In an article called "Church Fight," Ralph Arnold mentions that at camp
meetings it was not uncommon for fights and brawls to break out.
Settlers took their faith seriously and sometimes mixed politics with it.
Early settlement was during the time of the Restoration Movement, when
separating from the evil influences of the world was advocated and sometimes
carried out to extreme.
On July 3, 1841 the first camp meeting was held for the Methodist circuit,
which included Birmingham, Winchester, Kilbourn(e) and the surrounding
areas. People attended from as far away as Farmington, and Iowaville
in Indian Territory. Elder Henry Summers employed a handsome,
articulate preacher named Joel Arlington, and other preachers involved were
John W. Starr and Robert Hawk. Elijah Purdom (Keosauqua) and John
Spencer (Pittsburg) were in attendance.
As the Civil War approached, slavery and the abolition movement were hot
topics of discussion, which often made people fighting mad. The
Birmingham Methodists disagreed over the issue and divided. Some
settlers from the Old South advocated slavery while others didn't. One
dissenting group that formed their own church headed by Robert Hawk was
called the True Wesleyans.
Abolitionists packed a building to the rafters to hear Judge Joseph Foster
lecture to a group, and both sides were allowed to present arguments.
Soon tempers began to boil. William French and Elias Skinner made
things lively as they came to blows, tumbling on the floor under the
benches. Others in the audience shouted and yelled and those in charge
feared there would be a free-for-all. A blacksmith from Winchester
named James Caldwell jumped out of the window and ran home, afraid he would
either be hurt or hurt someone in the fracas. At the time, several
Methodists withdrew membership and joined the True Wesleyans, which
flourished for awhile, then died out.
Although it is unusual for violence to erupt at church services, it is not
unheard of, particularly at revival meetings. People's zeal can
sometimes outweigh common courtesy and prudence. My aunt, Willa
Fellows Hendricks (1905-2003), once recalled a much later time when as
a very small girl, she accompanied her grandmother, Lovenia Fellows, to a
Free Methodist revival at the Oak Grove Church on the north side of the Des
Moines River, across from the Fellows farms.
In horse and buggy, they forded the river at Kerr's Ford, then proceeded to
the church where the large crowd assembled outside under the trees.
She remembered the preacher ranting and raving about separation from the
world. Tempers flared, accusations were made, and women began ripping
jewelry from off one another, stamping the worldly objects into the ground.
Some pulled the flowers from each other's hair, shouting "Harlot!" as they
accused one another of wicked behavior. She was frightened and hid
within the folds of her grandmother's full skirt.