Faith Works 8-14-2026
Jeff Gill
A trip to Kentucky, a look back to 1801
___
I came to Cane Ridge to commune with spirits.
The Cane Ridge Meetinghouse was built in 1791 by the local community out of blue ash logs, that wood so rot and termite resistant the two-story timber structure still stands.
It’s still wood, though, so in 1957 the caretakers reached out to churches of my religious tradition, with our roots to the Great Revival there in 1801, and collected enough to built a Bourbon County limestone structure over and around it, the Cane Ridge “shrine” of sorts.
My mother went with her parents in 1953 on their way to Mammoth Cave; when she got married in July of 1958, she took my dad to Cane Ridge for his first visit, and was shocked when they pulled in to see the old log church was gone. Word hadn’t gotten to her of the protective structure, but she often told me the story of how startled she was. I tell that story for her, now.
I last was at Cane Ridge with my father for a churchwide event in 1999; I went back in 2001 for the bicentennial events around the Great Revival, and camped on the grounds, sleeping in my backpacking tent. This time I stayed in a motel down the road.
Walking up to the shrine, and cemetery alongside where Barton Stone and much of his family is buried, I thought of my mother’s story, and my father’s, and the deeper stories of separation and loss alongside the gathering and celebration which made Cane Ridge a name in American history, a sort of Pentecost for this continent, and the returns we have made to seek the Holy Spirit at work, and the spirits of those who brought us here.
Sitting up in the balcony, which now has stairs (if steep and narrow), we are reminded of how people of color, free or currently enslaved, were separated up into that upper gallery, to which you gained access by climbing a ladder from outside. Some years later, as even that much closeness was a matter of concern, the ladders disappeared, and segregated churches were established.
On the way to Cane Ridge, another old church building of our tradition, but of brick, and built in 1857, spoke to a different sort of distinction: two front doors. The men’s entrance, and another for the women, and in those days seating was divided inside.
Barton Stone’s friend and colleague Alexander Campbell began to break this distinction down at Bethany, West Virginia, having a number of daughters and after long preaching tours, was unwilling to sit away from his wife and children. The Bethany Church had two doors and a divider in the center of the pews, but Campbell sat where he would in the 1840s & 1850s. It was only after the Civil War, and many men feeling like Campbell did, that the two door tradition ended.
Women’s places, racial division; today, our main distinction was a request for those physically able to go up the steps into the balcony, opening seats for the less able on the main floor. I was happy to surrender my front row seat to clamber up, and to commune with the spirits there.
When I came and sat with my father, we were in the balcony then, too. I sat where we had been. In the gallery, I talked to a woman I’ve known for years, a Black woman who said she wanted to sit up here, and think about ancestors. We agreed they were present.
A friend had the opening message, and began with prayer: she opened it by saying there are hundreds of us here today, but let’s double or triple our attendance, and invoke the spirits, our ancestors, by blood and by belief. We prayed, and after the “amen,” she asked: can you feel them present?
Indeed we did.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he’s still reflecting on that journey last week. Tell him where you feel close to ancestors at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on X.
Jeff Gill
A trip to Kentucky, a look back to 1801
___
I came to Cane Ridge to commune with spirits.
The Cane Ridge Meetinghouse was built in 1791 by the local community out of blue ash logs, that wood so rot and termite resistant the two-story timber structure still stands.
It’s still wood, though, so in 1957 the caretakers reached out to churches of my religious tradition, with our roots to the Great Revival there in 1801, and collected enough to built a Bourbon County limestone structure over and around it, the Cane Ridge “shrine” of sorts.
My mother went with her parents in 1953 on their way to Mammoth Cave; when she got married in July of 1958, she took my dad to Cane Ridge for his first visit, and was shocked when they pulled in to see the old log church was gone. Word hadn’t gotten to her of the protective structure, but she often told me the story of how startled she was. I tell that story for her, now.
I last was at Cane Ridge with my father for a churchwide event in 1999; I went back in 2001 for the bicentennial events around the Great Revival, and camped on the grounds, sleeping in my backpacking tent. This time I stayed in a motel down the road.
Walking up to the shrine, and cemetery alongside where Barton Stone and much of his family is buried, I thought of my mother’s story, and my father’s, and the deeper stories of separation and loss alongside the gathering and celebration which made Cane Ridge a name in American history, a sort of Pentecost for this continent, and the returns we have made to seek the Holy Spirit at work, and the spirits of those who brought us here.
Sitting up in the balcony, which now has stairs (if steep and narrow), we are reminded of how people of color, free or currently enslaved, were separated up into that upper gallery, to which you gained access by climbing a ladder from outside. Some years later, as even that much closeness was a matter of concern, the ladders disappeared, and segregated churches were established.
On the way to Cane Ridge, another old church building of our tradition, but of brick, and built in 1857, spoke to a different sort of distinction: two front doors. The men’s entrance, and another for the women, and in those days seating was divided inside.
Barton Stone’s friend and colleague Alexander Campbell began to break this distinction down at Bethany, West Virginia, having a number of daughters and after long preaching tours, was unwilling to sit away from his wife and children. The Bethany Church had two doors and a divider in the center of the pews, but Campbell sat where he would in the 1840s & 1850s. It was only after the Civil War, and many men feeling like Campbell did, that the two door tradition ended.
Women’s places, racial division; today, our main distinction was a request for those physically able to go up the steps into the balcony, opening seats for the less able on the main floor. I was happy to surrender my front row seat to clamber up, and to commune with the spirits there.
When I came and sat with my father, we were in the balcony then, too. I sat where we had been. In the gallery, I talked to a woman I’ve known for years, a Black woman who said she wanted to sit up here, and think about ancestors. We agreed they were present.
A friend had the opening message, and began with prayer: she opened it by saying there are hundreds of us here today, but let’s double or triple our attendance, and invoke the spirits, our ancestors, by blood and by belief. We prayed, and after the “amen,” she asked: can you feel them present?
Indeed we did.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he’s still reflecting on that journey last week. Tell him where you feel close to ancestors at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on X.
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