EV. WILLIAM CRANK was born in the year 1770, in Louisa county, Virginia, and died in Halifax county, the 8th day of April, 1854, in the eighty-fifth year of his age. He had resided in Halifax county since the year 1812. In his native county at an early age he made a "profession of the religion of Christ and joined the Methodist Episcopal Church." It is said, "Here Brother Crank saw good times and spent a part of the prime of his life, and during this time he married his first wife." After moving to Halifax county, in 1812, he became a class-leader and exhorter, and "giving such full and clear demonstration of a call to his holy work, he was licensed to preach the gospel of the Son of God and, I dare say, in every place where he went God gave him souls for his hire."

      In 1836, he joined the Christian Church, and shortly after was ordained to the office of Elder in the Church. "He was a man of strong mind, more than ordinary--and indeed such was his ardent and burning zeal that frequently he not only preached in power and demonstration of the Spirit, but eloquently and under such powerful influence, that poor sinners were made to tremble and to cry for pardon in the name and blood of Christ, while Christians were so animated and so strengthened they were willing, with him, to press the [58] battle to the very gates." He attended the General Meeting of the North Carolina and Virginia Conference, held at Lebanon (Old), in Surry county, Virginia, in 1839. It was said of him when he died that a great and good man has left this "world of trials and difficulties to enjoy the peaceful presence of the great God." "At the great day for which all other days were made, many of the redeemed and sanctified will bless God and the Lamb that Brother Crank was ever commissioned to preach the gospel of salvation to a lost and ruined world. He then will rejoice that he made so many and great sacrifices, traveled and preached so long and faithfully; when he shall see the many he has brought to Christ, and Christ shall present them to the Father, clothed in the lily white robe with the bright crown upon their heads." He continued to labor as an Elder in the Church to the time of his death. He left a treasury full of good examples of piety to the churches to which he ministered. It is desired that some one may yet collect some of the incidents in the life of this good man to be preserved for others to reflect and meditate upon.

      He left an aged wife, seventy or seventy-five years old, who has long since passed over the river. He reared a large family.

      In 1854, at the Conference at O'Kelly's chapel in Chatham county, this resolution was adopted: "Whereas, since our last session of this Conference, it hath pleased Almighty God to call from labor to reward our much esteemed brethren William Crank and John T. Petty, heretofore members of this Conference; therefore, Resolved, That we as member of this Conference will cherish with Christian love and regard the memories of those departed brethren, and do hereby tender to the surviving friends and relatives our sincere condolence and sympathy for their loss." [59]

[LCM 58-59]