Born: Pittsylvania County, Virginia, 1756.
Died: Floyd County, Indiana, 1828.
This man was never in Illinois, and he died two years before the dissolution of the Mahoning Association, by which action Alexander Campbell was formally separated from the Baptists. The appearance of this notice of Mr. Nance here would seem to be an anachronism. What, then, is its apology? Probably not more than once in a century have a man's posterity been so impressed by the blood and faith of a great progenitor.
Mr. Nance became a Christian in the Methodist Church in 1773. In 1790 he received license to celebrate the rites of marriage as a Baptist, giving bond for the same with a security in the sum of $2,500. He was married to Mary Jones and they became the parents of twelve children. Their descendants, with their families, now number about thirty-five hundred, and are scattered throughout the middle and far West.
Mr. Nance came from Virginia into Kentucky in 1803, where he stayed about eighteen months. It is highly probable that during this time he met Barton W. Stone, for thereafter to the close of his life he was a steadfast advocate of the principles of the Restoration movement.
Some of his descendants were the Burtons of Woodford County, of whom Mrs. B. B. Tyler is one; the Richardsons of Adams and Woodford Counties, of whom are A. A. and Min. Frank Richardson; John Oatman, the founder of the church at Eureka, married a daughter; the Mitchell, Long, Harber and Nance families all carry the blood of Clement Nance, Sr., as do many others in a less ratio. "Uncle Jimmy Robeson" was his son in the gospel. Most of his posterity have been Disciples of Christ. In a larger or smaller degree the churches at Eureka, Mount Zion (near by), Secor, Bloomington, Lexington, Sterling, Blandinsville and Quincy have received his marvelous impress. He laid his wand of empire on generations and sends his message of high purpose down the ages.