Lebanon in the Fork: Buildings and Burials

An undated photo of the Lebanon congregation's building before it was destroyed by fire in 1981. Note and compare the tombstones.

"Lebanon in the Fork Presbyterian prospered as a congregation, taking in many of the families who had come to settle at the Holston-French Broad fork. The original church building was constructed of unhewn logs and modestly extended only 20 feet square. By 1793, the congregation had increased so much that a larger structure had to be erected, reaching out 40 by 60 feet with well-hewn logs and having a well-ordered interior.

Elizabeth Carrick's tombstone.

For a long period the new church was the most imposing meeting house in the region and the original building was converted into a session hall. A cemetery was developed and among the first burials was that of Samuel Carrick's wife Elizabeth Moore (Rev. Carrick was the church's minister; more will be noted of him in future posts).

Her funeral, in September, 1793, took place on the day of a threatened attack by Indians on James White's Fort Knox and all the male settlers, including the Rev. Samuel Carrick, were called upon to bear arms in defense. This left only the women to of the Lebanon in the Fork congregation to take the remains of Mrs. Carrick down the Holston River in a canoe, for burial at the cemetery. Such were the pressing dangers of the day that Samuel Carrick could not be present at his wife's funeral."

Billy Kennedy, The Scots-Irish in the Hills of Tennessee, Pgs. 143-144

Lebanon-in-the-Fork Presbyterian Church, Which Was The First Presbyterian Church in Knox County, TN

The caption reads, "Lebanon in the Fork" First Presbyterian Church in Knox County, 1791, Rev. Samuel Carrick Founder and First Pastor, Earliest Burial Ground in This Section.

 In 1791, a Presbyterian minister by the name of Samuel Carrick, who would also later become the founder of First Presbyterian of Knoxville, arrived to preach at an Indian mound near the fork of the French Broad and Holston Rivers (at Gilliam's Station), 5 miles east of present day downtown Knoxville. He arrived with the specific mission to bring the ministry of the Word and Sacraments to the pioneer settlers of the French Broad-Holston Country. These settlers being of Scotch-Irish decent, were raised in the ministry of the Presbyterian Church, but had not been in an assembled meeting for years:

"In the old states of the fatherland most of them had been acquainted with the word and felt its power, had bowed in prayer and experienced its heavenly influence, had reverenced the Sabbath, and in their Father's house had kept it holy.  The moral law they had in their youth endeavored to obey, but here on the extreme frontier beyond the reach of the preached gospel and the restraint of parental example and instruction, they were living in constant neglect of Christian worship.  In these backwoods they were as sheep without a shepherd and wandering far in the paths of sin and folly.  Wicked associations had seduced some of them from the ways of wisdom and virtue, war and the savage, lawlessness and crime abounded all around and among them.  But, now on
the night of an ambassador for Christ, the lessons of their youth came back with vivid freshness and energy upon heart and conscience.  They recollected that their father's house had been a house of prayer and parental rebuke and admonition, they recalled the meeting house on the corner in Virginia, and the powerful sermons they had heard their old minister deliver from the old pulpit near their early homes.  

Some of the party were now heads of a family and thus far were living without God, and without hope in the world.  Their children were strangers to the Covenant of Promise, were unbaptized, although half grown, sons and daughters stood around their firesides, lovely olive plants growing up in almost a heathen land with little culture and less even of the influence of religion and piety."                                                                                                             History of Lebanon Presbyterian Church, Dr. J.G.M.Ramsey (1875)

And what was Rev. Carrick's chosen text to preach to these settlers who had long been without the Ministry of the Word?

"Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you by us:  we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God" (2 Corinthians 5:20).

In the kind Providence of God, another Presbyterian minister, Hezekiah Balch, had head about the appointed meeting and attended. After Rev. Carrick finished preaching, Rev. Balch:

"...commended the efforts of his friend who had just finished the morning services, but added that the subject was not yet exhausted and said he would preach from the same text and proceeded to explain the same without following his predecessors track so ably done.  He was heard with great attention." Ramsey

After the Word had been preached, Carrick baptized the covenant children of believers, although there appears to have been some controversy (these were Presbyterians after all!) with the liberality of who all he baptized. Once concluded, a date for a future meeting was secured and all were encouraged to spread the news. This was the initial meeting of what would become Lebanon-in-the-Fork Presbyterian Church. 

About This Blog

Monument built over the site of Lebanon-in-the-Fork Presbyterian Church in Knox County, TN. 

As a member of a church that has descended from First Presbyterian Church of Knoxville, Tennessee, I have become very interested in the history of the early Presbyterian Church here in Knoxville. What I have learned has been very fascinating to me, and I hope to share some of this here on this blog for the sake of coalescing this widely spread information into one source for my own personal reference.

"The Presbyterians were especially strong in Knoxville; their ministers were well known for their learning, and it is little wonder that until 1833 all of the presidents of Blount College and its successor, East Tennessee College (the predecessor of the Univ of TN), were Presbyterian ministers."

Heart of the Valley: A History of Knoxville, Tennessee. Knoxville, TN: East Tennessee Historical Society

 Indeed. The great University of TN started as a seminary of the first pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Knox county (Lebanon in the Fork Presbyterian Church), and Knoxville city (First Presbyterian Church).

To my fellow Presbyterians in Knox County (and to any local history buffs!): I hope you find this as informative and interesting as I did. We have a strong heritage that traces back to 1791!