Text from Challen's Monthly, March 1858, pages 109-111. This online edition © 1998, James L. McMillan.

A FEW words we deem necessary to accompany the portrait of John Smith, an old and well-tried minister of the Gospel in Kentucky, and extensively known in the West. Indeed, he possesses such a marked character, and so many side-points, and angles, that it is generally believed that he is the veritable John of all the Smith family. Be this as it may, we have never seen or known one of the family more worthy of the name John than he; and in the whole compass of our horizon, wherever the patronymic of this extensive family of families is called, the only John worthy of the name and fulfilling all that we conceive of so ubiquitous a character, is the one whose portrait, from an ambrotype, we present to our readers.

John Smith was born in Sullivan county, East Tennessee, October 15th, 1784. His parents, George and Rebecca Smith, were raised in the state of Virginia, on James River. Having passed through the Revolutionary War, near its close they moved to Tennessee, the place in which he was born.

When he was twelve or thirteen years of age, what is now called the Green River Country, in the state of Kentucky, was then beginning to be settled. His father in 1796 emigrated from East Tennessee to this region of the state, and settled in what is now called Clinton county.

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It was his fortune to be raised in a new country, filled with wild animals, bold hunters, sturdy yeomanry, and friendly Indians. His parents were both regular Baptists of the old school, belonging to a church founded upon that venerable symbol--the Philadelphia Confession of Faith. They were Calvinists after the strictest kind.

In a communication to me he thus writes: "In the year 1801, I became deeply concerned on the subject of religion. My serious impressions wore off, and for a while I tried to be skeptical, and to be a Universalist, and so went on amidst the vanities of youth until about the beginning of 1804. On the 20th March that year my father died. My good Calvinistic mother would often say to me: ‘John, you will have to await the Lord's time for your conversion.'"

He united with the Baptist church in December following. He married in 1806, and in June 1807 he was licensed to preach by the Baptist church, and ordained in 1808. In October 1814 he removed with his family to Madison county, Alabama. At that time the war with Great Britain was in progress.

He was at this time the father of four children, the eldest a son, the others daughters; and on the night of the 7th June, 1815, his house was burnt, with all its effects and two of his children. The effect of this occurrence has cast an air of sadness around a heart naturally as buoyant and as cheerful as any one ever possessed. The shadow of this great calamity will follow him to the grave.

He writes: "At that time a disease called the ‘cold plague' prevailed in that country. On the 17th of April my wife died; and about the 20th I was attacked with that awful complaint. This is all the death-like spell of sickness I have ever had." His two children were taken sick--he in a strange country. "There are many things," he adds, "connected with this distressing scene that I cannot name here." He married again December 1815, and moved with his family to Montgomery county, Kentucky. With his present wife he has lived forty-three years. His religious views underwent an entire change under the

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writings and preaching of A. Campbell, with whom he associated in the great reformation in the West, and still continues an untiring laborer in the cause.

To show the extent of his labors in 1828, he delivered five hundred and twenty-three discourses, besides numerous exhortations, had three public debates, and baptized with his own hands seven hundred and five persons on profession of their faith in Christ, and in addition to this brought over sixteen hundred Baptists to his views. A majority of the association to which he belonged embraced the doctrine which he taught. In 1829 he constituted the churches at Sharpsburg and Owingsville, and brought into the reformation the churches at North Middletown, Mount Sterling, Spencer's Creek, etc.

He thus writes: "In the eventful year of 1828, my wife hired a man to plough; and, besides attending to household affairs, she often took the hoe and went into the field herself, to assist in making bread for the family." This was the year in which he accomplished the herculean labors as above stated. We doubt whether anything of modern times can equal them.

He and John Rogers, Senior, were the first two evangelists under this new organization sent out to Kentucky. His present residence is in Georgetown, Kentucky, but he continues to visit a church near Mount Sterling monthly, a distance of forty miles. His general health is remarkably good for one of his age, and his mind and memory seem as active and vigorous as ever.

We know that his picture and this little sketch will be grateful to the thousands in Israel, and to his numerous friends and admirers over the West and South, in which he has lived, and labored, and travelled.

James Challen