In
1859 he was the pastor of a Hard-shell Baptist Church, the membership
of which was composed of the best white people in the community. He
was so well prepared for his work that out of a four days' argument
on baptism with a white minister he emerged victor. From this
appreciative congregation he received a salary of from six to seven
hundred dollars a year.[3]
[Footnote 1: Simmons, _Men of Mark_, p. 144.]
[Footnote 2: Bremer, _Homes of the New World_, vol. ii., pp. 488-491.]
[Footnote 3: _The Richmond Enquirer_, July, 1859; and _Afr.
Repository_, vol. xxxv., p. 255.]
Statistics of this period show that the proportionately largest number
of Negroes who learned in spite of opposition were found among the
Scotch-Irish of Kentucky and Tennessee. Possessing few slaves, and
having no permanent attachment to the institution, those mountaineers
did not yield to the reactionaries who were determined to keep the
Negroes in heathendom. Kentucky and Tennessee did not expressly forbid
the education of the colored people.[1] Conditions were probably
better in Kentucky than in Tennessee. Traveling in Kentucky about this
time, Abdy was favorably impressed with that class of Negroes who
though originally slaves saved sufficient from their earnings to
purchase their freedom and provide for the education of their
children.
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