CHAPTER XIX
Elder Peck's Removal to Illinois
[p. 65]
At the same time that brethren Peck and Welch were commissioned by the Triennial Convention to labor in the Mississippi valley, in and about St. Louis, Isaac McCoy was commissioned by the same agency to labor in the Wabash valley, in the neighborhood of Vincennes. He was born in Fayette county, Pa., June 13, 1784. His father was a Baptist minister. When Isaac was six years old the family removed to Kentucky. He was converted,in 1800, and soon began to preach. In 1803 he was married to Christina Polke. In 1804 they emigrated to Indiana, settling first at Vincennes, and returning in 1805 to Clarke county, on the Indiana line. There he united with the Silver Creek church, of which his father had formerly been pastor, the only Baptist church at that time in Indiana. By that church he received a formal license to preach. In 1808 he removed to Bruce's settlement, now Bruceville, near Vincennes, and worked at his trade as a wheelmaker. In 1809 he aided in organizing the Maria Creek Baptist church, in Indiana just across the Wabash river from Lawrehce county, Ill., and became its pastor. There he spent eight years, tilling a farm, working at his trade, preaching to the church, and doing what he might for the spiritual destitution around him. In 1816 he presented to his brethren the plan of a society for home and Indian evangelization, two years before brother Peck proposed a similar plan in Illinois.
During 1817 he was an accredited missionary of the convention, but the next year, casting himself on God, he gave himself exclusively to the gospel among the Indians. He opened a mission at Montezuma, 90 miles away, and removed there with his wife and family of seven children. In 1820 they removed to Fort Wayne, 180 miles distant, where was located the Indian Agency. There they remained until 1828, when to escape the whisky trader he secured from the goverument the grant of the Indian Territory and led his people there.
It had always been Mr. McCoy's desire to have Mr. Peck for his associate, and on removing to Fort Wayne he renewed his request. The Board were favorable. It seemed to them at long range to be less necessary on account of the number of churches and preachers already on the ground. They did not realize the importance of giving character
[p. 66]
to those churches while in their formative state. So it came to pass on one fateful Saturday, two months after brother McCoy's arrival at Fort Wayne, July 9, 1820, official intelligence came to the St. Louis missionaries that their mission was closed, "and brother Peck is directed as speedily as practicable to remove to Fort Wayne and join Mr. McCoy in his labors among the Indians."
But Mr. Peck was not at all of that mind. He knew better than the Philadelphia Board the value of the work he was doing. He was as certainly called of the Spirit to help lay the foundations in Illinois, as Mr. McCoy was to be the apostle to the Indians in Indiana. ln a letter written three years afterwards he said: "My mind is often deeply impressed with the thought that I am laboring for the future generations. . . . Under what responsibility should one act who lays the foundation in a new country!" The result was that he resigned his connection with the home Society, and for the next two years did his work and maintained his family as best he could. It was a time of deep trouble for him. His eldest son and his brother-in-law died within two days of each other. His whole family were sick, and he was himself at one time given up to die. He had led in organizing a church and erecting a meeting house in St. Louis, and this now added to his burdens, for debt was incurred which he could not pay. Ultimately the building was sold and the church -- the First Baptist Church of St. Louis -- disbanded. In connection with the church, and at St. Charles north of St. Louis, he had instituted schools; now these also ceased. How during this period the mission families subsisted it would be diffcult to tell, but they had a God who had promised. "Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed." -- Is. 37:3. It is a promise as true at this hour as when first given.
In 1822 he was taken up by the Massachusetts Baptist Missionary Society, the first society in this country for doing home mission work. It was formed in 1802. He was to receive five dollars a week, of which he was to raise what he could on the field. A small support truly, but a reasonably sure one.
On receiving his commission he removed, April 30, 1822, over the river into Illinois, settling on a half section of fine land, unimproved, in St. Clair county, and naming it Rock Spring, from a gushing spring in the limestone about thirty rods from the house. It is sixteen miles from St. Louis, on the straight road to Vincennes. The spring has
[p. 67]
dwindled to a mere trickle, though the creek into which it sent its waters still flows in the old bed. It was a Baptist neighborhood, largely from Georgia, and they aided "the Elder" in his building and spring work. On Sunday, May 26, there was constituted the Rock Spring Baptist church. State senator William Kinney assisted in the organization and preached. The church however did not long continue. In 1825 Rock Spring became a post-office, superceding Cherry Grove. The farmhouse that succeeded the first temporary cabin still stands, and is a substantial dwelling. It shares with the Lemen farmhouse in Monroe county the honor of being a place of Baptist pilgrimage. They are not shrines, or sacraments in brick, but are memorials of two men who did more than any other two men for the Baptist cause in Illinois.
So far, Elder Peck had been received in the most friendly manner by the Baptists of the Illinois Association, and it was his purpose to merit a continuance of the same. But in the associational Query from Wood River church in 1822 a storm was lurking which within two years covered the sky. At its annual meeting in 1824 the association repealed itsprevious friendly action in this style: "Resolved unanimously by this Association, that we view the general conduct and proceedings in this country of those preachers, and especially that of John M. Peck, patronized by the Baptist Board of Foreign Missions, to have been distressing to the brethren, and prejudicial to the cause of Christ amongst the Baptist churches in this Union.
"Resolved, further, that no preacher who has been or shall be patronized by the Baptist Board of Foreign Missions, shall hereafter have a seat in this Association unless he shall have withdrawn himself from their patronage and service." What a change is here! It comes from Daniel Parker on the Wabash, aided by antinomian Baptists of the east. The chief portion of the Circular Letter of the Illinois Union in 1824 was copied from the antimission Philadelphia Reformer. ================= [Edward P. Brand, Illinois Baptists -- A History, 1930, pp. 65-67. -- jrd]
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