The original Cane Ridge Meeting House within the Stone Memorial Building
The Cane Ridge Revival was a large camp meeting that was held in Cane Ridge, Kentucky, from August 6 to August 12 or 13, 1801.[1][2] It was the "[l]argest and most famous camp meeting of the Second Great Awakening."[3] This camp meeting launched a multitude of smaller camp meetings on the frontier. In turn they stimulated a deeply personalized religious experience of salvation in hundreds of thousands of men and women.[4]
It was based at the Cane Ridge Meeting House near Paris (Bourbon County) and drew between 10,000 and 20,000 people.[2][5]
According to The Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement, logistical considerations make it unlikely that more than 10,000 could have been present at any one time, but 20,000 could have attended the meeting at some time during the week, which would have been "nearly 10 percent of the recorded population of Kentucky in 1800".[2] At least one, and possibly more, speaking platforms were constructed outside the building because the number of attendees far exceeded the capacity of the meeting house.[2][3]
The meeting was hosted by the Presbyterian church at Cane Ridge and its minister, Barton W. Stone.[2] The church decided to invite other local Presbyterian and Methodist churches to participate in its annual Communion service.[2] Ministers from Presbyterian, Methodist and Baptist backgrounds participated.[2][3] Eighteen Presbyterian ministers participated, as well as numerous Methodists and Baptists, but the event was based on Scottish traditions of Holy Fairs or communion seasons.[6]
The meeting began on a Friday evening with preaching continuing through Saturday, and the observation of communion beginning on Sunday.[2] Traditional elements included the "large number of ministers, the action sermon, the tables, the tent, the successive servings" of communion, all part of the evangelical Presbyterian tradition and "communion season" known in Scotland.[7] An estimated 800 to 1,100 received communion.[2] During the meeting multiple ministers would preach at the same time in different locations within the camp area, some using stumps, wagons and fallen trees as makeshift platforms.[2]
^Wayne Shaw, "The Historians' Treatment of the Cane Ridge Revival." Filson Club Historical Quarterly 37 (1963): 249-55.
^ abcdefghijDouglas Allen Foster and Anthony L. Dunnavant, The Encyclopedia of the Stone–Campbell Movement: Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Christian Churches/Churches of Christ, Churches of Christ, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2004, ISBN0-8028-3898-7, ISBN978-0-8028-3898-8, 854 pages, entry on Cane Ridge Revival, pages 165-166
^ abcReid, D. G., Linder, R. D., Shelley, B. L., & Stout, H. S. (1990). Dictionary of Christianity in America. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. Entry on Cane Ridge Revival
^J. William Frost, "Part V: Christianity and Culture in America," in Christianity: A Social and Cultural History, 2nd Edition, (Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 1998), 430
^Other sources give estimated ranges that extend even higher. The Dictionary of Christianity in America says "between ten and twenty-five thousand" and Monroe Hawley in Redigging the Wells says "20,000 to 30,000." Reid, D. G., Linder, R. D., Shelley, B. L., & Stout, H. S. (1990). Dictionary of Christianity in America. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. Entry on Cane Ridge Revival and Monroe E. Hawley, Redigging the Wells: Seeking Undenominational Christianity, Quality Publications, Abilene, Texas, 1976, ISBN0-89137-512-0 (paper), ISBN0-89137-513-9 (cloth), page 27
^Schmidt, Leigh Eric. Holy Fairs: Scottish Communions and American Revivals in the Early Modern Period, Princeton University Press: 1989, pp. 64-65
Byars, Ronald P. "Cane Ridge: A Presbyterian Perspective," American Presbyterians 70#3 (1992), pp. 141–150 online
Boles, John B. The Great Revival, 1787-1805: The Origins of the Southern Evangelical Mind (University Press of Kentucky, 1972)
Conkin, Paul Keith. Cane Ridge: America's Pentecost (Univ of Wisconsin Press, 1990) online.
Dunnavant, Anthony L. ed. Cane Ridge in Context: Perspectives on Barton W. Stone and the Revival (Disciples of Christ Historical Society, 1992)
Ford, Bridget.『Beyond Cane Ridge: The 'Great Western Revivals' in Louisville and Cincinnati, 1828–1845.』Ohio Valley History 8.4 (2008): 17–37.
Morrow, Ralph, "The Great Revival, the West, and the Crisis of the Church," in The Frontier Examined, ed. John F. McDermott (U of Illinois Press, 1967).
Park, Jong Hwan. "Decentering the ordo, reclaiming the ordo: Revisiting liturgical theology through the Cane Ridge camp meeting" (PhD dissertation, Graduate Theological Union; ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2011. 3459518).
Shaw, Wayne. "The Historians' Treatment of the Cane Ridge Revival." Filson Club Historical Quarterly 37 (1963): 249–55. online
Williams, D. Newell. Barton Stone (Chalice Press, 2000).
