Born: Montgomery County, Kentucky, 1813.Died: Christian County, Illinois, 1890.
Born: Montgomery County, Kentucky, 1813.
Died: Christian County, Illinois, 1890.
Mr. Northcutt was of Welsh extraction and a self-made man. His grandfather, Jeremiah Northcutt, served seven years as a soldier in the Colonial Army and was present at Yorktown at the surrender of Cornwallis. Mr. Northcutt's school privileges were very limited, but his persistent industry fitted him for the work of teaching.
He came to Illinois in the fall of 1836, and for fifty-four years he resided, successively, in Sangamon, Shelby and Christian Counties. He was a successful farmer and stock-raiser and he was a successful preacher as well.
He entered the church in 1843 and the work of the ministry shortly thereafter. With his pioneer neighbors he ate and slept, exchanged work in the harvest-fields, joined in the drives to the markets in the genuine spirit of Christian democracy. With them he toiled and sweat six days in the week, and to them he sweat and preached on the seventh.
But he was not an exhorter. His speech ran evenly and calmly always. He was a man of superior natural powers of mind; analytic, logical, clear and argued with a force peculiarly his own. He was energetic and tireless in the organization and upbuilding of churches among the people of central Illinois, at a time when churches were few and far between, and the visit of a minister of any denomination an event in the community. As illustrating the denominational feelings at the middle of the nineteenth century, he related the following incident:
The Methodist Sunday schools along the Sangamon River westward from Decatur united in the celebration of the Fourth of July in an assembly that convened in one of the inviting natural groves contiguous to that stream. Among the banners carried in the procession was one representing a big frog in the act of jumping into the stream traced below, and across the form of the ugly amphibian was printed the word "Campbellite"! However, Mr. Northcutt cherished well-defined friendships for his oldtime friends.