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Crazy Dow fires up Natchez while ice floats in river
 In November 1804, as the Ouachita River Expedition traveled northward for the hot springs in Arkansas, a peculiar man of the cloth made his second visit to Natchez country. Little noticed a year earlier, Lorenzo Dow caused a buzz on his return trip and he would never be forgotten.
A 27-year-old Methodist circuit rider, Dow was already gaining notice in the religious world throughout the country. Filled with the Holy Ghost, Dow's sermons could bring the vilest sinner to his knees and his rousing camp meetings drew crowds. Souls were saved. The redeemed built churches and the seed of God planted by Dow and others flourished in the years to come.
A curiosity to all, his one suit of clothes was often torn, tattered and dirty. One man said Dow's long, stringy hair "had never met a comb." His appearance, coupled with his eccentric ways, resulted in a nickname: "Crazy Dow." The evangelist never asked for money and if given a personal donation he often handed it off to someone he considered poorer than he.
Just as the Ouachita River Expedition reached the hot springs, Dow and three other pioneer Methodist preachers -- Learner Blackman, Nathan Barnes and Randal Gibson -- held the first Methodist camp meeting in Mississippi in the territorial capital of Washington, just six miles east of Natchez.
"I spoke a few words," Dow wrote in his journal, "and God began a gracious work."
He would preach countless sermons in Natchez and across the river in Louisiana, both newly-acquired possessions of the United States, representing a fresh mission field for the Methodist missionaries. Dow would briefly make this region his home and he, like others during the era, would suffer hardships and encounter many ruffians and outlaws who thrived on the frontier.
By mid-January, Dow was on his way to another circuit, while Americans William Dunbar and Dr. George Hunter, both natives of Scotland and leaders of the Ouachita River Expedition, parted ways at Fort Miro (present day Monroe.) There, Dunbar, unable to procure horses for himself and a servant, took a canoe in advance of Hunter and the crew of the keelboat.
Their mission for their adopted country was now basically complete. They had explored the Ouachita River from its mouth at present day Jonesville to the hot springs of Arkansas. Eventually the leaders would provide President Thomas Jefferson reports on the expedition. With pressing matters to see to back home at his Forest Plantation south of Natchez, Dunbar took off ahead of Hunter and the crew. Back in Natchez Dunbar would hear about Crazy Dow's visit. What Dunbar thought about Dow or God isn't known.
Dow remarked that on his first visit in 1803 he "found religion low and had hard times" in Natchez. Few knew God, he said. Would the preacher have included Dunbar among the "low" in religion? In Dunbar's journals and in the accounts of those who knew this scientist, planter, inventor, surveyor and large slaveholder, there is not a word written about whether he believed.For the full story, subscribe to the The Concordia Sentinel's NEW E-Edition! |
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