Mary Rankin Typed Biographical Sketch of John Rankin to Lucien V. Rule, [after 1886]

For Mr. Rule

Rev. John Rankin -
February 4, 1793 - March 18, 1886.

The ancestors of John Rankin were Scotch Presbyterians
from the north of Ireland. Thomas Rankin, his grandfather,
was brought to Pennsylvania when three years old. He and
three of his six sons served in the Revolutionary War, and
then, having sold his farm for worthless Continental money,
he was forced to seek a homestead in Tennessee. His grand-
son describes him as an elder in the church and an honored
example to his family and neighbors. Robert Rankin, his son,
a blacksmith, moved to Jefferson County, Tennessee, with his
wife, Jane Steele, also of Scotch-Irish parentage. There the
son John was born, February 4, 1793.

He says of his parents, "They were members of the Presbyterian
church, and well indoctrinated". Their children were baptized
in infancy and taught the Shorter Catechism. Four sons be-
came ministers. "My father was remarkable for the purity of
his morals. My mother was a woman of strong mental capacity
and one who read much in the Bible and religious books. The
influence of a mother is more impressing than that of a father.
I often found her on her knees in secret prayer and when father
was absent she prayed with the family."

The majority of the settlers were rough, ignorant people
who opposed schools, churches and an educated ministry. So
the Rankin family of ten boys and one girl were taught at
home, and as the well read family library consisted of "The
Bible", some of the writings of the ablest Scotch Divines
and some historical works", they fared better than many others
of the day. An occasional three month's term of school was
held at a crude school house two and a half miles distant. The
school house was "built of round logs. One end of it was built
like the corner of a fence, in which there was a rough stone
wall against which the fire was built of such logs as could
be rolled or carried in. The floor was native earth. A wide
space between two logs formed the place for light. There was
no loft, clapboards weighted down with heavy poles formed
the roof. Our books were Dillsworth's Spelling books, the
new and old Testaments (the new first, then the old). After
that any history might be read. Our Arithmetic was in the
Master's head and sometimes there was none there".

As he grew to manhood, he says - "I wrote articles on various
subjects and cultivated my oratorical capacity by speaking
in the fields and woods where no one could hear me. I read
much in the Bible and books on Theology. The Bible was my
school book, hense I acquired a taste for reading its attractive
style and stupendous miracles."

He did his share of the work on the farm and also learned to
make harness, shoes and many other things needed about the
farm or house. He says - "I would rather make a neat bed in
the garden or a neat pair of shoes than to play. With me it
was generally all work and no play."

At the age of seven he was profoundly moved by the excite-
ment of a religious revival that swept the country and he "
did earnestly desire to experience the realities' of religion
and did practice secret prayer". But he made no profession
because children of that age were not encouraged to do so.
The natural reaction followed and it is described as coldness,
doubt, despair and anguish of spirit. His child mind wrestled
with the ninth chapter of Romans and the doctrines of election
and foreordination and when other young people were chatting
merrily on the way home from church, he would ride, "solemn and
silent as the grave, under a sense of awful truths."