
Barton W. Stone
November 9, 1844 (aged 71)
Cane Ridge, Kentucky, United States
American
Evangelist/preacher
1803–1844
Leadership in the Restoration Movement
Stone and the others briefly founded the Springfield Presbytery, which they dissolved the following year, resigning from the Presbyterian Church altogether. They formed what they called the Christian Church, based on scripture rather than a creed representing the opinion of man. He later became allied with Alexander Campbell, a former Presbyterian minister who was also creating an independent path, sometimes allied with Baptists, and formed the Restoration Movement. Stone's followers were first called "New Lights" and "Stoneites". Later he and Campbell brought the groups together that relied solely on the Scriptures.
Several church groups have historical roots in Stone's efforts. The three main groups are the Churches of Christ, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), and the independent Christian churches and churches of Christ. Additionally, there are the International Churches of Christ, the International Christian Church, the Churches of Christ in Australia, the Churches of Christ in Europe, and the Evangelical Christian Church in Canada.[1][2]
Early life and education[edit]
Stone was born to John and Mary Warren Stone near Port Tobacco, Maryland on December 24, 1772.[3]: 702 His immediate family was upper-middle class, with connections to Maryland's upper class of planters.[3]: 702 The first Protestant governor of Maryland, William Stone, was an ancestor; and one of the signers of the United States Declaration of Independence, Thomas Stone, was his second cousin.[3]: 702
Mary Stone was a member of the Church of England and Barton had been christened by a priest named Thomas Thornton.[4]: 52 After Barton's father died in 1775, his mother moved the family to Pittsylvania County, Virginia in 1779, then on the frontier.[3]: 702 After the move to the Virginia frontier during the war, Mary joined the Methodists.[4]: 52 Barton was not himself notably religious as a young man; he found the competing claims of the Episcopalians, Baptists, and Methodists confusing, and was much more interested in politics.[4]: 52–53
Barton entered the Caldwell Log College, in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1790.[5][6]: 71 While there, Stone heard James McGready (an evangelical Presbyterian minister) speak.[6]: 72 A few years later, he was ordained as a Presbyterian minister.[6]: 72
Charles Chilton Moore[edit]
Stone's grandson, Charles Chilton Moore, initially became a preacher in the tradition of his father and grandfather, but he later became one of America's most famous atheists and founded the Blue Grass Blade, a newspaper which he used to promote atheism and criticise religion.[26]