DUI (While Riding a Horse)

If we care to do a little research, every one of us can locate a few choice ancestors who were nothing less than characters.

I have done a great deal of genealogical research and discovered some of those characters “growing” on my family tree.

However, I think among a myriad of known and unknown characters on my family tree the most unique was a preacher named Rev. Isom Peacock, my 4x great grandfather, and a Revolutionary War soldier, and itinerant minister of the Baptist persuasion.

Of course, there were any number of itinerant Baptist preachers who traveled a fixed circuit in those days, and held services at churches in an area as large as a couple thousand square miles; (about the size of the County of Polk in central Florida, in which I currently reside).

Old Isom resided in South Georgia, and eventually, Florida, and there were several things, ultimately, which made him unique among his peers.

You see, this circuit rider was zealous for the Lord, at least for the Baptist doctrine, since he is credited with founding the first (not First) Baptist church in the State of Florida in what is now Nassau County. (His son-in-law, a Rev. Ryan Frier, my 3x great Grandfather, founded a small mixed-race Baptist church in Jacksonville, Florida which became “the first fruits” for two mega-churches which exist in that city today).

Beyond Isom’s notoriety for having founded the initial Baptist congregation in the State of Florida, it seems he was “taken up” with the doctrine or condition of that freedom which Christ bestows upon His people. It is reported that he regularly pulled a fifth of whisky from his over-sized coat pocket, and swigged on it, as he stood behind the pulpit.

(Talk about ‘show and tell’)!

I surmise the ole boy owned slaves, as we know that his son-in-law, Ryan, did. It would appear even men of the cloth suffered no apparent contradiction between the preaching the Gospel and the keeping of slaves.

Did I claim ole Isom was unique? (Well, he was).

For you see, as the

… 108 year old minister was attempting to mount his horse one morning, he somehow slipped, and fell to the ground; never to rise again.

I suppose if the old man hadn’t been driving under the influence he might still be with us.

By William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from "(Mc)Donald's Daily Diary," Vol. 37. Copyright pending

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