John Rankin (abolitionist) - Early Career

Early Career

Rankin was born at Dandridge, Jefferson County, Tennessee, and raised in a strict Calvinist home. Beginning at the age of eight, his view of the world and his religious faith were deeply affected by two things — the revivals of the Second Great Awakening that were sweeping through the Appalachian region, and the incipient slave rebellion led by Gabriel Prosser in 1800. (Hagedorn, pp. 22–23)

He attended Washington College at Jonesborough, and soon after married Jean Lowry. In 1814, he became a Presbyterian minister.

Not a natural public speaker, Rankin worked hard while at Jefferson County Presbyterian Church simply to deliver an effective sermon. Within a few months, however, despite Tennessee's status as a slave state, he summoned the courage to speak against "all forms of oppression" and then, specifically, slavery. He was shocked when his elders responded by telling him that he should consider leaving Tennessee if he intended ever to oppose slavery from the pulpit again. He knew that his faith would not allow him to keep his views to himself, so he decided to move his family to the town of Ripley across the Ohio River in the free state of Ohio, where he had heard from family members that a number of anti-slavery Virginians had settled.

On the way north, Rankin stopped to preach at Lexington and Paris, Kentucky and learned about the need for a minister at Concord Presbyterian Church in Carlisle. The congregation had been involved in anti-slavery activities as far back as 1807 when they and twelve other churches formed the Kentucky Abolition Society, and Rankin's deepening anti-slavery views were nurtured there by his listeners. He remained for four years and started a school for slaves; within a year, however, they were driven first from a schoolhouse to an empty house, and then to his friend's kitchen by club-carrying mobs, and the students finally stopped coming. Spurred by a financial crisis in the area, Rankin decided to complete his family's journey to Ripley. On the night of December 31, 1821 – January 1, 1822, he rowed his family across the icy river.