Cane Ridge Meeting House Memorial Building

Cane Ridge was the site of a huge

camp meeting The camp meeting is a form of Protestant Christian religious service originating in England and Scotland as an evangelical event in association with the communion season. It was held for worship, preaching and communion on the American frontier ...

in 1801, the Cane Ridge Revival, that drew thousands of people and had a lasting influence as one of the landmark events of the

Second Great Awakening The Second Great Awakening was a Protestant religious revival during the late 18th to early 19th century in the United States. It spread religion through revivals and emotional preaching and sparked a number of reform movements. Revivals were a k ...

, which took place largely in frontier areas of the United States. The event was led by eighteen Presbyterian ministers, but numerous

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a Protestant Christianity, Christian Christian tradition, tradition whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother ...

and

Baptist Baptists are a Christian denomination, denomination within Protestant Christianity distinguished by baptizing only professing Christian believers (believer's baptism) and doing so by complete Immersion baptism, immersion. Baptist churches ge ...

preachers also spoke and assisted. Many of the "spiritual exercises", such as

glossolalia Speaking in tongues, also known as glossolalia, is an activity or practice in which people utter words or speech-like sounds, often thought by believers to be languages unknown to the speaker. One definition used by linguists is the fluid voc ...

and ecstatic attendees, were exhibited that in the 20th century became more associated with the

Pentecostal Pentecostalism or classical Pentecostalism is a movement within the broader Evangelical wing of Protestantism, Protestant Christianity that emphasizes direct personal experience of God in Christianity, God through Baptism with the Holy Spirit#Cl ...

movement. Cane Ridge is located in Bourbon County, Kentucky, near

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. The ridge was named by the explorer

Daniel Boone Daniel Boone (, 1734September 26, 1820) was an American pioneer and frontiersman whose exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. He became famous for his exploration and settlement of Kentucky, which was then beyo ...

, who had noticed a form of

bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of mostly evergreen perennial plant, perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily (biology), subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family, in th ...

growing there. The Cane Ridge building and grounds had many unusual aspects. The 1791 Cane Ridge Meeting House is believed to be the largest single-room log structure in North America. The burial ground contains an unmarked section that is among the largest in the country. A Christian church congregation met on the site for many years after the 1801 revival meeting, and the congregation's leaving the Presbyterian Church in 1804. Barton W. Stone was its minister and one of the leading ministers of the Christian Church. This place was so dear to him that at his request, several years after his death, his remains were reinterred there. Led by Barton Stone, the Cane Ridge Revival is associated with the development of what became known as the

Restoration Movement The Restoration Movement (also known as the American Restoration Movement or the Stone–Campbell Movement, and pejoratively as Campbellism) is a Christian movement that began on the American frontier during the Second Great Awakening (1790–1 ...

. Stone and several other ministers left the Presbyterian Church in 1804 and established the

Christian Church In ecclesiology, the Christian Church is what different Christian denominations conceive of as being the true body of Christians or the original institution established by Jesus Christ. "Christian Church" has also been used in academia as a syn ...

. Another element of the Restoration Movement was Alexander Campbell's

Disciples of Christ The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination in the United States and Canada. The denomination started with the Restoration Movement during the Second Great Awakening, first existing during the 19th ...

. In 1832, Stone and Campbell agreed to combine their efforts in the Restoration Movement. Later groups developed as the

Churches of Christ The Churches of Christ, also commonly known as the Church of Christ, is a loose association of autonomous Christian congregations located around the world. Typically, their distinguishing beliefs are that of the necessity of baptism for salvation ...

and the Evangelical Christian Church in Canada,Melton's Encyclopedia of American Religions (2009) and several smaller groups.

Meetinghouse

The Christian Church used a log building as their

meeting house A meeting house (also spelled meetinghouse or meeting-house) is a building where religious and sometimes private meetings take place. Terminology Nonconformist (Protestantism), Nonconformist Protestant denominations distinguish between a: * chu ...

; it was modernized many times. When the congregation ceased to meet there regularly in the 1920s, the building fell into disuse. Later, historically minded persons, predominantly from the Disciples, restored the building and preserved it by building a stone shrine to surround and protect it. The restoration of the original

slave Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...

gallery in the meetinghouse was the oldest documented such restoration in the United States. In the 1820s, the congregation had removed the slave gallery, because they supported

abolitionism Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the political movement to end slavery and liberate enslaved individuals around the world. The first country to fully outlaw slavery was France in 1315, but it was later used in its colonies. ...

. When preservationists began restoration work in the 1930s, they re-installed the original cherry-railed gallery. It was found and returned from a local barn, where it had served as a hay loft for more than a century. File:Cane Ridge Meeting House Interior.JPG, Interior of the original meeting house at Cane Ridge, Kentucky File:Historic Cane Ridge Meeting House Interior.JPG, The original Cane Ridge Meeting House within the Stone Memorial Building File:Barton Stone Grave 46.JPG , Grave of Barton Stone The meeting house continues to be used as a living church. A curator is available for guided tours by appointment. The Barton Warren Stone Museum contains artifacts of the congregation, Barton W. Stone and his family, the Stone-Campbell movement, and antique farm and household equipment. The museum is open only in the summer. It also houses the office of the Cane Ridge Preservation Projects and a book shop.

References

External links

{{Commons category, Cane Ridge Meeting House
The official website of Cane Ridge
Christians (Stone Movement) Religious museums in Kentucky Museums in Bourbon County, Kentucky History museums in Kentucky Presbyterianism in Kentucky 1801 in Kentucky

Meetinghouse

Further reading

References

External links