The life and times of Rev. John G. Landrum

Front matter

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M.

Vi

Introduction

pages, which had been prepared at the expense of much time and labor, in order that the price of the book might be brought within the limits that had been fixed.

In this reduction of material, I have tried to discard that which I thought would be of least interest to the general reader, and to retain that which was most closely connected with the subject in hand. Hoping that my labor may not have been altogether in vain, I now submit the little book to the consideration of a generous public.

H. P. GRIFFITH.

Cooper-Limestone Institute, i¥arcMM, 1885.

LIFE

OP

Ret. JOHN G. LANDRUM,

Chapter I. The Landrum Family

rpHE name of Laudrum has become quite a familiar -*- one in many parts of our country. Especially is the name conspicuous in the annals of the Baptists of the South and West. Seldom has the Baptist brotherhood come together in large assemblies in the sections just named^ during the last quarter of a century, when there was not a Landrum there to take a prominent part in the proceedings, and to advocate the cause of Jesus Christ. Many of the name are to be found in and around Richmond, Va., Louisville, Ky., in Edgefield, S. C, and in various parts of Georgia. They are generally Baptists, and highly respectable wherever found ; many of them are wealthy and of high social position. So far as known they all believe that they sprung from the same stock. Dr. John Landrum, of Edgefield, S. C, writes :

"I have heard my father, Rev. John Landrum, say

that his father, Samuel Landrum, told him that the original Landrums were two brothers, who came over from Scotland and settled in Virginia; one named John and the other James. James remained in Virginia^ and John^ my great-grandfather, moved to Chatham county, N. C, where my father was born May 10th, 1765. My grandfather, Samuel Landrum had five sons, John (my father), George, Amos, Reuben and Abner. They are all dead, and only a part of the descendants of my father and Reuben remain in Edgefield. Reuben Landrum had two distinguished sons, John Morgan and G. W. Landrum.

"John Morgan, after graduating with high honors in the South Carolina College, went West, finally to Shreveport, La., and became a leading lawyer and politician of that State. He was elected Judge and afterward a member to the last U. S. Congress before the Avar.

"My grandfather, Samuel Landrum, emigrated to South Carolina, about the year 1773, and settled near Edgefield C. H. before the Revolutionary War.^^

We append also a letter from the Rev. Dr. Sj^lvanus Landrum, of New Orleans, written to Dr. J. B. O. Landrum on hearing of the death of the subject of this memoir. It is mainly a letter of sympathy, but gives some interesting particulars in regard to the Landrum family.

"New Orleans, 8th Feb., 1882.

" Dear Brother : — I had read notices of your father's death in several papers before the arrival of your letter. I felt much moved when I first heard of

THE LANDRUM FAMILY.

his death. It was, however, a blessed aud glorious translation for him. Having spent fifty years in the ministry, and having baptized five thousand converts, it was time to enter the complete, satisfying, and eternal rest. Blessed reunion with those who had gone before him! He went, too, so quickly — so gloriously !

" I wrote him just before leaving Georgia, and I am glad that I did so. He never replied, but I presume he received my letter.

'' I look back with much pleasure to the visit I made you all, and to my conversations with him. You may remember the horse-back ride we made to his church, and by way of your house.

" My information (and his agreed with mine) is, that nearly or quite all the Landrums in the South and Southwest sprang from four brothers from Wales, who, in Colonial times, settled in Virginia. Their descendants are numerous in the South and West. My grandfather's name was Thomas, and he came just after the war of 1776 to Georgia, settling in Oglethorpe county. In_ that county both my father and myself were born. My forefathers were from the family that resided in Orange county, Va.

" The family from which your father descended came also from Virginia, but settled in South Carolina. From there he removed to Tennessee in 1828. He and I traced the same family names ; as, John, Thomas, Samuel, etc., and the same characteristics and tendencies. Nearly all kept to the Baptist denominationr — many of them were deacons and preachers. As preachers, they had

S LIFE OF BEV. JOHN G. LANDRUM,

sornething of the old Welsh fire and unction. They were generally quiet in society and tending to taciturnity. Your father mentioned an instance of this tendency. A brother rode fifteen miles to see his brother. On arrival they made mutual inquiries as to health ; then passed an hour in perfect silence, and the visit ended with goodbyes. My brother had the early history of our family, but his death deprived me of it. I regret that I cannot be more specific. Do give our love to all the family. Dr. Furman is just the man for the memorial sermon. God bless you.

The writer of the above letter, Rev. Sylvanus Landrum, D. D., formerly of Memphis, Tenn., but now of New Orleans, it will be seen, is a grandson of Thomas Landrum, who settled in Oglethorpe county, Ga., just after the Revolutionary War. Among other descendants of Thomas, we may mention Rev. M. M. Landrum, M.D., of Tryon City, N. C, and Rev. W. W. Landrum, of Richmond, Va.

Reuben Landrum, a brother of Thomas, and grandfather of the subject of this memoir, settled near Cross Keys, Union county, S. C, where he married a Miss Terrel, who was related to the Wilkins family of Union and Spartanburg counties. He is represented as having been a good citizen, a man of strong though not cultivated mind, and as always standing squarely up for what he considered the best interests of his country. He dropped dead in old age while feeding shucks to his cattle.

He had three sons by his first wife^ Stephen^ James, and Benjamin. Stephen^ the eldest^ was a soldier in the Revolutionary War; but after three months^ service he came home on furlough, and, while sitting in the yard engaged in shaving himself, was shot dead by a party of tories who had come up to the gate.

James, the second son, was of a roving and wayward disposition. He went to North Carolina and married an Indian wife ; and after the Treaty, in ] 827, by which all the Indian lands in Georgia wxre ceded to the United States, he moved with the tribes to the West. His descendants are now mostly in and around Eufala, Indian Territory, and are said to be educated, wealthy, and highly respectable.

Benjamin, the third son, was married, and died in Middle Tennessee.

The second wife of Reuben Landrum was Miss Mary Ray, sister of Rev. Thomas Ray, of whom we shall have something to say hereafter. By this second wife he raised five sons and four daughters. Their names were Merriman, Thomas, William, Samuel, John, Bessie, Esther, Winnie and Martha. These all married, and raised respectable families. One of the sons, William, served in the '' Creek Indian War^^ under Gen. Andrew Jackson. Another, Samuel, was murdered by a highwayman near Athens, Ga. His murderer was arrested, and, after making a full confession of his crime, was publicly executed. Merriman, Thomas, John, Benjamin, and their sisters, Bessie and Esther, moved to Middle Tennessee about the year 1806. Tennessee was then a frontier State^ and its fertile soil and fine climate induced many South Carolinians to make it the place of their abode. The beautiful city of Nashville was laid out and founded by a colony from South Carolina.

We have said that the Landrums were generally Baptists ; but about this time a great controversy sprang up among the churches of Tennessee and other Western States^ and ere long the denomination was divided into two sects — one calling themselves Primitive Baptists^ but more generally known as Hardshells. They opposed all missionary work and denounced a paid ministry^ claiming that there is no Scriptural authority for either. The other sect were styled Missionary Baptists^ and^ as the name would indicate^ held it to be the duty of their church not only to contribute of their means to the support of the Gospel at home^ but to send it to foreign lands^ even to the uttermost parts of the earth. This division still exists in many of the Western States and the two sects are as far apart as Jew and Gentile.

Of the four Landrum brothers who made Tennessee their home, two, John and Merriman, became Missionary Baptist preachers.

John was for many years the pastor of Mount Pleasant church in Rutherford county, Tenn. He was a man of respectable preaching abilities, and was greatly beloved for his pure Christian life and character. He died in the pulpit, in full armor, at a good old age. Rev. S. C. Reid, pastor of Mount Pleasant church, thus describes his death :

THE LANDBUM FAMILY. 11

" I was at the Rover Baptist church on Sunday. He rose to preachy and had taken his text in PauPs letter to Timothy, ' I have fought the good fight ; I have finished my course, and hencefiDrth there is a crown of righteousness laid up for me/ and had been talking only a few minutes, when he took his seat, and fell over dead.'^

His bones rest in the Mt. Pleasant church-yard, and it is inscribed on his tombstone that he was ordained '' a Minister of the Gospel of the Missionary Baptist Church in 1834."' He was born in 1800 ; consequently, he was thirty-four years old when he was ordained to the ministry. Perhaps one of the most pleasant acts that this good man ever performed was the baptizing of his mother, with his own hands, when she was seventy years old.

Merriman was the eldest son of Reuben Landrum, and a peculiar interest attaches to him as the father of John G. Landrum, the subject of this book.

Merriman was born about the close of the Revolutionary war, near Cross Keys, Union county, S. C, on the north side of Tyger river, eleven or twelve miles west of Union C. H., on land now owned by Coleman Lawson. The educational advantages that came within his reach were slender indeed ; but such as they were he improved to the best of his ability, and possessing strong natural powers, he came to be a man far above the average in intelligence, moral force, and all the elements that constitute a strong and decided character. He married in South Carolina in the year 1805, and moved the next year^ as has been stated, to Middle Tennessee.

Not wishing to purchase land until he had had time to look around over the country, he lived for a time in the house with Newton Cannon, who was then a bachelor, and Surveyor-General of Tennessee. He was afterward Governor of the State. Being at this time engaged in surveying lands, he was away from home the greater part of his time, and Merriman Landrum assumed control of his business affairs about home, while Mrs. Landrum became the matron of the household. Husband and wife, it seems, both performed their duties to the entire satisfaction of Gen. Cannon. It is told that the coming governor sometimes complained in jest that Mrs. Landrum had not patched his clothes as she should have done, while the clothes exhibited many conspicuous specimens of her handiwork. The general carried his gun with him on his surveys, and kept the table supplied with fresh venison through the greater part of the year.

The warmest attachment sprang up between the bachelor and Landrum, which was severed only by death. They visited each other often, and after the death of Landrum, Cannon, then Governor of the State, paid his widow a special visit of sympathy and condolence.

Landrum purchased land and began life as a farmer in 1807. He proved to be a first-class farmer and made a good living. He was one of the first Baptist preachers in Williamson county, Tenn. ; but whether he was ordained in South Carolina or Tennessee, we have not been able to learn. It is certain that he preached in

South Carolina^ but it may have been only when on a visit to this State. John H. Walker, Esq., wrote of him : " He preached at least twice at my father's house in Union county, S. C. I heard him both times. He was a forcible, old-time preacher, making good use of his lungs and arms.''

Job Cooper of Tennessee writes : '' He w^as a good preacher, and stood as high in the estimation of the people as any man I was ever acquainted with."

His worthy son said of him, long after his death : "He was a Baptist preacher of respectable preaching powers, and of much personal influence, both as a minister and as a citizen." He was in politics a Jeffersonian Republican, or as known in later times a Democrat, and his influence seems to have been courted by many of the leading politicians of his State. James K. Polk frequently made his house a stopping-place, and other prominent men of the day sought and enjoyed his friendship and hospitality.

He, too, lies buried in the Mt. Pleasant church-yard, having fallen in the prime and vigor of manhood. The following is the inscription on his tomb :

" Sacred to the memory of Merriman Land rum, born 12th July, A.D. 1774, and departed this life 28th July, 1826. He has left an aifectionate wife and nine children, with a numerous connection, and many friends to lament his last days. As a husband and parent, he was affectionate ; as a citizen, upright ; as a politician, he was a steadfast Republican ; as a minister of the gospel, universally esteemed."

The widow, Mrs. Delilah Landrum, who survived him many years, was the daughter of Ralph Jackson, Esq., a highly respected citizen of Union county, S. C. He was the great-grandfather of the late William Walker, A. 8. H., and John H. Walker, Esq., of Spartanburg. One of his sons, Nathaniel, Avas a soldier of the Revolution, and carried a scar on his face, caused by a gun-shot wound, to his grave. He was also a soldier of the Cross, and a Baptist preacher.

Delilah was the only daughter, and while she received only such education in books as the neighborhood afforded, she imbibed what was better — early lessons of piety, affection and filial duty ; and she grew up to be a woman of great dignity and moral power. Mrs. Elizabeth Cooper writes of her : " She was as good a woman as ever lived ; well beloved by all that knew her. She was an exception — was kind and good to everybody.^^

The following incident is told as illustrating her selfpossession and independence of character : During her widowhood, there was a church near her home in Tennessee, of a different faith and order from that to which she belonged. She seldom attended its meetings ; but once was prevailed on to accompany her little daughter, Mary, to a meeting at night. It was during a term of heated revival in the church, and there was great excitement in the congregation. The preacher soon rose to fever heat, and his audience indicated their sympathy by shouts and groans, and many other noisy demonstrations. When the excitement had reached its climax, the preacher, in the tones of a trumpet, demanded that all who wanted

THE LANDEUM FAMILY, 15

to go to heaven should rise from their seats and clap their hands. The whole congregation, with the single exception of Mrs. Landrum, rose and gave the required response. The quick eye of the preacher noted the defalcation, and he immediately added : '' And all who want to go to hell, will please keep their seats/^ Mrs. Landrum still calmly kept her seat to the great horror of the zealous worshipers, and especially to that of the little daughter, Mary. The latter, on reaching home, came to her mother with a heavy heart, and, in childish simplicity, said : '' Mother, do you want to go to hell f^ " No, my child,^^ replied Mrs. Landrum ; ^^ but that preacher is not my captain. God knows the hearts of all his people, and it is not necessary to make unnatural and unbecoming demonstrations in order merely to gratify the curiosity of others.^^

This noble woman, the mother of John Gill Landrum, lived to an advanced age. During the last few years of her life, she lived in the house with her daughter, Mrs. Ballenger, in Eusk county, Texas, having moved to that county with her son-in-law, Mr. R. Alexander, about the year 1858. She lies buried in the church-yard of New Prospect, Rusk county, Texas. Her end was as peaceful as a declining summer day, and the faith upon which she had leaned through a long life never shook nor faltered. A short while before she died, while lying quietly, and apparently noticing nothing, her daughter gently approached her and asked if she wanted anything. She replied, " I know what you are trying to find out. You want to know whether I am

16 LIFE OF REV. JOHN G. LANDBVM.

afraid to die. Let me tell you, it has been thirty years since I was afraid to die. My only care now is for my children, and I am now praying my last prayer for them. Poor John ! I have for a long time tried to hold him up in my prayers. I never forget him.^^

Who knows but that the magic power which John often Avielded over his congregations in South Carolina had its secret source in Texas, in the great depths of the dear old mother^s heart !

The names of her nine children were Elizabeth, John Gill, James, Sarah, William Riley, Harriet, Azariah Keimbro, Mary and Merriman.

The account of the Landrum family would be very incomplete without a brief notice of each one of these.

Elizabeth, the eldest, was born in 1808. She married Job Cooper, a good man and a highly-respected citizen. At the date of this writing she and her husband are still living in Hamilton county, Texas, and are both pious members of the Presbyterian Church. They are the parents of five sons and two daughters, only three of whom are alive. Four of their boys lost their lives in defence of the South in the late war. One of them, Geo. W. Cooper, was a field officer under Gen. Hood, and was killed near Atlanta, Ga. Their children that are living, and many of their grandchildren, are wealthy, educated, and of high social position.

James, the next son to John Gill, was, unlike his elder brother, a stout hardy boy, and was thought to be able to push his way through the world without any aid from books. He left home at the age of fifteen years, married at sixteen, and raised a large family of bright boys and girls. He made three trips to California, the first in 1851, the second in 1856, and the third in 1859, carrying some of his family with him each trip. He and his sons went largely into the raising of improved long-wool sheep and Cashmere goats. He died in California in the year 1875. Sarah now lives in Rutherford county, Tenn. She was an unusually bright and intelligent girl, and received a good education in Salem High School. She was married, at the age of twenty-five, to Cullen Taylor, an enterprising and well-to-do farmer, with whom she lived happily until deprived of him by death. She now lives with her son, James M. Taylor, who is a popular and highly-respected man in his community.

William, the fifth child, now lives in Alabama. He left the home of his mother when only fourteen years old, to battle with the world, and went to Georgia, where he married, and for a time followed the business of a millwright, and afterward that of a railroad contractor. By energy and attention to business he acquired a competency of this world^s goods, and is now a useful and honored citizen.

Harriet married Ralph J. Alexander, son of Angus Alexander, of Union, S. C, and a remarkably good man. She and her husband are both dead, and only one of their children, a daughter, survives, who lives now in Texas. Keimbro raised a large family and lives in Gillespie county, Texas. He is a Campbellite preacher of respectable powers and good standing.

The eighth child of the family is Mrs. Mary Ballenger^ widow of Thos. Ballenger^ and lives in Eusk county, Texas, with her son, John Landrum Ballenger, a young man of much promise. She is an affectionate, pious, and self-sacrificing woman, noted for her kind ministrations to the suffering and distressed throughout the community in which she lives.

Merriman Landrum, Jr., the ninth and last child of the family, now lives in Grayson county, Texas. He is a successful farmer and useful citizen. The care of his widowed mother devolving mainly upon him from boyhood had the effect of curtailing the educational advantages which he might otherwise have enjoyed. Still, he so improved the advantages that came within his reach as to become a man of more than ordinary intelligence. He is clear-headed and self-reliant, and acts upon his own judgment.

Chapter II

EARLY LIFE OF JOHN G. LANDRUM.

■pEV. JOHN GILL LANDRUM, named for the

J-^ great Bible commentator^ was the oldest son of

Rev. Merriman Landrum^ who, as has been said in the

preceding chapter, emigrated from Union District (as it

was then called), S. C, to Williamson, now Rutherford

county, Tenn., in the year 1806, where John was born

on the 22d of October, 1810. The precise place of

his birth is near the present site of Eaglesville, about

thirty miles south of Nashville. His mother's maiden

name, as has also been stated, was Delilah Jackson ; and

this pious, consecrated woman early impressed lessons of

religious and moral obligation upon her son, which no

doubt did more toward moulding his character and

shaping the course of his life than all the other lessons

of his youth. The parents were not wealthy, but in

easy pecuniary circumstances. They belonged to that

class, the great middle class of society, which comprises

the bone and sinew of the world ; which holds the

resources for which Agur prayed ; and which stocks the

world with preachers, statesmen and heroes. The

father was a man of strong mind and big heart, a natural

preacher, and a man of considerable personal influence

both as a minister and as a citizen,

The country which he had chosen for his home and for the field of his labors was then a frontier country, with a sparse population, and full of all the inconveniences and drawbacks that were usually found by the early settlers of the West. Lands had to be cleared, houses built, roads opened, and all the machinery of newly-organized neighborhoods looked after and put into running order, while many of the common necessities of civilized life were not to be had except at great cost of time and money. But the good man and his wife had entered the Western forest with brave hearts, and they were not to be discouraged or intimidated by the inconveniences to which they were sometimes subjected or the hardships which they sometimes endured. The husband worked on the farm during the week and preached to such crowds as he could collect on Sunday, while the wife did all of her household work, and made the new home musical with the buzz of the spinning-wheel and the clash of the loom. Later, when her children had arrived at proper age for instruction, she would gather the little household around her on Sunday, while her husband was away, and impress upon them such lessons as she could draw from the open Bible and from the unfathomable depths of a mother^s love. Her son often alluded to these lessons in after life as being the very groundwork upon which his character rested ; and to the end of his days, he always cherished the profoundest love and veneration for his mother.

John was a frail, delicate child, and seemed destined to an early grave. It is stated upon good authority that he did not weigh more than eighty-five pounds until some time after he had attained to manhood. His parents considering him too weakly for any employment that required physical exertion^ thought it wise to give him whatever educational advantages it might be in their power to bestow^ and at a very early age, perhaps when he was not more than four or five years old, he was started to school.

Mrs. Elizabeth Cooper, his oldest sister, writes that his father taught the first school to which John ever went, and that John was about five years old at the time. Keimbro Landrum, his brother, says : ^' He entered school at five years of age ; was always at the head of his class ; was the pride and hope of father ; and was loved by all his schoolmates, except a few who were jealous of him on account of his rapid progress.^^

Mr. E. A. Seay, an old citizen of Rutherford county, Tenn., writes : '' I knew him well, and was intimately associated with him in his childhood and early boyhood days. He was my best friend and I was his. He was gentle and mild in his disposition, and of an active, enquiring mind ; so much so, that he received the nickname, 'Trigger^ from some of his schoolmates of a different turn of miud — an appellation which I considered complimentary, but which was very distasteful to John^s sensitive nature.^^

It may be remarked here that through life John G. Landrum never had any relish for jokes or nicknames. Indeed, anything of the kind was exceedingly distasteful to him. It is doubtful whether, in the whole course of his ministry^ he ever told an anecdote or uttered a word from the pulpit that was calculated to provoke even a smile among his hearers. In the social circle he was easy and fluent^ sometimes even lively and hilarious^ but never indulging in jokes at the expense of others^ or giving countenance even to playful allusions which, when viewed in a serious light, might be calculated to wound the feelings of another. In the pulpit, his words were always in keeping with the importance of his mission, and his whole demeanor comported well with the dignity and solemnity of the occasion.

His disrelish for jokes must have been a serious inconvenience to him in his boyhood days. The school-boy who is at all sensitive to the jokes of his play-fellows has a hard time of it in youth ; for he is at the mercy of every boy that owes him a grudge or envies him his standing. He may shine in the class recitation, and the dunces may all cower in his shadow; but woe and humiliation await him on the play-ground, where the veriest blockhead can wield a weapon that cuts to the heart, and pierces to the very marrow of his bones. Only he who was so unfortunate in his youth as to disclose to his school-fellows something in his constitution and temperament which made him a target for the shafts of school-boy ridicule can sympathize with the little Tennessee school-boy, under the great weight of misery and mortification which the merciless boys imposed upon him in the appellation of " Trigger." It is told by a brother that, twenty years afterward, when the little boy had grown to be a great and good man, and was on a visit to his mother^ one of the old schoolmates came to the door, and, in rather a blustering manner, inquired for " Trigger/^ Immediately a voice that was then well known replied from within, " Trigger declines to see you, sir."

When John was six or seven years old, a circumstance occurred which came well nigh cutting short the hopes of parents, and ending his own frail existence. He being the oldest son, w^as frequently sent to the mill, several miles away, on a sack of grain thrown across a horse^s back. On one occasion, when his father was away, his mother found it necessary to send him to the mill, though the day was bitterly cold, and the ground was covered with snow. The mill was crowded with customers, and he had to wait for his turn to come. Night came on, and he failed to return home. His father being absent, his mother set out with a blanket in the darkness to meet him. She found him lying at the root of a tree by the roadside in a stupefied and half-frozen condition. The little fellow had become benumbed with cold, and had fallen from his horse, and the life-blood was almost congealed when the distressed mother grasped him in her arms and pressed him to her bosom. The faithful horse stood near by, and the sack of meal was still on his back.

The little boy was carried home in his mother's arms, and his life was with difficulty saved. He carried to his grave a scar about one ear, caused by that fall from his horse. This sketch would not be a faithful one, did we not mention the fact, that soon after John Landrum had come to South Carolina^ and had begun to preach the gospel^ he became the victim of a cruel and relentless persecution ; and^ among other things^ his persecutors alleged that he had fled from justice in Tennessee^ and that the scar mentioned above was the mark of a rope that had once been tied around his neck for crime.