Sandy, I started to respond to your e-mail yesterday because the 
Travelling Church is a subject that  I love....but my information on it 
is so disorganized that I hesitated.  Then another of my favorite 
subjects came up on this same mail list today (Kerr's Creek 
massacre/capture 1763) and I could not resist responding to that even 
though my information is equally unorganized....so here I go on your 
question below.

The reason for my interest in the Travelling Church is that I research 
Hawkins families in Essex, Culpeper, and Orange Counties in the 1700's.  
The mother of Elijah and Lewis Craig was Mary Hawkins married to Toliver 
(Taliafero) Craig.  I will do the same thing that I did on my previous 
post:  I will give you some places to look and ask of others if this 
discussion should stay on this mail list or be moved to another forum 
such as the Culpeper mail list or one of the Kentucky county mail lists. 

I have saved the following URL for an explanation of what was happening 
in Virginia that caused the Travelling Church:

http://www.pbministries.org/History/John%20T.%20Christian/vol2/history_of_the_baptist_vol2.htm

People describe the Travelling Church as an entire church moving from Va 
to Ky to escape the persecution of the Baptists in Virginia in that time 
period.  In march of 2005 there was some discussion of the traveling 
church on the mailist

[log in to unmask]

Marilyn Wienke sent information from page 31 of the book that you 
mention below

 Published Sources: 
      "The Travelling Church" "Fredericksburg Baptist Church" 
      George W. Ranck  Rev. Oscar Darter 
      Publ. 1891  Publ. 1959 


The following list of church members appears on page 31 of Professor George W. Ranck's book known as "The Travelling Church: An Account of the Baptist Exodus from Virginia to Kentucky in 1781 under the Leadership of Rev. Lewis Craig and Capt. William Ellis."

I have asked Marilyn for permission to share her e-mail or you might want to look for it yourself in the archives of the

[log in to unmask]  March 4 2005.

Carol Barron also contributed an e-mail to the discussion at that time on that mail list.  

Again I am happy to chat more and to try to help identify some of the participants.  One of my favorite stories is that of Mary Hawkins Craig's heroism at ....well I can't do this from memory....so I quit until I have more time.  Marsha Moses



Sandy Sellers wrote:

>"The Travelling Church" by George W Ranck 
>
>"The moving train included church members and their children, negro slaves
> and other emigrants (who for better protection, had attached themselves
> to an organized expedition),between five and six hundred souls and was the
> largest body of Virginians that ever set out for Kentucky at one time." 
>It is estimated that there were 200 church members in the expedition.
>
>Seems there should be references to this event in VA History.  As events have 
>been described, I am now convinced my "main" ancestor travelled to KY via 
>with the church expedition.  Did the word crusade come to mean  only
>royalty based people movement?  But. then the mass of people were "fleeing"
>oppressive treatment by the officials of the colony re religion.
>
>Are there any thesis on-line that you all know of on VA History?
>
>  
>