Little Clues

Do you ever go back to a source you've likely used before and discover a very tiny tidbit of information that changes one of your assumptions about an ancestor. Well, I did last night. I was browsing the Internet for Madison County, Kentucky resources while watching the webinar, Trails of Daniel Boone and Other Western Travelers by J. Mark Lowe.

I came across the book, Glimpses of Historic Madison County, Kentucky on Internet Archive. When I searched the contents of the book for Crawford, I found a paragraph about Rev. James Crawford.

The Presbyterian Church

The first Presbyterian Church in the county was organized by
Rev. James Crawford about 1790 at Round Top, six miles from
Richmond, and was known as the Silver Creek Presbyterian Church.
Seven years later this group united with the Paint Lick Church and
one minister served both congregations. There was a schism in the
Presbyterian as well as practically all other local churches in the
early 1800's as a result of the great religious revival sweeping Ken-
tucky at that time. Many new doctrines were being preached, and
large numbers of those who were once thought to be dependable
followers of the Calvinistic faith, succumbed to the new teachings.
Even the pastor of the above church departed from the Presbyterian
doctrines, became a strong advocate of the bodily exercises often
experienced during the revival and finally became a devout mem-
ber of the Shaker colony, which established itself in a neighboring county
during that period.

At this time, I don't know which James Crawford in the Lincoln-Madison-Garrard area of Kentucky in the 1790s this is referring to. However, this short piece contains several hints that may prove useful.

• This isn't referring to the Rev. James Crawford of the Lexington area since he didn't leave the Presbyterian church.
• About 1790, Rev. James Crawford served at Silver Creek Presbyterian Church at Round Top in Madison County, KY
• About 1797, Rev. James Crawford also served the Paint Lick Church in Garrard County, KY
• Sometime after 1800, Rev. James Crawford left the Presbyterian church and joined a Shaker colony [in a neighboring county]

So, could this Rev. James Crawford be one of the James Crawfords I have been researching? Yes, but it could also be another James Crawford. I will have to follow up on these clues to try and figure out who he is.