In the early eighteenth century, Presbyterian minister William Tennent established a small school in a Pennsylvania log cabin. The humble “Log College” trained ministers who later became prominent voices during the religious revivals known as the First Great Awakening.
Robert J. Morgan, author of 100 Bible Verses That Made America, explains how the movement spread religious participation, challenged established authority, and helped shape the intellectual culture of the colonies. Those ideas would later contribute to the environment in which the American Revolution took root.
📖 Read the Episode Transcript
00:00:10
Speaker 1: This is Lee Habeeb and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American People. To search for the Our American Stories podcast, go to the iHeartRadio app. William Tennant helped father the Great Awakening in the United Colonies, which produced the spiritual strength of faith to win our liberty during the Revolution. Here to tell this story is Robert Morgan, who’s the author of one hundred Bible verses that made America, defining moments that shaped our enduring foundation of faith. Let’s take a listen.
00:00:47
Speaker 2: Reverend William Tennant Senior was born in Scotland and graduated from the University of Edinburgh, but he was ordained into the Church of Ireland when he migrated to the Thirteen Colonies in seventeen sixteen. He was seeking freedom of religion and he settled in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, just north of Philadelphia, and there he served as a pastor. But that’s not all he did. He and his wife Catherine took in students who wanted to prepare for the ministry. These young men became part of the Tenant home and William instructed them in matters of theology and ministry. In seventeen twenty seven, Tenant purchased one hundred acres of land and built a log cabin to serve as a school for the training of these pastoral students. The log cabin was across the street from his house, and the students, which included his four sons, studied there. It was a humble school, a literal log cabin academy that lasted less than twenty years, and never had more than one part time teacher, and only had about twenty young men who studied there. And yet the impact of that humble seminary on American history is impossible to gauge. All four of his sons became ministers who helped spur on the Great Awakening, and so did William Tennant’s other students. They all excelled in preaching the gospel. One historian said, William Tennant had the rare gift of attracting to him youth and worth and genius, imbuing them with his healthy spirit, and sending them forth sound in the faith, blameless in life, burning with zeal and He was unsurpassed in training them to be instructive, impressive, and successful preachers. This rough building became the first Presbyterian seminary in America, and the log Cabin became a bonfire for the Great Awakening. Many of Tenant’s students became preachers whose sermons helped spread the great religious revival that swept over the colonies in the years leading up to the declaration of Independence. Tenants taught them the importance of preaching personal conversion to Christ. He said that people must be born again to go to Heaven, and that’s the message that touched the heart of the colonies. On November twenty second, seventeen thirty nine, the celebrated evangelist George Whitfield visited the school, and this is what he recorded in his journal. Set out for where old mister Tenant lives and keeps an academy. We came thither about twelve and found about three thousand people gathered together in the meeting house yard, and mister Tenant preaching to them, because we were past the appointed time. When I came up, he soon stopped and sang a psalm, and then I began to speak as the Lord gave me utterance. At first the people seemed unaffected, but in the midst of my discourse, the power of the Lord Jesus came upon me, and I felt such a struggling within myself for the people as I scarce ever felt before the hears began to be melted down. Immediately after our exercises were over, we went to old mister Tenant, who entertained us like one of the ancient patriarchs. His wife seemed to me like Elizabeth, and he liked Zachariace. We had sweet communion with each other, and spent the evening in concerting measures for promoting the Lord’s kingdom. And Whitfield went on to describe Tenant’s log cabin like this, the place wherein the young man’s study now is a log cabin about twenty feet long, and there is many broad and to me it seemed to remember the school of the old prophets, for their habitations were primitive from this despised place. Seven or eight worthy ministers of Jesus have lately been sent forth, more are almost ready to be sent forth, and the foundation is now laying for the instruction for many others. The devil will certainly rage against them, but the work I am persuaded is of God and will not come to naught. Cardinal ministers opposed them strongly as persons who had turned the world upside down. Well, Tenants handful of graduates, they were called the log cabin Men, did turn the colonies upside down, and becoming evangelist of the Great Awakening. One writer said, it is doubtful whether ever before or since then lads were collected and the same school who were afterward to accomplish so much good in their own day, and to send down such streams of blessings to unborn generations. It is absolutely startling to glance at the list of the eminent ministers, great preachers, the greatest in the early annals of our church, who obtained their training for the ministry in this humble institution. They went forth preaching the Gospel in every quarter, bringing thousands of souls to Christ, building up the churches in many regions, establishing schools and academies, and starting streams of godly influences that flowed over the whole land, the currents of which have not subsided even to this present day. Tenant died on May sixth, seventeen forty six, at the age of seventy three, but his graduates and supporters joined together to establish a more permanent training school for Presbyterian ministers in the colonies. It was called the College of New Jersey, today known as Princeton University. Reverend Douglas K. Turner wrote, the germ of this distinguishing seat of learning Princeton is to be found in mister Tennant’s seminary. In today, when we believe everything must be large and spectacular, it’s good to remember that America was shaped, in large part by a small school run by a single man whose zeal for Christ moved him to mentor young men of promise. He’s the man whom we today can rightly call the Prince of Princeton.
00:07:11
Speaker 1: And a terrific job by the production, editing and storytelling by our own Greg Hangler, and a special thanks to Robert Morgan, who’s the author of one hundred Bible verses that made America the story of William Tennant, the Prince of Princeton. Here on Our American Stories, Lihabib here the host of our American Stories. Every day on this show, we’re bringing inspiring stories from across this great country, stories from our big cities and small towns. But we truly can’t do the show without you. Our stories are free to listen to, but they’re not free to make. If you love what you hear, go to Ouramerican Stories dot com and click the donate button. Give a little, give a lot. Go to Our American Stories dot com and give
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