Old Liberty Church - Reverand Adlai Boyd - Muhlenberg County, KY
Abstract from : A History of
Muhlenberg County, KY
Chapter XI - Old Liberty Church
- REVEREND ADLAI BOYD
Liberty was called "the mother
of preachers." Many of the young men of
this and adjoining neighborhoods
became ministers of the Gospel under
the influence of the revivals
that took place at Liberty. Among them
were Thomas and Mark Bone,
sons of John Bone, George and Thomas
Reynolds, sons of Richard
D. Reynolds, who was the grandfather of John
T. Reynolds Sr., Charles and
Kincheon Hay, sons of Kinnard Hay, a
schoolteacher, and brothers
of Wiley S. Hay, who represented the county
in the Legislature in 1845
and 1846, and who later became a State
Senator; Henry and Felix Black,
sons of Henry Black and brothers of
Judge Nathan Black, who later
became a noted lawyer in Western Kentucky;
Duran Alcock, Stephen Goodnight,
Charles Campbell, Adlai Boyd, and
Samuel Wilkins, through the
influence of Old Liberty, also became
preachers. None of these men
spent much time in Muhlenberg after they
became preachers except ADLAI
BOYD and Samuel Wilkins.
My companion and I walked around
in this graveyard and read the
inscriptions on the tombstones.
As we passed along I pointed out the
unmarked grave of the REVEREND
ADLAI BOYD, once a noted pioneer
Cumberland Presbyterian preacher.
He was born in the first years of the
Nineteenth Century and spent
fifty-odd years of his life in earnest
devotion to the cause of the
Christian religion. BOYD was an eloquent
and impressive speaker and
one of the ablest preachers that ever lived
in the county. He was pastor
of Liberty Church for some years. Many a
time his clear and distinct
voice rang out within and about Liberty
Church, interesting and instructing
many of those that are now
slumbering with him in the
dust of death. He lived northeast of
Greenville, and was a man
of some means. He owned a good farm of five
hundred acres of land, underlaid
with coal, which is now included in the
Hillside coal holdings. He
owned a house and lot in Greenville. His
first wife was JOANNA CESNA.
They raised a good- sized family,consisting
of four boys and three girls.
His first wife died about 1864 and was
buried in Liberty graveyard.
Some years afterward Mr Boyd married again
and removed to Henderson.
In the spring of 1882 he came to Greenville on
a visit, took sick and died,
and was buried at Liberty by the side of
his first wife. He devoted
his life to the betterment of his race, in
persuading men and women to
become allied to the Christian religion.
In 1902, when the Cumberland
Presbyterians of Greenville tore down the
old building that had been
erected in 1848, they placed in their new
building four memorial windows,
one of which is "Sacred to the Memory of
ADLAI BOYD, First Pastor".
Few who now read his name in that window
know that he was one of the
most influential preachers of his day and
that he is buried at Old Liberty.
Source: A History of Muhlenberg
County. Louisville, KY: 1913.
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End
Kind Regards,
Karen from Ohio,USA
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