(c.1758–February 1817), was a pastor of a congregation in Orange County, North Carolina, 1790, and three small congregations in Logan County, Kentucky, 1796. His ministry contributed to the great revivals of 1797, 1798, and 1799, which preceded the Great Revival of 1800. In 1811, he pioneered churches in South Indiana. James McGready wrote A Short Narrative of the Revival of Religion in Logan County in the State of Kentucky and the Adjacent Settlements in the State of Tennessee from May 1797 until 1800.
In 1797, James McGready, together with others in Kentucky, agreed:
Therefore, we bind ourselves to observe the third Saturday of each month for one year as a day of fasting and prayer for the conversion of sinners in Logan County and throughout the world.
We also engage to spend one half hour every Saturday evening, beginning at the setting of the sun, and one half hour every Sabbath morning at the rising of the sun in pleading with God to revive His work.1484
In June of 1800, five hundred members of McGready’s three congregations gathered at Red River for a “camp meeting” which lasted several days. On the final day:
“A mighty effusion of [the] Spirit” came on everyone “and the floor was soon covered with the slain; their screams for mercy pierced the heavens.”1485
In July of 1800, the congregation planned another camp meeting at the Gaspar River. Surpassing their expectations, 8,000 people arrived, some from over 100 miles away. Presbyterian, Baptist and Methodist ministers all worked together. On the third night:
The power of God seemed to shake the whole assembly. Towards the close of the sermon, the cries of the distressed arose almost as loud as his voice. After the congregation was dismissed the solemnity increased, till the greater part of the multitude seemed engaged in the most solemn manner.
No person seemed to wish to go home—hunger and sleep seemed to affect nobody—eternal things were the vast concern. Here awakening and converting work was to be found in every part of the multitude; and even some things strangely and wonderfully new to me.1486
In August of 1801, Barton W. Stone (1772–1844), together with numerous Methodist, Baptist and Presbyterian ministers, planned a camp meeting at Cane Ridge, Kentucky. Over 25,000 people attended from as far away as Ohio and Tennessee. The immensity of this crowd is appreciated when viewed in light of the fact that Lexington, the largest town in Kentucky, had only 1,800 inhabitants. Reverend Moses Hoge described the gathering:
The careless fall down, cry out, tremble, and not infrequently are affected with convulsive twitchings. …
Nothing that imagination can paint, can make a stronger impression upon the mind, than one of those scenes. Sinners dropping down on every hand, shrieking, groaning, crying for mercy, convulsed; professors praying, agonizing, fainting, falling down in distress, for sinners or in raptures of joy! …
As to the work in general there can be no question but it is of God. The subjects of it, for the most part are deeply wounded for their sins, and can give a clear and rational account of their conversion.1487