My moving tent.

Front matter

My Moving Tent.

Crr^TO

BY

Preface

In placing these simple annals before the public neither fame nor fortune is expected. If, after paying for publication, there be a small sum left for the winter of old age, I shall be content. The reading will, I am sure, tend to keep alive the memory of many godly men who labored in the days gone by to make sure the foundations of our beloved Methodism, and to extend the Master's kingdom.

Mrs. Sue F. Mooney.

A long procession sweeps in view ; Songs come swelling from the waves of blue- Songs of glorious triumph told, From many a tented field of gold Where drum nor fife nor herald loud Proclaims the name of victor proud.

Flotsam and jetsam I gather much, With throbbing heart and holy touch ; The rushing tears come thick and fast As mid the shipwreck of the past I rescue what no storms destroy, And through my tears I smile for joy.

CHAPTER I. In the Beginning

Mythology tells us that for kindness rendered the wayfarer the gods promised to Tithonous whatsoever gift he might ask. Amazed at this large liberality and being much in love with this present life, he asked for immortality. This boon was granted, but the petitioner had forgotten to include youth in his request, so that in age and aweary he was changed into a cricket, whose cheerful song might beguile the passing hours at the evening time, when loved ones gathered around the hearthstone.

In presenting these pictures of places and people of a treasured past, resurgent memory asks not immortality, but that better boon — the fountain of perpetual youth flowing from a grateful heart to the many who have made so pleasant life's long pilgrimage.

A letter of introduction is ofttimes a delicate and a difficult piece of writing. This is the more so, when the bearer thereof and the writer is the same person. However, one's credentials are among the essentials in Church and in court, and should be in whatsoever state of society. I deem, then, no apology necessary for this personal data, of which there will be as little of the ego as possible, working when I can by the rule of elimination, canceling common factors, and giving the result in the most concise form.

Southern people have been ridiculed for emphasis — not on heraldry, with its blazing coat of arms, but on heritage according to ancestry. In truth, they are almost criminally careless touching this thing, and might learn a helpful lesson from the Jews, with whom "according to the tribe" has a special significance. Washington Irving says : "That nation is surely doomed that takes neither pride nor pleasure in thinking upon a noble line of ancestry." Napoleon understood its power in his matchless appeal to his army before the battle of the Pyramids : "Soldiers of France, the eyes of forty generations are looking down upon you!" The Presbyterian poet, Philip Doddridge, invoke* the same spirit when he sings :

A cloud of witnesses around Hold thee in full survey.

And Goldsmith, dear to the memory of all in whose veins flows the good, rich blood of Ireland, describes with apt version,

A land to hast'ning ills a prey,

Where wealth accumulates and men decay.

Wealth is all right if rightly gotten and wisely bestowed or given, but there should be only contempt for the rich fool who boasts of his barns and sneeringly says : "I never knew my grandfather, and, really, I don't know that I ever had one." I am constrained to conclude that much of this bravado and self-laudation is due to the fact that many fabulous fortunes are made by methods that would not have been accepted in our grandfathers' time, and when so made could not have purchased for the possessor a place in the good old order of gentleman. Sad indeed when a man so born

In the Beginning. 13

forfeits his high estate and becomes a byword and a reproach— "the degenerate son of a noble sire, the highest style of sir."

As we sit, then, in reminiscential and reverential mood to sing our evening song, the first face revealed as the ashes are blown aside and memory lights her fire is the never-to-be-forgotten one of my father, Hon. John E. Dromgoole, the son of Thomas Dromgoole, who was the son of Rev. Edward Dromgoole, who came from the "ould counthry" in the days of John Wesley, when to be a Methodist a man must not count his life dear unto himself. He lived and labored on the old Brunswick Circuit, in Virginia, in the heroic days of Methodism.

My father was born in Brunswick County December 28, 1805. He came to Tennessee in his young manhood and while Tennessee was yet in her youth as a State. As a public official, he served her many times in no mean capacity. He was mayor of Murfreesboro at the time of the Federal occupation. Writing to me from that town, February 13, 1864, concerning a request that had been made of him, he says : "I could not possibly get permission to go, for, though the authorities here are courteous and disposed to grant any moderate request, I know it would be petitioning in vain to ask for such a privilege. I have long been under arrest here, and am held responsible for damages that may be assessed for injuries to the railroad." He was a lawyer of much more than average ability. William H. Seward said that the best papers that came to his department at Washington were prepared by my father.

As a member of the Constitutional Convention that met in Nashville in 1870, he was held in high esteem for broadness and liberality with pronounced conservatism. Few of that noble body are living. Hon. D. N. Kennedy and Hon. John F- House, both of Clarksville, are the only ones I have met for years. Col. House writes : "I thought a great deal of your father. I remember with great pleasure my association with him in the Constitutional Convention of 1870."

For more than four score years and ten my father walked a prince among men — blameless in life and conversation. He never grew old. His head and his heart were always young. At the time of his home-going, November 21, 1897, he was probably the oldest Mason in Tennessee, bearing credentials from the lodge in Virginia dated as far back as 1831, with a loving letter addressing him as "Dear John."

My father was named for John Easter, another here of the saddlebags, when Methodism, having sung her way across the waters, was tabernacling among men in the wilderness, following the pioneer in lonely valley or watching the smoke of his cabin on the mountain side and making it a house of prayer. In the chronicles of Methodism (see McTyeire's "History"), these names are graven. They are yet living epistles known and read of all men where the history of our Church is known and read. I linger long and lovingly over the cherished memory of my father. His personality was so marked that now as I sit in his old room and among the old surroundings he seems still here, yet with us. I can see him and hear him singing a snatch of the songs he loved, "Bonnie Doune," or

"Ye banks and braes and streams,

Around the castle o' Montgomery ;"

or more frequently, at night, one of the songs of Zion,

In the Beginning, 15

and anon calling to me when the day's duties were done, "Can't yon come and read the Richmond for me ?" Of this Church paper, he was very fond. He knew the places and the people mentioned in it so well that through it and him I learned to know and to love them. The truth is, I used to think that I had been to those churches on the Brunswick Circuit, old Olive Branch and the others, and that I had exchanged salutations with the sisters and the brethren. I suppose there is no such thing as prenatal memory, but people with whom you have been long associated through others become very real — personal illustrations of the doctrine of transubstantiation.

My father and mother used often to go to Virginia in the days of my childhood, before the day of the iron horse. There was a horse on our place which had traveled the road so often that it was said he knew all the stopping places en route, and that he could make his way "from Dan to Beersheba !" On these occasions I was left with my father's sister, Mrs. Fanny Hall Dromgoole Owen, wife of Mr. Harrison Owen, whose plantation joined my father's, in Rutherford County, Tenn. "Of all the beautiful pictures that hang on memory's wall," none are sweeter and fairer than this aunt's. She stands for all that is best in the highest type of Christian womanhood. No lullabies have ever sounded so sweet to me as those I heard her sing in the night-time to allay childish fears, and to soothe and comfort the heart of a homesick child, whose loved ones were far away.

Many things make me linger over those days — so sad, so sweet! "The days that are no more" save in this backward glance, and that in some sweet sense they are ever with us.

The last time that my parents came back from Virginia my aunt, Mrs. Margaret Blanch Jordan, returned with them, and through her I became well acquainted with some of the old Virginia preachers, Brothers Rowzie, Chiles, and others, and felt that I could go all about the walls of Randolph- Macon College, and was almost on speaking terms with some of the students and professors. In later years this acquaintance has greatly grown through Prof. Richard Irby, Secretary-Treasurer and Historian of that institution.

On his last trip my father brought me a book, the first that was ever truly mine own, and I have it yet, well preserved through all the wanderings of more than forty-six years of tent life. It was bought in Murfreesboro, N. C, and it is a sentimental work on botany, called "Flora's Lexicon." Another present was a big doll (and I have never seen one quite so beautiful, though she could neither sit down, stand up, nor cry, nor were her accomplishments in other lines half so varied and pretentious as those of her English cousins to-day). I kept her many years, till, in the course of human events, I was too old for a doll; then she came by succession to younger members of the family.

But I must hasten, for the sound of the singing is low and very sad. As I said, my father abode long time with us, as men count years. At the last his going away was a translation. He had long wistfully watched the West, for all his companions were gone. As his eye swept the horizon, the bending heavens were very near. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, while dressed for church and humming one of the songs

In the Beginning. 17

of Zion, he was caught up to join the invisible choir, the innumerable company of saints in the celestial city of our God and his Christ. His dear, old body was just worn out, and God took him.

The gloves and the apron were laid aside, The tired workman went to rest.

In the town of Dresden his Masonic brethren laid him away by the side of his soldier-son, Maj. J. E. Dromgoole, of the Eighteenth Tennessee Regiment, C. S. A. In Mayfield. Kv.. whence he was called home, his Methodist brethren, and his Masonic, held for him a most beautiful memorial service, conducted by Rev. Warner Moore, D.D., of the Memphis Conference, son of Rev. Smith W. Moore, of precious memory, my father's friend. "For we know that, if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."

I close this chapter with a memoir printed in the Christian Advocate of February 3, 1898, written by Rev. James D. Barbee, D.D., long time his friend and pastor, a man whom he held in the highest Christian esteem and brotherly love, and whom he characterized as "true gold !"

"John Easter Dromgoole was born in Brunswick County, Va., December 28, 1805, and died in Mayfield, Ky., November 21, 1897. He was twice married, and sons and daughters blessed his home. His long life was spent in the service of God, and, having sanctified the Lord God in his heart, he was ever ready to give an answer to any who asked a reason for the hope that was in him. 'He was no bigot, but by the grace of God that

was in him he was a Methodist.' 2

"Like the Shunammite, he always kept a prophet's chamber on the wall, which was used only by the itinerant, and was supplied with the productions of Wesley, Clarke, Watson, and Fletcher, and 'Zion's Harp.'

"Though a layman, Mr. Dromgoole was a well-informed theologian, and woe to the pretentious socialist who put a lance in poise expecting an easy victory. He was a match for the best, and, while he was respectful to the opinions of the humblest, he never struck his colors in the presence of the highest. He was a wise man and just, therefore his services were long in demand for the office of magistrate, which he filled, with marked ability.

"He was not only a Christian, but he was the friend and patron of Christian education, and his children illustrate his ideal in that direction; and their reverent love and admiration indicate his personal influence upon their spirit and character. Down to the close of his long life he was ever an oracle to them, and they delighted to honor him. Hospitality was a distinguishing feature of his home, and the anniversary of his birth was always a gala day, in whose festivities neighbors and friends were invited to share. The writer was more than once an honored guest on these occasions.

"John E. Dromgoole is dead," they say. No, he "is not dead, but sleepeth." After a long and faithful career, the weary wheels of life simply stood still, and the old saint went up higher. He sleeps with Jesus !

CHAPTER II. Among Kith and Kin

My father's mother was Fanny Hall, sister of Dr. Daniel Hall, for more than fifty years a member of the Virginia Conference. To Brother W F- Luke, a layman of Portsmouth, Va., I am indebted for much that I know of my grandmother's family, and of Uncle Daniel Hall especially. About two years ago I was surprised to receive a letter from Mr. Luke, an entire stranger to me, prefaced by saying that he had learned through the Richmond Advocate that I was a kinswoman of Dr. Hall; that his father and Dr. Hall were dear friends for many years ; that Dr. Hall had given to his father a steel engraving, an almost lifelike picture of himself, a rare piece of good work. His father had prized the picture highly, and on his deathbed had willed it to him, and he had religiously kept it; but he was growing old, and was solicitous about the picture. The last time he had gone aboard (he belonged to the Virginia navy) he had taken the picture with him for fear that some harm might befall it in his absence. He wished to send it to me, believing that I would care for it as he had done, and he requestedthat I should will it to some one who would do the same. The picture came, and I carried it to a photographer, Mr. McFadden, of Paducah, Ky., who pronounced it a fine piece of work. He made twelve copies, and I sent one to each of the kin whose address I could command.

I then took the steel engraving and made a longhoped-for visit to my aunt, Mrs. Fanny Hall Drom-

('9)

goole Owen, then of the vicinity of Byhalia, Miss. I had not seen her since my early girlhood. What fortunes and misfortunes since then! When I had last seen her she was in the full bloom of womanhood; now, in age and feebleness extreme, past her four score years, she lay upon the bed of languishment, suffering the Master's will, while I had passed from girlhood to womanhood, acquainted with sorrow and familiar with grief, from womanhood almost into the winter of old age.

I shall never forget the reunion, so glad, yet so infinitely sad. After some hours of talk and tears, I said : "I have something to show you." Then I placed in her trembling hand the picture of the man she had not seen since her childhood, a picture of which she had never heard. Fixing upon it her age-dimmed and tear-filled eyes, she exclaimed: "Why, it is Uncle Daniel, just as I used to know him !" (She passed away in peace August 29, 1901). A. photograph is all that I have left ; for the engraving, with many other pictures and cherished tokens, was lost in the fire that consumed our parsonage and church at Kenton on the morning of the fourth of last July.

I had with the pictures all of Brother Luke's letters. I had saved them, for they interested me greatly, and contained what I regarded valuable history concerning the beginning of Methodism in the coast cities of Virginia. Besides, Brother Luke's opinions of men, methods, and matters, generally, were expressed with a point and piquancy not current these days, and, therefore, all the more valuable. He more recently sent me a book about "The Four Islands," one of which is Smith's, with delightful descriptions of the people and their homes and their religious life. He is a pronounced Methodist, a stanch Democrat, and a loyal Virginian. Recently he increased my indebtedness by sending me some copies of the Virginian Pilot, containing a sketch of Uncle George C. Dromgoole, whom the writer styles "the brilliant orator of ante-bellum days, and the great Democratic leader." Of course this kinsman is one of the traditions of my childhood. He closed his career as my life was beginning.

Among my treasured memorials saved from the fire but blackened with age is the historic address, "To the People of Virginia by the Democratic Party in the General Assembly of 1834-35." The address was submitted to a called meeting, Saturday, February 27, 1835, was read and adopted, and the same, with the proceedings signed by the Chairman and by the Secretary, was ordered published. Maj. Charles Hunton, of the Senate, was Chairman of the meeting, and John Sherrard, of the House of Delegates, Secretary. On the committee were appointed the following five persons — viz., John T. Anderson, Joseph S. Watkins, George C. Dromgoole, Hugh A. Garland, Thomas Jefferson Randolph. The peroration to this address is a trumpet call, as well suited to the present and all future times as it was in the past :

"In Virginia the victory is yet to be won on that soil where the Democratic banner was first unfurled and the shout of triumph first heard. The conflict will be arduous, but the issue not doubtful, if you are vigilant and united. Our opponents are active, untiring, skillful, and fertile in resources. Their efforts will be to divide and conquer. We call upon you to be united and firm. Listen to no overtures ; make no compromise ; present a solid and unbroken front.

"We, your representatives, for two years, with an overwhelming odds against us, in the midst of frowns, contempt, and scoffs, have stood a phalanx, unbroken, undaunted, unterrified. Every attempt has been made to divide and distract, but all in vain. We have sustained the rights of the people and demanded that their voice should be heard. We earnestly recommend you, fellow-citizens, as the best and most Democratic mode of ascertaining public sentiment, to meet in your several counties, freely consult with each other, and select those men in whom you have most confidence and who are most likely to unite the Democracy of the country. Let not our past services, nor the relations in which we now stand toward you, be any obstacle in the way. Should you find other men more worthy of your confidence than ourselves, we will most cheerfully yield to their superior claims. Let no personal ambition endanger the cause of our country, and let no man hold back who may be honored by the people with a call to their service. These are times to make sacrifices of personal ease and of pecuniary interest for the public good. We are

persuaded that unanimity alone on our part can secure the triumph of Democracy ; on that principle, therefore, we are determined to act."

All of this is very true and wholesome doctrine, based on the declaration that a house divided against itself cannot stand.

The tragedy which darkened the last years of the life of this brilliant and beloved son of Virginia — behold ! is it not written in the chronicles of the State, where his long record as a public servant was without spot or wrinkle or any such thing? Would there were more such !

My father was twice married. First to Lucy K. Blanch, my mother, who died when I was a babe, and afterwards to Rebecca Mildred Blanch, her sister, both own sisters to Prof. E. A. Blanch, at one time Professor of Mathematics in Randolph-Macon College, and familiarly known as "Old Zeke."

My acquaintance with Uncle Alfred was principally through Bishop McTyeire, who was a student at Randolph-Macon, and under my uncle's instruction. To him, and also to Capt. Richard lrby, Secretary and Historian of that institution, I am debtor for further acquaintance with Cousin Edward Dromgoole Sims, at the time referred to Professor of Languages in Randolph-Macon and giving special attention to Anglo- Saxon elements.

Another professor known throughout Southern Methodism as a teacher was Dr. A. W Jones, who married my mother's youngest sister, Caroline Blanch. She died at Randolph-Macon College, and was borne to her burial by the students, young McTyeire being one of the pall-bearers. Dr. A. W Jones came to Tennessee and located in Jackson, Madison County. He was President of the Memphis Conference Female Institute from 1849 to :^93' a l°ng and noble record. In 1898 his son, Dr. Amos Blanch Jones, was elected President, and is a worthy successor of his honored father.

My grandfather, Ezekiel Alfred Blanch, was a soldier of the American Revolution, and a patriot of the purest type. The words "soldier" and "patriot" are sometimes used synonymously, but they do not etymologically, nor frequently, in fact, signify the same thing. A soldier is not so high an order of man. A patriot is one who loves his country. A soldier may or may not. He was at first a hireling and fought for pay. Many do yet. Before my grandfather's death he had all his papers burned that might secure for him or his descendants a pension, saying: "I fought for patriotism, not for pay !" Would there were more such! Then would this body of death — the pension bureau — cease to be a stench in the nostrils of the nation !

I am glad that my people — not only kinfolks, but the South — have from the first stood for education. My great-grandfather, Rev. Edward Dromgoole, was a trustee of Ebenezer Academy, one of the oldest academies in the New World. It still stands, a monument to the fidelity of the fathers. A picture of it can be seen in 4 The History of Randolph- Macon College," by Capt. Richard Irby.

The fullness of time has come when the South should have recognition of her rights and of her work in the cause of education — of so-called public education, or secular, and of Christian education, or that received in Church schools, Protestant Church schools. The record of the South in voluntary taxation for the education of her former slaves, the freedmen, is without a parallel in history. Yet while songs are sung and paeons of praise given to a great and prosperous section for gifts to institutions called for the donors, coming from overfull money chests and not significant of self-denial or sacrifice, nothing is said of the suffering taxpayer at the South, who takes his place at the plow or in the cotton field, while his one-time African slave shades himself under an umbrella and goes to school.

This in passing : In the history of our schools, I know of no two that have done more for God and for humanity than Randolph-Macon College and the Memphis Conference Female Institute. A history of the two is almost a history of Southern Methodism. The one has given us scholars, statesmen, soldiers, patriots, preachers, lawyers, judges, bishops — I came near writing Presidents; well, presidents of many schools — men gracing every station in life. The other has polished our daughters after the similitude of a palace — a building whose foundation and corner stone is Christ Jesus our Lord — a palace resplendent with the virtues that make and adorn Christian womanhood.

Among the early annual addresses for the institute, I note many names of distinction in Church and in State. The first was by Dr. A. W Jones himself, followed next year by Rev. Lorenzo Lee, of Virginia ; then come a succession of stars, one star not differing from another in glory, but in degree. But time would fail me to give the names of all those courtly doctors of divinity, of the beloved bishops, of the plain preachers, and of the masters of law and bachelors of art, many of whom came from the ranks, wrote their own diplomas, and compelled the world to sign them.

And this has from the first been the glory of Methodism. While born in a university, she has been such a training school for the apostles that the fisherman from the lake shore, unlettered and ignorant, has learned to preach with Paul, to water with Apollos, while God has given the increase.

I cannot close this chapter without a tear to the memory of our ascended chief pastors whose names grace the list of commencement speakers — viz., Bishop Robert Paine, D.D., Bishop D. S. Doggett, D.D., Bishop E. M. Marvin, D.D., Bishop Kavanaugh, D.D., all of whom died in the faith, giving glory to God. With one exception I knew them all personally, in the home, where men are best known, and I esteemed them very highly for their work's sake.

Bishop Kavanaugh was the most congenial of fireside guests, abounding in anecdote, of which he was a master at recital. In the pulpit he was sometimes unexcelled, unapproachable. I heard him once when, in a grand flight of oratory, he so moved the great audience that they rose involuntarily and stood listening with bated breath.

Bishop Paine had all the courtly graces of a Christian knight, and none knew better than he how to> wield the sword of the Spirit in defense of his most holy faith. I have heard my father say that in the old camp meeting days he had seen the whole mountain moved at his preaching, just as the hills nodded at the matchless music of Apollo's harp.

Bishop Wightman was suave, scholarly, easily entertained, and exceedingly entertaining. He was indeed a minister of consolation to many, both from the pulpit, where he magnified the grace of the gospel, and in the homes of sickness, sorrow, and death.

Bishop Marvin was the saintliest man I ever knew, yet wholly unpretentious in his piety I have no better word to express my impression of the man than spirituality. You felt it so soon as you were in his presence. It was, in some sense, the feeling of the devout Jewish poet,

And always when I felt thee nigh, My shoes were off my feet !

In contact with other men his touch was vital. As illustrative, I give elsewhere that noble tribute by Dr. Thomas O. Summers, Jr. Who among the old preachers does not recall Bishop Marvin's rapt expression as he would sing :

"O come, angel band ; Come and around me stand ; O bear me away on your snowy wings To my immortal home?"

CHAPTER III. At Church and Camp Meeting — Some Happenings

My earliest recollections of myself are very vivid. My father had a delightful home in the country, about eight miles south of Murfreesboro, on what was known as the Middleton Road. All the surroundings and environments were the best. The life after the lights and shadows of so many years of wandering seems almost idyllic.

I recall the names of old neighbors. I see them in their homes of peace and plenty, or mingling with each other pleasantly in social life, exchanging greetings on the highway or at the church door on week-day meetings. Across the fields I hear the old plantation songs sung by care-free negroes at work with hoe or plow or picking cotton. At night, while the mellow moonlight floods field and forest, I hear afar off the baying of hounds and the hunter's call, while from the cabins comes the sound of spinning wheels, and in perfect tune and time some camp meeting song; for the summer is past and all "the house-hands" and many from the cabins have been to camp meeting and have learned the new songs, and have added thereunto, until, set going, there is no stopping. I used to go to these camp meetings dressed in my best clothes, (which were duly admired) and not feeling half so comfortable as I would have done in common ones.